All iPads iPadOS Really Needs Its "Mac OS X" Release

[Shirasaki]

Real work? What is that?

Bruh. Idk. Any amount of engineering designs? Financial services? Using Macro in Excel? Programming arduino or raspberry pi? Researching quantum computing? Or, idk, as simple as managing a file on iPad? Controlling audio levels from different sources?
I can only give examples of works I saw or did, but that doesn’t mean other examples of real work don’t exist, many of which either cannot be done on iPad or can be done but cumbersome and slow to do.

 

[ApplesAreSweet&Sour]

Fingers crossed the new iPad Pros will turn into macOS machines when combined with the Magic Keyboard. This will provide Apple the Mac-like revenue they want (almost as much as a higher end Mac when buying the keyboard, too) and provide us with a more powerful, Mac-like experience on iPad. This would be the optimal solution.

Apple caters to the mainstream first and makes way more accumulatively by selling consumers smaller parts of its ecosystem in a handful of <$1000 purchases.

Each Apple device with its own App Store, accessories, subscription services/apps, AppleCare plan, etc., all adding up to a much grander total than what you’d want or just be able to spend on a single device that replaces them all but then costs 3-5 times as each of them cost separately.

Thus, there’s no iPad running macOS in the pipeline no matter how much you or I want it or would pay for it.

It simply doesn’t fit into Apple’s product strategy. It’s quite literally the antithesis to what Apple has been aiming for since iPhones took off.

 

[yegon]

Cannot see iPadOS every having such a moment. We'll get a glacially paced drip drip drip of new features over the course of its life, that's it.

I'm resigned to this and fine with it to be honest. I have an MBP for the tasks it performs better/exclusively relative to the iPad, and use an iPad Pro for everything else. I love using my iPP, it's a pleasure to use, much more so than my MBP. That said, couldn't be without a mac and a PC due to their sheer utility.

 

[amaze1499]

Put MacOS on an iPad M3 and I am game.

 

[Digitalguy]

Google has a x86 Chromebook (i7 pixel book) is thin/light, fanless and runs 8 hours+.

My 12" Retina MacBook has the same i7, is thin and light fanless and runs a decent number of hours if not pushed, not even close to Apple Silicon in performance and battery life though...

 

[Digitalguy]

I hope so. Based on reviews the SQ3 wasn't that great in the SP9 5G in terms of performance. We shall see - if things are much improved it might garner a look for me.

SQ3 and the new Snapdragon Elite are in totally different leagues. Sq3 is clearly inferior to Intel, the new Nuvia chips should be superior and close to Apple Silicon, somewhere around M2 performance

 

[Digitalguy]

Macs runs Intel apps with Rosetta very well. Virtually no performce loss. But Windows ARM's x86 emulator is not great, there is definitely a performance hit.

This is myth that has already been proved wrong by many tests. The emulation in Windows on Arm is pretty good and the difference with Rosetta is smaller than people tend to believe. the issue is that the chip is weak to begin with. Windows on Arm emulation is pretty fast on fast Apple Silicon via Parallels and that goes through and additional virtualization layer.

 

[Digitalguy]

Not similar in many aspects imo, mostly notably performance penalties when running x86 applications and very few native arm applications. Battery life tradeoff is much easier to manage than slow performance, issues running applications and more.

The performance penallty is smaller than many believe (see my comment above) and with a chip as fast as Apple Silicon it won't be "slow performance", it isn't already in Parallels, it will be even faster on the new chips despite few native arm apps. If programs can performance even close to M1 performance via emulation on these chips people will be more than fine with something like a surface pro if it gets way better battery life and thermals

 

[Digitalguy]

I agree, Surface Pro i7 is the way to go. The 32GB RAM/1TB is a really solid machine. If only they had a cewllular version, but there hasn't been a cellular Surface Pro Intel since the Surface Pro 7.

My dream machine would be a Surface Pro "10", with i9/64gb/1TB, with cellular, microSD slot and a 4050 equivalent graphics card. Sure, the battery would be 1 hour, and would burn a hole in your lap, but still 🙂

Surface pro 8 had an LTE variant, it's juste the pro 9 that only had it in the arm version

My dream machine would be an Arm Surface pro 10 with 5G, powerful Elite chip, 32GB RAM, replaceable SSD (microsd is gone for good unfortunately, but at least we have replaceble ssds contrary to Macs), don't care about graphics, and long battery life.
Ideally in an 11" variant (but that seems left for the pro 11 according to rumors)

 

[Shirasaki]

The performance penallty is smaller than many believe (see my comment above) and with a chip as fast as Apple Silicon it won't be "slow performance", it isn't already in Parallels, it will be even faster on the new chips despite few native arm apps. If programs can performance even close to M1 performance via emulation on these chips people will be more than fine with something like a surface pro if it gets way better battery life and thermals

I guess only time will tell, for I won't buy Windows on ARM just for the sake of it.
If Windows x86 can be emulated to a point of having equivalent speed than when it is run natively on x86 chips, then I might have some interests on it.

 

[iPadified]

Bruh. Idk. Any amount of engineering designs? Financial services? Using Macro in Excel? Programming arduino or raspberry pi? Researching quantum computing?

Why would anyone ever be doing this on an iPad? It is Win PC territory and to some extent Mac (if you really want to make life difficult for yourself).

Engineering: Buy a win PC. Mac OS apps are so far behind that it is joke. However, there are some very nice apps like Shapr3D for iPad. More competent than you think but forget the Inventor/Solid Works paradigm when using Shapr3D.
Macro in excel: poor app and not OS/HW related. Too many are confused about the difference between apps and the OS. I am surprised you seem to be one of them. MS is lazy to bring apps to iPad, I agree, but I think MS rather wants people to use the cloud.
Research in QC> you better have access to a supercomputer and be OS agnostic.
Programming controller: my experience was the it was easier for students with windows than Mac for these kind of programming likely because of a better Win environment.
Financial services: Not sure what you mean but it smells corporate and that means Win PC is better choice.

The idea of one device only, a "personal computer", for work is long gone. Professionals are not stupid, they chose the tools that works best to get the job done and are less occupied what kind of device it is or the OS. Some need a a traditional PC (and/or a Mac), some need both a PC/Mac and iPad and some only iPad to do their work.

Seems that you think lots of occupations are not "real work".

As I said before and many with me: apps are the iPads largest issue and we are all OK with adding capabilities as long as iPadOS is still touch first and "easy" to use.

 

[Shirasaki]

Seems that you think lots of occupations are not "real work".

Ok I apologize for my narrow view, but I would not claim "lots of occupations are not real work" just by that.

 

[Ghost31]

Man we’ve seen posts like this ever since the first iPad 14 years ago. “If only Mac was on iPad it would be good for me!” Well. It’s not. iPad doesn’t need to be the product for you so don’t force it. If you want Mac, get a Mac

 

[bradman83]

Macs runs Intel apps with Rosetta very well. Virtually no performce loss. But Windows ARM's x86 emulator is not great, there is definitely a performance hit.

Rosetta runs well because it translates API calls made by Intel Mac Apps to native code. Here’s a good example: DxO PhotoLab uses the CoreML APIs for its DeepPRIME noise reduction. Even when the app was still Intel-only DeepPRIME could use the Neural Engine of an M-series chip for acceleration because it was based on CoreML and Rosetta translated it accordingly. Anything using an API gets can most likely be translated to and run as native code and only the portions of apps not using system APIs required actual emulation, which is why Rosetta apps run so well.

Microsoft’s Windows on ARM emulation is just that, it’s straight up emulation across the board except for perhaps the graphics stack.

 

[sparksd]

Real work? What is that?

"Real work". I always laugh at that phrase. I retired as an engineer but some 50-odd years ago when I was working the oil fields, the guys would say that anyone working in an office, etc. weren't doing real work (I won't say how they really worded it for fear of being suspended). But they weren't taking the stress home at night, either. It's a subjective phrase, meaningless.

 

[cnnyy20p]

iPads don't really need such an OS update. I would even say iPadOS is more advance than MacOS for the sake of make it more simple. Sure, iPadOS is missing some key features like multi-user support, but what they really need are better apps. The problem is Apple's software market policies for iOS/iPadOS make it tough for developers to create professional apps on the platform. It's a messy topic, but to put it simply, the App Store's rules push developers towards subscription-based pricing, which can give apps a bad reputation and lower their sales potential. This leads developers to prefer developing other platforms.

Another issue is the lack of feature parity compared to other platforms. Take Final Cut Pro, for instance. Apple intentionally holds back some features on the iPadOS version to keep people buying Macs.

 

[ratspg]

I tried going 'iPadPro only' for person use for a while. It didn't work out for me. It just felt severely limited and faced too many workarounds compared to MacOS. Updated use with Stage Manager and a separate screen were better but still terrible. iPad cannot have the screen locked and make an external screen the main screen. Audio is a HUGE problem with iPadOS. You cannot have two sources going at it together properly and you can't really route the audio to an external screen properly either. A mouse with a little circle as a pointer is hilarious, Apple was forced to add it and by having a tiny little circle makes it obvious they weren't planning on even having it in the first place. Things I loved about it included portability, and dual usage with/without the Smart Keyboard. It just feels severely limited software-wise when it includes an M-series chip in it. Perhaps one day Apple will allow an 'advanced' mode, or let you dock into MacOS, highly doubt it but it's fun to imagine it.

 

[iPadified]

"Real work". I always laugh at that phrase. I retired as an engineer but some 50-odd years ago when I was working the oil fields, the guys would say that anyone working in an office, etc. weren't doing real work (I won't say how they really worded it for fear of being suspended). But they weren't taking the stress home at night, either. It's a subjective phrase, meaningless.

Typically "real work" = "same works I do". So meaningless expression and I perfectly understand taking the stress home. I am academic so I probably have never done "real work" in my life. I wonder why I am feel overworked, sometime stressed and have poor social life due to long hours if I am not doing any real work. As if the type of device I use can change that.

 

[iPadified]

Ok I apologize for my narrow view, but I would not claim "lots of occupations are not real work" just by that.

I know you would not but it is often something that always comes up in discussions and it irritates me. Like the classical saying in 3D threads "a 4090 is needed to do real work". Sometime it does but not always.

 

[GCat]

What I take away from this discussion is that in an ideal world there would be an iPad running MacOS.

Having said this, I’ve had every single major iteration, each member of my family has one, and all of us love it (can’t wait for the OLED version). It’s fantastic for content consumption, checking and replying to emails, and I do some work on it (although most of my work is done on my Studios and MacBook Pro). A major reason I didn’t buy the Vision Pro yet is that packing the iPad and AirPods Max is easy while schlepping a Vision Pro isn’t.

The bottom line of my comment: Most likely, the vast majority of iPad users really like their iPad and don’t care about running MacOS on it. Naturally, people mostly start discussion threads to complain about something, and hence their views are overrepresented. But again, ideally there would be an iPad with MacOS so everyone can be happy 😉.

 

[GCat]

What I take away from this discussion is that in an ideal world there would be an iPad running MacOS.

Having said this, I’ve had every single major iteration, each member of my family has one, and all of us love it (can’t wait for the OLED version). It’s fantastic for content consumption, checking and replying to emails, and I do some work on it (although most of my work is done on my Studios and MacBook Pro). A major reason I didn’t buy the Vision Pro yet is that packing the iPad and AirPods Max is easy while schlepping a Vision Pro isn’t.

The bottom line of my comment: Most likely, the vast majority of iPad users really like their iPad and don’t care about running MacOS on it. Naturally, people mostly start discussion threads to complain about something, and hence their views are overrepresented. But again, ideally there would be an iPad with MacOS so everyone can be happy 😉.

I’ll add one more important point: We got my father-in-law, who’s in his 80s, an iPad for Christmas. It’s been a game changer for him and it works due to the simplicity of iPadOS.

So there’s clearly a segment where running MacOS would be detrimental… and certainly the voices of this segment are not represented in this forum 😂

 

[jazz1]

I’ll add one more important point: We got my father-in-law, who’s in his 80s, an iPad for Christmas. It’s been a game changer for him and it works due to the simplicity of iPadOS.

So there’s clearly a segment where running MacOS would be detrimental… and certainly the voices of this segment are not represented in this forum 😂

Is there a reason the iPad can't host both iOS and OS? SSD size, memory limitations? Which brings to mind what about multiple users? I suppose the cost of SSD and and RAM upgrades to host such a thing would put people off? But the MacBooks can host multiple users?

 

[Zest28]

iPad's don't need anything. If something is missing from iPad OS, using cloud computing or remote access into one of your other computers.

It is really simple.

 

[GCat]

Is there a reason the iPad can't host both iOS and OS? SSD size, memory limitations? Which brings to mind what about multiple users? I suppose the cost of SSD and and RAM upgrades to host such a thing would put people off? But the MacBooks can host multiple users?

I'm certain it's feasible, but Apple doesn't do it because of cost reasons or to differentiate the product line (or both).

 

[Rafterman]

"Real work". I always laugh at that phrase. I retired as an engineer but some 50-odd years ago when I was working the oil fields, the guys would say that anyone working in an office, etc. weren't doing real work (I won't say how they really worded it for fear of being suspended). But they weren't taking the stress home at night, either. It's a subjective phrase, meaningless.

Lke a "Pro" device. A meaningless term.