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iPad as a laptop replacement

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The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.
Jedimindtrick

Jedimindtrick

macrumors 6502
Jun 28, 2017
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Arctic Moose said:
No, there are many of us in this thread that desperately WANT to use the iPad for more, and not have to carry a laptop at all, but CANNOT due to the iPad's (in many cases artificial) limitations.
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I agree with your statement, as I am in the same boat. I'd love nothing more than a be able to dual-boot either into iPadOS or MacOS on my iPad Pro, considering they run on the same chip. Apple has allowed for years the ability to dual boot natively into Windows! Their competitor! So the idea that dual-booting is something Apple would never do or consider doesn't make sense to me.

But in response to the OP - this debate will never end. There will always be some who insist the iPad isn't a laptop replacement and there will be some who insist that it is a laptop replacement. Which is why I responded the way I did.
 
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Mackilroy

Mackilroy

macrumors 601
Jun 29, 2006
4,055
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rui no onna said:
I used to upgrade every generation from iPad 2 to 2017 iPad Pro. There were a lot of improvements back then to make frequent upgrades worth it to me. Nowadays I wait longer. The 2017 iPad Pro was the longest I kept (4 years) mostly because it didn’t seem worth it spending $2K on a 1TB LTE 2018 iPad Pro and the 2020 iPad Pro ended up being a disappointment.
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My ultimate point is not that there is no reason to upgrade yearly; only that generally, that niche is extremely marginal. I have two iPads, and I still use them both - I likely wouldn’t have upgraded if I didn’t want a larger screen for reading PDFs. The changes from generation to generation (for me) have been nice, but not so obviously necessary that they warrant another expenditure.

Jedimindtrick said:
I agree with your statement, as I am in the same boat. I'd love nothing more than a be able to dual-boot either into iPadOS or MacOS on my iPad Pro, considering they run on the same chip. Apple has allowed for years the ability to dual boot natively into Windows! Their competitor! So the idea that dual-booting is something Apple would never do or consider doesn't make sense to me.
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People have been predicting a merger between iOS and macOS since the former was released - it hasn’t happened. Instead, changes cross-pollinate between OSes. I think this is more of the same; while Apple may consider it, there’s no evidence that they’ll ever open up the iPad to dual-booting OSes, and there’s quite a bit for them bringing some features over from their other systems.
 
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jdb8167

macrumors 601
Nov 17, 2008
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Arctic Moose said:
FWIW:

www.digitaltrends.com

Here's why Stage Manager only works on M1 iPads | Digital Trends

Stage Manager is one of the best features in iPadOS 16. But why does it only work on M1 iPads?
www.digitaltrends.com www.digitaltrends.com
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It could be that the SSD in older iPad Pros don't have the speed or endurance to implement swap effectively. The hardware is capable though. The 2020 iPad Pros had 6 GB of RAM so I can't imagine that RAM is a limitation unless Apple just didn't want to put the effort in to support a slightly smaller RAM base (6 GB vs. 8 GB).
 
JLOAKS

JLOAKS

macrumors regular
Mar 24, 2016
131
156
By "laptop" I'm assuming you mean a device that runs macOS. The iPad replaced my needs for a laptop a while ago, but I still use an iMac at home for applications and pro software that are not yet supported by iPadOS.
 
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sracer

sracer

macrumors G4
Apr 9, 2010
10,405
13,290
where hip is spoken
Spock said:
It makes sense, they are doing the same thing with the MacBook Air, iMac and Mac mini only being able to support a single external display. Some say it is a hardware limitation on the base M1/M2 but I think it is Apple pushing to differentiate the Pro and consumer systems. The iBooks and the G3 iMacs could only mirror on an external display so it wouldn't be the first time they have done it.
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Yeah, it's not a hardware limitation. When a $100 Amazon Fire tablet can support true dual display I have a hard time believing that it is the hardware that prevents a $1000 iPad from supporting it.

But even knowing that, I don't mind it. People purchased their device knowing what it could and couldn't do. We all made our purchasing decisions with that knowledge (or at least should have ;))
 
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Ludatyk

Ludatyk

macrumors 603
May 27, 2012
5,972
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Texas
bcortens said:
I think stage manager is poorly conceived - it doesn’t fit with the rest of iPadOS and give you a jarring experience of mode switching. It is quite badly thought out IMO and I think it would have been better just to give us something like a restricted more Mission Control.
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IMO, the point of Stage Manager is to give iPad power users more out of iPadOS and not disrupt the average users who don’t care for window-sizing management. You might think it doesn’t fit with the rest of iPadOS and perhaps you are right in that regard, because it’s not meant for the average iPad user.

Right now, it’s buggy and quite frankly this is new territory for the iPad and similar to the announcement of Safari last year… Stage Manager will see plenty revisions over the beta period. But Mission Control is a Mac feature, that’s specifically tied to app-switching… not window-sizing.
 
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bcortens

bcortens

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Aug 16, 2007
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Ludatyk said:
IMO, the point of Stage Manager is to give iPad power users more out of iPadOS and not disrupt the average users who don’t care for window-sizing management. You might think it doesn’t fit with the rest of iPadOS and perhaps you are right in that regard, because it’s not meant for the average iPad user.

Right now, it’s buggy and quite frankly this is new territory for the iPad and similar to the announcement of Safari last year… Stage Manager will see plenty revisions over the beta period. But Mission Control is a Mac feature, that’s specifically tied to app-switching… not window-sizing.
Click to expand...
It’s not even that, they could totally have integrated this better even for power users. Allowing floating windows is a good idea poorly implemented here.
 
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Ludatyk

Ludatyk

macrumors 603
May 27, 2012
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bcortens said:
It’s not even that, they could totally have integrated this better even for power users. Allowing floating windows is a good idea poorly implemented here.
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But you mention Mission Control… which is not necessarily window-sizing.

And I like Stage Manager... it needs to be tweaked a bit. But I‘m curious… I don’t want to come off as impolite…have you tried it? The experience isn’t as bad as you think. And as I stated before this is new territory for Apple… window-sizing hasn’t been done on the iPad platform.

We always sized windows in a side-to-side format, never diagonal… so, this implementation is a start in the right direction. And there’s the option to remove the dock and the recent windows/apps if need be.
 
bcortens

bcortens

macrumors 65816
Aug 16, 2007
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Unfortunately i don’t have an M1 machine - I can only go by the youtube videos I’ve seen which seem to isolate stage manager in its own kind of space outside of the standard multitasking framework on iPadOS.

I mention mission control as that is a better way of replacing the existing multitasking switching with something that would integrate spaces/app groups that are resizable with the ability to drag and drop into ‘spaces/app groups’ and other apps. I’m doing a diagram now that I’ll post somewhere and link but in my head we replace the existing system with something that allows app groups to exist In a psuedo space/desktop type thing wherein - if enabled by the user - they can be arbitrarily sized and positioned. By integrating a mission control style version of multitasking you get a zoomed out view of the current space/app group to see all your open windows in that app group while seeing all the other app groups (and single apps) arranged horizontally across the top along with the Slideover apps on the top.
 
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B

babyexercise

macrumors 65816
Oct 1, 2021
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jdb8167 said:
It could be that the SSD in older iPad Pros don't have the speed or endurance to implement swap effectively. The hardware is capable though. The 2020 iPad Pros had 6 GB of RAM so I can't imagine that RAM is a limitation unless Apple just didn't want to put the effort in to support a slightly smaller RAM base (6 GB vs. 8 GB).
Click to expand...

Chance is low, just Apple forces people to buy new iPad even if you have ipad pro 2020.
 
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sracer

sracer

macrumors G4
Apr 9, 2010
10,405
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where hip is spoken
Tyler O'Bannon said:
Lol we can split hairs about this all day long.

When businesses need a fleet of computers for their workforce, nobody comes back with a bunch of iPads for everyone. Period.
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Nobody's splitting hairs. You made the claim that an iPad is not a computer. I asked for a definition and you couldn't provide one.

Sounds like the classic definition of "porn"... "I can't give a definition but I know it when I see it." 😅
 
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Tyler O'Bannon

Tyler O'Bannon

macrumors 6502a
Nov 23, 2019
886
1,497
sparksd said:
No, it does not. You are simply using a definition of computer that you invented and is incredibly narrow.
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Lol no. In well over 90% of buying decisions, I am right. That's by far the best definition of anything that could be given.
 
Tyler O'Bannon

Tyler O'Bannon

macrumors 6502a
Nov 23, 2019
886
1,497
sracer said:
Nobody's splitting hairs. You made the claim that an iPad is not a computer. I asked for a definition and you couldn't provide one.

Sounds like the classic definition of "porn"... "I can't give a definition but I know it when I see it." 😅
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Lol you are absolutely splitting hairs. "You couldn't provide one"? That's ridiculous. In 90% of buying decisions related to this topic, I guarantee you I'm right. That's better than any definition that you, me, or anyone else could provide.
 
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