iPad as a laptop replacement

[teh_hunterer]

This is an interesting point, which never occurred to me. If* the iPad has such thermal constrictions, I’m afraid that’s another reason why we won’t see macOS running on an iPad.

(*) This is a big if, and an interesting engineering point to debate: is the M2 on the iPad Pro more thermally constrained than the M2 MacBook Air? As far as I know, the M2 iPad Pro has all the rear surface to dissipate heat.

Anyways, I think this issue could be solved tuning the M2 on the iPad to thermal throttle earlier, or simply having a slightly lower clock speed.

I don't think the thermal side of things would be too bad. The iPad really doesn't tend to heat up unless you're running things you know intuitively as a user are intensive applications anyway.

But absolutely the MacBooks are far less thermally constrained, mostly because the screen is totally separate. On the iPad all the heat generating components sit right on top of each other. There's a reason you can trigger the "will resume charging when device returns to normal temperature" easily on phones and tablets but not MacBooks.

The biggest issue probably would be battery life, with the way macOS accumulates a lot more stuff going on in the background.

 

[Populus]

I don't think the thermal side of things would be too bad. The iPad really doesn't tend to heat up unless you're running things you know intuitively as a user are intensive applications anyway.

But absolutely the MacBooks are far less thermally constrained, mostly because the screen is totally separate. On the iPad all the heat generating components sit right on top of each other. There's a reason you can trigger the "will resume charging when device returns to normal temperature" easily on phones and tablets but not MacBooks.

The biggest issue probably would be battery life, with the way macOS accumulates a lot more stuff going on in the background.

Good points!

 

[Populus]

By the way, on topic: Do you recall what are the rumors about iPadOS 18 that could make the iPad more laptop-like? Do you think that the redesigned M3 iPad Pro with a more laptop-like keyboard could come accompanied with a more desktop-y iPadOS?

I’m asking because, honestly, at this point I don’t remember rumors/leaks specific for iPadOS, and everything I have read recently about iOS 18 revolves around AI.

 

[sparksd]

By the way, on topic: Do you recall what are the rumors about iPadOS 18 that could make the iPad more laptop-like? Do you think that the redesigned M3 iPad Pro with a more laptop-like keyboard could come accompanied with a more desktop-y iPadOS?

I’m asking because, honestly, at this point I don’t remember rumors/leaks specific for iPadOS, and everything I have read recently about iOS 18 revolves around AI.

I haven't seen anything about iOS updates wrt desktop-like operations.

https://www.macrumors.com/2023/12/11/new-ios-17-and-ios-18-features-expected-in-2024/

 

[Ludatyk]

By the way, on topic: Do you recall what are the rumors about iPadOS 18 that could make the iPad more laptop-like? Do you think that the redesigned M3 iPad Pro with a more laptop-like keyboard could come accompanied with a more desktop-y iPadOS?

Here's what was listed from a leaker who had successfully leaked features in the past.

• External monitor webcam support.
• Audio output source settings.
• Stream Multiple audio/vid sources at once with Stage Manager on.
• Resizable dock (in external display settings only)
• Sleep iPad display; external display stays on.

So, judging from that list. Only two features shipped with iPadOS 17, which is external monitor webcam support and audio output source settings (since we can now select iPad speakers when plugging into a monitor). Obviously, the last three didn't make the cut.

So, I would be looking out for those three features coming to iPadOS 18.

I’m asking because, honestly, at this point I don’t remember rumors/leaks specific for iPadOS, and everything I have read recently about iOS 18 revolves around AI.

And that's where the tech industry is heading. Since I don't have an iPhone, one thing I enjoy about having an iPad... iOS features trickle down to iPadOS.

 

[darngooddesign]

By the way, on topic: Do you recall what are the rumors about iPadOS 18 that could make the iPad more laptop-like? Do you think that the redesigned M3 iPad Pro with a more laptop-like keyboard could come accompanied with a more desktop-y iPadOS?

I’m asking because, honestly, at this point I don’t remember rumors/leaks specific for iPadOS, and everything I have read recently about iOS 18 revolves around AI.

Doesn’t Bridge make a very MacBook-like keyboard?

 

[bondr006]

Doesn’t Bridge make a very MacBook-like keyboard?

Not anymore. Bridge is gone...

 

[darngooddesign]

Not anymore. Bridge is gone...

They go for around $50 on eBay.

 

[sparksd]

Not anymore. Bridge is gone...

It's actually Brydge and they're back, reorganized.

https://www.brydge.com/

 

[bondr006]

They go for around $50 on eBay.

Not fond of BT keyboards. Wakeup delay is annoying. I really like my Logitech Combo Touch I have been using for the last two years. The LCT has the same direct connection that the MK has but has more features, like a full row of function keys, larger touch anywhere track pad, and you can remove the keyboard but keep the iPad in a protected case with a 180° stand. I would greatly miss my LCT if they stopped making it. I will be getting a new M3 iPad Pro 11 this coming year along with a new LCT for it. My M1 iPad Pro 11 will be gifted to my wife to replace her ancient first gen iPad Air. She's gonna love it.

 

[bondr006]

It's actually Brydge and they're back, reorganized.

https://www.brydge.com/

You are correct, and I did not realize that. Let's see how they do this time. They had a quality product, but at the end of the day, they are still a BT keyboard in a sea of BT keyboards. I would snatch one in an instant if they had the direct connectors like LCT and MKB.

 

[Populus]

Not fond of BT keyboards. Wakeup delay is annoying. I really like my Logitech Combo Touch I have been using for the last two years. The LCT has the same direct connection that the MK has but has more features, like a full row of function keys, larger touch anywhere track pad, and you can remove the keyboard but keep the iPad in a protected case with a 180° stand. I would greatly miss my LCT if they stopped making it. I will be getting a new M3 iPad Pro 11 this coming year along with a new LCT for it. My M1 iPad Pro 11 will be gifted to my wife to replace her ancient first gen iPad Air. She's gonna love it. View attachment 2326496

Indeed, the change is gonna be so dramatic! I say this because I still have around an original iPad Air, the one you can see in my signature.

It already has 10 years and currently it’s only used as a Wi-Fi digital radio.

 

[sananda]

Indeed, the change is gonna be so dramatic! I say this because I still have around an original iPad Air, the one you can see in my signature.

It already has 10 years and currently it’s only used as a Wi-Fi digital radio.

Still using my original iPad Air sometimes (also have a work M2 iPad Pro 12.9” and a personal 4th gen iPad Air). But recently there seem to be a lot of websites that won’t open on it and BBC News app no longer work on it.

 

[Populus]

Still using my original iPad Air sometimes (also have a work M2 iPad Pro 12.9” and a personal 4th gen iPad Air). But recently there seem to be a lot of websites that won’t open on it and BBC News app no longer work on it.

Yep, I’m afraid iOS 12 is a big limiting factor

 

[bondr006]

Indeed, the change is gonna be so dramatic! I say this because I still have around an original iPad Air, the one you can see in my signature.

It already has 10 years and currently it’s only used as a Wi-Fi digital radio.

She just watches Netflix with it now. Not good for much else at this point except for maybe music and pictures.

 

[Abazigal]

Another task yesterday that I had fun performing from my iPad.

I was given a pdf copy of a timetable, where I had to extract individual timetables to send to the people under my charge. Using pdf expert on my iPad, I extracted the necessary pages with ease, then emailed them directly to the respective people via the share sheet extension.

I dare say that the same task would have taken more time on a laptop.

 

[bondr006]

Another task yesterday that I had fun performing from my iPad.

I was given a pdf copy of a timetable, where I had to extract individual timetables to send to the people under my charge. Using pdf expert on my iPad, I extracted the necessary pages with ease, then emailed them directly to the respective people via the share sheet extension.

I dare say that the same task would have taken more time on a laptop.

I love PDF Expert. Been using it for many years for my Real Estate and Property Management businesses. It is certainly indispensable, and my workflow would be negatively impacted if I had to do without the app.

 

[Slartibart]

Another task yesterday that I had fun performing from my iPad.

I was given a pdf copy of a timetable, where I had to extract individual timetables to send to the people under my charge. Using pdf expert on my iPad, I extracted the necessary pages with ease, then emailed them directly to the respective people via the share sheet extension.

I dare say that the same task would have taken more time on a laptop.

to be fair: dragging single/continous/non continous pages of a pdf from macOS Preview to a message window in macOS’ Mail takes less time than me writing this. 😃

nota bene: it works quite similar on iPadOS when you (can) use Stage Manager: open a PDF in Apple’s Files and drag&drop a page from the miniature page preview into an open Mail message window. But in comparison is the selection of continous/discontinous pages IMHO cumbersome on iPadOS.
Of course you do not necessarily need Stage Manager: you can drag&drop&save selected pages of a pdf between two Apple’s Files instances and then attach these to a message you write in Mail (copy&paste will work too). But then again, this requires three steps…. which I dare say is slower than two on whatever OS.😎

I have not used PDF Expert on iPadOS, how is is your workflow @Abazigal? Does it e.g. allow to „share“ directly a selected page (or pages) of a PDF to a message in Mail (like you can with e.g. a selection of images from Apple Photos)?

 

[throAU]

Because it was never a matter of the hardware being incapable. It was nothing more than a business decision.

I'd say its a bit more than that.

IOS in general has started from a position of least privilege between components (there's basically an app firewall between applications talking to each other) whereas MacOS has been built on the traditional monolithic security model that Unix used 50 years ago (albeit with extensions, but fundamentally different starting point).

This has made various things require significant work to re-implement in a "safe by default" way to protect apps from each other and the user and OS from malicious apps.

This is the major difference between macOS and iOS/IpadOS internally and why its taking so long to get there.

The platforms are converging however, and Apple is clearly slowly but surely porting the iOS security features to the mac in a way that breaks as little as possible at a time.

I give it 5 years and macOS/ipadOS will be functionally equivalent - macOS will gain the security features (it already has most of them) and APIs and ipadOS will gain virtual feature parity with macOS.

We're almost there.

ipads not running macOS is nothing to do with the touch UI, etc. - its the security model underpinning both platforms being different. Sure the hardware could run macOS today most likely, but the userbase expects the ipad to be a secure platform more so than the Mac.

 

[Abazigal]

I have not used PDF Expert on iPadOS, how is is your workflow @Abazigal? Does it e.g. allow to „share“ directly a selected page (or pages) of a PDF to a message in Mail (like you can with e.g. a selection of images from Apple Photos)?

I could do that directly, but the issue is that the extracted page has a default name of "document name_page_X", which isn't exactly what I wanted. So I extracted each page and saved it to OneDrive via the files app. Did this 4 times for the 4 teachers under me. Then went into the folder, shared it to gmail (basically opening a gmail compose window with the pdf document attached), typed in a simple message, then sent (one thing I also noticed is that I can't schedule mail this way).

Now that I think about it, it might be faster on my Mac, but at the time, I only had my work laptop (which lacks the requisite pdf management tools) and my iPad on me. My laptop was used up to beam a zoom briefing to the room, leaving me with just my iPad to work with.

So the reality is that when I am at work, I won't have my MacBook Air with me (it stays at home because I don't want to be lugging two laptops everywhere I go). So it forces me to master getting things done on my iPad, and most of the time, I can.

Now quickly update your iPad Pro lineup, Apple, so I can finally upgrade from my 2018 iPad Pro and play around with stage manager on my 4k monitor at work. 😁

nota bene: it works quite similar on iPadOS when you (can) use Stage Manager: open a PDF in Apple’s Files and drag&drop a page from the miniature page preview into an open Mail message window. But in comparison is the selection of continous/discontinous pages IMHO cumbersome on iPadOS.

This doesn't seem to work for me. Attempting to drag a page out of a pdf file opened in files doesn't appear to transform it into an attachment recognised by the mail or gmail app. 😕

 

[Slartibart]

This doesn't seem to work for me. Attempting to drag a page out of a pdf file opened in files doesn't appear to transform it into an attachment recognised by the mail or gmail app. 😕

you drag from the side list with the miniture previews of each page in Apple’s Files? you have to drag&drop from there. Works like a breeze. 😀

Nota bene: this works in Apple’s Files on iPadOS, but not for example in FileExplorer orFileBrowser Professional which I use frequently... just in case you tried from something different.

 

[sracer]

I'd say its a bit more than that.

IOS in general has started from a position of least privilege between components (there's basically an app firewall between applications talking to each other) whereas MacOS has been built on the traditional monolithic security model that Unix used 50 years ago (albeit with extensions, but fundamentally different starting point).

This has made various things require significant work to re-implement in a "safe by default" way to protect apps from each other and the user and OS from malicious apps.

This is the major difference between macOS and iOS/IpadOS internally and why its taking so long to get there.

The platforms are converging however, and Apple is clearly slowly but surely porting the iOS security features to the mac in a way that breaks as little as possible at a time.

I give it 5 years and macOS/ipadOS will be functionally equivalent - macOS will gain the security features (it already has most of them) and APIs and ipadOS will gain virtual feature parity with macOS.

We're almost there.

ipads not running macOS is nothing to do with the touch UI, etc. - its the security model underpinning both platforms being different. Sure the hardware could run macOS today most likely, but the userbase expects the ipad to be a secure platform more so than the Mac.

I was responding to the question asking why Mac OS couldn't be designed to run on the iPad. There is nothing inherent in the hardware of the iPad that would prevent Apple from creating a version of Mac OS that would run on the iPad. It WAS a business decision, not a technical hurdle. That has nothing to do with the design of iOS or iPad OS.

 

[jdb8167]

I give it 5 years and macOS/ipadOS will be functionally equivalent - macOS will gain the security features (it already has most of them) and APIs and ipadOS will gain virtual feature parity with macOS.

Are you saying that iPadOS will have all the features of macOS? I don’t think that will happen. I don’t expect something like terminal and the ability to install tools with a package manager like homebrew will ever happen on iPadOS for example. Also, iPadOS is unlikely to ever get the unlimited background multitasking that macOS uses.

In the opposite direction, Apple will never fully lock down macOS like it does iPadOS. That would cripple one of the main uses of macOS—use as a developer workstation.

 

[alecgold]

Are you saying that iPadOS will have all the features of macOS? I don’t think that will happen. I don’t expect something like terminal and the ability to install tools with a package manager like homebrew will ever happen on iPadOS for example. Also, iPadOS is unlikely to ever get the unlimited background multitasking that macOS uses.

In the opposite direction, Apple will never fully lock down macOS like it does iPadOS. That would cripple one of the main uses of macOS—use as a developer workstation.

Just wondering, if you open terminal on an M1 MacBook, you’ll get a simulation of a Linux terminal in MacOS for M-processors?

But AFAIK the hardware of my M2 iPad Pro 12.9 is faster then my M1 MacBook, has the same type of chipset, has 16Gb of memory and 2Tb of disk, and it should be perfectly capable of running MacOS at tremendous speeds.Yes, Apple should develop several drivers for the hardware, but that is perfectly simple. And the 16Gb isn’t that much for a full fledged desktop OS, but it would suffice For 90% of the users.
And I know MacOS would be disaster if ported straight onto an iPad when you interface it with your fingers. But that either is not something Apple couldn’t solve in a few months. Years tops.

Stil I’m really afraid you might be absolutely right: Apple is perfectly capable of not smartening iPadOS, but dumbing down MacOS.

 

[alecgold]

I was responding to the question asking why Mac OS couldn't be designed to run on the iPad. There is nothing inherent in the hardware of the iPad that would prevent Apple from creating a version of Mac OS that would run on the iPad. It WAS a business decision, not a technical hurdle. That has nothing to do with the design of iOS or iPad OS.

Well, I agree with you that apple could do it, perfectly if they want to. But also: a desktop OS on a tablet is a really bad idea. You would need to fully redesign the interface. A straight MacOS on a touch device is a horrible idea.
But Apple could develop MacOS to be the perfect solution for both devices, no doubt about!

And in a sense they did: I’ve bought a MacBook M1 and have hardly used it since I got my M2 12.9”. The iPad is everything I need for my bloody management job, even with occasional bouts of my old specialist job. I can type endlessly on it with my mechanical Bluetooth keyboard, have the magic trackpad next to it, external huge 5k screen attached while using the screen of the iPad as a notepad with Nebo.app. It not just fully replaces my MacBook, it improves on it because I can jot notes and use the screen in landscape. iPadOS has come a long way and many people could do all the work they need to do and do all their personal computing on one.
Hell, a lot of people don’t own a computer or iPad at all, they just have a phone and do everything on it.

But I wouldn’t dream of using the iPad for 3D machinepart design, serious data collection for research or even for sorting and archiving large amounts of files.
As always: the right tool for the job makes life so much better.