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Apple imagined a world where everybody did all their work on iPads and the laptop was a relic from a forgotten age. We might get there one day, but NEVER while

• eropple 9y ago
  > iPads could have done so well in the pro space if they'd supported proper integration with Macs and could be used as extension devices rather than exclusively as replacement devices And indeed, the places I see iPads used most heavily are exactly those. You see it heavily in the audio industry: Logic Remote is really really good and all the other similar tools (Lemur, TouchOSC, etc.) have huge uptake. I'm in the process of building a video/CG overlay system for TV/streaming[1] and the best way to use the backend management system I've found while I'm trying to concentrate on something else is my old iPad 2. [1] https://github.com/bossmodecg https://github.com/bossmodecg
  • jarym 9y ago
    That looks really neat! will try to follow it on GH!
• derefr 9y ago
  > battery you say Mr Schiller? Well most 'pro' users will sacrifice some battery life for performance and those that don't want to do that could have gone for regular MacBooks My understanding is that Apple expect everyone who uses an MBP "for work" to actually be using it as the portable sidekick to a desk-bound workstation, rather than as their primary computer. They're supposed to be the cutter you launch off the side of your ship, not the ship itself. The Mac Pro (or often the iMac) is supposed to be the ship. You might think that the lack of updates to the Mac Pro line belies that argument—but I'd say it's completely possible to have a strategy and then fail in tactical execution in a way that makes it look like you don't have that strategy.
  • vintagedave 9y ago
    > Apple expect everyone who uses an MBP "for work" to actually be using it as the portable sidekick to a desk-bound workstation If that's the case, how are you supposed to do it? Specifically, how do you keep your two accounts, files, bookmarks etc in sync between the two, especially 'live' so you can just pick up your laptop and continue? I'd actually very much like to do this, so Apple's expectation or not it would be great to achieve.
    • derefr 9y ago
      Well, looking at what Apple defaults for people these days, you've got your Desktop and Documents living in iCloud, which is (I assume) where Apple expects you to save pretty much all your "working state." Bookmark (and tab) sync happens through iCloud as well, if you're using Safari. Window state doesn't sync, but then, it wouldn't make much sense for it to, workflow+performance-wise. The cutter is not the ship; it doesn't have a 50-gun battery, nor room to take a 1000-person crew aboard it. You're expected to multitask on the desktop, and then single-task on the laptop (picture an executive VP with a fancy watch whose time is Very Valuable: if they're working at all while not at their desk, it's because there's one very important/urgent thing they need to do.) As such, it makes much more sense to save your GarageBand project, or your PSD file, to iCloud on your desktop, and then re-open just that one thing on your laptop, rather than attempting to squash your whole workflow around as if you'll keep interacting with it the same way at the destination. (Though, if you're desperate to have that particular experience, Back To My Mac exists.) (I do imagine an OS could pull off something like the Firefox UI experiment of "tab groups", with native app windows, by combining a ubiquitous cloud store with all apps being wired to save+restore window-state, and requiring that any apps installed in a "session group" get installed on all the computers in the group. You could then grab out individual pieces of your workflow and un-hibernate them onto any computer you liked, work for a while, then put them back away. But that'd require a radically different style of window management than we have today.)
• api 9y ago
  To do away with the walled garden approach would require a robust, scalable solution to the malware and spamware problem. For most non-pro users, a walled garden is awesome. You can actually use a computer without it becoming progressively more and more infested with malware and without it "rotting" from badly written installers, etc. For most users closed is a feature, not a bug. Closed means it works. Closed means you don't have to do your own IT. A real solution to these problems that isn't based around walled gardens and app whitelisting would require very innovative solutions to major problems in application and operating system security. These aren't the kinds of problems that get solved overnight, and unfortunately I don't see very many people working on it. Ultimately I think what's going to happen is more pragmatic: the computer market will fully bifurcate into one kind of device and OS for power users and developers and another for everyone else.