iPad as a laptop replacement

[Digitalguy]

Note—officially iPads have had “desktop-class” chips since the A9X iPad Pro, according to Apple’s marketing.

But yes it’s really funny how our perception is heavily determined by what we see first. Along that same vein, I mentioned this in another thread, but I wonder if the iPad had been released before the iPhone, would people have called the iPhone “an amazing pocketable iPad” instead of the iPad ”just a big iPhone”…

And marketing was right. The A9X pro came at the same time as the Core M 12in mac and was actually more powerful. An A9X 12in mac with enough RAM would have been even more capable... But at that time Apple was not thinking about that transition. The idea came the following year after the disappointment with Skylake, according to what some insiders have said...
As for iPad first... as you probably know that was the initial plan according to Steve Jobs... but I think a phone without a store made more sense than an iPad without an app store... so I don't know if the iPad would have had the same success with an even less powerful chip and no app store...

 

[ericwn]

you don't even need a pro for that... an air is more than enough for photos. If you want to keep them locally get the 256GB model, otherwise store them in a drive and get the 64GB model

Apple Photos likely won’t support working off external libraries.

 

[ericwn]

Apple was really smart, put an iPad pro chip in the Mac before putting it in the iPad, make it appear like a desktop chip, then put it where it was supposed to go in the first place and make people say "wow, that's incredible, I want it"

Anyway same, 256 for everything local, or 128 + drive (if you already have it, otherwise you are better off going 256 anyway)

Apple was just smart to come up with a good chip. It’s meant to go into all these devices.

 

[Digitalguy]

Apple Photos likely won’t support working off external libraries.

You can download all your photos, can't you?

 

[Digitalguy]

Apple was just smart to come up with a good chip. It’s meant to go into all these devices.

that was true even before, but perception has changed also thanks to their marketing decisions

 

[grmlin]

Apple Photos likely won’t support working off external libraries.

I don't really care anymore if I can run macOS on my iPad at some point. But Apple better has some significant news for iPad OS ready for WWDC. Otherwise I will be extremely disappointed.

 

[ericwn]

You can download all your photos, can't you?

I don’t believe it supports external drives as a photo manager.

 

[ericwn]

that was true even before, but perception has changed also thanks to their marketing decisions

Oh no doubt they changed plans due to chip shortages and made do with what they had.

 

[rui no onna]

Note—officially iPads have had “desktop-class” chips since the A9X iPad Pro, according to Apple’s marketing.

But yes it’s really funny how our perception is heavily determined by what we see first. Along that same vein, I mentioned this in another thread, but I wonder if the iPad had been released before the iPhone, would people have called the iPhone “an amazing pocketable iPad” instead of the iPad ”just a big iPhone”…

Actually, they've done that since the OG iPad Air although it was more like Atom at the time.

 

[subjonas]

And marketing was right. The A9X pro came at the same time as the Core M 12in mac and was actually more powerful. An A9X 12in mac with enough RAM would have been even more capable... But at that time Apple was not thinking about that transition. The idea came the following year after the disappointment with Skylake, according to what some insiders have said...
As for iPad first... as you probably know that was the initial plan according to Steve Jobs... but I think a phone without a store made more sense than an iPad without an app store... so I don't know if the iPad would have had the same success with an even less powerful chip and no app store...

Yeah I’m thinking a lot of people didn’t totally buy into the equality of the chips because they ran different systems. Now that they both run macOS it’s much more of an apples to apples comparison. Or Apple to Intel…
Yeah in the situation, it definitely made more sense to come out with the iPhone first.

 

[subjonas]

Actually, they've done that since the OG iPad Air although it was more like Atom at the time.

View attachment 1771184

Oh hmmm. I was going off of what this site said:

List of Apple processors

Apple Inc. designs its own system on a chip (SoC) and system in package (SiP) processors for its consumer devices. Marketed as "Apple Silicon", development is headed by Senior VP of Hardware Technologies Johny Srouji at Apple's chip facilities in Cupertino, California and Herzliya, Israel.[1][2]...

apple.fandom.com

I don’t actually remember the marketing myself. I wonder though if Apple just means there that 64 bit is desktop class architecture as opposed to overall desktop performance, because I know the A7 was the first 64 bit A series chip. Maybe there was some marketing for the A9x iPad that compared it more generally to desktops. ?

 

[rui no onna]

Oh hmmm. I was going off of what this site said:

List of Apple processors

Apple Inc. designs its own system on a chip (SoC) and system in package (SiP) processors for its consumer devices. Marketed as "Apple Silicon", development is headed by Senior VP of Hardware Technologies Johny Srouji at Apple's chip facilities in Cupertino, California and Herzliya, Israel.[1][2]...

apple.fandom.com

I don’t actually remember the marketing myself. I wonder though if Apple just means there that 64 bit is desktop class architecture as opposed to overall desktop performance, because I know the A7 was the first 64 bit A series chip. Maybe there was some marketing for the A9x iPad that compared it more generally to desktops. ?

Apple's 64-bit A7 already powering advanced new audio, video features in apps and games | AppleInsider

The debut of Apple's new 64-bit A7 Application Processor has been assailed by more than one industry figure insisting that the new chip isn't anything special, but a series of iOS developers are reporting huge performance gains and already using the new chip to accomplish "desktop class" tasks...

appleinsider.com

The AnandTech deep-dive is incredibly informative. I miss those reviews. Granted, I think Anand works at Apple now.

The iPad Air Review

www.anandtech.com

With the A9X though, you could already hear the bells tolling on Intel. It was a matter of when, not if, Apple will switch the Macs to their in-house SoCs.

 

[subjonas]

Apple's 64-bit A7 already powering advanced new audio, video features in apps and games | AppleInsider

The debut of Apple's new 64-bit A7 Application Processor has been assailed by more than one industry figure insisting that the new chip isn't anything special, but a series of iOS developers are reporting huge performance gains and already using the new chip to accomplish "desktop class" tasks...

appleinsider.com

The AnandTech deep-dive is incredibly informative. I miss those reviews. Granted, I think Anand works at Apple now.

The iPad Air Review

www.anandtech.com

With the A9X though, you could already hear the bells tolling on Intel. It was a matter of when, not if, Apple will switch the Macs to their in-house SoCs.

Yeah the A7 was a beast and a big jump forward. I was just trying to theorize why the site I referenced said A9x was the chip that was introduced as the “first desktop class” processor. ?‍♂️

 

[Slartibart]

I use Microsoft excel a lot on the desktop clients for mood boards and it has a fantastic easy feature ’remove background’ that lets you remove backgrounds from images effortlessly. Excel on iPad does not have this feature and is the only reason I keep going back to my Windows machine! I am yet to find an iPad app which does it quite as easily and navigating a 2nd app isn’t ideal - Builtin excel feature would be game changer for me.

Apple’s Pages can do this easily. Load a picture, open the Inspector and define transparency as you wish.

 

[Yoms]

Probably many already of you have already written it, the question is not: can an iPad be a laptop replacement? It definitely can, the hardware is there. It's all about iPadOS at this point of time.

 

[jrichards1408]

Probably many already of you have already written it, the question is not: can an iPad be a laptop replacement? It definitely can, the hardware is there. It's all about iPadOS at this point of time.

Just dump iPad os!

 

[petvas]

Probably many already of you have already written it, the question is not: can an iPad be a laptop replacement? It definitely can, the hardware is there. It's all about iPadOS at this point of time.

It's not only the OS. It is important of course, but the main issue I see is that many big developers still develop lightweight apps for the iPad. Look at Microsoft Office for example. The iPad version is a joke and cannot be compared with Office on Windows or the Mac. Adobe Photoshop is also crippled compared to the desktop version. Even if iPadOS were better, these apps will remain crippled and as long as this is the case, the iPad will never be a real laptop replacement for people that need the full versions of such apps.

 

[Ludatyk]

It's not only the OS. It is important of course, but the main issue I see is that many big developers still develop lightweight apps for the iPad. Look at Microsoft Office for example. The iPad version is a joke and cannot be compared with Office on Windows or the Mac. Adobe Photoshop is also crippled compared to the desktop version. Even if iPadOS were better, these apps will remain crippled and as long as this is the case, the iPad will never be a real laptop replacement for people that need the full versions of such apps.

@Yoms is correct… developer support has always been there. Now, that Apple has equipped the iPad Pro with the M1 chip.. the potential for iPadOS can be so much more. I understand… that desktop pro apps has been crippled, but it’s been under hardware that is insufficient to run those type of apps.

WWDC can’t come sooner enough, because the iPad has been shortchanged for quite a long time… I can’t wait for Apple to show it’s vision.

 

[Yoms]

It's not only the OS. It is important of course, but the main issue I see is that many big developers still develop lightweight apps for the iPad. Look at Microsoft Office for example. The iPad version is a joke and cannot be compared with Office on Windows or the Mac. Adobe Photoshop is also crippled compared to the desktop version. Even if iPadOS were better, these apps will remain crippled and as long as this is the case, the iPad will never be a real laptop replacement for people that need the full versions of such apps.

Whether iPadOS evolves to allow us to use the iPad as a laptop replacement, or not, will not change the fact that the apps you mentioned will come to the iPad in their fully featured version in the future. Reason is simple: with Apple Silicon providing one common platform, it's cheaper for microsoft and the likes to build 1 app only that runs on both Mac and iPad than maintaining 2 apps. That's a big enough incentive.

That's why I definitely don't worry about seeing fully featured apps on the iPad in the future.

But I'm really worried about iPadOS though. Apple can rework multitasking, redesign the home screen, so on and so forth, nonetheless really basic stuffs are still missing. That forces you to rely on another computer: no disk utility to format/partition an external SSD, you cannot put your own music in your iTunes library, you cannot locally back up your data (Time Machine), and let's not even dive into files management...

So what? Do I have to buy a cheap computer along an iPad just to install my own music, backup my iPad from time to time, etc. That's not the definition I have of "replacement".

 

[Yoms]

I can’t wait for Apple to show it’s vision.

Can't wait to, but I'm definitely prepared to be underwhelmed (just to alleviate the disappointment).

I think we'll see some goodies like new home screen and some "pro" apps brought to the iPad M1 (fully featured or not - don't know), but unfortunately these apps will still run under the many iPadOS limitations that Apple will not address.

 

[sparksd]

@Yoms is correct… developer support has always been there. Now, that Apple has equipped the iPad Pro with the M1 chip.. the potential for iPadOS can be so much more. I understand… that desktop pro apps has been crippled, but it’s been under hardware that is insufficient to run those type of apps.

WWDC can’t come sooner enough, because the iPad has been shortchanged for quite a long time… I can’t wait for Apple to show it’s vision.

I would not consider the Pro models from 2018 onward as having inadequate hardware for these apps - they run just fine full-up on similarly-spec'd laptops.

 

[Ludatyk]

I would not consider the Pro models from 2018 onward as having inadequate hardware for these apps - they run just fine full-up on similarly-spec'd laptops.

Well, what I’m trying to get at is… similar to what @Yoms was saying. Developers as of late.. has been doing whatever behind the scenes to get their apps running on M1 Macs. I’m not entirely sure what Apple needs to do.. in order to transition M1 iPad Pro to run those type of apps. Perhaps, we will get some answers regarding that at WWDC.

But I don‘t see how desktop Adobe Photoshop can run just fine on 4GB of RAM, especially when your dealing with an strenuous workload.

But I'm really worried about iPadOS though. Apple can rework multitasking, redesign the home screen, so on and so forth, nonetheless really basic stuffs are still missing. That forces you to rely on another computer: no disk utility to format/partition an external SSD, you cannot put your own music in your iTunes library, you cannot locally back up your data (Time Machine), and let's not even dive into files management...

Those basic tasks are understandable. I don’t see disk utility being a priority for Apple with iPadOS, tbh. Adding your own music to iTunes library… should be simple to implement. But there are plenty of 3rd party players that can handle those types of task.

So what? Do I have to buy a cheap computer along an iPad just to install my own music, backup my iPad from time to time, etc. That's not the definition I have of "replacement".

For me, the iPad serves a laptop “replacement.” However, I don’t solely rely on the iPad. I have a PC desktop… but it’s an old one.. it serves as a Plex server and gets me by with certain task that the iPad cannot do.

 

[petvas]

Whether iPadOS evolves to allow us to use the iPad as a laptop replacement, or not, will not change the fact that the apps you mentioned will come to the iPad in their fully featured version in the future. Reason is simple: with Apple Silicon providing one common platform, it's cheaper for microsoft and the likes to build 1 app only that runs on both Mac and iPad than maintaining 2 apps. That's a big enough incentive.

That's why I definitely don't worry about seeing fully featured apps on the iPad in the future.

But I'm really worried about iPadOS though. Apple can rework multitasking, redesign the home screen, so on and so forth, nonetheless really basic stuffs are still missing. That forces you to rely on another computer: no disk utility to format/partition an external SSD, you cannot put your own music in your iTunes library, you cannot locally back up your data (Time Machine), and let's not even dive into files management...

So what? Do I have to buy a cheap computer along an iPad just to install my own music, backup my iPad from time to time, etc. That's not the definition I have of "replacement".

I cannot base a purchase decision on something that might come. We don't know if Microsoft is planing to make the Office iPad version the same as the desktop one. Currently it is a completely different development branch. Such changes take a lot of time and if this ever happens, when it happens there will probably be a newer iPad to buy. I don't believe that in the lifetime of the 2021 iPad Pro we will see desktop class quality apps come to the platform. At least not Microsoft Office. I don't believe it.

 

[sparksd]

Well, what I’m trying to get at is… similar to what @Yoms was saying. Developers as of late.. has been doing whatever behind the scenes to get their apps running on M1 Macs. I’m not entirely sure what Apple needs to do.. in order to transition M1 iPad Pro to run those type of apps. Perhaps, we will get some answers regarding that at WWDC.

But I don‘t see how desktop Adobe Photoshop can run just fine on 4GB of RAM, especially when your dealing with an strenuous workload.

Those basic tasks are understandable. I don’t see disk utility being a priority for Apple with iPadOS, tbh. Adding your own music to iTunes library… should be simple to implement. But there are plenty of 3rd party players that can handle those types of task.


For me, the iPad serves a laptop “replacement.” However, I don’t solely rely on the iPad. I have a PC desktop… but it’s an old one.. it serves as a Plex server and gets me by with certain task that the iPad cannot do.

We'll see what they do. I've moved on to replacing my iPad Pro with my laptop.

 

[Ludatyk]

I don't believe that in the lifetime of the 2021 iPad Pro we will see desktop class quality apps come to the platform. At least not Microsoft Office. I don't believe it.

It only takes VMWare or Parallels to come to 2021 iPad Pro. I think Steve Troughton-Smith… a guy who is known for looking at code. He mention that the roadblocks are there for Apple to bring virtualization to iPadOS very soon.