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chevyboy60013

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 18, 2021
457
242
I’m wondering what the difference is between the MacBook Air laptop with the m1 chip and the iPad Pro 3rd generation with the m1 chip. From what I gather, basically it is the same but with a smaller screen….
 
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ArkSingularity

macrumors 6502a
Mar 5, 2022
928
1,130
The OS is the biggest difference. The iPad can't run Mac OS apps (although the Mac can run iOS apps from the store). iPadOS also has some other restrictions, such as ONLY allowing apps from the app store, along with some other differences between how the operating systems handle background tasks, etc.

If iPads allowed MacOS to be installed, I think a lot of people would buy them instead of Macs and would throw a keyboard folio onto it and have a touchscreen Mac. I certainly would go this route (unfortunately I depend on too many Mac apps to do this personally, but I know plenty of others who have done this).
 

tstafford

macrumors 6502a
Sep 13, 2022
989
908
^^^What they said. I can't get past the handful of (albeit rare) times that iOS can't do what I want the way I want. Mostly it's websites that suck on iOS and piss me off. Gave up on iPAD a while ago. It's just easier for me to carry a Mac laptop and know that it will always work for me.
 

bcortens

macrumors 65816
Aug 16, 2007
1,324
1,796
Canada
The OS is the biggest difference. The iPad can't run Mac OS apps (although the Mac can run iOS apps from the store). iPadOS also has some other restrictions, such as ONLY allowing apps from the app store, along with some other differences between how the operating systems handle background tasks, etc.

If iPads allowed MacOS to be installed, I think a lot of people would buy them instead of Macs and would throw a keyboard folio onto it and have a touchscreen Mac. I certainly would go this route (unfortunately I depend on too many Mac apps to do this personally, but I know plenty of others who have done this).
Many of us, myself included, generally prefer iPad OS and don’t want macOS on our iPads. If people want a touchscreen mac and Apple thinks there is a market, they should just make a touchscreen mac. Don’t merge the two.
 
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chevyboy60013

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 18, 2021
457
242
I have a MacBook Air that definitely does everything I want it to do, however lately, I have been bringing my iPad Air 3 with an aftermarket keyboard to my office and have been able to do 99% of the weeks projects with that. I was telling a friend of mine in the coffee shop Saturday night that I was thinking about going to the Apple store Sunday and gonna check out the iPad Pro 3rd generation 11 inch with the magic keyboard and if I like it will probably buy one. He then tells me if I am interested, he can bring his iPad Pro 3rd generation 11 inch with cellular and the magic keyboard in white, to the starbucks for me to check out, he said its a month old and I decided I want the 12.9 model and well because of going out of town, missed the return period for the 11 inch model, and would sell it to me for $800 with the magic keyboard, smart folio cover, glass screen protector. I checked it out and since I was able to still get AppleCare for it, it was a very easy decision, since it likely saved me over $500.00, so I purchased it. Used it yesterday, and it is totally amazing, and using it today for my job and so far I think it is light years above my iPad Air 3 which I thought was awesome.
 

velocityg4

macrumors 604
Dec 19, 2004
7,336
4,726
Georgia
Many of us, myself included, generally prefer iPad OS and don’t want macOS on our iPads. If people want a touchscreen mac and Apple thinks there is a market, they should just make a touchscreen mac. Don’t merge the two.

It isn't really make iPads run macOS and replace iPadOS. Just allow people to install macOS and dual boot if they want. Perhaps open things up to allow the running of VM software. For the likes of Parallels to run macOS, Windows and Linux VMs.
 
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bcortens

macrumors 65816
Aug 16, 2007
1,324
1,796
Canada
It isn't really make iPads run macOS. Just allow people to install macOS and dual boot if they want. Perhaps open things up to allow the running of VM software. For the likes of Parallels to run macOS, Windows and Linux VMs.
That isn’t a good solution, macOS really relies on having a keyboard and mouse, an iPad with removable keyboard and trackpad isn’t a good fit. Software on macOS has never been designed to accommodate an onscreen keyboard and would be a bad user experience. A convertible tablet-laptop would be a better piece of hardware and could be made almost as thin. Just give it a nice folding flat screen like a better version of the surface laptop studio.
 

ArkSingularity

macrumors 6502a
Mar 5, 2022
928
1,130
That isn’t a good solution, macOS really relies on having a keyboard and mouse, an iPad with removable keyboard and trackpad isn’t a good fit. Software on macOS has never been designed to accommodate an onscreen keyboard and would be a bad user experience. A convertible tablet-laptop would be a better piece of hardware and could be made almost as thin. Just give it a nice folding flat screen like a better version of the surface laptop studio.
There are certain apps I wouldn't mind seeing on an iPad. A lot of them wouldn't work well in a touch-only environment, but some might even work better. If Logic Pro X were released in some form for an iPad, I would use it in a heartbeat.
 

bcortens

macrumors 65816
Aug 16, 2007
1,324
1,796
Canada
There are certain apps I wouldn't mind seeing on an iPad. A lot of them wouldn't work well in a touch-only environment, but some might even work better. If Logic Pro X were released in some form for an iPad, I would use it in a heartbeat.
I too think they (Apple) should be working to bring more pro apps like Logic Pro to iPad, I’d also like to see them improve their existing iPad apps, for example pages for iPad should get the right hand format pane instead of that annoying format popover. However, I think we are not going to see that (or if we do it’ll be a pretty terrible first go As they will decide to implement it in the mess that is SwiftUI instead of the battle hardened UIKit).

Edit: Thanks to the more space display scaling option in iPad OS 16 they don’t even need to worry about the size of buttons being too large on iPadOS anymore … it really does make a huge difference in usable screen real estate.
 
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Dylan33x

macrumors regular
May 21, 2021
192
210
I have a MacBook Air that definitely does everything I want it to do, however lately, I have been bringing my iPad Air 3 with an aftermarket keyboard to my office and have been able to do 99% of the weeks projects with that. I was telling a friend of mine in the coffee shop Saturday night that I was thinking about going to the Apple store Sunday and gonna check out the iPad Pro 3rd generation 11 inch with the magic keyboard and if I like it will probably buy one. He then tells me if I am interested, he can bring his iPad Pro 3rd generation 11 inch with cellular and the magic keyboard in white, to the starbucks for me to check out, he said its a month old and I decided I want the 12.9 model and well because of going out of town, missed the return period for the 11 inch model, and would sell it to me for $800 with the magic keyboard, smart folio cover, glass screen protector. I checked it out and since I was able to still get AppleCare for it, it was a very easy decision, since it likely saved me over $500.00, so I purchased it. Used it yesterday, and it is totally amazing, and using it today for my job and so far I think it is light years above my iPad Air 3 which I thought was awesome.
Are you going to be selling your iPad Air 3? Been wanting that model for awhile.
 

chevyboy60013

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 18, 2021
457
242
Are you going to be selling your iPad Air 3? Been wanting that model for awhile.
Haven’t really decided yet. I still like that model too especially for laying around on the couch with having a dog with an overactive tail…. Plus might be good to have a spare device around just in case… I’ll figure it out in a few days likely.
 

BanjoDudeAhoy

macrumors 6502a
Aug 3, 2020
921
1,624
I was on holiday not too long ago and I brought both, an M1 MBA and my M1 iPad Air with the Magic Keyboard.
I hardly used the MBA because almost everything I wanted to do, I could do on the iPad (note taking, writing emails, browsing the web, listening to music, watching movies, playing games, reading).
The only thing that (for me) was a difference was photo editing in affinity photo. I have it on both devices but maybe I'm just too used to the way it works on macOS or something but I just couldn't do it on the iPad.

Long story short, as others have said - it's mainly the OS.
And while I could do most of what I wanted to do on the iPad, I still prefer using macOS when I really want to get stuff done or need to write for long stretches of time. Note taking, though, is definitely an iPad thing for me because there's just something about writing with a pen on "paper".
 
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bcortens

macrumors 65816
Aug 16, 2007
1,324
1,796
Canada
I was on holiday not too long ago and I brought both, an M1 MBA and my M1 iPad Air with the Magic Keyboard.
I hardly used the MBA because almost everything I wanted to do, I could do on the iPad (note taking, writing emails, browsing the web, listening to music, watching movies, playing games, reading).
The only thing that (for me) was a difference was photo editing in affinity photo. I have it on both devices but maybe I'm just too used to the way it works on macOS or something but I just couldn't do it on the iPad.

Long story short, as others have said - it's mainly the OS.
And while I could do most of what I wanted to do on the iPad, I still prefer using macOS when I really want to get stuff done or need to write for long stretches of time. Note taking, though, is definitely an iPad thing for me because there's just something about writing with a pen on "paper".
I disagree.

I would rather work on the iPad for the OS but am often limited by apps. I go back to a Mac when the iPad version of the app just can’t do something. Xcode is something I do almost 95% of my work on the mac because Swift Playgrounds on Xcode is just not capable enough. Keynote for iPad doesn’t have all of the features of the mac version so I sometimes have to jump back to the mac for that too.
 
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