I would love to have Windows on my iPad
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iPad Pro iPad Pro M4 vs. Microsoft's New Surface Pro 11: Sound Off!
- Thread starter Kahnforever
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I would love to have the option of Windows on my iPad. Chances are I’ll still be using iPadOS 99% of the time since Windows sucks as a tablet OS. Still, it would be nice to have Windows for that 1%.
No issues here, and I run a Mac and use 365 Apps including Teams natively on the Mac.
Absolutely, Windows would be way more useful than MacOS for me
My organization subscribes to Azure Virtual Desktop and I can sign into a virtual Windows computer from my iPad if I need to do things I can’t get done in the native apps on my iPad; it’s not a bad experience, and having my MKB makes using Windows tolerable on a tablet.
I wouldn’t want Windows running natively because I think it would be a tremendous resource hog, but using a cloud computer isn’t bad for what I need (mostly basic office-work type stuff).
You guys know what would be awesome? An 11.475648449" iPad that will boot Windows AND macOS at the same time and run them overtop of each other. So it will look kind of like two different pages printed overtop of each other. And also have iOS AND iPadOS come up as an overlay whenever you want right from the Dock! And further, to be able to run, in split screen, Windows and macOS Apps side by side! Imagine the possibilities and fun: you could run Microsoft and Mac versions of Photoshop side-by-side for instance!
And also that the iPad supports every stylus ever made, and that multiple styluses could be used on the screen AT THE SAME TIME. And that there would be a screen drawer on the iPad, so you can slide that out and double its screen size! And out of the bottom of the iPad in landscape would be a roll out keyboard! You roll it out and it's magical! But that's not enough. It should also have a keyboard light beam so you can beam a light keyboard onto a desk and use a virtual keyboard!
But wait, there's more! The iPad also needs to boot Android as an option and also Linux, and also be able to run these overtop of each other.
I would say that all Apple would need to do is just increase the RAM by 1 GB to make all of this work. The M4 can handle anything. Personally, if Apple did all of this, I would buy an iPad right away.
And also that the iPad supports every stylus ever made, and that multiple styluses could be used on the screen AT THE SAME TIME. And that there would be a screen drawer on the iPad, so you can slide that out and double its screen size! And out of the bottom of the iPad in landscape would be a roll out keyboard! You roll it out and it's magical! But that's not enough. It should also have a keyboard light beam so you can beam a light keyboard onto a desk and use a virtual keyboard!
But wait, there's more! The iPad also needs to boot Android as an option and also Linux, and also be able to run these overtop of each other.
I would say that all Apple would need to do is just increase the RAM by 1 GB to make all of this work. The M4 can handle anything. Personally, if Apple did all of this, I would buy an iPad right away.
Does this thing have fans? Does it suffer from over heating?
Well is the keyboard and S-pen part of it or do you have to buy it?
Is Windows 11 more tablet friendly than Windows 10?
It has fans; whether it suffers from overheating will have to be tested but it’s safe to guess that overheating likely won’t be an issue unless you’re taxing the hell out of it.
You have to buy them separately.
No
It runs Windows. What more is there to say? 0/10 device.
And enjoy laptop that only last three hours of battery life and struggle to do 10% of M1 chip can do.
I would never buy Intel or AMD CPU they beyond horrible slow and battery life is just beyond horrible bad.
In 8 years from now Intel and AMD will still struggle to keep up with M1 chip with just terrible battery life that just beyond terrible.
I would never buy Intel or AMD CP ever.
One is a tablet and one is a computer…
The other thing is MSFT and Qualcomm aren’t known for their… truthfulness in specs.
The other thing is MSFT and Qualcomm aren’t known for their… truthfulness in specs.
There's a ton of people who really liked Windows in the 95/98/2000/XP/7 era, and much prefer the UI conventions, tooling, and general "character" of Windows in that sense. It's still possible to set up 10/11 so that it mostly works that way (at least Pro and Enterprise), though it's more work removing modern annoyances, and one has to live with some unremovable ones like the new settings app. For many of those people, the alternative, should push come to shove, is rather Linux with a drop of Wine than macOS.
Last edited:
I don’t think there is any way to bring back control panel. It seems Microsoft wants to do away with it.
It seems more people here are trashing Apple.
Microsoft Says New Surface Pro is Faster Than 15" M3 MacBook Air
Yeah, that was basically the problem with my old one. It also only had 8GB RAM and it just crawled. If you only ever do very basic tasks like sending email or a word document, probably fine but try to do more and it wasn't good enough. Even Outlook sometimes would crawl. Eventually the battery...
forums.macrumors.com
I use Windows.
Teams has a head-shake-worthy UI and I have had issues in the past with external users (clients who are on their own domain, not part of my internal network) trying to access content stored in my Teams site. Other than that I haven't had too many issues with it. It integrates very nicely with other apps and with my Stream Deck.
I'm not surprised that it doesn't work the same on macOS. There are some features that are quite integrated into Windows 11 that would probably not work on macOS (ie, sharing a window by right-clicking its icon on the taskbar), and it is clearly an application built for Windows first (as are all Microsoft applications).
Try using Apple software on Windows computers. iTunes has been the epitome of sloppy application design for pretty much its entire life, and most of Apple's other past Windows offerings weren't much better. macOS is a 2nd tier market for Microsoft's products. They will spend the majority of resources getting their applications to run well on Windows, just as Apple spends the bulk of their resources getting their applications and services to run well on macOS and iOS. It's not necessarily due to wanting Windows to "look better" than macOS - it is more likely simply wanting to make sure their core customer base (corporate users) are happy.
Can't really comment on any of this, because I haven't used Teams for the Mac. I will say, your last complaint ("Teams overrides Mac settings for default microphone and camera.") is by design. Teams is a communications app, and for a very, very large number of users, the microphone that they want to use during a Teams call is going to be different than the one used for everything else on the computer. I have specific audio configurations on Teams because I don't want to use my Jabra headset for anything other than Teams calls.
That is probably because Teams file storage uses the same technology as OneDrive: Sharepoint.
Never had anything close to this happen, and I doubt that OneDrive is the cause. It is more likely your insistence on trying to use iCloud. The former is actually designed to be a secured, multi-tenant, multi-user file management system. The latter is not.
I appreciate your reply and perspective on MS development for Mac and vice versa. I’ve not used Apple software on Windows so I’ll take your word that it may be equally impaired as MS software on Mac. In either case it’s tragic that the user experience is so woefully degraded by lack of regard for host-OS conventions that are the reference points for users and the foundation of good UX.
Your comment regarding my “insistence on trying to use iCloud” makes the case. Of course I’ll insist on using iCloud — I’m committed to the Apple ecosystem and iCloud is a secure, robust storage platform and a huge component of the value of the Apple ecosystem. My use of MS productivity software is out of necessity to accommodate clients .. and I have historically used MS office apps with iCloud with zero issues. In recent software updates, MS has actively worked to displace iCloud storage by surreptitiously worming OneDrive into the workflow — even when files are explicitly created and saved on my local drive. The impact is degraded UX and forced, often silent errors and security issues caused by MS moving files to the wrong OneDrive instance. This is wrong and inexcusable.
Net-net: In my experience, the quality and user experience of MS “enterprise” productivity software on the Mac is noticeably inferior to using that same software on Windows. The best way I can describe it is using MS apps on my Mac is death by 1,000 cuts, and it’s like this every day. While we can understand the reasons why this may be the case, I don’t have this same experience with cross-platform apps from other, much smaller software publishers, so this situation is not inevitable and should be unacceptable for paid “enterprise” software.
Last edited:
I have owned multiple Surface devices and came to the conclusion that Windows was designed to use with a mouse where the iPad’s iOS was originally designed for use with a touch screen.
and iPadOS works well with trackpads (much better than with a mouse)
For me personally Windows doesn’t gel well with a trackpad.
Exactly this.
I’m a die hard Apple/Mac/iPad/iPhone user of like 20 years. I’m a developer. I abandoned windows long ago because it abandoned us. Apple gave us a Unix-like environment, and OSS did the rest.
I’ve been watching MS for a few years now. VS Code has become the dominant editor again. MS brought GitHub into their fold and integrated Copilot into it. The introduced the Windows Linux subsystem, which was pretty bad at first but… I know because I’ve long had a dedicated windows gaming rig that I always treated as a console… did nothing other than game. But at some point I began exploring these things as Microsoft seemingly became reinvested in us cloud devs.
They’ve come so far. I can now do all my work on either platform. And although 90% of my time is still spent on Mac… I just pulled the trigger on the most high end Surface Pro 11 one can buy and I’m pretty excited to see how it can fit into my workflow. As much as I love the iPad Pro, which has served me well for consumption… I’ve always wished it had a little more flexibility.
It could end up being a “be careful what you wish for” moment; and maybe this will just suck at both things now. But what they’ve announced is at least compelling enough to get me to try. And put my $ down on an MS product; something I’ve not done (outside of gaming) in a few decades.
So that’s something. I doubt I’m alone.
I'd love to read your thoughts after a few days on that Surface Pro! Be sure to come back and give us a write up from the other side
I agree largely with your assessment of the improvements in Windows over the years with one qualifier from the development perspective: VSCode and Visual Studio has improved by leaps and bounds for non-Apple ecosystem development. if that’s your focus then modern Windows does present a strong alternative platform for that kind of development; but I don’t yet see a developer rush from Mac to windows. The developers in my 200+ employee company who used Windows are not any more vocal about Windows development and the developers who use Macs are likewise not asking for windows PCs. I would love to hear about your experience after you make the change. 🙏🏽
apple, microsoft is trying to be better than you. microsoft - dont you dare think about trying to get better than the ipad. the ipad is the goat. you will never be better than the ipad. i will inform apple about this and try to prevent microsoft from doing this and ask apple to discourage microsoft
I am looking at this issue form the point of view of a ham radio operator. I am primarily Apple now, but I have to keep a modern PC going at the radio station because the Software I use with my radios runs on the PC and there is not much that runs on the Mac, this is slowly changing. What is interesting to me is every time I switch the the Windows 11 Ryzen 7 system it becomes more and more a weird alien land. Except for the Rig control, and SDR software I run on it I have little use for this machine.
From an educational point of view I am rather impressed with the Chromebooks. They are an ideal system for the not computer literate. There was a elderly lady at the VA that was dispodent that her Chromebook had been damaged beyond repair she thought she had lost everything. Her daughter purchased a new one and handed it to me. I signed into her account and handed back to her mother. All of the stuff she though was lost was all there. She was crying with relief.
From an educational point of view I am rather impressed with the Chromebooks. They are an ideal system for the not computer literate. There was a elderly lady at the VA that was dispodent that her Chromebook had been damaged beyond repair she thought she had lost everything. Her daughter purchased a new one and handed it to me. I signed into her account and handed back to her mother. All of the stuff she though was lost was all there. She was crying with relief.
Oh god not chromebooks. Anything but chromebooks.
I worked in education 2 years ago. I am so sorry for all the kids growing up on chromebooks - they have no idea how to use a real computer; Mac or PC. I had to teach my whole class of middle schoolers how to move a file to a USB drive.
We've accidentally made our "digital native" generation computer illiterate. It's a real shame.