6 ms·

Maybe 3-5 years until iOS/iPadOS and MacOS are essentially the same. It doesn’t make sense to keep them separate code based when iOS is developing into a hybrid

Maybe 3-5 years until iOS/iPadOS and MacOS are essentially the same. It doesn’t make sense to keep them separate code based when iOS is developing into a hybrid form factor OS, with mouse, multitasking, windows, file system, external monitor, usb accessories, keyboard, etc. My guess is non-pro laptops will basically be iOS, and then there will be a MacOS Pro, which unlocks some capabilities for developers, but all in a unified code base. First step was to share processor architecture and work in the ability for iOS apps to run in MacOS. But iOS is very much converging into a replacement for MacOS. And just like iPhone iOS strips out features you unlock with iPadOS, same for the iOS-ification of MacOS.

mywittyname 4y ago
If they aren't currently the same, they probably never will be. The whole business case for the iPad falls apart the minute it can install and run arbitrary code. At that point, the iPad shifts from being a large form-factor iPhone to being a multi-modal Macbook. Which is to say, it goes from a device that compliments an existing device to one that replaces and existing, more expensive device. The reason professionals use Macbooks is because users still need to install and run software that's not sanctioned by Apple. And users are willing to pay a decently large premium to do so. I'm sure Apple would love to lock down Macbooks the same way they did for iDevices, but if they do that, they would end up killing the Macbook market overnight.
- 015a 4y ago
  > I'm sure Apple would love to lock down Macbooks the same way they did for iDevices, but if they do that, they would end up killing the Macbook market overnight. Maybe, but its better to think holistically. iPad hardware sales still trail Macs. An argument could be made that iPad hardware sales + iPad-sourced App Store sales does exceed Mac hardware sales + Mac-sourced App Store sales, but it legitimately is not by much. 2022Q2 iPad hardware sales were ~$7B; Mac sales were ~$10B; total Apple Services revenue, including App Store, on iPhone+iPad+Mac, Music, TV+, etc, was ~$19B. That context emphasizes your statement: Apple would (maybe) love a reality where the Mac were as locked down as iOS, but achieving that reality would torpedo their Mac sales. But, we need to go a step further: it would torpedo their Mac sales as it has their iPad sales. To me, the most frustrating thing about being a long-time Apple user (and at times, a fan) is watching their spirit of "disrupting themselves" disappear. They systemically can't do it anymore. A few days ago I was playing around with python on a windows machine; I say "python3 thing.py" in a terminal; it says its not installed; and immediately opens the Windows App Store to install it. I gotta say; that workflow was the most impressed I've been with a computer in four years (and it was immediately paid back by trying to search for "Spotify" in the windows start search and it returning a website as the first result, but I digress). That's self-disruption; the idea that doing the unobvious thing from one revenue-line perspective can lead to % upticks in other revenue lines that net higher total revenue. The Windows Store sucks for buying apps; but doubling it as a dev-focused package manager? And WSL is a cost-center for Microsoft, but jeeze... does a Surface Laptop make sense for me? Maybe. Apple constantly says "we want it all, its our way or no way" then cracks start appearing in that peerless veneer and out those cracks surge billions in revenue. Other companies (sometimes) say "ok, we're not great at that, how can we work around that weakness to still drive revenue in what we're great at." Microsoft sucks at building a phone; so bring the services to the phone people already have. They suck at building an App Store; but how can we still make that App Store useful, if not profitable? Their consoles have always been in last place; so how can we deliver the main revenue driver, the games, to more people (cloud streaming)? The list goes on. I'm not asserting that Microsoft is a better company, whatever that means, I'm just asserting that Apple needs to learn something from them, because at this point the two have switched places. Apple today is acting like Microsoft twenty years ago, and vice-versa, and someone at Apple has to be recognizing that iPhone rev growth is slowing, iPad rev is flat, M1 gave the Mac a little boost but it's been slow for 15 years, their most successful new product of the past, like, decade, were headphones. Momentum is great when its with you, but its apt to decay, and once it starts going the other way its a bitch to turn around.
- Nullabillity 4y ago
  Which is why we need to solve this through regulation rather than hope that Tim Cook grows a conscience.
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  Well professionals would use the MacBook pro
  - gumby 4y ago
    Why? I'm a professional developer and the lightness of the macbook air is great for me. I have a big picture of my code base in my head so I don't really need a huge screen.
- westhom 4y ago
  I definitely get why professionals want a MacBook. I’m just observing that, from UI/UX/functionality standpoint, the differences between what iPad OS can do and what MacOS can do is quickly disappearing. It’s been happening over a few years, and will continue to converge. There will be a point where it will be good enough to add to consumer MacBooks, and satisfy most people. They will maintain differentiation between the “iOS” MacOS just like they enable more powerful features with iPadOS that you can’t have with iOS. But it’s going to happen, the writing is on the wall. Btw, this doesn’t mean that iOS MacOS will be unusable by devs. I’m sure they have already roadmappped what a pro iOS looks like, for MacBook users. Eg terminal, compiling, code running, etc. But might be more locked down from where you can install .apps from.
  - mywittyname 4y ago
    Apple could have made the iPad a convertible laptop long time ago. They just chose not to. It's not like Apple is waiting for some technology to emerge that will enable the iPad to be more like a laptop. Apple straight up does not want people using iPads to do laptop things. They don't want people substituting their $999 Macbook Airs with $329 iPads.
    - wincy 4y ago
      But why not substitute the $999 MacBook Air with the $999 iPad Pro 13”? That’s the one that bothers me. It’s very nearly the same device.
      - iddan 4y ago
        It’s a MacBook Air with a touchscreen and Apple Pencil that you can detach the keyboard and mouse from it. Some examples for things I can do better with my iPad: drawing with Procreate and viewing sheet music for my piano. My iPad can do that and it is as powerful as a MacBook Air for computing tasks
    - westhom 4y ago
      >Apple straight up does not want people using iPads to do laptop things Disagree. Just look at what they are releasing in iPadOS 16. Apps can now float over each other. Team iOS is coming for Team macOS, they are closing in fast. They are developing a UX & app architecture that can easily match consumer expectations around real physical laptops, and there will be further differentiation when it hits Macbooks in a few years time. With iPadOS 16, for 95% of non-pro users, with a keyboard attachment, there is very very little differentiation between a iPad purchase and a Air purchase. You pretty much own a laptop at that point. Yes, there are obvious performance differences, ports, form factor, battery, etc. But think through the mind of a consumer user, the OS capability differences are razor thin.
- highwaylights 4y ago
  This, but I think it goes beyond this too. If Apple allows exceptions to the iOS sandbox for developers, it will very rapidly be abused by users who don’t understand the implications of what they’re doing. You can see this in the many just-jailbreak-your-iphone-to-get-this-cool-feature videos all over youtube. Almost no-one outside of developers understands what it really means to disable these guardrails and the headache for Apple when it starts going wrong would be enormous. Grandma: “I let my grandson borrow my phone but now it has this screen that says I need to pay money to decrypt my files how do I fix it?” Apple store staff: “That appears to be malware, madam” blank stare Apple store staff: “I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do” Grandma: “But the ad said it was secure.” etc.
  - mywittyname 4y ago
    Apple doesn't allow it because App Store fees are key component of their business model. That's it. The argument that people are too stupid to know how to properly use a computer is just a handy argument their marketing team uses because protecting little old ladies from evil hackers sounds better than the truth.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      Says someone who has never had to clean up someone else’s computer.
  - moleperson 4y ago
    I really despise the idea that we should let the manufacturer decide what's best for us with no out based on the premise of protecting people who don't know any better. As technology becomes an increasingly integral part of our lives, people need to be able to think for themselves and understand the consequences of how they interact with software. Also as someone who's grandmother started her own software company and was a programmer since the days of punchcards, I find these "what about grandma" appeals very repetitive and kind of insulting.
    - the_other 4y ago
- gumby 4y ago
  > I'm sure Apple would love to lock down Macbooks the same way they did for iDevices... I really don't think so. The Mac has a different history and use case and is heavily used within Apple, among other important places. The incentive for Apple to do this would be what: do extract a little more revenue from their smallest-volume OS? As you say, part of its use case is the fact that you can just download and run code on it. That's a small and decreasing percentage of users, but those users are important too. I'm glad there's no sideloading on my phone and ipad (of course I can always run my own code when I want to). It means my parents have stable platforms to use. And I'm extra glad that restriction doesn't apply to my mac. I like how the design language of the watch is influencing the ios and macos devices. Unlike the stupid experiments on the phone, there isn't a lot of room on the watch for "flat" interfaces: space is at a premium and contrast is an important factor. I'm also glad that for almost the first time new features are rolling out to i devices and macos at the same time. Usually it was mobile first, then grudgingly macos.
  - westhom 4y ago
    >The incentive for Apple to do this would be what: do extract a little more revenue from their smallest-volume OS? I think that's only part of the picture. Yes it would boost their services business, but Macbook/iMac users are a small part of the picture these days. It's smarter from a technology centralization standpoint. Why have almost all your products centered around iOS codebase, and then your laptops/iMacs (small % of total devices) on legacy OSX. A better strategy would be, use a single OS codebase, and add layers of functionality the bigger / more pro a device gets. Makes it way easier to advance the software for your entire product line. Btw, expanding iOS to Macbooks/iMacs does not mean throwing pro / dev users under the bus. They can think of a way to make "iOS-macOS" appealing to devs, by simulating some of the OSX features, like terminal and the ability to write software on-device.
    - gumby 4y ago
      > A better strategy would be, use a single OS codebase, and add layers of functionality the bigger / more pro a device gets. That is the strategy that they have used since the original phone announcement (Jobs touted it on stage). Supposedly there were two competing phone teams, one built on a mac os X base and one on the ipod s/w. I don't know any of the people involved so I can't say how true that is, but it feels a bit weird to me, like the kind of thing that would have been decided pretty early in the process. In any case there's a large percentage of common code base between the oses on phone, ipad, watch, tv, and mac (and a bunch of embedded devices too, like the usb-c and lightning dongles for HDMI -- yes you can open a console to those devices if you want). What I think is great is that a bunch of ios frameworks now work/have equivalents on the macOS. I'm actually pretty happy for the same capabilities to be roughly available across platforms: back in the 80s the hardware I used (lispms mostly) was pretty much all a computing "window" into a common underlying sense of computation. I use the apple devices because they are getting pretty close to that: I can just pick up the device that has the most convenient interface for task X, or if that's not possible, still do task X with the device at hand. Having said that what sucks is when the mac application is just a lazily ported ios app that doesn't fit the mac UX metaphors. But this release looks like a good step forward in that regard.
- scarface74 4y ago
  An iPad + $270 keyboard + Apple Pencil is already more expensive than a MacBook Air.
- pronlover723 4y ago
  > to one that replaces and existing, more expensive device. iPads with a keyboard cost more than a Macbook Air
rasguanabana 4y ago
I doubt it. There’s a reason you can’t call from iPad (despite having SIM card variant). There’s a reason you cannot use Pencil with Mac on touchpad. There’s a reason you have very limited multitasking support on iPad and none on iPhone. Apple wants you to buy more devices to fill gaps that another one doesn’t support.
- scarface74 4y ago
  I’ve had to make “calls” to iPhone users plenty of times using FaceTime and to none iPhone users using whatever messaging app they were using. I can also make regular calls from my Apple Watch.
lattalayta 4y ago
My prediction is that they are just slowly going to merge them (like we've been seeing over the past few years with control center, multi-tasking, and now stage manager and system preferences). I bet there would be a lot of outrage and pushback if they decided to merge them before all the functionality is there, but eventually people will be asking for them to be the same.
bergenty 4y ago
Touch is fundamentally different from a mouse and keyboard. They will never be the same.

mywittyname 4y ago

If they aren't currently the same, they probably never will be. The whole business case for the iPad falls apart the minute it can install and run arbitrary code. At that point, the iPad shifts from being a large form-factor iPhone to being a multi-modal Macbook. Which is to say, it goes from a device that compliments an existing device to one that replaces and existing, more expensive device. The reason professionals use Macbooks is because users still need to install and run software that's not sanctioned by Apple. And users are willing to pay a decently large premium to do so. I'm sure Apple would love to lock down Macbooks the same way they did for iDevices, but if they do that, they would end up killing the Macbook market overnight.

015a 4y ago
> I'm sure Apple would love to lock down Macbooks the same way they did for iDevices, but if they do that, they would end up killing the Macbook market overnight. Maybe, but its better to think holistically. iPad hardware sales still trail Macs. An argument could be made that iPad hardware sales + iPad-sourced App Store sales does exceed Mac hardware sales + Mac-sourced App Store sales, but it legitimately is not by much. 2022Q2 iPad hardware sales were ~$7B; Mac sales were ~$10B; total Apple Services revenue, including App Store, on iPhone+iPad+Mac, Music, TV+, etc, was ~$19B. That context emphasizes your statement: Apple would (maybe) love a reality where the Mac were as locked down as iOS, but achieving that reality would torpedo their Mac sales. But, we need to go a step further: it would torpedo their Mac sales as it has their iPad sales. To me, the most frustrating thing about being a long-time Apple user (and at times, a fan) is watching their spirit of "disrupting themselves" disappear. They systemically can't do it anymore. A few days ago I was playing around with python on a windows machine; I say "python3 thing.py" in a terminal; it says its not installed; and immediately opens the Windows App Store to install it. I gotta say; that workflow was the most impressed I've been with a computer in four years (and it was immediately paid back by trying to search for "Spotify" in the windows start search and it returning a website as the first result, but I digress). That's self-disruption; the idea that doing the unobvious thing from one revenue-line perspective can lead to % upticks in other revenue lines that net higher total revenue. The Windows Store sucks for buying apps; but doubling it as a dev-focused package manager? And WSL is a cost-center for Microsoft, but jeeze... does a Surface Laptop make sense for me? Maybe. Apple constantly says "we want it all, its our way or no way" then cracks start appearing in that peerless veneer and out those cracks surge billions in revenue. Other companies (sometimes) say "ok, we're not great at that, how can we work around that weakness to still drive revenue in what we're great at." Microsoft sucks at building a phone; so bring the services to the phone people already have. They suck at building an App Store; but how can we still make that App Store useful, if not profitable? Their consoles have always been in last place; so how can we deliver the main revenue driver, the games, to more people (cloud streaming)? The list goes on. I'm not asserting that Microsoft is a better company, whatever that means, I'm just asserting that Apple needs to learn something from them, because at this point the two have switched places. Apple today is acting like Microsoft twenty years ago, and vice-versa, and someone at Apple has to be recognizing that iPhone rev growth is slowing, iPad rev is flat, M1 gave the Mac a little boost but it's been slow for 15 years, their most successful new product of the past, like, decade, were headphones. Momentum is great when its with you, but its apt to decay, and once it starts going the other way its a bitch to turn around.
Nullabillity 4y ago
Which is why we need to solve this through regulation rather than hope that Tim Cook grows a conscience.
whimsicalism 4y ago
Well professionals would use the MacBook pro
- gumby 4y ago
  Why? I'm a professional developer and the lightness of the macbook air is great for me. I have a big picture of my code base in my head so I don't really need a huge screen.
westhom 4y ago
I definitely get why professionals want a MacBook. I’m just observing that, from UI/UX/functionality standpoint, the differences between what iPad OS can do and what MacOS can do is quickly disappearing. It’s been happening over a few years, and will continue to converge. There will be a point where it will be good enough to add to consumer MacBooks, and satisfy most people. They will maintain differentiation between the “iOS” MacOS just like they enable more powerful features with iPadOS that you can’t have with iOS. But it’s going to happen, the writing is on the wall. Btw, this doesn’t mean that iOS MacOS will be unusable by devs. I’m sure they have already roadmappped what a pro iOS looks like, for MacBook users. Eg terminal, compiling, code running, etc. But might be more locked down from where you can install .apps from.
- mywittyname 4y ago
  Apple could have made the iPad a convertible laptop long time ago. They just chose not to. It's not like Apple is waiting for some technology to emerge that will enable the iPad to be more like a laptop. Apple straight up does not want people using iPads to do laptop things. They don't want people substituting their $999 Macbook Airs with $329 iPads.
  - wincy 4y ago
    But why not substitute the $999 MacBook Air with the $999 iPad Pro 13”? That’s the one that bothers me. It’s very nearly the same device.
    - iddan 4y ago
      It’s a MacBook Air with a touchscreen and Apple Pencil that you can detach the keyboard and mouse from it. Some examples for things I can do better with my iPad: drawing with Procreate and viewing sheet music for my piano. My iPad can do that and it is as powerful as a MacBook Air for computing tasks
  - westhom 4y ago
    >Apple straight up does not want people using iPads to do laptop things Disagree. Just look at what they are releasing in iPadOS 16. Apps can now float over each other. Team iOS is coming for Team macOS, they are closing in fast. They are developing a UX & app architecture that can easily match consumer expectations around real physical laptops, and there will be further differentiation when it hits Macbooks in a few years time. With iPadOS 16, for 95% of non-pro users, with a keyboard attachment, there is very very little differentiation between a iPad purchase and a Air purchase. You pretty much own a laptop at that point. Yes, there are obvious performance differences, ports, form factor, battery, etc. But think through the mind of a consumer user, the OS capability differences are razor thin.
highwaylights 4y ago
This, but I think it goes beyond this too. If Apple allows exceptions to the iOS sandbox for developers, it will very rapidly be abused by users who don’t understand the implications of what they’re doing. You can see this in the many just-jailbreak-your-iphone-to-get-this-cool-feature videos all over youtube. Almost no-one outside of developers understands what it really means to disable these guardrails and the headache for Apple when it starts going wrong would be enormous. Grandma: “I let my grandson borrow my phone but now it has this screen that says I need to pay money to decrypt my files how do I fix it?” Apple store staff: “That appears to be malware, madam” blank stare Apple store staff: “I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do” Grandma: “But the ad said it was secure.” etc.
- mywittyname 4y ago
  Apple doesn't allow it because App Store fees are key component of their business model. That's it. The argument that people are too stupid to know how to properly use a computer is just a handy argument their marketing team uses because protecting little old ladies from evil hackers sounds better than the truth.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Says someone who has never had to clean up someone else’s computer.
- moleperson 4y ago
  I really despise the idea that we should let the manufacturer decide what's best for us with no out based on the premise of protecting people who don't know any better. As technology becomes an increasingly integral part of our lives, people need to be able to think for themselves and understand the consequences of how they interact with software. Also as someone who's grandmother started her own software company and was a programmer since the days of punchcards, I find these "what about grandma" appeals very repetitive and kind of insulting.
  - the_other 4y ago
gumby 4y ago
> I'm sure Apple would love to lock down Macbooks the same way they did for iDevices... I really don't think so. The Mac has a different history and use case and is heavily used within Apple, among other important places. The incentive for Apple to do this would be what: do extract a little more revenue from their smallest-volume OS? As you say, part of its use case is the fact that you can just download and run code on it. That's a small and decreasing percentage of users, but those users are important too. I'm glad there's no sideloading on my phone and ipad (of course I can always run my own code when I want to). It means my parents have stable platforms to use. And I'm extra glad that restriction doesn't apply to my mac. I like how the design language of the watch is influencing the ios and macos devices. Unlike the stupid experiments on the phone, there isn't a lot of room on the watch for "flat" interfaces: space is at a premium and contrast is an important factor. I'm also glad that for almost the first time new features are rolling out to i devices and macos at the same time. Usually it was mobile first, then grudgingly macos.
- westhom 4y ago
  >The incentive for Apple to do this would be what: do extract a little more revenue from their smallest-volume OS? I think that's only part of the picture. Yes it would boost their services business, but Macbook/iMac users are a small part of the picture these days. It's smarter from a technology centralization standpoint. Why have almost all your products centered around iOS codebase, and then your laptops/iMacs (small % of total devices) on legacy OSX. A better strategy would be, use a single OS codebase, and add layers of functionality the bigger / more pro a device gets. Makes it way easier to advance the software for your entire product line. Btw, expanding iOS to Macbooks/iMacs does not mean throwing pro / dev users under the bus. They can think of a way to make "iOS-macOS" appealing to devs, by simulating some of the OSX features, like terminal and the ability to write software on-device.
  - gumby 4y ago
    > A better strategy would be, use a single OS codebase, and add layers of functionality the bigger / more pro a device gets. That is the strategy that they have used since the original phone announcement (Jobs touted it on stage). Supposedly there were two competing phone teams, one built on a mac os X base and one on the ipod s/w. I don't know any of the people involved so I can't say how true that is, but it feels a bit weird to me, like the kind of thing that would have been decided pretty early in the process. In any case there's a large percentage of common code base between the oses on phone, ipad, watch, tv, and mac (and a bunch of embedded devices too, like the usb-c and lightning dongles for HDMI -- yes you can open a console to those devices if you want). What I think is great is that a bunch of ios frameworks now work/have equivalents on the macOS. I'm actually pretty happy for the same capabilities to be roughly available across platforms: back in the 80s the hardware I used (lispms mostly) was pretty much all a computing "window" into a common underlying sense of computation. I use the apple devices because they are getting pretty close to that: I can just pick up the device that has the most convenient interface for task X, or if that's not possible, still do task X with the device at hand. Having said that what sucks is when the mac application is just a lazily ported ios app that doesn't fit the mac UX metaphors. But this release looks like a good step forward in that regard.
scarface74 4y ago
An iPad + $270 keyboard + Apple Pencil is already more expensive than a MacBook Air.
pronlover723 4y ago
> to one that replaces and existing, more expensive device. iPads with a keyboard cost more than a Macbook Air

rasguanabana 4y ago

I doubt it. There’s a reason you can’t call from iPad (despite having SIM card variant). There’s a reason you cannot use Pencil with Mac on touchpad. There’s a reason you have very limited multitasking support on iPad and none on iPhone. Apple wants you to buy more devices to fill gaps that another one doesn’t support.

scarface74 4y ago
I’ve had to make “calls” to iPhone users plenty of times using FaceTime and to none iPhone users using whatever messaging app they were using. I can also make regular calls from my Apple Watch.

lattalayta 4y ago

My prediction is that they are just slowly going to merge them (like we've been seeing over the past few years with control center, multi-tasking, and now stage manager and system preferences). I bet there would be a lot of outrage and pushback if they decided to merge them before all the functionality is there, but eventually people will be asking for them to be the same.

bergenty 4y ago

Touch is fundamentally different from a mouse and keyboard. They will never be the same.