iPad Pro Majority of iPad users don't need MacOS

[Iwavvns]

• There's such a thing as statistical significance in polling. Only a subset of a group is needed for a good idea of a statistic within the larger group.

• Do you recall reading the short overview about your device information when using an Apple ID? https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-id/

I'm not versed in statistics, so bear with me.. I hope to learn something. As to your first point, which subset of the group was used in the article? Does the author use a subset that supports a particular agenda? Did the author also take into account use cases? Subject ages? Content creation? Education level? These are some of the things that I feel many people don't think about when seeing the results of a poll/study. Can you see how easy it is to skew the results, or choose a flashy title that grabs your attention, of a poll/study to steer society?

I once saw a study that pointed to sugar being the cause of obesity. It turned out that the subjects of the study were all overweight and out of shape. Well, if you're going to poll overweight couch potatoes then it would appear that sugar causes obesity. However, if you poll athletes and ask if they eat sugary foods then it would appear that sugar isn't the cause of obesity as those people are in much better physical shape. I know weightlifters and runners who eat gummy bears, which are mostly sugar, yet those people aren't obese.

When a study/poll is done what we need to know is the subjects ages, use cases, education levels, habits, etc. for the study/poll. Otherwise one can create results to mean anything they want by choosing subjects or subsets for a study that support an agenda. I have a housemate who has an iPad 10th gen and it has replaced her MacBook Air M1 - this was why she sold her MBA to me.. I don't like iPadOS. If you polled myself and my housemate then you would come to the conclusion that iPadOS may or may not be able to replace macOS. If you used just my housemate as a subset of the group then you could say iPadOS can indeed replace macOS.

I hope I am making sense here, please forgive my errors if that is not the case. Perhaps I am thinking too critically?

 

[rillrill]

Not sure, but, personally, I could replace most of my computing needs with an iPad. However, there are tasks that are just cumbersome on an iPad. Files in particular. And there are tasks that sometimes iPads just straight up won’t let you do. Personally, I just don’t see the point in an iPad Pro if they aren’t going to address the roadblocks and operating system based on constraints from 10 years ago. If it has a chip more powerful than a MacBook Pro, and costs as much or more than an actual laptop, it should have 0 constraints.

I truly want an M4 iPad Pro, but Apple can’t take my money until it fixes that software.

Otherwise, just have “iPad” and called it a day.

Of course, this is all, just like, my opinion, man.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Give me a Finder type file management with better window multitasking and I would be happier with iPadOS.

 

[KPOM]

There are a few things that are ridiculously easy on a Mac but difficult on an iPad such as “printing” to a PDF file or browsing files. If Apple fixed them most of the “iPad should run macOS“ complaints would go away.

 

[Iwavvns]

Give me a Finder type file management with better window multitasking and I would be happier with iPadOS.

This! These are the two main reasons I currently don't own an iPad. I do understand the differences between a touch-based OS and a cursor-based OS, but surely these two areas on iPadOS could benefit from improvement.

 

[Sheepish-Lord]

Most Mac customers also own an iPad? Where is that information coming from? I don't recall him ever asking me and I didn't participate in a poll I wonder how many other people he interviewed.. or rather didn't interview. Does he have access to everyone's iCloud accounts? If you think about this it appears that he is making an assumption. Agenda perhaps? Or am I missing something? If he is making a baseless assumption can we really trust the entirety of the article?

Not to say that the statements aren’t completely made it up but it’s plausible Apple knows based on your AppleID as the devices are added to your account. Almost positive Apple would have access to that data.

 

[Starfia]

I'm not versed in statistics, so bear with me.. I hope to learn something. As to your first point, which subset of the group was used in the article? Does the author use a subset that supports a particular agenda? Did the author also take into account use cases? Subject ages? Content creation? Education level? … Perhaps I am thinking too critically?

Well, I'm all for prudent skepticism, and I think those are useful considerations for polls, and even more important for scientific studies where the experimenter's hopes and reasons for conducting the study might creep somehow into the results. (Hence placebos, double-blind trials, independent facilities, and so on.) There's also the possibility that many people who take polls are simply failing to answer accurately, or that polls are entirely fabricated. You needn't believe polls at all. You needn't believe anything you read at all. In context, perhaps the question is whether a poll, with some degree of accuracy that may still not achieve perfect correlation with the truth, is better than no poll.

I don't know how accurate the is the poll in question, and I haven't read the article. Previously, I was replying specifically to your point that Apple hadn't polled you personally, as though that would have been a requirement for a poll of any validity, and mentioning statistical significance as the relevant term. Feel free to look it up.

 

[cmbarclay]

I replaced my laptop years ago with an iPad. It's my travel companion and go to device. I do have a Mac desktop in my office but I travel all the time and my iPad with iPadOS is perfect.

 

[iPadified]

Interesting statement "Most Mac users have an iPad" and I am not sure this is true looking around the campus. As iPad outsell Macs about 2:1 so this is certainly possible.

If this is true there are at least three groups of Mac/iPad users:
-those who want the iPad for consumption and likely choses iPad because it is an iPad including the iPadOS. This group are not interesting in MacOS because it gives very little value to consumption.
-those who need iPad professionally (artists, teachers etc) for some part of their profession. Speaking from my own experience, MacOS is not good in teaching situation as a Mac/MacOS is not good for drawing and walking around students doing group work.
-those who want one device that does it all. I wonder how large this group is in reality as the first two groups are likely rather large.

A poll should at least include these segmentations.

 

[richard371]

I don’t want or need Mac OS on my iPad I just want full Mac apps.

 

[aakshey]

I would love to have a single foldable hybrid that runs both OS versions

But I don’t mind the current arrangement of having a basic MBA along with an high end iPad Pro

 

[Starfia]

I would love to have a single foldable hybrid that runs both OS versions

But I don’t mind the current arrangement of having a basic MBA along with an high end iPad Pro

Perhaps if a MacBook and an iPad were placed together beneath a massive hydraulic press.

 

[fw85]

The iPad doesn't need macOS. The iPad needs its own touch-first OS worthy of its power. There has to be a way of unchaining the device for professionals without making it yet another unusable tablet-with-desktop-OS abomination. We've had a good share of those, and it never ends well.

The current state won't do, not when the latest iPads literally outperform like half their Mac lineup right now. I hope that Apple realizes this and one day iPadOS becomes what it needs to be.

 

[Isengardtom]

The majority of iPad users with keyboards need MacOS.

Nope

not me. And I use my Pro with the keyboard about 1/3 of the time if not more.

Give me more MacOS features on the iPad, definitely. support the development of some more powerful software, absolutely. Bring apps like X code to the platform, yes please.


But I absolutely don’t need MacOS on my iPad. I actually don’t like MacOS.

 

[ManuCH]

I think this is actually true. I own both a Mac and an iPad. And no, I don't need nor want macOS on my iPad. I only need macOS on my Mac to do some of my work. But other than that? I don't find macOS particularly pleasing to use. It's practical, but as I find iPadOS way nicer, honestly.

My wish is that Apple develops iPadOS more and makes it evolve with some more powerful features.

I use my iPad with a keyboard as a "mini laptop", and I absolutely love it and enjoy it. Also, I did try to "run macOS on the iPad" by connecting to a Mac from the iPad. The experience is absolutely horrible. macOS is not made for iPads.

 

[Abazigal]

We never have (needed nor wanted macOS on an iPad).

In fact, I am not sure if the people clamouring for it even believe it themselves, or if it's just their latest attempt at stirring crap.

 

[fw85]

We never have (needed nor wanted macOS on an iPad).

In fact, I am not sure if the people clamouring for it even believe it themselves, or if it's just their latest attempt at stirring crap.

Those people are missing the point and failing to realize what is actually needed here. And it sure as hell isn't slapping a desktop OS into a tablet.

We need Apple to stop treating iPadOS with minimum-effort improvements. This needs emphasis again: the damn thing now outperforms over half their Mac lineup. And it deserves a powerful and flexible touch-first OS.

 

[Abazigal]

Those people are missing the point and failing to realize what is actually needed here. And it sure as hell isn't slapping a desktop OS into a tablet.

We need Apple to stop treating iPadOS with minimum-effort improvements. This needs emphasis again: the damn thing now outperforms over half their Mac lineup. And it deserves a powerful and flexible touch-first OS.

I have actually always felt that the main issue wasn't so much the OS, but that developers, for one reason or another, are not creating desktop-class apps for the iPad. They are instead content for the iPad versions of their apps to just be blown up versions of their smartphone apps.

After all, what exactly does macOS do that needs more than 8gb of ram? Nothing much, except to run more powerful apps like Final Cut Pro, Photoshop and Lightroom.

Maybe it's a monetisation issue, maybe there really are constraints with what their apps can do on iPadOS, maybe it's simply a lack of interest in the platform overall. I see it with Zoom, with Google's apps, even development for Lumafusion seems to have stalled of late.

Perhaps Apple could be reaching out to these companies to see how they can further level up their apps, but I don't think it's something simply rejigging iPadOS will resolve.

 

[Rafterman]

Not sure how other people know what I need or don't need.

 

[richpjr]

Not sure how other people know what I need or don't need.

Bingo.

 

[subjonas]

"The fact is that the majority of Mac customers have an iPad, and they use them both"

So for the majority of people there is no need to run Mac OS on the iPad locally, as the majority use their Mac's for that.

It's a vocal minority who won't buy an iPad because it doesn't run Mac OS locally in the end.

While I would personally bet your conclusion is true, I don’t see this particular evidence leading to that conclusion. Joswiak”s quote tells us that most Mac users have an iPad, but it doesn’t tell us that most iPad users have a Mac. Therefore we can’t know from this quote whether or not most iPadOS users have access to macOS, only the other way around.
I would venture to guess that most iPad users have access to a desktop OS, either macOS or Windows, but I don’t have any data or a quote from Apple to prove it.

 

[subjonas]

They also didn't need large screen phones or styluses like Apple Pencil, either. Until they did. Apple also didn't need folding devices. Until the first one come out in a year or two 🙄

Of your list of things Apple went back on, I would only agree with large phones. We can be pretty sure from the context of Jobs’ quote that the current Pencil isn’t really the type of stylus function that he was denigrating. And I don’t recall Apple ever taking a stance on foldable phones one way or another.
But your point still stands, given enough reason (such as overwhelming market pressure as in the case of large phones) Apple can change position.

 

[dumastudetto]

I don’t want or need Mac OS on my iPad I just want full Mac apps.

Tell that to the developers of Mac applications you want fully running on iPadOS. You are exactly right, it's very possible for them to do what you want within the confines of iPadOS. That they choose not to do so is a decision for them to explain.

 

[transmaster]

I have been into computers for about 50 years. I literally witnessed the raise of personal computing since the very beginning. My first Apple Computer was the 1984 Apple II. I didn't run the software I needed so it was off to Microsoft Disc Operating System. My return to Apple was with an iPod Touch 2G, in 2008, You can see in my banner the succession from one device to the next.

This argument of what you need and don't need is meaningless. Things all changed for me when I setup my Mac Studio M1 Max. I already by then been through a number of iPhones. What put love lights in my eyes I was when I booted up the Mac Studio my iPhone notified me it had detected the Mac and did I want it to continue its setup. Only a person who has gone through setting up a Windows machine for the first time can really appreciate this. It was the same for my new iPad the iPhone detected it and set it up for me. The point is because The Mac, iphone, iPad, and at least with the iPhone the Apple Watch, with the AirPod Pro's doing their thing the whole system works as a unified set. iOS doesn't have a true file system but paired with a Mac its files are on the Mac computer. In my case with my present setup I have no interesting in a MacBook Pro.

 

[subjonas]

Lol the majority have a Mac AND iPad purely because Apple deliberately crippled iPads through its OS. Otherwise that would NOT be the case.
Also not many really want Mac OS on an iPad, we want a better more pro version of iPad OS, a full proper file management system would be nice for one.

By deliberately, I assume you mean artificially (slimmed down software for the sake of selling more devices). I don’t know how completely artificial it is when the iPad has less thermal capacity and battery capacity than an equivalent screen-sized MacBook, which means software features have to be slimmed down accordingly. And one restriction iPadOS has is it has to work well on 8” - 13” screens, while the smallest screen macOS has to make sense on is 13”. On top of that, I think touch inherently doesn’t lend itself to feature-rich UIs and workflows due to ergonomics and requiring large touch targets. But maybe the main reason the state of iPadOS doesn’t seem to be only about squeezing the Mac customer, is that it seems pretty clear Apple wants the iPad to cater to the common everyday person first, and then as many pros and techies as it can secondarily after that. As long as they satisfy the majority of their target market, it wouldn’t make sense to completely change things or spend too much time adding things too few people demand. Of course, we don’t have all the numbers, but we can say this is probably the case based on what we know of sales numbers, market share, and satisfaction rates.

Apple not wanting to cannibalize sales maybe or probably plays some role, but based on what is observable it seems an unreasonable to pin it solely on that.