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I wonder if something big will be announced about iPad software. I feel like there should be a reason why they put M1 into iPad Pros with a big jump in memory (

I wonder if something big will be announced about iPad software. I feel like there should be a reason why they put M1 into iPad Pros with a big jump in memory (from 6GB to 8/16GB) and processing power.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
I want Xcode on iPad. Sadly, I think that may be a ways down the line, but I would love to be wrong.
- splatcollision 5y ago
  They could totally do this and it would be amazing. Would be a great but late reproach to the years of complaints about the demise of general-purpose computers that the iPad and iPhone have represented so far...
- dylan604 5y ago
  An iPad Pro running Xcode with an iPad Air as a side car second screen. That would be a super light weight all day dev kit. Somebody would probably even come up with a "case" that carries both iDevices and allows for both "screens" to be supported in various configurations.
  - luke2m 5y ago
    A minimum of $1697, assuming you want the keyboard, for something with much less capability than a regular laptop.
    - dharmab 5y ago
      But also something I could break down and carry with me in lots of contexts that I wouldn't bring my laptop. I have a family member replacing her grad school MacBook Air with an iPad Pro now that she's returned to the industry and has a work computer again for her programming/bioinformatics needs. And a lot of her workflow could be done in Jupyter Notebooks, honestly.
      - dahfizz 5y ago
        > But also something I could break down and carry with me in lots of contexts that I wouldn't bring my laptop. Can you elaborate on this? Surely two tablets, a case, and a keyboard is not going to be smaller / more compact than a laptop. I also can't think of any contexts where I would prefer a setup I need to set up and "break down".
        dharmab 5y ago
        As in I can leave the second tablet behind, flip the Magic Keyboard up and slip the tablet into my bag. It takes less space than my laptop + charger and works with the smaller charger I would have for my phone anyway. And I can pull it out and use it in contexts where a laptop would be awkward. I prefer using my iPad over my Macbook while having a meal or sitting on a couch- to say nothing about using it outside at a park, being a passenger in a car, standing in a queue, or taking a break on a local hike.
      - handrous 5y ago
        > I have a family member replacing her grad school MacBook Air with an iPad Pro now that she's returned to the industry and has a work computer again for her programming/bioinformatics needs. And a lot of her workflow could be done in Jupyter Notebooks, honestly. Programmer for over 15 years. Only reasons I bother to have any personal (non-work-supplied) computers other than an iPad or two (Pro + a Mini, if I had two) and an iPhone are: 1) I can't quite let go of PC gaming, 2) the Preview app on Mac (yes, really), and 3) frankly, piracy and related activities (setting up Kodi or Jellyfin stuff, emulation, major metadata-fixing sessions, that sort of thing) On that last one, I'm increasingly unsure it's actually worth it. If that weren't the only (reasonable) way to get/enjoy certain things that I like quite a bit that point would probably go away and I'd have to seriously consider whether the other two were worth the cost, hassle, & space.
        dharmab 5y ago
        I used to be big into the private tracker/warez scene. Nowadays I find it generally easier to pay for streaming subscriptions (especially since I have less free time anyway and need less media to fill it). The things I miss most are foreign films and music- it is very hard to find 90%+ of foreign media for sale in USD!
    - handrous 5y ago
      A regular laptop can't replace my iPad Pro. If I were mainly an iOS dev, Xcode on the iPad Pro very well might let it replace my laptop. Either way, if you're doing much iOS dev, you're probably gonna have one iPad of some kind, and one iPhone around for testing, so that doesn't change much whether the main dev device is a MacBook or an iPad Pro.
- chipotle_coyote 5y ago
  I'm still mostly convinced that Apple's conception of the iPad is as an application console -- that doesn't preclude "pro-level" apps in some fields (e.g., Final Cut Pro or Logic) but may well preclude tools for using the iPad to develop its own applications unless they can radically change the way development works. My suspicion is that Apple's answer to "how do I develop on an iPad" for the foreseeable future will officially remain "may we interest you in this Apple Silicon-based laptop."
  - dahfizz 5y ago
    Apple has strong vendor lock-in. If you already have an iphone, apple watch, macbook, and you're in the market for a tablet, you are going to buy an ipad. So if they make the ipads too capable, they eat their own laptop sales. A company like samsung does not have as strong vendor lock in, so they may as well make their tablets fully capable computers, because they are not competing with themselves.
    - chipotle_coyote 5y ago
      I think they're okay with eating their own laptop sales, at least if they're being eaten by iPad Pros. A 13" M1 MacBook Pro with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD costs $1899; the same CPU, RAM and SSD in an iPad Pro costs $1799 -- which will easily cross over $2000 if you want to add a trackpad and keyboard to it. This isn't to say that they don't like vendor lock-in, of course. If you do buy both an iPad and a MacBook they'll be happy to take your money. :) But I think they're positioning the Pro as a genuine laptop alternative -- just not for developers. (Or speaking from personal experience, technical writers.)
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- bsharitt 5y ago
  I wouldn't be super surprised to see Xcode for iPad, but I would guess it'd be super cut down, possibly only allowing iOS development in the strictest most Apple-approved only kind of way.
minimaxir 5y ago
Bloomberg says not too radical changes for the iPad for iOS 15 (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-22/apple-plans-notifications-ipad-home-screen-upgrades-for-ios-15 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-22/apple-pla...) but that doesn't preclude Apple from releasing Pro apps that make full use of the M1.
kitsunesoba 5y ago
We might see some form of virtualization. With M1 in iPad, the hardware support is there and apparently the Hypervisor.framework we know from macOS is now present on iOS as well. https://twitter.com/never_released/status/1250533740557852674 https://twitter.com/never_released/status/125053374055785267...
- dwaite 5y ago
  Virtualization support has been there a while, paravirtualization I believe is new in A14/M1. The iPhone 12 at least seems to disable the hardware needed to run the hypervisor within the bootloader.
Trasmatta 5y ago
Somehow I talked myself into buying the 11" M1 iPad Pro, and now I'm beginning to wonder why in the world I did that. I really have no use case for that amount of power in an iPad. I guess it means I'm at least pretty future proofed if Apple ever decides to give iPadOS the attention it deserves. (And add me to the list of people who thinks they should just port macOS to the iPad already. I don't think they ever will, though.)
- ZuLuuuuuu 5y ago
  People tend to use iPads for a very long time like 5-6 or even 7 years. So future-proofing is a good choice when it comes to iPads. Besides, it is a really good product, my iPad Mini 4 was my favorite piece of hardware for a long time. I think about buying an 11" M1 iPad Pro myself as well.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - dkarbayev 5y ago
    I gave my old iPad 2 some years ago to my mom, and somehow she’s still using it to these days (although apps are dropping support for iOS 9.3.5 one after another).
- dawnerd 5y ago
  Same, I was asking myself that this weekend as I was driving to BestBuy to pick it up.
- headmelted 5y ago
  I bought a used 2018 Pro fully specced out because it was smashed up and a bargain. Replaced the screen for minimal cost and it's now good as new. Folio, Pencil 2, the works. Even the A12X (which benchmarks nowhere close to the M1) is overkill by a very long way. Especially now, given that it gathers dust most of the time. Multi-user would at least a little more useful. Honestly I'm going with Occam's Razor. I think the M1 iPad Pro exists for the same reason as the 2021 Apple TV. They had the chips.
skhr0680 5y ago
Something like booting macOS on an iPad Pro?
ec109685 5y ago
Gruber hints at this here: https://daringfireball.net/2021/05/the_2021_m1_ipad_pros https://daringfireball.net/2021/05/the_2021_m1_ipad_pros "If you already love iPadOS, well, you’re in luck — go out and buy a new iPad Pro and I assure you, you’ll be delighted. For the rest of us, I have a feeling we need to see iPadOS 15 before we experience the true potential of these new (or any recent) iPad Pros. Three weeks until WWDC. "
- dwaite 5y ago
  Thats not necessarily because he knows anything. Apple is pretty predictable at the macro level. In March they release significant changes and additions which do not have significant breaking impact. These are often targeting educational/business features (MDM management, classroom management, iPad usage), specifically because of the annual educational buying cycle requires the ability to evaluate in April/May to plan fall purchasing. This is also considered the last chance to deprecate functionality on the current version. In June they announce new features and changes that will have breaking impacts on existing code in their annual September major release. If Apple doesn't have new iPadOS functionality announced in a few weeks, the expectation is that the next significant functionality would be March 2022, and that still would be limited to things which do not break existing iPadOS code.
- raydev 5y ago
  I think Gruber is being extremely optimistic here. It is indeed very strange that Apple is shipping new iPads every year, each revision making iPadOS even more comically out of touch with the hardware on which it runs. I'm sure Apple is planning something but we could just as easily be waiting another 2 years before iPadOS takes advantage of hardware capabilities, since Apple does plan ahead but they never tell us what they're planning. iPad-buyers are clearly fine with the current state of iPadOS, and Apple is clearly happy with the number of iPad-buyers. They're in no rush.
dwaite 5y ago
I suspect the split between iOS and iPadOS was about slowly moving iPadOS closer to the mac ("what if we made a desktop OS based on the iOS app security sandboxing model?") Meanwhile, they have been moving macOS to have more of the libraries and look and feel of iPadOS, and having catalyst be both a build target for making mac apps, and to reuse the libraries for running iOS/iPadOS-compiled apps on M1. So I don't suspect they use it for anything like virtualizing macOS - they seem to instead be trying to build that part of the bridging functionality into the mac. I suspect instead it is about giving the Pro model enough head room for more serious porting of "pro apps" to the iPad.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

I want Xcode on iPad. Sadly, I think that may be a ways down the line, but I would love to be wrong.

splatcollision 5y ago
They could totally do this and it would be amazing. Would be a great but late reproach to the years of complaints about the demise of general-purpose computers that the iPad and iPhone have represented so far...
dylan604 5y ago
An iPad Pro running Xcode with an iPad Air as a side car second screen. That would be a super light weight all day dev kit. Somebody would probably even come up with a "case" that carries both iDevices and allows for both "screens" to be supported in various configurations.
- luke2m 5y ago
  A minimum of $1697, assuming you want the keyboard, for something with much less capability than a regular laptop.
  - dharmab 5y ago
    But also something I could break down and carry with me in lots of contexts that I wouldn't bring my laptop. I have a family member replacing her grad school MacBook Air with an iPad Pro now that she's returned to the industry and has a work computer again for her programming/bioinformatics needs. And a lot of her workflow could be done in Jupyter Notebooks, honestly.
    - dahfizz 5y ago
      > But also something I could break down and carry with me in lots of contexts that I wouldn't bring my laptop. Can you elaborate on this? Surely two tablets, a case, and a keyboard is not going to be smaller / more compact than a laptop. I also can't think of any contexts where I would prefer a setup I need to set up and "break down".
      - dharmab 5y ago
        As in I can leave the second tablet behind, flip the Magic Keyboard up and slip the tablet into my bag. It takes less space than my laptop + charger and works with the smaller charger I would have for my phone anyway. And I can pull it out and use it in contexts where a laptop would be awkward. I prefer using my iPad over my Macbook while having a meal or sitting on a couch- to say nothing about using it outside at a park, being a passenger in a car, standing in a queue, or taking a break on a local hike.
    - handrous 5y ago
      > I have a family member replacing her grad school MacBook Air with an iPad Pro now that she's returned to the industry and has a work computer again for her programming/bioinformatics needs. And a lot of her workflow could be done in Jupyter Notebooks, honestly. Programmer for over 15 years. Only reasons I bother to have any personal (non-work-supplied) computers other than an iPad or two (Pro + a Mini, if I had two) and an iPhone are: 1) I can't quite let go of PC gaming, 2) the Preview app on Mac (yes, really), and 3) frankly, piracy and related activities (setting up Kodi or Jellyfin stuff, emulation, major metadata-fixing sessions, that sort of thing) On that last one, I'm increasingly unsure it's actually worth it. If that weren't the only (reasonable) way to get/enjoy certain things that I like quite a bit that point would probably go away and I'd have to seriously consider whether the other two were worth the cost, hassle, & space.
      - dharmab 5y ago
        I used to be big into the private tracker/warez scene. Nowadays I find it generally easier to pay for streaming subscriptions (especially since I have less free time anyway and need less media to fill it). The things I miss most are foreign films and music- it is very hard to find 90%+ of foreign media for sale in USD!
  - handrous 5y ago
    A regular laptop can't replace my iPad Pro. If I were mainly an iOS dev, Xcode on the iPad Pro very well might let it replace my laptop. Either way, if you're doing much iOS dev, you're probably gonna have one iPad of some kind, and one iPhone around for testing, so that doesn't change much whether the main dev device is a MacBook or an iPad Pro.
chipotle_coyote 5y ago
I'm still mostly convinced that Apple's conception of the iPad is as an application console -- that doesn't preclude "pro-level" apps in some fields (e.g., Final Cut Pro or Logic) but may well preclude tools for using the iPad to develop its own applications unless they can radically change the way development works. My suspicion is that Apple's answer to "how do I develop on an iPad" for the foreseeable future will officially remain "may we interest you in this Apple Silicon-based laptop."
- dahfizz 5y ago
  Apple has strong vendor lock-in. If you already have an iphone, apple watch, macbook, and you're in the market for a tablet, you are going to buy an ipad. So if they make the ipads too capable, they eat their own laptop sales. A company like samsung does not have as strong vendor lock in, so they may as well make their tablets fully capable computers, because they are not competing with themselves.
  - chipotle_coyote 5y ago
    I think they're okay with eating their own laptop sales, at least if they're being eaten by iPad Pros. A 13" M1 MacBook Pro with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD costs $1899; the same CPU, RAM and SSD in an iPad Pro costs $1799 -- which will easily cross over $2000 if you want to add a trackpad and keyboard to it. This isn't to say that they don't like vendor lock-in, of course. If you do buy both an iPad and a MacBook they'll be happy to take your money. :) But I think they're positioning the Pro as a genuine laptop alternative -- just not for developers. (Or speaking from personal experience, technical writers.)
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
bsharitt 5y ago
I wouldn't be super surprised to see Xcode for iPad, but I would guess it'd be super cut down, possibly only allowing iOS development in the strictest most Apple-approved only kind of way.

minimaxir 5y ago

Bloomberg says not too radical changes for the iPad for iOS 15 (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-22/apple-plans-notifications-ipad-home-screen-upgrades-for-ios-15 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-22/apple-pla...) but that doesn't preclude Apple from releasing Pro apps that make full use of the M1.

kitsunesoba 5y ago

We might see some form of virtualization. With M1 in iPad, the hardware support is there and apparently the Hypervisor.framework we know from macOS is now present on iOS as well. https://twitter.com/never_released/status/1250533740557852674 https://twitter.com/never_released/status/125053374055785267...

dwaite 5y ago
Virtualization support has been there a while, paravirtualization I believe is new in A14/M1. The iPhone 12 at least seems to disable the hardware needed to run the hypervisor within the bootloader.

Trasmatta 5y ago

Somehow I talked myself into buying the 11" M1 iPad Pro, and now I'm beginning to wonder why in the world I did that. I really have no use case for that amount of power in an iPad. I guess it means I'm at least pretty future proofed if Apple ever decides to give iPadOS the attention it deserves. (And add me to the list of people who thinks they should just port macOS to the iPad already. I don't think they ever will, though.)

ZuLuuuuuu 5y ago
People tend to use iPads for a very long time like 5-6 or even 7 years. So future-proofing is a good choice when it comes to iPads. Besides, it is a really good product, my iPad Mini 4 was my favorite piece of hardware for a long time. I think about buying an 11" M1 iPad Pro myself as well.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dkarbayev 5y ago
  I gave my old iPad 2 some years ago to my mom, and somehow she’s still using it to these days (although apps are dropping support for iOS 9.3.5 one after another).
dawnerd 5y ago
Same, I was asking myself that this weekend as I was driving to BestBuy to pick it up.
headmelted 5y ago
I bought a used 2018 Pro fully specced out because it was smashed up and a bargain. Replaced the screen for minimal cost and it's now good as new. Folio, Pencil 2, the works. Even the A12X (which benchmarks nowhere close to the M1) is overkill by a very long way. Especially now, given that it gathers dust most of the time. Multi-user would at least a little more useful. Honestly I'm going with Occam's Razor. I think the M1 iPad Pro exists for the same reason as the 2021 Apple TV. They had the chips.

skhr0680 5y ago

Something like booting macOS on an iPad Pro?

ec109685 5y ago

Gruber hints at this here: https://daringfireball.net/2021/05/the_2021_m1_ipad_pros https://daringfireball.net/2021/05/the_2021_m1_ipad_pros "If you already love iPadOS, well, you’re in luck — go out and buy a new iPad Pro and I assure you, you’ll be delighted. For the rest of us, I have a feeling we need to see iPadOS 15 before we experience the true potential of these new (or any recent) iPad Pros. Three weeks until WWDC. "

dwaite 5y ago
Thats not necessarily because he knows anything. Apple is pretty predictable at the macro level. In March they release significant changes and additions which do not have significant breaking impact. These are often targeting educational/business features (MDM management, classroom management, iPad usage), specifically because of the annual educational buying cycle requires the ability to evaluate in April/May to plan fall purchasing. This is also considered the last chance to deprecate functionality on the current version. In June they announce new features and changes that will have breaking impacts on existing code in their annual September major release. If Apple doesn't have new iPadOS functionality announced in a few weeks, the expectation is that the next significant functionality would be March 2022, and that still would be limited to things which do not break existing iPadOS code.
raydev 5y ago
I think Gruber is being extremely optimistic here. It is indeed very strange that Apple is shipping new iPads every year, each revision making iPadOS even more comically out of touch with the hardware on which it runs. I'm sure Apple is planning something but we could just as easily be waiting another 2 years before iPadOS takes advantage of hardware capabilities, since Apple does plan ahead but they never tell us what they're planning. iPad-buyers are clearly fine with the current state of iPadOS, and Apple is clearly happy with the number of iPad-buyers. They're in no rush.

dwaite 5y ago

I suspect the split between iOS and iPadOS was about slowly moving iPadOS closer to the mac ("what if we made a desktop OS based on the iOS app security sandboxing model?") Meanwhile, they have been moving macOS to have more of the libraries and look and feel of iPadOS, and having catalyst be both a build target for making mac apps, and to reuse the libraries for running iOS/iPadOS-compiled apps on M1. So I don't suspect they use it for anything like virtualizing macOS - they seem to instead be trying to build that part of the bridging functionality into the mac. I suspect instead it is about giving the Pro model enough head room for more serious porting of "pro apps" to the iPad.