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Whether this app is for you or not, it must be appreciated that this is possible, and is what will distinguish 'real computers' from toy devices like iPad. The

Whether this app is for you or not, it must be appreciated that this is possible, and is what will distinguish 'real computers' from toy devices like iPad. There was a time where Apple was trying to make iOS/iPad the future of (Apple) computing, but it could just never happen partly because while Apple may have lowered the floor on ease-of-use, they also significantly lowered the ceiling of functionality compared to macOS (or Windows). Completely eliminated the long-tail of possibility that people use Real Computers for. iPads now have the same CPU as some Mac computers, yet they're still significantly held back by software limitations (and have been pretty much since day one).

wil421 4y ago
They dumb down iPads for the same reason they don’t allow a multiuser experience on iPad. They want you to buy another iPad or if you want a more capable device a Mac.
atchoo 4y ago
I think there is still cause for worry. Listening to John Siracusa talk about creating such utilities and it's a story of ever decreasing API features making tasks like interrogating and controlling the OS or other apps increasingly hard especially if you want to be blessed by inclusion in the platform app store. It's super risky to invest your time/money creating an app like this because the chance it is broken in the next OS update is so high. I fully agree that it's what makes computers special and I am very frustrated by "security" being the reason I can't make the computer behave as I wish. So many 3rd party fixes or innovative ideas (e.g. industry changing game mods) wouldn't have happened without malware like tactics of patching dlls which I believe every OS vendor would like to make forever impossible. Safe computing is essential but not at the cost of killing the golden goose of general purpose computing with full user control. I wish the focus was more on transparency and control of what software is doing on a system and not cutting it's legs off.

wil421 4y ago

They dumb down iPads for the same reason they don’t allow a multiuser experience on iPad. They want you to buy another iPad or if you want a more capable device a Mac.

atchoo 4y ago

I think there is still cause for worry. Listening to John Siracusa talk about creating such utilities and it's a story of ever decreasing API features making tasks like interrogating and controlling the OS or other apps increasingly hard especially if you want to be blessed by inclusion in the platform app store. It's super risky to invest your time/money creating an app like this because the chance it is broken in the next OS update is so high. I fully agree that it's what makes computers special and I am very frustrated by "security" being the reason I can't make the computer behave as I wish. So many 3rd party fixes or innovative ideas (e.g. industry changing game mods) wouldn't have happened without malware like tactics of patching dlls which I believe every OS vendor would like to make forever impossible. Safe computing is essential but not at the cost of killing the golden goose of general purpose computing with full user control. I wish the focus was more on transparency and control of what software is doing on a system and not cutting it's legs off.