Other Bring macOS to iPhones, Apple!

[Sami13496]

OP’s suggestion doesn’t mean that the iPhone would have to run only macOS. It could still run iOS as usual, but when you dock it to a display you’d get the option to use macOS. So as long as your phone is connected, it would function as a Mac. The use case is brilliant: you have a home workstation with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. You come home, plug in your phone, and suddenly you’re using a Mac.

But of course, this would only really work with desktop setups. You’d need a workstation at home and at the office to dock your phone into.

If you want a portable workstation, you’d still need a MacBook.

That said, Apple could start making laptop-style shells that only include a display and keyboard, with all the processing handled by the phone. Those could be extremely thin since they wouldn’t need actual computing hardware inside.

A bit like how they make keyboard accessories for the iPad, but this accessory would include both a keyboard and a screen. And there could be different sizes, from 11 inches up to 17 inches. And of course, they’d be expensive, and everyone would complain about the price.

 

[cjsuk]

Ah yes macOS on a phone. I think I've seen how this will go somewhere before!

Never put the customer in charge of the product. Been there. Seen the damage.

 

[BiBaBasti]

Funny how still so many people here complain about the idea of having just the OPTION to use your iPhone in a Dock with mac OS on a large screen with bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

Guys, I´m talking about an option here... How many people out there use their Samsung phones without even knowing of it´s DEX capabilities?

If you don´t need it, just use your Mac setup, but again, I think there is a real potential in this idea and Google will show us real soon what I´m talking about if Android and Chrome OS will be united...

Times have changed and so does Apple and so would Steve Jobs. Still don´t get how so many people here think he would be stuck in 2007 with his mind even nowadays...

 

[maerz001]

Just curios here, would a HDMI- oder Mini HDMI-port on an iPhone have any advantage over connecting it via USB C to external monitors?

Better quality or maybe possible to connect couple of monitors instead of just one?

Besides leaving USB C for charging at the same time.

No. Usbc is more advanced. At least in MBs. But still the USBC with 2.0 can run a display

 

[BiBaBasti]

No. Usbc is more advanced. At least in MBs. But still the USBC with 2.0 can run a display

Couple of displays are possible with just USB C as well by the way?

 

[Siliconguy]

Navigating through Finder on a 6.5" screen sounds delightful

Find an Apple IIGS with the matching monitor (640 by 200 pixels) or a Mac 128 to SE/30 (512 by 384) to see what that was like. It could be challenging.

 

[Siliconguy]

You're seriously asking Apple to bring macOS to iPhone? I thought this thread was a joke.

The point is that the iPhone has the computing horsepower to be an adequate computer for a large section of the population. Why not just dock it for doing your taxes and then take it with you to wherever?

A 2014 Mac Mini with 8 GB RAM and 128 GB storage runs MacOS Monterey. I even had it running Sonoma for a while but that ran into Metal limitations. How does that Mac's CPU (2.6 GHz dual core) and GPU (Iris Pro) performance compare with an iPhone 17? The notion of running MacOS on an iPhone is quite reasonable.

It's even more reasonable to let cellular equipped iPads be fully functional phones, but Apple won't do that either.

 

[Shirasaki]

How can it possibly be a bad experience, right?

That's why Windows CE is what everyone uses in their pocket today. Oh, wait.

You're probably too young to realize this, but the concept of "let's squish a desktop OS into a handheld" has already been tried in the 90s and 2000s. It failed. iPhone didn't do that and that's why it became successful.

Windows CE isn’t even a full fledged desktop operating system either. It’s more like a weird stripped down version of windows 98 or something. Still, no one today uses windows CE other than for nostalgia or novelty.

 

[Shirasaki]

The point is that the iPhone has the computing horsepower to be an adequate computer for a large section of the population. Why not just dock it for doing your taxes and then take it with you to wherever?

A 2014 Mac Mini with 8 GB RAM and 128 GB storage runs MacOS Monterey. I even had it running Sonoma for a while but that ran into Metal limitations. How does that Mac's CPU (2.6 GHz dual core) and GPU (Iris Pro) performance compare with an iPhone 17? The notion of running MacOS on an iPhone is quite reasonable.

It's even more reasonable to let cellular equipped iPads be fully functional phones, but Apple won't do that either.

Just because the hardware is there doesn’t mean it should be implemented. iPhone doesn’t have as big of a battery to sustain moderately intensive workloads (think about opening more than 5 tabs or opening more than 5 apps all running at the same time) compared to Mac, let alone iPhone has very limited thermal constrains compared to Mac with huge body and aluminium everywhere to dissipate heat. You say you can dock it. Sure, but what if using the dock mode drains the battery instead of charging it?

Besides, I’ve seen people today still manage to use iOS in its current form and say “it’s laggy and unresponsive”. If that’s the case, running macOS on such hardware won’t do any good either, not to mention how niche it would be.

 

[ThailandToo]

Too much money in their locked-in ecosystem that doesn’t allow users to even install apps they want. The App Store is Apple’s main driver of growth which is why they defend it worldwide. Other than Europe, we can’t even get MacOS on iPad which would make a lot of sense especially for “Pro” models.

 

[darkpaw]

I use an app called Screens to connect to my home Mac from my iPhone when I'm away. It shows my Mac's screen on my iPhone. It's basically a Remote Desktop app. This is exactly what it would look like if macOS was on my iPhone.

It's the most frustrating experience ever:
- You have to constantly zoom in and out to tap the right thing, for example, the close button in a Finder window.
- When you want to move the mouse you have to just tap where you want the pointer to be. You can't just drag your finger on the screen because it drags the screen around, so there's a mode you can enable that switches to mouse behaviour. Then you have to disable that mode. Constantly turning this on and off is a PITA.

If Apple wanted to improve this experience in any way, it wouldn't be "full" macOS on the iPhone, and people would just complain. You think Apple would allow you to use the full version of the Terminal app? Even `rm -rf`? `su -`? Nope.

macOS on a small screen already exists, and it does not work.

 

[BiBaBasti]

I use an app called Screens to connect to my home Mac from my iPhone when I'm away. It shows my Mac's screen on my iPhone. It's basically a Remote Desktop app. This is exactly what it would look like if macOS was on my iPhone.

It's the most frustrating experience ever:
- You have to constantly zoom in and out to tap the right thing, for example, the close button in a Finder window.
- When you want to move the mouse you have to just tap where you want the pointer to be. You can't just drag your finger on the screen because it drags the screen around, so there's a mode you can enable that switches to mouse behaviour. Then you have to disable that mode. Constantly turning this on and off is a PITA.

If Apple wanted to improve this experience in any way, it wouldn't be "full" macOS on the iPhone, and people would just complain. You think Apple would allow you to use the full version of the Terminal app? Even `rm -rf`? `su -`? Nope.

macOS on a small screen already exists, and it does not work.

I was never talking about some ****** third party apps here and mentioned before that an iPhone with mac OS support would only makes sense if you connect your iPhone to a bigger screen with connected mouse and keyboard... 🙄

Do you really think Apple´s solution would be as bad as some nasty third party app you´re referring to?

No one was talking about mac OS on a 6,9" display here...

 

[BiBaBasti]

iPhone doesn’t have as big of a battery to sustain moderately intensive workloads (think about opening more than 5 tabs or opening more than 5 apps all running at the same time) compared to Mac, let alone iPhone has very limited thermal constrains compared to Mac with huge body and aluminium everywhere to dissipate heat. You say you can dock it. Sure, but what if using the dock mode drains the battery instead of charging it?

Besides, I’ve seen people today still manage to use iOS in its current form and say “it’s laggy and unresponsive”. If that’s the case, running macOS on such hardware won’t do any good either, not to mention how niche it would be.

Have to disagree here... We haven´t seen mac OS running on an iPhone natively, so all of that ist just pure speculation.

Besides, I was talking about a future iPhone that would (however it will look like) indeed will be possible to run mac OS just fine.

Even a M chip is possible if you design an iPhone with proper heat management and maybe active cooling. There are even chinese smartphones with build in projectors, so don´t have to tell you how they heat up at a certain point and still are able to project on a wall while gaming with connected controller at the same time for hours.

Just my two cents on a future Pro Max or Ultra iPhone here. It would be possible by todays standards, since we´ve got them here already.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

If you don´t need it, just use your Mac setup, but again, I think there is a real potential in this idea and Google will show us real soon what I´m talking about if Android and Chrome OS will be united…

Android and Chrome are OS’s designed from their creation for mobile low powered systems. What Google will show, is that iPadOS and iOS are similarly good for mobile systems.

It won’t say anything about macOS.

 

[ForkHandles]

I was never talking about some ****** third party apps here and mentioned before that an iPhone with mac OS support would only makes sense if you connect your iPhone to a bigger screen with connected mouse and keyboard... 🙄

Do you really think Apple´s solution would be as bad as some nasty third party app you´re referring to?

No one was talking about mac OS on a 6,9" display here...

I had a similar idea about two years ago when I first bought a thunderbolt monitor. Plug in your iPhone and use it as a workstation. It is a fantastic idea, I back it.

There is one flaw in your suggestion of using MacOS though. Obviously the technology is more than capable, it could have no real issue in that respect.

In the instance where I plug iPhone in, use a MacOS app to create something, then unplug. I have now lost access to that work as it isn’t supported in iOS. My computer is now annoyingly two different machines in one form factor. That could be unbearable.

Better I think, would be to enable iOS apps to have a workstation mode that turned, for example, Pages into a full screen app on a thunderbolt monitor. Then, when unplugged, your work would still be available as the app would present in iPhone screen mode, not a workstation one.

See post #68

There are countless commercial reasons why Apple would never put macOS anywhere near iOS or iPadOS. But a workstation mode could. For a small number of users, be really useful.

 

[JPack]

The point is that the iPhone has the computing horsepower to be an adequate computer for a large section of the population. Why not just dock it for doing your taxes and then take it with you to wherever?

A 2014 Mac Mini with 8 GB RAM and 128 GB storage runs MacOS Monterey. I even had it running Sonoma for a while but that ran into Metal limitations. How does that Mac's CPU (2.6 GHz dual core) and GPU (Iris Pro) performance compare with an iPhone 17? The notion of running MacOS on an iPhone is quite reasonable.

It's even more reasonable to let cellular equipped iPads be fully functional phones, but Apple won't do that either.

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Craig Federighi, used the "spork" analogy before. Something like this would be a spork.

Let's think about this detail rather than just throwing out ideas.

First, what would happen when the iPhone is suddenly undocked? Do apps close or is the user forced navigate macOS using a tiny display and no mouse? Or is the developer forced to make a mini interface? All of these are bad ideas or at least very challenging to implement.

How does a user who wants to use iPhone apps switch? Shut down and reboot? That would be extremely annoying. Plenty of apps like banking, chat, games, etc. don't have a macOS equivalent.

Sustained performance will suffer greatly. MacBook Air has a large heat spreader. Just because you expect people do their taxes on this macPhone doesn't mean the average person will do that. They see it running macOS and expect it to run multiple apps simultaneously.

All of these just lead to a really bad user experience.

 

[ForkHandles]

This post was written in Pages, on an Apple Keyboard attached to an Apple Studio Display via USBC, directly onto my iPhone which is connected using the Thunderbolt cable. The landscape mode of the screen is fine, but wide.

I activated Assistive Touch on my iPhone, my Apple Trackpad now works on my iPhone as it has a cursor. I could type away for hours, select menu options in Pages and get some great work done.

The only issue is that the interface isn’t half as easy to use as MacOS Pages. It would require the UI to change.

Well done Apple

 

[RedWeasel]

I want this so badly! Please Apple let me use my phone as a full desktop when docked to a monitor with keyboard and mouse.

Buy a Mac mini (in addition to your iPhone)

 

[Starfia]

Theoretically possible? Sure.

Good idea? Not for the foreseeable future, I would say. macOS, iOS, iPadOS, tvOS and visionOS already share a great deal of their lower-level code, but the point of a platform, as Apple defines it, is to be tuned to the device it targets.

I think you're also pointing out that it would be convenient to have a pocket-sized Mac that you could unplug from your main display and take it around to other displays. As others have pointed out, that would seemingly make the display-less device either useless or really awkward. There are already super-thin and light MacBooks that already do this and have usable built-in displays. Apple could certainly have designed netbook-sized displays that are much closer to iPhone-sized displays, but decades show they've never thought that would be right.

Maybe in the much further future – the equivalent of today with respect to the original Mac, where emulating System 9 is technically a breeze – that would be more practical and more embraced by… niche enthusiasts? But I don't see it emerging as some worldwide long-awaited ideal.

 

[uller6]

Buy a Mac mini (in addition to your iPhone)

I have 6 Mac minis already. And two macbook pros. And two MacBook airs. But I really do want a phone that can dock and run OSX. That would be incredible!

Look: the iPhone 17 pro has more RAM and storage than a 12” MacBook, better connectivity with 1 thunderbolt port, and a way way faster CPU. The iPhone 17 pro even runs circles around an M1 air, which can run OSX without issue and has passive cooling.

I use my iPhone to Remote Desktop into OSX while I’m sitting on the couch. It works great as I move the mouse around with my finger and tap to click. The fact that iPhones can’t run OSX is a really silly arbitrary limitation because Apple wants to sell more devices.

 

[maerz001]

Couple of displays are possible with just USB C as well by the way?

in windows machines you can daisy chain. MBs with thunderbolt 5 support support up to 4 displays but you need a display link dock to make it possible with only one cable.

 

[Shirasaki]

Have to disagree here... We haven´t seen mac OS running on an iPhone natively, so all of that ist just pure speculation.

Besides, I was talking about a future iPhone that would (however it will look like) indeed will be possible to run mac OS just fine.

Even a M chip is possible if you design an iPhone with proper heat management and maybe active cooling. There are even chinese smartphones with build in projectors, so don´t have to tell you how they heat up at a certain point and still are able to project on a wall while gaming with connected controller at the same time for hours.

Just my two cents on a future Pro Max or Ultra iPhone here. It would be possible by todays standards, since we´ve got them here already.

We don’t have to produce functional products with these functionalities you are speculating to know if something works or not. Yes we haven’t seen macOS running on iPhone natively, but there are already enough drawbacks to even run a remote macOS session on iPhone properly let alone running it natively, namely inaccuracies of touch and ridiculously small screen elements proportional to iPhone screen size.

You may consider a future iPhone to be able to sort of “dual boot” into macOS and iOS. But hear me out: we still have lots of people not using features that has been in iOS for years, this “dual boot” feature would be used by even fewer people for potentially huge development cost. Apple clearly won’t build their software based on “just because we can”, but prefer features that either boost their bottom line or can attract large number of users to use, or both. Giving users incentive to NOT buy a Mac is definitely something Apple won’t want to do. Just look at iPad, arguably the best iOS device to put macOS on, and Apple simply refuses to do so.

 

[thefrost]

macOS on iPad? No. macOS on iPhone? Bruh.

 

[uller6]

We don’t have to produce functional products with these functionalities you are speculating to know if something works or not. Yes we haven’t seen macOS running on iPhone natively, but there are already enough drawbacks to even run a remote macOS session on iPhone properly let alone running it natively, namely inaccuracies of touch and ridiculously small screen elements proportional to iPhone screen size.

You may consider a future iPhone to be able to sort of “dual boot” into macOS and iOS. But hear me out: we still have lots of people not using features that has been in iOS for years, this “dual boot” feature would be used by even fewer people for potentially huge development cost. Apple clearly won’t build their software based on “just because we can”, but prefer features that either boost their bottom line or can attract large number of users to use, or both. Giving users incentive to NOT buy a Mac is definitely something Apple won’t want to do. Just look at iPad, arguably the best iOS device to put macOS on, and Apple simply refuses to do so.

I use VNC to remote into my Mac from an iPhone almost every day. It works great! Pinch to zoom, move mouse with finger, tap to click, tap and hold to click and drag. The interaction is no issue at all on a small screen.

 

[CATiNTHESTORE]

I want this so badly! Please Apple let me use my phone as a full desktop when docked to a monitor with keyboard and mouse.

You doesn’t know what it is … try to use Linux on Android phone.