4 ms·

Yeah I’m no artist but I bought an iPad primarily as a reader + a notebook + a drawing device and it does those things really well. There’s a lot of criticism f

Yeah I’m no artist but I bought an iPad primarily as a reader + a notebook + a drawing device and it does those things really well. There’s a lot of criticism from devs but we just aren’t the target market for this device. The market seems to be university students, artists & creatives, a whole host of professions like architects/engineers/tradespeople who take it out in the field, and people looking to consume media.

Closi 6y ago
For me, my criticism of the iPad and MacBook is now I have roughly the same hardware twice for different purposes. My iPad Pro (12.9in) does iPad stuff great, and my 13 inch MacBook Air does MacBook stuff great. But they both have roughly the same processor, power and form factor (once a keyboard is added). The only meaningful differences are that the iPad can undock from the keyboard, the iPad supports Pencil and the OS is different. OSX running on iPad with the same processor as the Air would actually be great, considering the magic keyboard is so good. If I could instantly change between OS's I wouldn't need to lug around both devices. Better still, if the OS could be designed to support both modes in an integrated way, it would knock everything else out of the water even more.
- brmgb 6y ago
  Apple will probably never do that. They are probably painfully aware than iPad Pro and Macbook Air feature set and use cases overlap but as long as they keep each of them sufficiently different,they can sell you a laptop and a tablet. Why would they cannibalize their own products while they face no competition in the tablet market?
  - Closi 6y ago
    > Why would they cannibalize their own products while they face no competition in the tablet market? Because if you have a better product that nobody can compete with you can raise your margin and solidify/expand your market position. You are describing a strategy that normally leads to long term market loss - "Why should we stream movies to the TV? That would only be cannibalising our excellent DVD rental business".
    - brmgb 6y ago
      > You are describing a strategy that normally leads to long term market loss That's not the same thing. Your example is leaving aside an entire new market to protect an existing one. That would be shortsighted. Here however there is no new market which Apple is missing. Pushing the iPad, a revenue leader in the high-end tablet segment, towards the Macbook Air, a revenue leader in the high-end ultraportable segment, would only make them compete. Unless you need to prevent a competitor from making inroad in one of these markets, that's just losing revenue. As long as the iPad Pro seems to be a suffisent answer to the Surface line, Apple really has little reason to go further.
      - Closi 6y ago
        > Your example is leaving aside an entire new market to protect an existing one. The new market is the combined tablet/laptop market, and you are leaving it aside to protect your existing separate tablet/laptop businesses with an inferior product to maintain sales. Businesses can either protect their existing products that are "good enough", or they can be consumer-centric and keep pushing forwards to create the best products. The second strategy will usually beat the first in the long term.
  - yarcob 6y ago
    Because people who used to buy Macbooks are starting to look at Microsoft Surfaces?
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  It's not really the same hardware. It's similar hardware but with significant variations in power budget, RAM and disk size, connectivity, and so on. This matters because the iPad electronics have to fit behind the screen, while the MacBook electronics live under the keyboard. To make a PadMac the entire Mac electronics would have to fit behind a thicker unclippable screen, and the keyboard would have to be slimmed down to compensate. Or perhaps the screen would be accessible over WiFi or even Bluetooth - but that would also affect the power budget and would have other issues. (Is a removable screen as useful as an iPad? Mostly, no.) Building reliable clip/unclip connections would be an interesting problem. It could probably be done, and I would be surprised if it hasn't already been tried. But it's certainly not a trivial engineering challenge, especially given power and cost constraints.
  - Closi 6y ago
    The hardware already exists - it's the iPad Pro 12.9 inch with a Magic Keyboard. There is very little difference in hardware: * RAM - 6GB (iPad) vs 8GB base (MacBook Air), although memory chips are tiny and Android phones have 12gb, so I do not see there being a significant limit here. * Processor - Approximately the same (M1 is basically the A14). * Connectivity - Both have WiFi only as base, iPad offers 4G. * Disk size - 128 GB base with options up to 1TB (iPad) vs 256 gb Base with options up to 1 TB (MacBook Air) * Battery - 10,000 mAh (iPad Pro), and I cannot find the battery of the latest Mac Air but previous models have had 5,500 mah. So we aren't talking huge differences in spec. In fact it seems that the iPad can fit more in - probably because it doesn't need to include a keyboard which undoubtedly is responsible for a lot of the thickness. > Building reliable clip/unclip connections would be an interesting problem. Apple has already solved this for iPad - the Magic Keyboard is brilliant (although not cheap!). Additionally an iPad + Magic Keyboard is actually somewhat thicker than a Macbook pro, which highlights why the Macbook Air is probably thicker than the base iPad (rather than spec).
    - ghaff 6y ago
      >Apple has already solved this for iPad - the Magic Keyboard is brilliant (although not cheap!). It really doesn't work for my use case; admittedly my model is probably older. But when I use a laptop, especially when traveling, I grab it and move it around the room, work on my lap, etc. Unless a removable keyboard and screen are attached in a way that is virtually indistinguishable from a laptop, I'm not really interested.

Closi 6y ago

For me, my criticism of the iPad and MacBook is now I have roughly the same hardware twice for different purposes. My iPad Pro (12.9in) does iPad stuff great, and my 13 inch MacBook Air does MacBook stuff great. But they both have roughly the same processor, power and form factor (once a keyboard is added). The only meaningful differences are that the iPad can undock from the keyboard, the iPad supports Pencil and the OS is different. OSX running on iPad with the same processor as the Air would actually be great, considering the magic keyboard is so good. If I could instantly change between OS's I wouldn't need to lug around both devices. Better still, if the OS could be designed to support both modes in an integrated way, it would knock everything else out of the water even more.

brmgb 6y ago
Apple will probably never do that. They are probably painfully aware than iPad Pro and Macbook Air feature set and use cases overlap but as long as they keep each of them sufficiently different,they can sell you a laptop and a tablet. Why would they cannibalize their own products while they face no competition in the tablet market?
- Closi 6y ago
  > Why would they cannibalize their own products while they face no competition in the tablet market? Because if you have a better product that nobody can compete with you can raise your margin and solidify/expand your market position. You are describing a strategy that normally leads to long term market loss - "Why should we stream movies to the TV? That would only be cannibalising our excellent DVD rental business".
  - brmgb 6y ago
    > You are describing a strategy that normally leads to long term market loss That's not the same thing. Your example is leaving aside an entire new market to protect an existing one. That would be shortsighted. Here however there is no new market which Apple is missing. Pushing the iPad, a revenue leader in the high-end tablet segment, towards the Macbook Air, a revenue leader in the high-end ultraportable segment, would only make them compete. Unless you need to prevent a competitor from making inroad in one of these markets, that's just losing revenue. As long as the iPad Pro seems to be a suffisent answer to the Surface line, Apple really has little reason to go further.
    - Closi 6y ago
      > Your example is leaving aside an entire new market to protect an existing one. The new market is the combined tablet/laptop market, and you are leaving it aside to protect your existing separate tablet/laptop businesses with an inferior product to maintain sales. Businesses can either protect their existing products that are "good enough", or they can be consumer-centric and keep pushing forwards to create the best products. The second strategy will usually beat the first in the long term.
- yarcob 6y ago
  Because people who used to buy Macbooks are starting to look at Microsoft Surfaces?
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
It's not really the same hardware. It's similar hardware but with significant variations in power budget, RAM and disk size, connectivity, and so on. This matters because the iPad electronics have to fit behind the screen, while the MacBook electronics live under the keyboard. To make a PadMac the entire Mac electronics would have to fit behind a thicker unclippable screen, and the keyboard would have to be slimmed down to compensate. Or perhaps the screen would be accessible over WiFi or even Bluetooth - but that would also affect the power budget and would have other issues. (Is a removable screen as useful as an iPad? Mostly, no.) Building reliable clip/unclip connections would be an interesting problem. It could probably be done, and I would be surprised if it hasn't already been tried. But it's certainly not a trivial engineering challenge, especially given power and cost constraints.
- Closi 6y ago
  The hardware already exists - it's the iPad Pro 12.9 inch with a Magic Keyboard. There is very little difference in hardware: * RAM - 6GB (iPad) vs 8GB base (MacBook Air), although memory chips are tiny and Android phones have 12gb, so I do not see there being a significant limit here. * Processor - Approximately the same (M1 is basically the A14). * Connectivity - Both have WiFi only as base, iPad offers 4G. * Disk size - 128 GB base with options up to 1TB (iPad) vs 256 gb Base with options up to 1 TB (MacBook Air) * Battery - 10,000 mAh (iPad Pro), and I cannot find the battery of the latest Mac Air but previous models have had 5,500 mah. So we aren't talking huge differences in spec. In fact it seems that the iPad can fit more in - probably because it doesn't need to include a keyboard which undoubtedly is responsible for a lot of the thickness. > Building reliable clip/unclip connections would be an interesting problem. Apple has already solved this for iPad - the Magic Keyboard is brilliant (although not cheap!). Additionally an iPad + Magic Keyboard is actually somewhat thicker than a Macbook pro, which highlights why the Macbook Air is probably thicker than the base iPad (rather than spec).
  - ghaff 6y ago
    >Apple has already solved this for iPad - the Magic Keyboard is brilliant (although not cheap!). It really doesn't work for my use case; admittedly my model is probably older. But when I use a laptop, especially when traveling, I grab it and move it around the room, work on my lap, etc. Unless a removable keyboard and screen are attached in a way that is virtually indistinguishable from a laptop, I'm not really interested.