How is it Apple's fault that Microsoft gimps Word for iPad? As you point out, even the Mac version is missing features. Microsoft just doesn't prioritize the non-Windows versions of Microsoft 365. However, as others have pointed out, if you use OneDrive, it does have a "file system" that works similar to how it does in Windows.
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All iPads The iPad will never be a Mac, and the Mac will never be an iPad
- Thread starter Kahnforever
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How is it Apple's fault that Microsoft gimps Word for iPad? As you point out, even the Mac version is missing features. Microsoft just doesn't prioritize the non-Windows versions of Microsoft 365. However, as others have pointed out, if you use OneDrive, it does have a "file system" that works similar to how it does in Windows.
Apple has worked on a touchscreen Mac since 1990. I’ve seen and used the prototypes as I am friends with a well known Apple fellow Engineer and he was the lead on those projects at the time and has prototype units still.
Apple will not launch a touchscreen Mac unless there is some wild tech that can turn a Mac laptop into a tablet first experience.
But why wouldn't it just mean that developers write in a common framework going forward that creates an app that can run under *either* environment. In the iPad case it runs without window gadgets... and in the Mac case, with those gadgets. In both cases they'd work with the same filesystem (iPad would have a simulated or duplicated Home directory and Library structure, etc).
Same app for both environments using the same development framework and libraries would seem the way forward.
How is an iPad more designed to be "run off battery alone" than a laptop? When both can be plugged in and run off wall power?
You have to factor in just how different the UIs have to be. One for touch first, the other for precise point and click.
Apple will need to have new design languages and design patterns for applications to morph back and forth between paradigms AUTOMATICALLY and where that design conforms to development standards and policies and design languages. It would have to be a new, ground up approach and macOS and Mac apps would have a new overall design that makes them more amenable to morphing into a design that works for touch-first.
It’s not an issue to write one application in Swift and have it run on both Mac and iOS/iPadOS. The elephant in the room is the front-end design.
I have thought for years that Apple should try and create one operating system that will morph for Macs and iOS devices. It would be a very radical new approach with a new look and feel and where AI and automation are heavily baked in. The apps would follow and going from one paradigm to another would no longer be so jarring.
There is no wild tech needed - it's an operating system. The rumors are it would retain a traditional laptop design with a trackpad and a keyboard, but the display would gain support for touch input like an iPhone or iPad. It could be released as soon as next year.
Never is a long time.
I’m not saying macOS should run on the iPad. I personally prefer iPadOS precisely for its touch-optimized UI/UX.
I’m just saying there are no hardware limitations that prevent macOS from running on M-series iPad Pros. Not a good experience certainly but doable if one can live with using purely keyboard + mouse/trackpad input and a shorter battery life.
I have to agree with Kahnforever on this, the UI are too different for it to be realistic. Still I think that many people would be totally fine with an app that is not optimized for touch and that would require a keyboard and trackpad to be used. Something like Davinci resolve is very poorly optimized for touch, but I am ok with that. I think many would be ok with using a MK to use those apps.
The iPad is an extension to the Mac. I think Apple is right about this. I like the simplicity of the iPad OS. It needs a bit more time for maturity, especially in the files management. Also, the apps need to play catch up with the Mac version.
Stop thinking you know what Apple is going to do. They have been working on a Holodeck for 20 years. Apple will never do what you're saying because they are distinct devices. This isn't an argument, it's a fact, and they continue to publicly state as such as well.
I don't pretend to know what Apple is going to do, unlike others on here. Rumors from people far more connected than you or I say a touch screen Mac could come out as soon as next year. Never is a long time.
I'm the one that has actual connections into senior people from Apple, past and present. I've held and used Apple prototypes that have never been seen before. I'm not saying I know everything, but the fact that people just keep spinning and tripping over their own flawed logic and twisted understanding of hardware, software, and design is getting old. I'm not saying you're squarely in that camp, it's more of a broad statement.
We have seen what happens when a company tries to make a swiss army knife device: the MS Surface tablet. It's not a great tablet and it's not a great laptop. Apple's MacBooks are great laptops and Apple's iPads are great tablets. They are clearly distinct and must be. The Surface is heavy, has fans, and has a crap interface. You could say that they should have a mobile and desktop operating system switch capability, but it still imposes hardware design requirements making the tablet thicker and heavier. It causes a compromise to enable a device to run a full blown desktop operating system.
I also question why people ask for this. If you want a Mac, use a Mac that is designed for it. Throw the iPad in your bag and get the best tablet experience outside of the Mac. Having two distinct devices is better than having a lawn mower with wings. It's not just that Apple wants you to buy more than one device. That's a benefit to Apple, sure. It's that each class of device is best left on its own and designed distinctly for its purpose.
An analogy serves. A mechanic doesn't just have one tool, they have multiple tools. Trying to put all tools into one tool doesn't work, and even if you can get by with it, it compromises the tool in various ways. In this way, I will also suggest that people need to drop this idea that they only want one tool, and accept that there are different tools, each being purpose built to be the best at a particular job.
Plato and his forms serves to also illustrate. In Plato's forms, everything in the world has some perfect archetype. A perfect form of a chair. A perfect form of a shoe, etc. The forms are like the perfect blueprint of reality, and everything is trying to achieve perfection.
There is a perfect form of a laptop, and a perfect form of a tablet...
No doubt the Apple version ticks most boxes. Except for price I guess.
But the new Surface laps - I think I'll buy one for my wife. They are light (but a bit heavier than MacBook) but they have an OLED option and all have touch screens, better battery life, faster on the specs, better priced, have a slot for upgrading the hard drive, and an agreement with iFixit for self service. (I'll check on the weight and add that to this description via an edit.) Don't know much about the surface pro ( thought to be called the 11) with its removable keyboard. Except that the keyboard has batteries, and that it's expensive. And the tablet bit will do 14 hours of video. WiFi 7 too. And two T-4 ports.
I don't like that Apple is so focused on its profit, rather than its customers.
- I love my ultra watch (although its speaker is not as load as my previous watch) but I hate that I have to have my iPhone Max tied to it. I should be able to setup that watch with any phone or computer.
- I see no reason at all that 120Hz screens should not operate on a base model iPad. And hence the Air models. At least Microsoft with their Surfaces provides 120 Hz on both LCD and OLED screen choices.
- And does it matter than the OS is clumsy on Windows palettes, when the devices as you point out, are mostly used for browsing the internet and reading mail when on the go?
Fact is we can get used to clumsy OS architecture. I get annoyed when Apple out of the blue, changed the System Settings to an iPad layout ( a device I do not even use). Apple seemed to think everyone who has a Mac must surely have an iPad. Because that's in their business model. Sorry, I don't like that. And Apple is changing the System settings again. At least Windows has kept that key layout much the same for a very long time. They may be cludgy but the devil you know ...
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OH I agree with you 100% there. I did business plans for a bank on Mac - along with a PC - (one of only a few Macs in the whole large organisation) because it had Excel. 1988. The IT guys stole it from marketing for me. At that time, one could draw bar chart graphs, and then in the Macs drawing program, you could easily select each bar chart block, copy and paste them so that you could line them up as you liked. Very handy for demonstrating relative profit for each product line. Nowadays the charts cannot be picked apart (or I don't know how to). But it was intuitive to do on a disc based Mac back then. Word seemed easier to use back then too. You could move graphics around, and they'd stay where you put them. No learning required, it was as easy as looking at it. That was 1988. Windows didn't work then. I remember how much faster Excel was on the Mac than in Windows 3 a bit later on. And I remember when the Intel 486 came out, Microsoft cobbled the Mac's Excel, causing it to run at under half the speed of Excel running on Windows v3. And that nowadays most people think that Word and Excel were invented inside Windows.
The silly thing is that if there was a virtual app for IOS that allowed a Windows app to work in IOS, then surely all the apps that suck on IOS would be upgraded to work as well as they would inside a Windows virtual space. But there's no such app, so why should MS bother? They've won the PC business war anyhow and Apple gave that up years ago with PCs, except for a couple of design music niches. But the iPad and the iPhone is used in business a lot. Which is why I guess Windows sabotage their apps on it.
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Actually it’s more like buying Lawn Mower A, which actually is as powerful as Lawn Mower B, but which has firmware that prevents it somehow from cutting grass of a certain height for “power efficiency reasons” (in other words, so the company can get you to buy two lawn mowers instead).
So no, not at all like asking a lawn mower to have wings.
How about a sedan and van from the same manufacturer share the same engine? The sedan holds 5 passengers while the van can accommodate 8. The sedan also gets better gas mileage. Or possibly a sports car also shares the engine, seats 2 adults at best, and unlike the sedan or van can’t tow a trailer.
It’s not a difference in hardware but software that is an issue. So actually it’s more like having two cars of a fairly similar build and size, but one has firmware that artificially makes it able to run only up to a certain speed, even though it can go much more.
It's more like this: Lawn Mower A... has no air intakes or engine cooling fans, is less width than Lawn Mower B, has a thinner chassis than Lawn Mower B with all of its internal sandwiched together, has a smaller fuel tank than Lawn Mower B, Lawn Mower A also has to be held with two hands and floated over the lawn to cut it as it has no wheels and is not self-propelled. Lawn Mower A is meant to be as portable as possible and Lawn Mower B is focused on more power output and better productivity. Lawn Mower B is wider than Lawn Mower A, Lawn Mower B has wheels and air intakes along with cooling fans, it is self-propelled, has a relatively large fuel tank, and has a thicker chassis with its core internal components separated from certain engine components for better cooling.
While the engine is the same/similar, Lawn Mower B is faster at cutting grass because its cutting swath is wider, it’s self-propelled, and its sustained power output is higher than Lawn Mower A as it has better thermals for cooling. Lawn Mower A throttles and limits its sustained power output more because it doesn't have the thermals to support the kind of sustained power output compared to Lawn Mower B. Furthermore, with less power output, that causes the speed of the cutting blade to be slower, causing the cutting to be slower.
Lawn Mower A will never be the same as Lawn Mower B, and vice versa. They are distinctly designed and the design of Lawn Mower A necessarily limits what its power output is. And even if it could have the same power output, its missing key things that Lawn Mower B has...
The iPad is a thin slab of glass, that's it. The MacBook is two pieces: a relatively large screen and a bottom base where all of the internals are along with a physical keyboard. The bottom base provides a large foundation for a heat sink and fans and for that heat to be radiated in multiple directions to dissipate. The iPad has all of its internals sandwiched against the screen in what must be a very thin package by design as it's a tablet first that needs to be held in the hands for longer periods of time.
Size matters, in many respects, and that includes screen by necessity. The smaller the screen, the less precise desktop interfaces make sense. That means macOS makes no sense on an iPhone: the screen is too small. macOS makes no sense on the iPad Mini: the screen is too small. macOS makes little sense on the 11" iPad Pro or iPad Air: the screen is too small. macOS could work on the 13" iPad Pro in terms of screen size, but then you are stuck with a tablet design, and the thermals and its screen's aspect ratio and all of the thermal issues, reduced battery size, etc. come into play.
On the software front, macOS provides for better productivity due to things like much more information that can be presented per square inch of screen because of precision inputs and screen size: e.g., contextual menus in software applications, tool palettes with many options in a small area, etc. It's more efficient to interact with. Yes, you can get a MKB with the iPad, but you're still going to be stuck with a smaller screen, less precision input... all leading to reduced productivity/reducing the amount of information that can be displayed on screen.
The iPad is distinct as a tablet first, and for good reason. The MacBooks are distinct as laptops, and for good reason.
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That is for sure a possibility to connect apps to MK usage but it is a risky approach. People write reviews and an app may very rapidly be shot down by having a poor UI for touch on an iPad while working excellently with the MK. We will need some labels on these apps such as "optimised for MK" or even better that you can buy them only when the MK is connected.
However, the criticism will be that you need to buy an MK with a rather hefty priced to use an app on iPad. The versatility of the iPad (MK, pencil etc) makes app design and market placement difficult. One solution would be that the UI and perhaps the feature list of an app automatically changes when connected to the MK but that will be a very costly business in terms of app development.
to be honest in this case I think you are overthinking it. People were very happy to see virtually full Davinci Resolve being ported to iPad, I didn't see any criticism and you can just use a bluetooth mouse and keyboard for those things were touch is not great. All the reviews I watched were very positive.
have you considered that maybe I don’t want two different f’in lawnmowers in my garage?
You will live to see this false.
You will see things like full desk sized ipads, the insides are essentially the same, the UI will adapt to form factor.
It could, but what will happen is that essentially the apps will be the same the UI will just morph depending on whether the platform is running as a touch platform or with a keyboand and mouse - OR on VisionOS.
The back end code that drives the application logic can hook up to whatever UI.
If you’re thinking this is just ipadOS vs macOS you’re missing the point. The apps will work on any apple platform eventually.
I think along the same lines. Forever is a long time when change is the one thing we can be certain of in life.
And hey I don’t even need to claim behind the scenes knowledge to state that.
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