All iPads The iPad will never be a Mac, and the Mac will never be an iPad

[Kahnforever]

Sure, but obviously, the iPad Pros can handle the M1-M4. We’ve seen these iPads running games, LumaFusion and the like. These give us an idea what performance is like under heavy load.

Using macOS, the thermal limits of the iPad will remain the same. The iPad will likely just see throttling sooner but I doubt it’s as bad you seem to be expecting. If it were that bad, then performance on demanding iPadOS apps would be worse.




These points are moot for dual boot.

If Apple by some twist of fate allows dual booting, then macOS will be running on bare metal hardware. It won’t be subject to iPadOS memory management. It will be using macOS memory management while booted to macOS. That includes swap behavior.

I also question the veracity of the claim the iPad “SSD” is slower than MacBook “SSD”. The storage controller is just part of the M-series chipset so on the controller level, performance should be the same given the same chipset. I’m betting Apple just orders their NAND flash in bulk from multiple vendors. I doubt they’re specifically putting better NAND flash chips on the MacBook Air than on the iPad Pro.




iPadOS/iOS does lean more towards power savings. However, we’ve already seen how macOS performs on Apple silicon. Perhaps the impact on the 11” Pro (~60% battery capacity of MBA) would be pretty heavy but it shouldn’t be as bad on the 13” Pro (~80% battery capacity of MBA).

Also, there are plenty of folks who use the iPad while docked/plugged in. Concerns about battery life are a non-issue then.

P.S.
I very much prefer to use iPadOS versus macOS on the iPad precisely for the touch-optimized UI/UX and apps. With that said, I can see the value in allowing macOS on the iPad as a second operating system that a user is allowed to install themselves. I certainly don’t want macOS installed by default (either dual boot or virtualized) as it would eat up precious internal storage for many users who won’t use it. Of course, I doubt Apple would do it since that would jeopardize their Services revenue. Heck, if they can get away with it, I’m sure they’d like to implement a closed model similar to iPads on Macs.

MacBook Airs do not use flash, they use SSD like MacBook Pros. iPads use flash. Flash is materially slower than SSD which can cause performance issues on swap and this can result in more power usage and more heat.

Whatever example of an App running on an iPad is largely moot: these are done in a relative vacuum. iPadOS like iOS is fundamentally based on single card views and single task funnels. You can run an App in iPadOS and it runs that, which most of the heavy Apps are scaled down versions of Mac Apps. The iPad won’t have much going on in the background. But in MacOS, you can have lots going on in the background.

macOS, relative to iPadOS, is in many ways limitless in its multi-tasking capability but iPadOS is extremely constrained in that area.

Thermal limits on the iPad are reality. Apple doesn’t put fans in a MacBook Pro because they felt like it. It’s required to get sustained power throughput as is air intakes in a sports car with a high performance engine.

MacBook Airs throttle a lot, even with Apple silicon. Power throughput on some heavier sustained tasks can fall off of a cliff. Not so with the MacBook Pro or Studio as examples.

The iPad cannot handle macOS. What Apple has done with iPadOS is good with making virtual memory more robust allowing things like Stage Manager. But it’s a device designed to be efficient and mobile, and this limits its power and what operating system it can reasonably run.

 

[Kahnforever]

While I completely agree with everything you say, these iPads are now powerful enough to offer greater control than what iPadOS offers.

For the record, I do NOT think macOS belongs anywhere near an iPad.

But with M1, M2, and now M4 based iPads out there, the fact that iPadOS doesn't give me control over the file system with a true file manager, nor a Terminal, nor the ability to format external disks, nor true multi-user support (outside of something requiring an MDM solution and either Apple Business Manager or Apple School Manager), among several other desktop-class computing capabilities is absurd.

You can have a touch-first operating system and still have all of those features and then some without the end result being macOS on an iPad. The only "Pro" level strengths that the iPad Air and iPad Pro enjoy, if any, are entirely dependent on the app being used. The operating system itself is basically iOS with increasingly kludgy multi-tasking.

And, as an iPad mini owner, I have absolutely no problem with that.

But as an iPad Pro and iPad Air owner, I do wonder what it is that I'm supposedly buying a full-sized iPad (over a proper Mac or PC) for, other than things entailing the use of an Apple Pencil.

I agree there is room to advance iPadOS.

 

[Melbourne Park]

...

The iPad cannot handle macOS. What Apple has done with iPadOS is good with making virtual memory more robust allowing things like Stage Manager. But it’s a device designed to be efficient and mobile, and this limits its power and what operating system it can reasonably run.

The first iPad had 3 BB Ram. They can now have 16 GB RAM. And recent tests have shown no speed differences between the 8 GB version and the 16 GB of the M4 iPad. Have a browse on the internet. So the 8 GB is not yet utilised. And RAM is not a major heat issue.

And I do not actually need macOS on an iPad. What I want is to run a single MacOS application, just as it would appear inside macOS, but run it on an M4 iPad Pro with a keyboard. Multi-tasking causing disaster? Well just say to the user, that most multi-tasking is disabled when running a macOS app inside IOS. But when running the macOS app - like for instance MS Word - also have a MacOS file system for the user to see. With the ability to create folders while inside the macOS app.

Sure big apps might bring the iPad down. But heh that can happen on MacBooks, and old macs. But many would IMO work just fine. Just like running a big app on a MacBook, users know they can hit bottlenecks. For many users though, being able to run a macOS app while in IOS is what it is all about. I think that would be easy for Apple to do. And if they said it only works with 16 GB of RAM, then people would have to buy a 1 TB iPad. And Apple would make a heap on those machines. Everybody wins, including Apple.

 

[Kahnforever]

The first iPad had 3 BB Ram. They can now have 16 GB RAM. And recent tests have shown no speed differences between the 8 GB version and the 16 GB of the M4 iPad. Have a browse on the internet. So the 8 GB is not yet utilised. And RAM is not a major heat issue.

And I do not actually need macOS on an iPad. What I want is to run a single MacOS application, just as it would appear inside macOS, but run it on an M4 iPad Pro with a keyboard. Multi-tasking causing disaster? Well just say to the user, that most multi-tasking is disabled when running a macOS app inside IOS. But when running the macOS app - like for instance MS Word - also have a MacOS file system for the user to see. With the ability to create folders while inside the macOS app.

Sure big apps might bring the iPad down. But heh that can happen on MacBooks, and old macs. But many would IMO work just fine. Just like running a big app on a MacBook, users know they can hit bottlenecks. For many users though, being able to run a macOS app while in IOS is what it is all about. I think that would be easy for Apple to do. And if they said it only works with 16 GB of RAM, then people would have to buy a 1 TB iPad. And Apple would make a heap on those machines. Everybody wins, including Apple.

It’s about thermals. Yes, RAM matters but it’s only one of several things.

 

[Melbourne Park]

It’s about thermals. Yes, RAM matters but it’s only one of several things.

Sure. But that will not stop a whole lot of macOS apps from working. For instance XL, Word, Outlook, photo apps would not even work hard an M4 chip inside IOS with 16 GB RAM. Those apps work now in IOS. Those apps mostly work fine on an 8 GB macbook air. But those apps suck in IOS, and it's not due to heat constraints either. With M$, they don't want to provide the full power of their apps inside IOS. For instance in Word, an index or a table of contents is lacking. IOS file system sucks. So step around all that and allow IOS to use macOS apps inside IOS. With some restrictions and performance / heat controls.

I wonder if Apple had an app for doing that, which cost money, whether people would buy it. I would. I'd buy an M4 with 16 GB of RAM too and a keyboard, just to run that software. Apple might capture some PC folk who insist on touch screens as well. Instead, I might manually change the 10.5 iPad Pro's battery, and buy a PC notebook with a touch screen.

 

[iPadified]

It’s about thermals. Yes, RAM matters but it’s only one of several things.

If MBP could "handle" Intel CPU and AMD GPU*, the iPad Pro can "handle" MacOS. MacOS is not taxing. Apps can be.

*It cannot without excessive use of fans during intensive tasks.

 

[Kahnforever]

If MBP could "handle" Intel CPU and AMD GPU*, the iPad Pro can "handle" MacOS. MacOS is not taxing. Apps can be.

*It cannot without excessive use of fans during intensive tasks.

You just proved my point. Yes apps can be taxing. macOS runs more resource intensive apps and it can run many of them at the same time. But it is incorrect to say that macOS isn’t taxing. It is relative to iOS/iPadOS. With nothing really running for instance it will use several GB of RAM. On my MacBook Air with 24 GB of RAM, it uses 10 GB of RAM with nothing running.

 

[pdoherty]

The first iPad had 3 BB Ram. They can now have 16 GB RAM.

The first iPad had 256 MB of RAM. Not sure what a BB is, but I suspect that was a typo.

 

[pdoherty]

You just proved my point. Yes apps can be taxing. macOS runs more resource intensive apps and it can run many of them at the same time. But it is incorrect to say that macOS isn’t taxing. It is relative to iOS/iPadOS. With nothing really running for instance it will use several GB of RAM. On my MacBook Air with 24 GB of RAM, it uses 10 GB of RAM with nothing running.

That's not RAM in use - that's just the OS being piggish and setting up caches with free RAM. SQL Server on Windows does far more than that, for example, and will use *all* of the system's RAM proactively.

That doesn't mean an iPad Pro can't run it - it just means that MacOS can't pig out on more than 16GB of RAM.

 

[richpjr]

Never is a long time.

It wasn't that long ago when many people insisted that the iPad would never get mouse support because it is a tablet, and it would ruin the experience. Some insisted that if you need an external displays or external storage you needed a Mac, not an iPad. Now there are a growing number of reports that Apple is working on a touch screen Mac, which would completely wipe out the remaining arguments against it. I have no idea what Apple will do and I'm sure that they'd love to sell people both devices, but things change and iPadOS is very clearly holding certain use cases back for a number of people. I'm hoping some of them are addressed next month.

 

[bcortens]

Sure. But that will not stop a whole lot of macOS apps from working. For instance XL, Word, Outlook, photo apps would not even work hard an M4 chip inside IOS with 16 GB RAM. Those apps work now in IOS. Those apps mostly work fine on an 8 GB macbook air. But those apps suck in IOS, and it's not due to heat constraints either. With M$, they don't want to provide the full power of their apps inside IOS. For instance in Word, an index or a table of contents is lacking. IOS file system sucks. So step around all that and allow IOS to use macOS apps inside IOS. With some restrictions and performance / heat controls.

I wonder if Apple had an app for doing that, which cost money, whether people would buy it. I would. I'd buy an M4 with 16 GB of RAM too and a keyboard, just to run that software. Apple might capture some PC folk who insist on touch screens as well. Instead, I might manually change the 10.5 iPad Pro's battery, and buy a PC notebook with a touch screen.

Posts like this inadvertently highlight the negative incentives to developers if Apple brings macOS apps to iPad. If users are just going to run Mac apps then why would companies put the effort into making iPad apps? This could easily induce a death spiral with respect to productivity software on iPad.

 

[Digitalguy]

Posts like this inadvertently highlight the negative incentives to developers of Apple brings macOS apps to iPad. If users are just going to run Mac apps then why would companies put the effort into making iPad apps? This could easily induce a death spiral with respect to productivity software on iPad.

Absolutely, that's the true argument, not that the iPad pro is not capable of running MacOS

 

[Cirillo Gherardo]

Sure, but obviously, the iPad Pros can handle the M1-M4. We’ve seen these iPads running games, LumaFusion and the like. These give us an idea what performance is like under heavy load.

Using macOS, the thermal limits of the iPad will remain the same. The iPad will likely just see throttling sooner but I doubt it’s as bad you seem to be expecting. If it were that bad, then performance on demanding iPadOS apps would be worse.




These points are moot for dual boot.

If Apple by some twist of fate allows dual booting, then macOS will be running on bare metal hardware. It won’t be subject to iPadOS memory management. It will be using macOS memory management while booted to macOS. That includes swap behavior.

I also question the veracity of the claim the iPad “SSD” is slower than MacBook “SSD”. The storage controller is just part of the M-series chipset so on the controller level, performance should be the same given the same chipset. I’m betting Apple just orders their NAND flash in bulk from multiple vendors. I doubt they’re specifically putting better NAND flash chips on the MacBook Air than on the iPad Pro.




iPadOS/iOS does lean more towards power savings. However, we’ve already seen how macOS performs on Apple silicon. Perhaps the impact on the 11” Pro (~60% battery capacity of MBA) would be pretty heavy but it shouldn’t be as bad on the 13” Pro (~80% battery capacity of MBA).

Also, there are plenty of folks who use the iPad while docked/plugged in. Concerns about battery life are a non-issue then.

P.S.
I very much prefer to use iPadOS versus macOS on the iPad precisely for the touch-optimized UI/UX and apps. With that said, I can see the value in allowing macOS on the iPad as a second operating system that a user is allowed to install themselves. I certainly don’t want macOS installed by default (either dual boot or virtualized) as it would eat up precious internal storage for many users who won’t use it. Of course, I doubt Apple would do it since that would jeopardize their Services revenue. Heck, if they can get away with it, I’m sure they’d like to implement a closed model similar to iPads on Macs.

Do you also question the fact that iPad hardware is designed from the ground up to run iPadOS? It is not designed to run macOS from the ground up. Macs are.

 

[Kahnforever]

Sure. But that will not stop a whole lot of macOS apps from working. For instance XL, Word, Outlook, photo apps would not even work hard an M4 chip inside IOS with 16 GB RAM. Those apps work now in IOS. Those apps mostly work fine on an 8 GB macbook air. But those apps suck in IOS, and it's not due to heat constraints either. With M$, they don't want to provide the full power of their apps inside IOS. For instance in Word, an index or a table of contents is lacking. IOS file system sucks. So step around all that and allow IOS to use macOS apps inside IOS. With some restrictions and performance / heat controls.

I wonder if Apple had an app for doing that, which cost money, whether people would buy it. I would. I'd buy an M4 with 16 GB of RAM too and a keyboard, just to run that software. Apple might capture some PC folk who insist on touch screens as well. Instead, I might manually change the 10.5 iPad Pro's battery, and buy a PC notebook with a touch screen.

Going around in circles here. People need to stop using examples of running A APP. macOS is fully dynamic and virtually unlimited in its multi-tasking framework. iOS and iPadOS are not. They are extremely limited from a multi-tasking standpoint because the operating systems are designed for mobile, battery first devices, and devices that have very limited thermal envelopes. It's one thing to run a game, or run Microsoft Word and work on a document. It's another thing to do this driving two large high resolution monitors, with Final Cut Pro working in the background exporting an uncompressed 8 K project, with 25 GB of music being imported into iTunes, 57 tabs in Safari open that don't shut down needing to be reloaded, a project being exported from Logic, along with a host of other things... all at the same time.

When it comes to the idea of running a macOS application on iPad, I don't see the point because the iPad is a touch-first device, not a device designed for precise point and click. Just use a Mac, you get all of the multi-touch gestures at your fingertips on the trackpad and it is much more efficient to use multi-touch like that then raise your ape arms and smear your meaty fingers all over a screen every time you need to select a hit target. Mac app UIs also make no sense on smaller screen iPads as the hit targets are small and the screens on the smaller iPads are just not big enough.

 

[Rafterman]

I've never seen so many people argue for less features and not more.

 

[Nikhil72]

I've never seen so many people argue for less features and not more.

It’s because people are trying to pigeonhole heavy duty multitasking into a device designed for limited focused use cases. Not everyone needs multitasking power of a Mac! And for those who do, the mac has been in vigorous revival mode for the past few years since the Mx chips arrived.

 

[ericwn]

Do you also question the fact that iPad hardware is designed from the ground up to run iPadOS? It is not designed to run macOS from the ground up. Macs are.

It is designed for what Apple had at the time. iPads were launched with iOS, which is build onto the same foundation as Mac OS X, at least that’s how SJ put it back then. iPad OS is a bit more recent as a dedicated development path for that platform.

 

[ericwn]

It’s because people are trying to pigeonhole heavy duty multitasking into a device designed for limited focused use cases. Not everyone needs multitasking power of a Mac! And for those who do, the mac has been in vigorous revival mode for the past few years since the Mx chips arrived.

Are you basically saying there is no need for the iPad Pro line then or is that just a fancier display for you?

 

[Nikhil72]

Are you basically saying there is no need for the iPad Pro line then or is that just a fancier display for you?

1. I can afford it and value the higher end display
2. I work exclusively from an iPad and the keyboard and mouse help tremendously
3. I have a 14” MBP; I use it once a month at most for the rare instance I hit a roadblock with my iPad.

I value promotion and OLED and the lighter weight. The speed is a perk.

And again, let the consumer speak. My personal take? I had no problem spending $2k on this cycle.

 

[ericwn]

1. I can afford it and value the higher end display
2. I work exclusively from an iPad and the keyboard and mouse help tremendously
3. I have a 14” MBP; I use it once a month at most for the rare instance I hit a roadblock with my iPad.

I value promotion and OLED and the lighter weight. The speed is a perk.

And again, let the consumer speak. My personal take? I had no problem spending $2k on this cycle.

Got you.
1) unlikely to resonate to a wider audience outside of us enthusiasts but that’s the fate of the entire pro line
2) sure thing they do as productivity always see improvements if you improve the quality of input
3) yeah most of us hit the roadblocks at some stage. They made sure they are few but present to sell that other computing device.

And again of course the consumer will speak. That’s why the pro line costs more, it cannot articulate value outside of the core sales pitch for the majority of regular users hence you need to pay through your nose for the slightly better specs.

 

[Nikhil72]

Got you.
1) unlikely to resonate to a wider audience outside of us enthusiasts but that’s the fate of the entire pro line
2) sure thing they do as productivity always see improvements if you improve the quality of input
3) yeah most of us hit the roadblocks at some stage. They made sure they are few but present to sell that other computing device.

And again of course the consumer will speak. That’s why the pro line costs more, it cannot articulate value outside of the core sales pitch for the majority of regular users hence you need to pay through your nose for the slightly better specs.

That’s true of almost every high end configuration. How many non techies or niche pros are maxing out MBPs rather than MBAs? Mac studios?

 

[Cirillo Gherardo]

It is designed for what Apple had at the time. iPads were launched with iOS, which is build onto the same foundation as Mac OS X, at least that’s how SJ put it back then. iPad OS is a bit more recent as a dedicated development path for that platform.

No, they are still designed, hardware and software, for each other to date. First one, and latest one equally.

 

[Cirillo Gherardo]

It’s because people are trying to pigeonhole heavy duty multitasking into a device designed for limited focused use cases. Not everyone needs multitasking power of a Mac! And for those who do, the mac has been in vigorous revival mode for the past few years since the Mx chips arrived.

It's really just a bunch of people who are attracted to iPad, don't really know why, and wish they could run macOS on it so they would have some justification to buy it. Meanwhile plenty of people justify it just fine. And those people have to stand by and listen to the other people tear them down for buying something that can't run macOS. It's seriously like this is 2010, and there isn't already 14 years of history of iPad success at being an iPad.

 

[Cirillo Gherardo]

Never is a long time.

It wasn't that long ago when many people insisted that the iPad would never get mouse support because it is a tablet, and it would ruin the experience. Some insisted that if you need an external displays or external storage you needed a Mac, not an iPad. Now there are a growing number of reports that Apple is working on a touch screen Mac, which would completely wipe out the remaining arguments against it. I have no idea what Apple will do and I'm sure that they'd love to sell people both devices, but things change and iPadOS is very clearly holding certain use cases back for a number of people. I'm hoping some of them are addressed next month.

This is a stretch of the imagination, and a lack of understanding of where things come from. iPad has mouse support because it has keyboard support. Keyboard support was the essential thing. People can't write long email or word documents (things iPad can do just fine without needing a different OS) without a physical keyboard. But if you're going to embrace keyboard, you need a trackpad/mouse to go along with it, because physical keyboard + touch sucks. So Apple added a unique and cursory track pad support in order to give you something to use while using the keyboard. Understanding the reasons behind things are important, so that you don't use them to fuel fantasies that were never intended.

 

[ericwn]

No, they are still designed, hardware and software, for each other to date. First one, and latest one equally.

Since the same SOC is thrown into other products that is a moot point of course.