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floral

macrumors 65816
Jan 12, 2023
1,011
1,234
Earth
I’ve advocated for macOS on the iPad multiple times here, and will continue to do so despite the consistent backlash…

And I sold my iPad 5th-gen 9.7 last year because it was just so slow and glitchy and unreliable…

I swore I would never buy an iPad again until macOS was allowed to run on them.

Then last week I remembered why I stopped using laptops three years ago. My beloved M1 MacBook Air was aggravating my carpal tunnel again. As a person who depends entirely on functional hands for everything I do in life, I simply cannot have any injury. This pissed me off. I love that M1 machine. Best hardware I’ve ever used. But I have to sell it.

So I went and tried the M1 iPad Pro 12.9 at the local tech store…

And now I‘m typing this post on it from my bed. The 256GB Wi-Fi-only followed me home and I love it. The screen is unbelievable. Everything is so fast. It appears all the unreliability of my old A9-powered iPad was due to the ancient chip.

And Stage Manager. I absolutely despise it on Mac. But on iPad, I never turn it off. It has its quirks, and I don’t quite use it as Apple probably intends, but it has absolutely changed the iPad game. I even have one Stage dedicated to my four business apps and with all of them on screen at once I can very comfortably work from home on this thing. That was never possible before.

And now FINALLY I can read music PDFs on the go.

I still think iPadOS really prevents it from reaching its full potential, but I totally love this iPad Pro. And my wrists are already settling down. Worth it.

Let the “I told you so” commence.
Congratulations! I hope you truly enjoy your new iPad. It is a lot easier on the hands.

(and yeah, iPadOS is a bit limiting, but you'll get adjusted to it in no time.)
 

NastyMatt

macrumors 6502a
Jul 7, 2020
521
737
Glad you now like the iPad. I had one to evaluate for work - to see if we could adopt them as an option alongside laptops. As much as I liked it and our non technical roles could easily do all the work on them (as most stuff is cloud based through a browser now) the main issue I could never get away from was the users!

Yep... the users.. I could just see some individuals being unable to use them as they are not a like for like replacement for a laptop. I could see our IT team being inundated with simple UI issues.

And for those of you who think I am being harsh on the users, here is an example of what I mean. We migrated some users from Office to GSuite and we had a complaint that everytime the user resized their browser window they were deleting emails as the delete icon was too close to the side of the window! This user was a VP.. what chance does the IT team have with users with that level of basic IT skills.
 

stocklen

macrumors 6502a
Sep 25, 2013
927
1,788
Glad you now like the iPad. I had one to evaluate for work - to see if we could adopt them as an option alongside laptops. As much as I liked it and our non technical roles could easily do all the work on them (as most stuff is cloud based through a browser now) the main issue I could never get away from was the users!

Yep... the users.. I could just see some individuals being unable to use them as they are not a like for like replacement for a laptop. I could see our IT team being inundated with simple UI issues.

And for those of you who think I am being harsh on the users, here is an example of what I mean. We migrated some users from Office to GSuite and we had a complaint that everytime the user resized their browser window they were deleting emails as the delete icon was too close to the side of the window! This user was a VP.. what chance does the IT team have with users with that level of basic IT skills.
its a worry.. some people just shouldn't be allowed anywhere near technology!

But, the iPad is a great option - especially when paired with a keyboard and mouse/trackpad... as that is the path of least resistance when it comes to people switching over from that old laptop paradigm...

And the fact its an iPad and they cant really break it just by opening apps is a big plus.
 
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goldpin

macrumors member
Sep 6, 2021
45
78
My Mac is a 2012 quad core Mini that has served me faithfully for a decade now and my previous iPad was an Air3. I upgraded to a well spec’d 12.9 M2 Pro and have been using it with my Mini’s monitor for the last month as my only home computer and it’s done surprisingly well. Stage Manager has worked well enough for me, but I already liked the concept of workspaces, so that helps. I can work on my Excel files on the 24” screen more comfortably than the iPad display, but I do wish it were a retina monitor. I have had to fire up the Mini a few times to use websites that won’t work right with iPadOS Safari… that still seems to be the biggest issue, even more than limits of Office for iPadOS (for home use). I’m very likely to update my Mini to one of the new M2 models, but this experiment of using the iPad Pro “as a Mac” has gone better than I thought it would.
 

teh_hunterer

macrumors 65816
Jul 1, 2021
1,231
1,672
My beloved M1 MacBook Air was aggravating my carpal tunnel again. As a person who depends entirely on functional hands for everything I do in life, I simply cannot have any injury. This pissed me off.
Interesting you say that. I've been using my 14" MacBook Pro for everything for the last few weeks, and I'm also getting a bit of RSI. Simply, it's using a trackpad too much. Using the iPad touch screen or my PC with a mouse is sweet relief.

Using my iPad more, and easing off the trackpad and using the touch screen for scrolling when it flares up, and it seems to be fading away. It makes me wish the MacBooks had touch screens.
And Stage Manager. I absolutely despise it on Mac. But on iPad, I never turn it off.

Yes, people are focused on how bad Stage Manager is with an external monitor - and it is. It's also rather pointless on the 11". But on a 12.9" iPad, Stage Manager is a complete no brainer. I just left it on without a second thought.

---

With macOS on iPad, these days I'm not sure exactly how necessary it is. Apps like DaVinci Resolve show that the majority of the issues with the iPad are really that apps haven't caught up to the modern era of iPads:

- Desktop class storage and RAM with the M1
- Its own OS distinct from iOS, with memory swap and driver support
- Mouse and keyboard support
- Gamepad support

The overwhelming majority of apps simply don't reflect the above, and given the 10 or so years the iPad spent without the above, I'm not surprised it's taking so long to catch up.

There are definitely still issues that need to be solved (audio routing, stage manager on external displays, file explorer barely works, can't install apps outside the app store), but I am starting to think it would take less work to get iPadOS to an ideal place, than it would take to make macOS good for the iPad.
 

goldpin

macrumors member
Sep 6, 2021
45
78
Interesting you say that. I've been using my 14" MacBook Pro for everything for the last few weeks, and I'm also getting a bit of RSI. Simply, it's using a trackpad too much. Using the iPad touch screen or my PC with a mouse is sweet relief.

Using my iPad more, and easing off the trackpad and using the touch screen for scrolling when it flares up, and it seems to be fading away. It makes me wish the MacBooks had touch screens.


Yes, people are focused on how bad Stage Manager is with an external monitor - and it is. It's also rather pointless on the 11". But on a 12.9" iPad, Stage Manager is a complete no brainer. I just left it on without a second thought.

---

There are definitely still issues that need to be solved (audio routing, stage manager on external displays, file explorer barely works, can't install apps outside the app store), but I am starting to think it would take less work to get iPadOS to an ideal place, than it would take to make macOS good for the iPad.
Stage Manager on iPadOS certainly has quirks and bugs (and why can’t it remember that my 27” monitor should be extended desktop instead of mirror?) but I still find it useful enough that I leave it on all the time. Maybe it’s because I’m already fine with workspaces, but I’ve gotten used to the way it works pretty readily.

Your comment on carpal tunnel also mirrors my experience. Switching up how I use the machine does help reduce aggravation.
 

secretk

macrumors 65816
Oct 19, 2018
1,494
1,229
Interesting you say that. I've been using my 14" MacBook Pro for everything for the last few weeks, and I'm also getting a bit of RSI. Simply, it's using a trackpad too much. Using the iPad touch screen or my PC with a mouse is sweet relief.

Using my iPad more, and easing off the trackpad and using the touch screen for scrolling when it flares up, and it seems to be fading away. It makes me wish the MacBooks had touch screens.
Interesting! Weirdly for me it is not exactly like that. Now granted I do not enjoy using trackpad that much in general. I have issues with some textures and trackpad usually is one of those textures. So I use far more mouse than trackpad. That being said if my wrist gets bad, the last thing I want to do is to use the touch screen on the iPad. That puts a strain on my hand as well. If my wrist is bad I usually rely on the keyboard for the navigate and use mostly the arrow keys.
 
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