iPad Why does iPadOS not feel like true OS?

[Arctic Moose]

A lot of these honestly sound like an app issue, as opposed to an OS issue. Sure, the built-in mail app could be better, but then again - you do have 3rd party alternatives.

Mail could be much better for all of Apple's platforms, but I think it is telling that Mail for iPadOS lacks parity with Mail for macOS, even for features that have nothing to do with the interface or how you'd expect the device to be used. Why does Apple not believe their mobile OS users deserve rules, especially considering they have already implemented the functionality for Mac and icloud.com?

The iPadOS lack of smart albums in Photos is much, much worse. Replacing the first-party photo app is a pretty significant step for most users.

The iPad is a "post-PC era" device (and Steve was spot on with this vision), trying to bend the iPad backwards to do computing the same way it was done in 1998 is like trying to put a saddle on top of a car, hoping that it becomes a horse.

I do not want macOS on iPad. Ever.

While this may be true (although I disagree) it certainly does not qualify the iPad to represent anything even remotely approximating a "post-PC era". Even Apple realized this now, and PC versus tablet sales figures confirms it...

forums.macrumors.com

If we're talking work related computing, then yes the iPad is not a replacement for every single professional out there and won't cover every single workflow, support every single specialized software and interface with every single piece of external hardware you might need. And that's OK, it's not meant to do that.

And this would be fine, if Apple would just give us a small and light device that we could use instead. I am still amazed that Apple released the 12" MacBook in 2015 despite the limitations of the available Intel processors, and haven't revisited the concept four years into the AS transition.

What you meant to say is that bootcampers that jumped on the software dev bandwagon are going to get replaced by a single proper senior dev with a ratio of like 10:1
Then I agree with you, as coding =/= software engineering. Anyone can code, not anyone can deliver actual production-worthy, well designed, secure and maintainable solutions tailored to specific needs. Writing code is the tip of the iceberg.

👍👍

 

[Ludatyk]

I never claimed it is not possible to create and publish an app with an iPad, but there's a good reason the environment provided to do so is called "Playgrounds".

Wait a min... if I recall correctly your words were "coding, compiling, debugging, installing, testing and distributing," is that not creating and publishing an app?

I get it you want macOS on an iPad or some macOS-like features, but you do know that Apple sells Mac hardware? Matter fact, they sell more variations of Macs than iPads.

 

[Arctic Moose]

Wait a min... if I recall correctly your words were "coding, compiling, debugging, installing, testing and distributing," is that not creating and publishing an app?

Here are my words.

How about coding, compiling, debugging, installing, testing and distributing a full-featured native app for the platform?

If there is a Pixelmator Pro, a Linea or anything reasonably complex that is cross-platform developed with Swift Playgrounds I'd love to know. Last time I checked Swift Playgrounds didn't even have a debugger, and git integration, library management and the features you can use (such as CloudKit) were severely limited.

Swift Playgrounds is fun and useful, but full-featured it is not.

I get it you want macOS on an iPad or some macOS-like features, but you do know that Apple sells Mac hardware? Matter fact, they sell more variations of Macs than iPads.

Except Apple does not sell any Mac even remotely close to the portability of the iPad.

There is a good reason the 12" PowerBook G4 and 11" MacBook Air are at the top of my list of favorite Macs. I sat out the 12" MacBook because I could successfully remote to my iMac 5K from my iPad for what I was doing on the go at the time.

 

[fw85]

I do not want macOS on iPad. Ever.

While this may be true (although I disagree) it certainly does not qualify the iPad to represent anything even remotely approximating a "post-PC era". Even Apple realized this now, and PC versus tablet sales figures confirms it...

forums.macrumors.com

The iPad is a "big phone" more than it is a "small PC", it is very much a mobile computing device that you can have with you anywhere and whip it out at a moment's notice. This makes it part of the "post-PC era" theory right alongside phones. Smart watches fall under the same category, and potentially even "spatial computers" such as the Apple Vision could find their place there in the future.

So in a nutshell, anything that performs computing tasks previously reserved to you walking over to a desk, sitting behind a PC with a mouse and keyboard. I remember using a PC for lots of things now easily accomplished on a couch using a mobile device and a finger, and I'm not even 30 yet.

As far as personal computing needs go, mobile platforms have basically replaced PCs already - especially in the Gen Z & Alpha generations. Those not growing up and then becoming stuck in "PC-era" habits. These people don't even use PCs anymore for the majority of things. Why would they? For personal needs, all you need nowadays is a phone, and then a tablet at most.
Their first interaction with a PC-class OS such as Windows/macOS might just be at some office workplace.

Which brings me to - work computing needs. Indeed, this is an area not as easily replaced by mobile computing devices. There is often special s/w or h/w to use, policies to adhere to etc. Tech decisions are more conservative here, as they carry more weight.
The future here is, I think, cloud-hosted virtual workspaces. You use a thin client (perhaps an iPad?), connect to a remote workspace and get to work. This is easier to manage for admins (setups, updates, backups etc), scales better to performance required, is more secure and so on.

The iPad still has its rightful place in Steve's vision of the "post-PC era", even if phones are more dominant. That's OK. Apple just needs to make iPadOS as good as it can be for the iPad, which admittedly, they have been slacking on a bit. They don't need to go turning the iPad into a PC, that to me is just thinking in the wrong direction.

 

[sparksd]

What you meant to say is that bootcampers that jumped on the software dev bandwagon are going to get replaced by a single proper senior dev with a ratio of like 10:1
Then I agree with you, as coding =/= software engineering. Anyone can code, not anyone can deliver actual production-worthy, well designed, secure and maintainable solutions tailored to specific needs. Writing code is the tip of the iceberg.

This. I'm retired now but in my last project I was technical lead for 175 s/w & h/w engineers - these people did develop code, but they were trained engineers with a high level of expertise in developing extremely complex systems.

 

[Ludatyk]

Except Apple does not sell any Mac even remotely close to the portability of the iPad.

There is a good reason the 12" PowerBook G4 and 11" MacBook Air are at the top of my list of favorite Macs. I sat out the 12" MacBook because I could successfully remote to my iMac 5K from my iPad for what I was doing on the go at the time.

So, let me get this straight... Apple sells two MBA... one being 13" MBA and that's not considered portable enough for you.

Nope! You want them to sell an additional MBA or MB that's even smaller than that? At this point, Apple should bring back the iPhone Mini, sell that along with the iPhone Plus... have 4 different iPhone sizes to choose from. Why stop there? Bring back the 27" iMac too!

Practically anything Apple sold in the past, let's bring it all back. Let's add macOS to the iPad as well, let them do it all!

 

[Arctic Moose]

This makes it part of the "post-PC era" theory right alongside phones.

You are entirely missing the point.

There are no "post-PC devices" because we are not in a "post-PC era".

If the phone is the car, it is the typewriters, pocket calculators and fax machines that are the horses, not the PC.

The PC is the truck, bus, minivan and every other type of specialized vehicle, i.e. still relevant, useful and absolutely necessary in many situations.

The fact that fewer people need a PC for many common tasks does not change this fact.

What devices will look like in an actual post-PC era remains to be seen.

 

[Bubble99]

The iPad is a "big phone" more than it is a "small PC", it is very much a mobile computing device that you can have with you anywhere and whip it out at a moment's notice. This makes it part of the "post-PC era" theory right alongside phones. Smart watches fall under the same category, and potentially even "spatial computers" such as the Apple Vision could find their place there in the future.

So in a nutshell, anything that performs computing tasks previously reserved to you walking over to a desk, sitting behind a PC with a mouse and keyboard. I remember using a PC for lots of things now easily accomplished on a couch using a mobile device and a finger, and I'm not even 30 yet.

As far as personal computing needs go, mobile platforms have basically replaced PCs already - especially in the Gen Z & Alpha generations. Those not growing up and then becoming stuck in "PC-era" habits. These people don't even use PCs anymore for the majority of things. Why would they? For personal needs, all you need nowadays is a phone, and then a tablet at most.
Their first interaction with a PC-class OS such as Windows/macOS might just be at some office workplace.

Which brings me to - work computing needs. Indeed, this is an area not as easily replaced by mobile computing devices. There is often special s/w or h/w to use, policies to adhere to etc. Tech decisions are more conservative here, as they carry more weight.
The future here is, I think, cloud-hosted virtual workspaces. You use a thin client (perhaps an iPad?), connect to a remote workspace and get to work. This is easier to manage for admins (setups, updates, backups etc), scales better to performance required, is more secure and so on.

The iPad still has its rightful place in Steve's vision of the "post-PC era", even if phones are more dominant. That's OK. Apple just needs to make iPadOS as good as it can be for the iPad, which admittedly, they have been slacking on a bit. They don't need to go turning the iPad into a PC, that to me is just thinking in the wrong direction.

So what does PC do different than iPad that iPad can’t do?

 

[sparksd]

So what does PC do different than iPad that iPad can’t do?

Some examples -

I can update devices over USB that require a wired connection.

I can format external storage.

I can use full-functionality Office365.

Load my own music into iPad & iPhone Music app.

 

[fw85]

You are entirely missing the point.

There are no "post-PC devices" because we are not in a "post-PC era".

If the phone is the car, it is the typewriters, pocket calculators and fax machines that are the horses, not the PC.

The PC is the truck, bus, minivan and every other type of specialized vehicle, i.e. still relevant, useful and absolutely necessary in many situations.

The fact that fewer people need a PC for many common tasks does not change this fact.

What devices will look like in an actual post-PC era remains to be seen.

That really depends on how you choose to interpret the term "post-PC".

In absolute terms, we are of course nowhere near phasing PCs out of our lives completely - and if we're splitting hairs, phones are just PCs in another form.

If you interpret it as "the average person is moving beyond using a traditional PC (mouse and keyboard/trackpad) to accomplish their computing tasks", then the trend is clear on that and traditional PCs are on a steady decline.
And under this definition, the iPad is the most capable form of a "post-traditional-PC" device. It's not a traditional PC and it's not supposed to be.

In your analogy, it's the invention of a car in a world where everyone used to drive trucks.
Just a more efficient and practical way of doing 90% of the usual tasks everyday.

Jobs compared tablets and PCs to cars and trucks, saying "[PCs are] still going to be around. They’re still going to have a lot of value. But they’re going to be used by like one out of x people" while predicting that the vast majority of people will eventually use tablets as a primary computing device, analogous to the majority of people who drive cars.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-PC_era#:~:text=While%20both%20Microsoft's%20and,iCloud%2C%20a%20service%20enabling%20Apple's

 

[Arctic Moose]

That really depends on how you choose to interpret the term "post-PC".

The vehicle analogy is always trotted out in these situations.

We are definitely in the post-horse era. Nobody needs horses for anything besides sport, hobby or lasagna.

For computing it just does not make any sense, unless you are comparing the relative number of people who can and do use a device that is not a PC for all their IT tasks, and exclaim the “post-PC era” to start at some particular percentage.

For any other reasonable definition we aren’t that much closer today than we were in 1997 when I started my mobile computing quest with an Ericsson MC12 paired with an SH888. (Although I mostly used it to fuel my IRC addiction while on public transport.)

Steve Jobs used the terminology for the first time when introducing the iPad in 2010. Apple had just spent three years churning out Get a Mac ads, comparing Macs to PCs. Although his description of a PC in that context would include Macs, I’m pretty sure replacing Wintel with an iPad was the mental image he was conjuring.

 

[ThatsMeRight]

Honestly, try Stage Manager and combine it with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse (or the Magic Keyboard if you’re willing to spend the money).

iPadOS feels so powerful with Stage Manager + keyboard & mouse. Of course, Stage Manager still requires some improvements and it had a bad start when it was first introduced. But Apple’s greatly improved it already.

I think if they made a MacBook with iPadOS (with Stage Manager on by default), that many younger people (Gen Z/late millennials) and older people would greatly prefer it to either MacOS or Windows.

 

[Arctic Moose]

So, let me get this straight... Apple sells two MBA... one being 13" MBA and that's not considered portable enough for you.

Correct.

You want them to sell an additional MBA or MB that's even smaller than that?

The thing is, Apple already makes a great device.

It weighs just 35% of the 13" MacBook Air.

The footprint is less than 70% of the 13" MacBook Air, which is a huge difference in a cramped seat.

Single-core performance blows the MacBook Air away.

It has cellular connectivity.

If it could only run macOS apps it would be amazing!

At this point, Apple should bring back the iPhone Mini, sell that along with the iPhone Plus... have 4 different iPhone sizes to choose from.

Don't get me started. (Although if it's too many, just cancel all the Plus and Max phones, problem solved.)

Here's the stupid-huge dumbass phone I begrudgingly lug around next to a normal hand-sized phone.

(I'd actually just leave it at home most of the time if the Apple Watch didn't work so poorly without its paired iPhone nearby.)

 

[Bubble99]

Can’t have a macOS-like file system, at least not visibly. The two OS’es have identical file systems, just one is hidden due to sandboxing. Remember, the major security feature of iPadOS is the inability of any app to affect the storage space of any other app. That precludes the existence of anything like Finder since you cannot move files freely. You might notice this is why the Files app concentrates heavily on cloud and external storage instead of local storage.

The only thing I can possibly see Apple do is to create a generic sandbox that isn’t dedicated to any app, essentially a carve out of space on the iPad where apps are permitted to freely read and write. This creates the illusion of Finder, but isn’t, but is actually rather close to having cloud storage locally. Apple will never open up the file system to openly allow apps to read and write from anywhere or else it compromises the core security of iPadOS. Mac apps can have sandboxing, but it is optional and cannot be enforced universally.

Not sure what you mean by iPadOS apps are sandbox more than MacOS

 

[tobybrut]

Not sure what you mean by iPadOS apps are sandbox more than MacOS

Apple allows Mac apps to voluntarily sandbox their apps, isolating them from the rest of the OS. They cannot force sandboxing on all apps or else that would break most of them. On a Mac it’s completely voluntary on the part of the developer. All iPad apps must be sandboxed as a mandatory requirement. Apple sees this as the most important security element of iPadOS and if they had the opportunity to redo macOS someday, they’d make it more like iPadOS rather than making iPadOS more like macOS. But since macOS came out of a thirty year old NeXTStep, they cannot redo its core architecture.

Because macOS supports sandboxing, that is why some iPhone and iPad apps can run on macOS at the discretion of each developer, though often badly. It is not possible to run Mac apps on iPad for the opposite reason. Not that many Mac apps are sandboxed and therefore cannot run in a 100% sandboxed environment. Apple modified some iPadOS-like libraries normally used for touch and ported those to macOS to enable those iPad/iPhone apps by substituting a pointer to replace touch. But the reverse cannot be done, putting macOS libraries on iPadOS, since that fundamentally breaks iPadOS security. If they ever did allow Mac apps to run on iPads, they would only allow sandboxed apps, leaving out the vast majority of Mac apps. It’s probably not worth the effort for so few. Instead Apple asks those developers to write optimized iPad counterparts instead.

 

[Arctic Moose]

But the reverse cannot be done, putting macOS libraries on iPadOS, since that fundamentally breaks iPadOS security. If they ever did allow Mac apps to run on iPads, they would only allow sandboxed apps, leaving out the vast majority of Mac apps.

Technically, they could allow each macOS app to run in its own VM. (Not saying it is a good idea, just that it is possible.)

 

[Bubble99]

sandbox their apps, isolating them from the rest of the OS.

But having this feature how does it help with security?

 

[sparksd]

But having this feature how does it help with security?

https://support.apple.com/guide/security/security-of-runtime-process-sec15bfe098e/web

 

[NEPOBABY]

Saw some game developers in an old video using NeXTSTEP on a PC and it's amazing we thave he grandchild of that OS on a tablet.

If you look at the coloring/drawing app at 14 mins it has UI that would look at home on iPadOS today.

 

[Ludatyk]

The thing is, Apple already makes a great device.

It weighs just 35% of the 13" MacBook Air.

The footprint is less than 70% of the 13" MacBook Air, which is a huge difference in a cramped seat.

Single-core performance blows the MacBook Air away.

It has cellular connectivity.

If it could only run macOS apps it would be amazing!

Completely understand. But Apple brought over Final Cut Pro and Logic, although it's not a 1:1 comparison between their Mac counterpoints (still improving). At least, Apple is trying to address this issue...

Don't get me started. (Although if it's too many, just cancel all the Plus and Max phones, problem solved.)

Here's the stupid-huge dumbass phone I begrudgingly lug around next to a normal hand-sized phone.

The iPhone Mini didn't sell well... the blame goes toward the consumer not Apple.

 

[subjonas]

This is one of the points I disagree with with that article. He claims that iPadOS doesn’t allow apps to run in the background, but that’s simply not true. I can leave an app while it’s downloading something, or loading something, do something else in a different app, go back to that app, and it’s still downloading/loading just fine. So clearly apps can run in the background. On iPad’s with less physical RAM, and no VRAM support, apps will be binned more aggressively because a lack of enough RAM, but on M1 and later iPad’s I don’t think this is an issue. At least, I have never experienced this issue on my M1 iPad Pro, and I run things in the background pretty often.

I always thought apps can only run in the background for a max of 10 minutes, except when refreshing based on location change. Did your app run within those limitations? Not sure if other exceptions have been added to iPadOS. If so, I’d be curious to know what those are.
Of course app can run indefinitely in the foreground in split screen and slide over. Not sure about a slide over app that has been slid off screen though. And not sure about apps on the side in Stage Manager but I’d think they’re all considered foreground apps.

 

[Kal Madda]

I always thought apps can only run in the background for a max of 10 minutes, except when refreshing based on location change. Did your app run within those limitations? Not sure if other exceptions have been added to iPadOS. If so, I’d be curious to know what those are.
Of course app can run indefinitely in the foreground in split screen and slide over. Not sure about a slide over app that has been slid off screen though. And not sure about apps on the side in Stage Manager but I’d think they’re all considered foreground apps.

I don’t think I’ve ever managed to make a process take over 10 minutes long. Even transferring thousands of files doesn’t take that long for me. So I can’t really confirm whether they would stop after 10 minutes or not, but I’ve never found a process that took that long to run. Even Octane X renders faster than that. 👍🏻

 

[Iwavvns]

What does iPadOS have to have to make more like desktop OS than mobile OS.

I don’t think that iPadOS was ever meant to be a full desktop OS, it was meant to be a mobile OS. I suppose it also depends on your definition of desktop OS. I’ve used Linux for over 20 years and my definition of desktop OS may be very different from the next person’s definition of desktop OS. For instance, I don’t consider chromeOS to be a desktop OS, but many people do.

We have 13 inch iPads. If Apple put macOS on those iPads, then people could connect an Bluetooth keyboard and mouse and that would negatively impact MacBook sales.

We have to be careful about violating intended design. We can hammer a nail into a board with a crescent ranch, but that violates intended design. Many people operate in life outside of intended design and they get frustrated.. they think that since they can hammer a nail with a crescent wrench that all is well. This reminds me of the saying “use the proper tool for the job”.

I have used MacBooks since the release of Mavericks and, from what I’ve seen, macOS seems to be slowly transforming into iPadOS, bringing over the same look and features that we once only saw in iOS. I think eventually we will have the exact same operating system on all Apple devices and the changes we’ve seen in macOS lately are just another step in that direction.

 

[Bubble99]

I don’t think that iPadOS was ever meant to be a full desktop OS, it was meant to be a mobile OS.

If you mean access files and move files around than no. Has iPadOS is more app centric than windows and Linux being more file centric.

 

[Iwavvns]

If you mean access files and move files around than no. Has iPadOS is more app centric than windows and Linux being more file centric.

Yes, and I think this is what ends up confusing people when they see the Files app and think it is a traditional file manager/browser.