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Apple Silicon M2+ has hardware support for nested virtualization. It's rumored [1] that 2024 iPad Pro will see price hikes of $500-$700 to cover the OLED scree

Apple Silicon M2+ has hardware support for nested virtualization. It's rumored [1] that 2024 iPad Pro will see price hikes of $500-$700 to cover the OLED screen and increases in base memory/storage. If a new iPad Magic Keyboard gains [2] an aluminum shell that looks like a Macbook, that could put iPad Pro into the price tier of Macbook Pros. If 2024 iPad Pro + Magic Keyboard costs > Macbook Air + Mac Mini, that may allow Apple to untie iPad Pro M3 nested virt for iOS, macOS and Linux VMs. [1] https://www.tomsguide.com/news/ipad-pro-2024 https://www.tomsguide.com/news/ipad-pro-2024 [2] https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/3/23857409/ipad-aluminum-magic-keyboard-apple-ipad-pro https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/3/23857409/ipad-aluminum-mag...

raccoonDivider 3y ago
I don't understand why they're trying to turn iPads into laptops. Just start from their existing laptops and make them more mobile instead of trying to inflate a phone OS into something that does the job? Is this about control over the apps people can run?
- transpute 3y ago
  Perhaps they are turning laptops into iPads. The price/performance of Apple Silicon laptops was a descendant of early iPad Pro SoCs, with current iPad Pros on M2. A couple of years ago, MacOS on Apple Silicon gained the ability to run iOS apps, either via the Mac appstore or by copying .ipa files.
- neilalexander 3y ago
  In many ways, an iPad with a keyboard is probably the perfect home computer for people who don't really care about computers and just have simple requirements. The apps that people generally expect to find are there and a keyboard just makes it that bit more comfortable to sit and bash out an email or letter.
  - chongli 3y ago
    Yeah not to mention it’s way easier to use than macOS. Macs used to be so easy to use on Classic Mac OS. Mac OS X really left a lot of people behind on the usability front. It became much more of a power user OS. Then iPads came along and stole that group (of ordinary users) away. But now it seems they’re adding more and more power user features to iOS, complicating things again (with even less discoverability due to complex gestures). History seems to be repeating itself.
    - user_7832 3y ago
      As someone who’s never used MacOS fulltime, what did OS9 do better than X? I’ve found modern MacOS fairly similar to windows in common tasks and interface.
      - nottorp 3y ago
        That's the problem. For example modern MacOS has in your face notifications and allows applications in the background to steal focus. I gather classic Mac OS was done so you can get on with whatever you're doing and nothing bothered you.
        lotsofpulp 3y ago
        This is easily remedied. https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/turn-a-focus-on-or-off-mchl999b7c1a/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/turn-a-focus-on-or-...
        nottorp 3y ago
        No. It should be the default. And I bet it only refers to notifications, not to other applications stealing focus (as in bring themselves to the foreground) from the one you're into because they think they're damn important.
        raccoonDivider 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ako 3y ago
  How would you make a laptop more mobile? I think they've gone too small and too thin in the past, now settling on larger laptops. If i didn't need to program on my computer, i'd use an ipad as a single computing device for everything. It's perfect for couch consumption, and with stage manager, an external bluetooth keyboard and mouse, it's more than adequate for anything else you'd expect from a computer: office, photo and video editing and watching, internet browsing, email, etc. For 95% of all use cases, the ipad already is the best laptop.
- rtpg 3y ago
  ipad touchscreen is good for reading documents and the like. While I've been a bit of a "make Macbooks with touchscreens you cowards" person, iOS (iPad OS but w/e) has a _lot_ of nice affordances that are centered around getting you quickly to your work in a couple of taps, and not futzing about with typing things in. The thing I always think about: how fast it is to play an MP3 from "device in pocket" state with an MP3 player vs a computer (or my phone!). iOS affordances around that are good. Having said that... maybe there's a new shell that MacOS could use to get there. They seem to be trying with some changes though I don't really enjoy the changes so far
  - gumby 3y ago
    > The thing I always think about: how fast it is to play an MP3 from "device in pocket" state with an MP3 player vs a computer (or my phone!). iOS affordances around that are good. This is a very important metric! Jeff Hawkins famously walked around with a piece of wood in his pocket the planned size of the Palm Pilot, and when he wanted to do something (write down a note) he would work through how many key presses it would take on the new device. His limit was three. When I tried a BlackBerry I was infuriated by how many key presses everything took. What a horrible experience. > Having said that... maybe there's a new shell that MacOS could use to get there Like it or not, Apple’s plan for this remains Siri.
- jxdxbx 3y ago
  I use a combo of desktop computers with giant screens and an iPad. I like this better than having a laptop. I don’t think the traditional multi-window paradigm works well on a very small screen (though I am aware it was invented for tiny screens!). When I’m mobile I prefer to have just one app at a time, or at most Stage Manager. The biggest problems I run into with iPadOS are not related to the OS, but stripped-down apps, or apps that don’t use the file picker and other iPad features. In a few cases I have to use web apps (which work perfectly) instead of iPad apps, for example with Google Docs, since the iPad apps are more like stripped-down phone apps.
  - jwells89 3y ago
    Agree that my biggest gripe with iPadOS is third party apps that don’t take advantage of the platform. Cross-platform apps are the most notorious, usually being stretched out phone apps rather than proper tablet apps. It’s still a far sight better than the Android tablet situation though, where stretched out phone apps are the norm instead of the exception.
microtonal 3y ago
It's rumored [1] that 2024 iPad Pro will see price hikes of $500-$700 to cover the OLED screen and increases in base memory/storage. I am surprised that such a price hike is necessary. You can buy a new Galaxy Tab S9 with an excellent OLED screen from Amazon for $740. If 2024 iPad Pro + Magic Keyboard costs as much as Macbook Air + Mac Mini, hopefully that will allow Apple to untie the iPad and allow it to run iOS, macOS and Linux VMs. Unlikely. Apple is in the business of selling you a MacBook, iPhone and iPad. Even more now update cycles are slowing down. So, it's pretty unlikely that they'd go the route of Samsung DeX (which allows you to use a phone or tablet as a desktop). (Yes, I know that you can hook up an iPad to an external screen, but it is not really a full desktop experience.)
- transpute 3y ago
  > I am surprised that such a price hike is necessary. They are adding a 12.9 inch iPad Air, so they have an opportunity to differentiate iPad Pros from Air to justify the price difference, https://www.imore.com/ipad/ipad-air/129-inch-ipad-air-on-track-for-march-launch-as-display-panel-shipments-begin https://www.imore.com/ipad/ipad-air/129-inch-ipad-air-on-tra... The grand plans include a supersized iPad Air for the first time, and it seems like we're on track to see it launch in March 2024. Display analyst Ross Young has confirmed that the display shipments of the 12.9-inch iPad Air began in December. > you can hook up an iPad to an external screen, but it is not really a full desktop experience. Stage Manager does inch closer to a desktop experience, with apps in movable windows. Imagine a macOS VM in a large window on external monitor, alongside a small iOS app/VM window. With a cheap USB-C capture card, an external video or camera input can appear in an app window. > Apple is in the business of selling you a Macbook, iPhone and iPad If Apple can get same-or-better margins/revenue than Macbook+iPad with an iPad Pro, with less physical hardware thanks to virtualization, why not save on atoms and shipping? The iPad Pro has long been overpowered for the few iOS-approved use cases. Virtualization would finally unlock that power. Avoids carrying multiple devices. Eliminates any dependency on sidecar Raspberry Pi or cloud VM for Linux workloads.
- jwells89 3y ago
  It’s rumored that the OLED panel used in the new iPad revision won’t be a bog standard OLED, but instead a variant that emphasizes longevity and burn-in resistance by stacking two OLED layers atop each other (on top of the usual binning Apple does). That makes the price hike sound more plausible.
rafaelmn 3y ago
> hopefully that will allow Apple to untie the iPad and allow it to run iOS, macOS and Linux VMs. Why would they do that ? They want their 30% on everything you install on iOS.
- transpute 3y ago
  > 30% on everything you install on iOS That's likely changing soon in EU and Japan. https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Japan-to-crack-down-on-Apple-and-Google-app-store-monopolies https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Japan-to-crack-d... > The Japanese government sees this model as solidifying the companies' dominance in the mobile market. The legislation aims to force them to allow third-party app stores and payment systems as long as they are secure and protect user privacy. Japanese companies would be able to run dedicated game stores on iOS devices, as well as use payment systems with lower fees from Japanese fintech companies. https://www.computerworld.com/article/3711375/coming-soon-to-apple-third-party-app-stores-and-sideloading-apps.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3711375/coming-soon-to... > You download an app from Apple’s App Store and then use it to access the enterprise app store. There’s still a step where Apple inserts itself — the enterprise app store is itself an app that Apple has vetted and allowed in its own App Store. Most likely Apple will want alternatives to its App Store to work the same way.
- ink404 3y ago
  likely they want to support using Xcode to develop apps on iPad
- MissTake 3y ago
  That changed years ago. Most developers now see a 15% hit, only going to 30% once they’ve hit certain thresholds.
  - zamadatix 3y ago
    While that's somewhat not as horrible for new developers I wonder how far that actually puts Apple's average cut from 30% (in terms of revenue not developer count) or how much it changes the point that it's nowhere near 0%.
NikolaNovak 3y ago
I am a person outside of apple ecosystem that has to use iPhone and occasionally iPad for work. Question : how do you manage your files? My wife hears a primeval scream from our home office every 3 months when I determine to try to get files off my iPhone (voice memos, photos, downloads, whatever) or God forbid put files on. Even worse screams when I try to manage files on device such as "delete all photos" (cannot.be.done). And I degenerate into gurgles when I try to find or manage different files (a downloaded jpeg is "not" a photo and cannot be found via photos app,has been my bitterly learned experience. Because reasons). I know modern generations are more comfy outside of hierarchical folder / file structure and treat their device like a massive database, which, fine in principle. But after 4 years of iphone usage I still see it as a massive black hole where files go in but don't come out. So I... Cringe with terrified shakes when people talk about iPads for work. How do your organize your files on them? How do you manage and transfer and version control? Or am I a dinosaur and everybody's files are emephereally in the google or apple cloud and it's just not a problem, things are magically right and where they need to be?
- matwood 3y ago
  For photos, either Photos app or Lightroom cloud is what I have used. I have a usb-c sd card reader that I use to upload photos onto the iPad. From there they end up on all my devices. The nice thing is this works if I instead upload them onto my MBP or took pictures with my iPhone. For files, iCloud has worked fine. Personally, I don't want to think about moving files from one device to another. I want them available on all devices regardless of where they were created/added.
- oblio 3y ago
  No, people just suffer in silence. There are famous Youtubers like MKBHD that more or less every year say: "The new iPad is great, the hardware is awesome, I use the iPad a ton, but I can't use it to replace a laptop because of the lack of file management/window management/...". I have heard this text in similar forms for at least 3 years. You can make do, but it is as awkward as you'd expect. The only winning entity is Apple, that gets people to also buy laptops and to be even more locked into this crippled setup, since as you said, younger generations aren't as aware of the possibilities, anymore.
zamadatix 3y ago
$500-$700 rumour sounds like something to get you to click and share their article rather than an honest estimate. Their logic for the two numbers is the panel is estimated to cost $250-$350 (depending on size) and they estimate a 50% profit margin on the iPads so the base model will be 2*$[250,350]=$[500,700] more... which means they must calculate the existing screen to be completely free? They don't mention anything about the base specs increasing in that root article but even if they did that's not clear to be an actual increase in production cost. It's a newer device after all. I expect a price increase of some sort, it's the safe thing to bet on and anybody else could safely write about that too, but I'm already disappointed how much time I've spent talking about a clickbait future Apple device rumour news article which attempts to create the worst possible number they think they can get away with claiming as realistic.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

raccoonDivider 3y ago

I don't understand why they're trying to turn iPads into laptops. Just start from their existing laptops and make them more mobile instead of trying to inflate a phone OS into something that does the job? Is this about control over the apps people can run?

transpute 3y ago
Perhaps they are turning laptops into iPads. The price/performance of Apple Silicon laptops was a descendant of early iPad Pro SoCs, with current iPad Pros on M2. A couple of years ago, MacOS on Apple Silicon gained the ability to run iOS apps, either via the Mac appstore or by copying .ipa files.
neilalexander 3y ago
In many ways, an iPad with a keyboard is probably the perfect home computer for people who don't really care about computers and just have simple requirements. The apps that people generally expect to find are there and a keyboard just makes it that bit more comfortable to sit and bash out an email or letter.
- chongli 3y ago
  Yeah not to mention it’s way easier to use than macOS. Macs used to be so easy to use on Classic Mac OS. Mac OS X really left a lot of people behind on the usability front. It became much more of a power user OS. Then iPads came along and stole that group (of ordinary users) away. But now it seems they’re adding more and more power user features to iOS, complicating things again (with even less discoverability due to complex gestures). History seems to be repeating itself.
  - user_7832 3y ago
    As someone who’s never used MacOS fulltime, what did OS9 do better than X? I’ve found modern MacOS fairly similar to windows in common tasks and interface.
    - nottorp 3y ago
      That's the problem. For example modern MacOS has in your face notifications and allows applications in the background to steal focus. I gather classic Mac OS was done so you can get on with whatever you're doing and nothing bothered you.
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago
        This is easily remedied. https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/turn-a-focus-on-or-off-mchl999b7c1a/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/turn-a-focus-on-or-...
        nottorp 3y ago
        No. It should be the default. And I bet it only refers to notifications, not to other applications stealing focus (as in bring themselves to the foreground) from the one you're into because they think they're damn important.
        raccoonDivider 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ako 3y ago
How would you make a laptop more mobile? I think they've gone too small and too thin in the past, now settling on larger laptops. If i didn't need to program on my computer, i'd use an ipad as a single computing device for everything. It's perfect for couch consumption, and with stage manager, an external bluetooth keyboard and mouse, it's more than adequate for anything else you'd expect from a computer: office, photo and video editing and watching, internet browsing, email, etc. For 95% of all use cases, the ipad already is the best laptop.
rtpg 3y ago
ipad touchscreen is good for reading documents and the like. While I've been a bit of a "make Macbooks with touchscreens you cowards" person, iOS (iPad OS but w/e) has a _lot_ of nice affordances that are centered around getting you quickly to your work in a couple of taps, and not futzing about with typing things in. The thing I always think about: how fast it is to play an MP3 from "device in pocket" state with an MP3 player vs a computer (or my phone!). iOS affordances around that are good. Having said that... maybe there's a new shell that MacOS could use to get there. They seem to be trying with some changes though I don't really enjoy the changes so far
- gumby 3y ago
  > The thing I always think about: how fast it is to play an MP3 from "device in pocket" state with an MP3 player vs a computer (or my phone!). iOS affordances around that are good. This is a very important metric! Jeff Hawkins famously walked around with a piece of wood in his pocket the planned size of the Palm Pilot, and when he wanted to do something (write down a note) he would work through how many key presses it would take on the new device. His limit was three. When I tried a BlackBerry I was infuriated by how many key presses everything took. What a horrible experience. > Having said that... maybe there's a new shell that MacOS could use to get there Like it or not, Apple’s plan for this remains Siri.
jxdxbx 3y ago
I use a combo of desktop computers with giant screens and an iPad. I like this better than having a laptop. I don’t think the traditional multi-window paradigm works well on a very small screen (though I am aware it was invented for tiny screens!). When I’m mobile I prefer to have just one app at a time, or at most Stage Manager. The biggest problems I run into with iPadOS are not related to the OS, but stripped-down apps, or apps that don’t use the file picker and other iPad features. In a few cases I have to use web apps (which work perfectly) instead of iPad apps, for example with Google Docs, since the iPad apps are more like stripped-down phone apps.
- jwells89 3y ago
  Agree that my biggest gripe with iPadOS is third party apps that don’t take advantage of the platform. Cross-platform apps are the most notorious, usually being stretched out phone apps rather than proper tablet apps. It’s still a far sight better than the Android tablet situation though, where stretched out phone apps are the norm instead of the exception.

microtonal 3y ago

It's rumored [1] that 2024 iPad Pro will see price hikes of $500-$700 to cover the OLED screen and increases in base memory/storage. I am surprised that such a price hike is necessary. You can buy a new Galaxy Tab S9 with an excellent OLED screen from Amazon for $740. If 2024 iPad Pro + Magic Keyboard costs as much as Macbook Air + Mac Mini, hopefully that will allow Apple to untie the iPad and allow it to run iOS, macOS and Linux VMs. Unlikely. Apple is in the business of selling you a MacBook, iPhone and iPad. Even more now update cycles are slowing down. So, it's pretty unlikely that they'd go the route of Samsung DeX (which allows you to use a phone or tablet as a desktop). (Yes, I know that you can hook up an iPad to an external screen, but it is not really a full desktop experience.)

transpute 3y ago
> I am surprised that such a price hike is necessary. They are adding a 12.9 inch iPad Air, so they have an opportunity to differentiate iPad Pros from Air to justify the price difference, https://www.imore.com/ipad/ipad-air/129-inch-ipad-air-on-track-for-march-launch-as-display-panel-shipments-begin https://www.imore.com/ipad/ipad-air/129-inch-ipad-air-on-tra... The grand plans include a supersized iPad Air for the first time, and it seems like we're on track to see it launch in March 2024. Display analyst Ross Young has confirmed that the display shipments of the 12.9-inch iPad Air began in December. > you can hook up an iPad to an external screen, but it is not really a full desktop experience. Stage Manager does inch closer to a desktop experience, with apps in movable windows. Imagine a macOS VM in a large window on external monitor, alongside a small iOS app/VM window. With a cheap USB-C capture card, an external video or camera input can appear in an app window. > Apple is in the business of selling you a Macbook, iPhone and iPad If Apple can get same-or-better margins/revenue than Macbook+iPad with an iPad Pro, with less physical hardware thanks to virtualization, why not save on atoms and shipping? The iPad Pro has long been overpowered for the few iOS-approved use cases. Virtualization would finally unlock that power. Avoids carrying multiple devices. Eliminates any dependency on sidecar Raspberry Pi or cloud VM for Linux workloads.
jwells89 3y ago
It’s rumored that the OLED panel used in the new iPad revision won’t be a bog standard OLED, but instead a variant that emphasizes longevity and burn-in resistance by stacking two OLED layers atop each other (on top of the usual binning Apple does). That makes the price hike sound more plausible.

rafaelmn 3y ago

> hopefully that will allow Apple to untie the iPad and allow it to run iOS, macOS and Linux VMs. Why would they do that ? They want their 30% on everything you install on iOS.

transpute 3y ago
> 30% on everything you install on iOS That's likely changing soon in EU and Japan. https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Japan-to-crack-down-on-Apple-and-Google-app-store-monopolies https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Japan-to-crack-d... > The Japanese government sees this model as solidifying the companies' dominance in the mobile market. The legislation aims to force them to allow third-party app stores and payment systems as long as they are secure and protect user privacy. Japanese companies would be able to run dedicated game stores on iOS devices, as well as use payment systems with lower fees from Japanese fintech companies. https://www.computerworld.com/article/3711375/coming-soon-to-apple-third-party-app-stores-and-sideloading-apps.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3711375/coming-soon-to... > You download an app from Apple’s App Store and then use it to access the enterprise app store. There’s still a step where Apple inserts itself — the enterprise app store is itself an app that Apple has vetted and allowed in its own App Store. Most likely Apple will want alternatives to its App Store to work the same way.
ink404 3y ago
likely they want to support using Xcode to develop apps on iPad
MissTake 3y ago
That changed years ago. Most developers now see a 15% hit, only going to 30% once they’ve hit certain thresholds.
- zamadatix 3y ago
  While that's somewhat not as horrible for new developers I wonder how far that actually puts Apple's average cut from 30% (in terms of revenue not developer count) or how much it changes the point that it's nowhere near 0%.

NikolaNovak 3y ago

I am a person outside of apple ecosystem that has to use iPhone and occasionally iPad for work. Question : how do you manage your files? My wife hears a primeval scream from our home office every 3 months when I determine to try to get files off my iPhone (voice memos, photos, downloads, whatever) or God forbid put files on. Even worse screams when I try to manage files on device such as "delete all photos" (cannot.be.done). And I degenerate into gurgles when I try to find or manage different files (a downloaded jpeg is "not" a photo and cannot be found via photos app,has been my bitterly learned experience. Because reasons). I know modern generations are more comfy outside of hierarchical folder / file structure and treat their device like a massive database, which, fine in principle. But after 4 years of iphone usage I still see it as a massive black hole where files go in but don't come out. So I... Cringe with terrified shakes when people talk about iPads for work. How do your organize your files on them? How do you manage and transfer and version control? Or am I a dinosaur and everybody's files are emephereally in the google or apple cloud and it's just not a problem, things are magically right and where they need to be?

matwood 3y ago
For photos, either Photos app or Lightroom cloud is what I have used. I have a usb-c sd card reader that I use to upload photos onto the iPad. From there they end up on all my devices. The nice thing is this works if I instead upload them onto my MBP or took pictures with my iPhone. For files, iCloud has worked fine. Personally, I don't want to think about moving files from one device to another. I want them available on all devices regardless of where they were created/added.
oblio 3y ago
No, people just suffer in silence. There are famous Youtubers like MKBHD that more or less every year say: "The new iPad is great, the hardware is awesome, I use the iPad a ton, but I can't use it to replace a laptop because of the lack of file management/window management/...". I have heard this text in similar forms for at least 3 years. You can make do, but it is as awkward as you'd expect. The only winning entity is Apple, that gets people to also buy laptops and to be even more locked into this crippled setup, since as you said, younger generations aren't as aware of the possibilities, anymore.

zamadatix 3y ago

$500-$700 rumour sounds like something to get you to click and share their article rather than an honest estimate. Their logic for the two numbers is the panel is estimated to cost $250-$350 (depending on size) and they estimate a 50% profit margin on the iPads so the base model will be 2*$[250,350]=$[500,700] more... which means they must calculate the existing screen to be completely free? They don't mention anything about the base specs increasing in that root article but even if they did that's not clear to be an actual increase in production cost. It's a newer device after all. I expect a price increase of some sort, it's the safe thing to bet on and anybody else could safely write about that too, but I'm already disappointed how much time I've spent talking about a clickbait future Apple device rumour news article which attempts to create the worst possible number they think they can get away with claiming as realistic.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]