5 ms·

How long before MacOS and iPadOS have enough feature parity that they get merged?

by ksubedi 6y ago

R70YNS 6y ago
Hopefully soon.
LASR 6y ago
They are the same already. Just different user interfaces.
masklinn 6y ago
Probably never. The divergence between macOS and ipadOS is not technical, it's that Apple believes a touch-oriented and a pointer-oriented interface are completely different things.
- ksubedi 6y ago
  While that makes sense, Apple's recent changes with the iPad Keyboard case adding a trackpad makes me think that they might have something else brewing for the long term. Time will tell, but I would love to see more MacOS applications like XCode become available on the iPad. Edit: Also the fact that MacOS has been changing the UI to make it more touch friendly, for example: new control center.
  - jolux 6y ago
    Plus the Big Sur interface changes seem to be touch-oriented. They made a lot of pointer targets much bigger than they used to be, and added a new special window type for modals.
    - astrange 6y ago
      https://sixcolors.com/link/2020/11/craig-federighi-says-touchscreen-macs-not-the-goal-of-big-surs-design/ https://sixcolors.com/link/2020/11/craig-federighi-says-touc...
      - jolux 6y ago
        Sure, but it's not really like Craig would say "yeah, touchscreen Macs are coming eventually, and this redesign is preparing for that" if they were. Apple doesn't do that. What I would glean from this is that they're not coming soon, and it's probably not going to be a conventional "add a touch screen to an existing interface" type deal. At the very least it leaves the option open for them here.
  - rumori 6y ago
    Quite honestly I don't think Xcode is ready for the iPad. It's a complicated software that has a lot of bugs that has to be fixed manually a lot of times by accessing or clearing files directly. I'm pretty sure they have a version of it already running on the iPad but the workflow or software quality is just no there yet. However if SwiftUI becomes the standard I can imagine an Xcode light as a starting point with way less panels and options.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- RandallBrown 6y ago
  iPadOS, iOS, and tvOS are all the same operating system with different user interfaces. I think eventually macOS will be too.
- balls187 6y ago
  With BigSur, users can run ipad and iphone apps natively on an M1 mac. It's not a large stretch to see some overlap between allowing macOS features on a large screen mobile device.
  - masklinn 6y ago
    > It's not a large stretch to see some overlap between allowing macOS features on a large screen mobile device. It is in fact a rather large stretch. macOS allowing the larger targets of iPad applications is a rather different proposition than macOS's rather small targets being on touch devices.
- SahAssar 6y ago
  ipadOS has pointer support and the preferred way to do pointer interactions on macOS seems to be touchpads (not mice), so the gap is definitely not as large anymore.
  - masklinn 6y ago
    > ipadOS has pointer support Yes, but it does not mandate a pointer. > the preferred way to do pointer interactions on macOS seems to be touchpads (not mice), so the gap is definitely not as large anymore. A touchpad is a pointer device with a similar level of precision and interaction as a mouse. One completely unlike touch.
    - SahAssar 6y ago
      > A touchpad is a pointer device with a similar level of precision and interaction as a mouse. One completely unlike touch. The main difference is if you aim by using a pointer on the screen or if you aim by touching what you want to interact with. Some things like gestures are basically the same (or could be).
      - masklinn 6y ago
        > The main difference is if you aim by using a pointer on the screen or if you aim by touching what you want to interact with. Yes. That is not a small difference. That is, in fact, a huge difference. The buttons on my phone are physically larger than those on my laptop's screen, yet they are significantly harder to hit reliably. Manipulating text remains a chore on touch device, except when those touch devices provide a pointer erzats (of which Apple removed a large part of the convenience when they broke selection support with the deprecation of 3D touch).
- oddity 6y ago
  That might be part, but it's not the whole picture. The only way to put software on the iPad is through Apple's app store, which is a hill they seem awfully willing to die on. It's possible they give that up for the iPad but hold onto the iPhone, but that would weaken the PR value of their security argument. I've worked a full week away from an office using only VNC even before Apple added mouse support. It's fine. Touch-oriented vs Mouse-oriented is an odd philosophy to hold when it's used to oppose a workflow being somewhat supported vs not at at all.
- Foivos 6y ago
  If the kernel is the same, I imagine at some point it is going to happen.
- paxys 6y ago
  Yet almost every marketing photo of the iPad Pro shows it with a keyboard + trackpad attachment.
- anonymouse008 6y ago
  I'd emphatically disagree. Touch and Pointer are different in emphasis not user intent. User Intent can span across device classes for different contexts -- i.e. jotting notes in a long form document in a meeting vs. at your laptop in private, all revolve around making progress on a text based deliverable. Before recent MacCatalyst developments, the UI libraries were on different continents with CC and UIKit. Now, the major differences are design limited, not API limited. UIMenuBuilder and UIHoverGestureRecognizer tells you most everything you need to know about how Apple is viewing the touch vs. pointer environment. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uimenubuilder https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uimenubuilde... https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uihovergesturerecognizer https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uihovergestu...
Toutouxc 6y ago
I don't think it's about features, but mostly about the input methods. Until this day we (as a society) haven't found a way to combine pointer based and touch based UIs in a single product in a way that at least one of them doesn't suck hard.
mlindner 6y ago
Apple has repeatedly denied that whenever it's come up. MacOS and iPadOS are completely different platforms with different goals.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ilkkao 6y ago
My guess is that they prefer to sell more than one device to everybody, so not anytime soon. Really interested to hear Apple’s excuse not allowing to run MacOS on M1 iPad pro with an external monitor and keyboard. The standard "optimized for different use case" argument doesn't make that much sense with that setup.
- masklinn 6y ago
  > My guess is that they prefer to sell more than one device to everybody, so not anytime soon. Sharing the same OS never precluded people having both an iphone and an ipad.
faitswulff 6y ago
They just split off iPadOS from iOS, so it seems unlikely.
- dbbk 6y ago
  The change was purely around the marketing name. It's still the same "iOS" for both.
balls187 6y ago
I would expect an announcement during the next WWDC.
charlesju 6y ago
You can already use iPadOS apps on MacOS with m1 right? So maybe that's why you would pay more for the Mac versus the iPad.
- hajile 6y ago
  1TB harddrive and 16GB of RAM puts the ipad at $1,800. Macbook Air with the same RAM/storage is about $1,600. If you want to compete, you need a $350 keyboard for the ipad which makes it a full $550 more expensive. As to tradeoffs, you get a better conferencing camera and touch on the ipad, but you get a better trackpad and two thunderbolt ports on the macbook.
paulpan 6y ago
I wonder even if that never comes to fruition, there'll be a "hackpad" that's essentially flashing/installing macOS onto an iPad Pro. Same M1 SOC hypothetically should be straightforward.

How long before MacOS and iPadOS have enough feature parity that they get merged?

R70YNS 6y ago

Hopefully soon.

LASR 6y ago

They are the same already. Just different user interfaces.

masklinn 6y ago

Probably never. The divergence between macOS and ipadOS is not technical, it's that Apple believes a touch-oriented and a pointer-oriented interface are completely different things.

ksubedi 6y ago
While that makes sense, Apple's recent changes with the iPad Keyboard case adding a trackpad makes me think that they might have something else brewing for the long term. Time will tell, but I would love to see more MacOS applications like XCode become available on the iPad. Edit: Also the fact that MacOS has been changing the UI to make it more touch friendly, for example: new control center.
- jolux 6y ago
  Plus the Big Sur interface changes seem to be touch-oriented. They made a lot of pointer targets much bigger than they used to be, and added a new special window type for modals.
  - astrange 6y ago
    https://sixcolors.com/link/2020/11/craig-federighi-says-touchscreen-macs-not-the-goal-of-big-surs-design/ https://sixcolors.com/link/2020/11/craig-federighi-says-touc...
    - jolux 6y ago
      Sure, but it's not really like Craig would say "yeah, touchscreen Macs are coming eventually, and this redesign is preparing for that" if they were. Apple doesn't do that. What I would glean from this is that they're not coming soon, and it's probably not going to be a conventional "add a touch screen to an existing interface" type deal. At the very least it leaves the option open for them here.
- rumori 6y ago
  Quite honestly I don't think Xcode is ready for the iPad. It's a complicated software that has a lot of bugs that has to be fixed manually a lot of times by accessing or clearing files directly. I'm pretty sure they have a version of it already running on the iPad but the workflow or software quality is just no there yet. However if SwiftUI becomes the standard I can imagine an Xcode light as a starting point with way less panels and options.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
RandallBrown 6y ago
iPadOS, iOS, and tvOS are all the same operating system with different user interfaces. I think eventually macOS will be too.
balls187 6y ago
With BigSur, users can run ipad and iphone apps natively on an M1 mac. It's not a large stretch to see some overlap between allowing macOS features on a large screen mobile device.
- masklinn 6y ago
  > It's not a large stretch to see some overlap between allowing macOS features on a large screen mobile device. It is in fact a rather large stretch. macOS allowing the larger targets of iPad applications is a rather different proposition than macOS's rather small targets being on touch devices.
SahAssar 6y ago
ipadOS has pointer support and the preferred way to do pointer interactions on macOS seems to be touchpads (not mice), so the gap is definitely not as large anymore.
- masklinn 6y ago
  > ipadOS has pointer support Yes, but it does not mandate a pointer. > the preferred way to do pointer interactions on macOS seems to be touchpads (not mice), so the gap is definitely not as large anymore. A touchpad is a pointer device with a similar level of precision and interaction as a mouse. One completely unlike touch.
  - SahAssar 6y ago
    > A touchpad is a pointer device with a similar level of precision and interaction as a mouse. One completely unlike touch. The main difference is if you aim by using a pointer on the screen or if you aim by touching what you want to interact with. Some things like gestures are basically the same (or could be).
    - masklinn 6y ago
      > The main difference is if you aim by using a pointer on the screen or if you aim by touching what you want to interact with. Yes. That is not a small difference. That is, in fact, a huge difference. The buttons on my phone are physically larger than those on my laptop's screen, yet they are significantly harder to hit reliably. Manipulating text remains a chore on touch device, except when those touch devices provide a pointer erzats (of which Apple removed a large part of the convenience when they broke selection support with the deprecation of 3D touch).
oddity 6y ago
That might be part, but it's not the whole picture. The only way to put software on the iPad is through Apple's app store, which is a hill they seem awfully willing to die on. It's possible they give that up for the iPad but hold onto the iPhone, but that would weaken the PR value of their security argument. I've worked a full week away from an office using only VNC even before Apple added mouse support. It's fine. Touch-oriented vs Mouse-oriented is an odd philosophy to hold when it's used to oppose a workflow being somewhat supported vs not at at all.
Foivos 6y ago
If the kernel is the same, I imagine at some point it is going to happen.
paxys 6y ago
Yet almost every marketing photo of the iPad Pro shows it with a keyboard + trackpad attachment.
anonymouse008 6y ago
I'd emphatically disagree. Touch and Pointer are different in emphasis not user intent. User Intent can span across device classes for different contexts -- i.e. jotting notes in a long form document in a meeting vs. at your laptop in private, all revolve around making progress on a text based deliverable. Before recent MacCatalyst developments, the UI libraries were on different continents with CC and UIKit. Now, the major differences are design limited, not API limited. UIMenuBuilder and UIHoverGestureRecognizer tells you most everything you need to know about how Apple is viewing the touch vs. pointer environment. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uimenubuilder https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uimenubuilde... https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uihovergesturerecognizer https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uihovergestu...

Toutouxc 6y ago

I don't think it's about features, but mostly about the input methods. Until this day we (as a society) haven't found a way to combine pointer based and touch based UIs in a single product in a way that at least one of them doesn't suck hard.

mlindner 6y ago

Apple has repeatedly denied that whenever it's come up. MacOS and iPadOS are completely different platforms with different goals.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ilkkao 6y ago

My guess is that they prefer to sell more than one device to everybody, so not anytime soon. Really interested to hear Apple’s excuse not allowing to run MacOS on M1 iPad pro with an external monitor and keyboard. The standard "optimized for different use case" argument doesn't make that much sense with that setup.

masklinn 6y ago
> My guess is that they prefer to sell more than one device to everybody, so not anytime soon. Sharing the same OS never precluded people having both an iphone and an ipad.

faitswulff 6y ago

They just split off iPadOS from iOS, so it seems unlikely.

dbbk 6y ago
The change was purely around the marketing name. It's still the same "iOS" for both.

balls187 6y ago

I would expect an announcement during the next WWDC.

charlesju 6y ago

You can already use iPadOS apps on MacOS with m1 right? So maybe that's why you would pay more for the Mac versus the iPad.

hajile 6y ago
1TB harddrive and 16GB of RAM puts the ipad at $1,800. Macbook Air with the same RAM/storage is about $1,600. If you want to compete, you need a $350 keyboard for the ipad which makes it a full $550 more expensive. As to tradeoffs, you get a better conferencing camera and touch on the ipad, but you get a better trackpad and two thunderbolt ports on the macbook.

paulpan 6y ago

I wonder even if that never comes to fruition, there'll be a "hackpad" that's essentially flashing/installing macOS onto an iPad Pro. Same M1 SOC hypothetically should be straightforward.