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Suddenly it makes a lot more sense why Apple made a big deal about iPadOS being its own separate OS, even though the differences are so minimal.

by dmart 3y ago

cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
That must be it. It always felt super peculiar that they did this, and I really didn’t see the value in it for Apple, even from a marketing perspective. I 100% buy that we’ve just gotten to peak behind the curtain.
Someone1234 3y ago
It must be at least a little different since it is unable to run Calculator.
- Vicinity9635 3y ago
  FYI: If you swipe down you can just type mathematical expressions like finder on OSX. It may be finder, but I don't know.
  - IMcD23 3y ago
    That's Spotlight, not Finder.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
lapcat 3y ago
I'm as cynical as anyone, but iPadOS was introduced at WWDC 2019 and thus was in the works for some time before then. This conspiracy theory doesn't stand up to the historical timeline. The more plausible and less conspiratorial theory is that iPadOS was made separate to help market more expensive iPad Pro devices.
- lolinder 3y ago
  Government bodies also move slowly, and they usually telegraph their moves years in advance. When corporations act like they're caught off guard by a new regulation it's usually (though not always) just a PR move. It's not improbable that Apple could have predicted that separating the ecosystems would be legally beneficial, even if they didn't know about this specific regulation back then.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    > Government bodies also move slowly, and they usually telegraph their moves years in advance. There's no evidence of that in the pre-2019 period. See https://fasos-research.nl/vista-jmn/files/2022/10/VISTA-Policy-Paper-02-Cini-and-Czulno-10-2022.pdf https://fasos-research.nl/vista-jmn/files/2022/10/VISTA-Poli... "For much of the 2014-2019 period, European Commission leaders, most notably those linked to DG Competition, articulated a commitment to the use of traditional competition instruments to meet the needs of the new digital economy." > It's not improbable that Apple could have predicted that separating the ecosystems would be legally beneficial I disagree. It's improbable. Show me any evidence that anyone in the world was talking about splitting out iPadOS for legal reasons. In any case, it's really more of a minor annoyance than anything, relatively speaking, because iPhone has a vastly larger user base than iPad. iPhone is Apple's bread and butter, and iPhone is what the DMA is regulating. Apple wasn't able to spare the iPhone by separating iPadOS.
    - lolinder 3y ago
      > There's no evidence of that in the pre-2019 period. GDPR was proposed in 2012 and implemented in 2016. Any reasonably intelligent observer would look at the contents of the GDPR and predict that the EU was interested in sweeping regulation of large American tech companies, and it would have been foolish to think they'd stop at data use. Apple's legal experts and lobbyists are more than just reasonably intelligent observers, they were interacting regularly with EU regulators and knew that change was on the wind, even if they didn't know the details before 2019.
SllX 3y ago
Actually I think the real reason is even lamer. The iPhone is their baby, and the iPad is decidedly not. It’s a good business, it’s a big business, and they sell a lot of them, but in terms of revenue it has never really exceeded the Mac and doing QA for both iPhones and iPads running the same operating system at feature parity year after year was holding their baby back. That’s why when they do new releases, things like widgets on the Home Screen appear on iOS a year ahead of when it does on iPadOS. By renaming it iPadOS, they’ve given themselves cover to hold stuff back a year and roll features out on a tick-tock schedule cuz now the iPad is running a totally different operating system. That it may benefit them here dealing with the EU’s shenanigans is probably just a nice incidental bonus, but that’s just my own cynical take. Honestly though, gun to my head, I think prioritizing iPhone features and QA probably is the right thing to do. I like my iPad, but it couldn’t replace either my iPhone or my Mac, and it’s a supplement to both at its best.
- nerpderp82 3y ago
  I think you nailed it. I have worked with Apple and know a couple people that work there. They would not be able to operate with the level of precision and scale to pull of a single OS across mobile and ipad. But it wouldn't be a totally different OS, it would be a branch.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
davely 3y ago
I say this as a huge Apple fan: the iPad strategy is ridiculously frustrating (for my purposes). The crux of the issue is that the latest Pros have one of the most awesome and powerful processors on the market for traditional computing purposes, but all that power is locked behind a toy OS that you can’t do much with. There are few meaningful differences in the underlying hardware between this and a MacBook Air, but I can take my MBA anywhere to code, work offline, easily multitask by switching between numerous project windows, install all sorts of open source software as needed, etc. With the iPad, I can watch some videos, and download some popular games with gacha mechanics. Cool? I picked up a cheap refurbed Surface Pro X. While no means perfect, having an actual usable OS that I can do whatever I want with is so nice. Come on, Apple. Just let us run MacOS on these things.
- theshackleford 3y ago
  > but all that power is locked behind a toy OS that you can’t do much with. You and I may not be able to do our jobs on it, but I know people using it as their primary machine, including people running their entire business off it. (Such as my sister who runs a very successful photography/design Business with only an iPad Pro.) It’s not for me, but I can accept not everybody requires the same of their machine and software as I do.
- tonyedgecombe 3y ago
  >Just let us run MacOS on these things. I hope they never do that. The UI on Windows has been too compromised by the need to support both tablets and traditional users.

Suddenly it makes a lot more sense why Apple made a big deal about iPadOS being its own separate OS, even though the differences are so minimal.

by dmart 3y ago

Suddenly it makes a lot more sense why Apple made a big deal about iPadOS being its own separate OS, even though the differences are so minimal.

cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago

That must be it. It always felt super peculiar that they did this, and I really didn’t see the value in it for Apple, even from a marketing perspective. I 100% buy that we’ve just gotten to peak behind the curtain.

Someone1234 3y ago

It must be at least a little different since it is unable to run Calculator.

Vicinity9635 3y ago
FYI: If you swipe down you can just type mathematical expressions like finder on OSX. It may be finder, but I don't know.
- IMcD23 3y ago
  That's Spotlight, not Finder.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

lapcat 3y ago

I'm as cynical as anyone, but iPadOS was introduced at WWDC 2019 and thus was in the works for some time before then. This conspiracy theory doesn't stand up to the historical timeline. The more plausible and less conspiratorial theory is that iPadOS was made separate to help market more expensive iPad Pro devices.

lolinder 3y ago
Government bodies also move slowly, and they usually telegraph their moves years in advance. When corporations act like they're caught off guard by a new regulation it's usually (though not always) just a PR move. It's not improbable that Apple could have predicted that separating the ecosystems would be legally beneficial, even if they didn't know about this specific regulation back then.
- lapcat 3y ago
  > Government bodies also move slowly, and they usually telegraph their moves years in advance. There's no evidence of that in the pre-2019 period. See https://fasos-research.nl/vista-jmn/files/2022/10/VISTA-Policy-Paper-02-Cini-and-Czulno-10-2022.pdf https://fasos-research.nl/vista-jmn/files/2022/10/VISTA-Poli... "For much of the 2014-2019 period, European Commission leaders, most notably those linked to DG Competition, articulated a commitment to the use of traditional competition instruments to meet the needs of the new digital economy." > It's not improbable that Apple could have predicted that separating the ecosystems would be legally beneficial I disagree. It's improbable. Show me any evidence that anyone in the world was talking about splitting out iPadOS for legal reasons. In any case, it's really more of a minor annoyance than anything, relatively speaking, because iPhone has a vastly larger user base than iPad. iPhone is Apple's bread and butter, and iPhone is what the DMA is regulating. Apple wasn't able to spare the iPhone by separating iPadOS.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    > There's no evidence of that in the pre-2019 period. GDPR was proposed in 2012 and implemented in 2016. Any reasonably intelligent observer would look at the contents of the GDPR and predict that the EU was interested in sweeping regulation of large American tech companies, and it would have been foolish to think they'd stop at data use. Apple's legal experts and lobbyists are more than just reasonably intelligent observers, they were interacting regularly with EU regulators and knew that change was on the wind, even if they didn't know the details before 2019.

SllX 3y ago

Actually I think the real reason is even lamer. The iPhone is their baby, and the iPad is decidedly not. It’s a good business, it’s a big business, and they sell a lot of them, but in terms of revenue it has never really exceeded the Mac and doing QA for both iPhones and iPads running the same operating system at feature parity year after year was holding their baby back. That’s why when they do new releases, things like widgets on the Home Screen appear on iOS a year ahead of when it does on iPadOS. By renaming it iPadOS, they’ve given themselves cover to hold stuff back a year and roll features out on a tick-tock schedule cuz now the iPad is running a totally different operating system. That it may benefit them here dealing with the EU’s shenanigans is probably just a nice incidental bonus, but that’s just my own cynical take. Honestly though, gun to my head, I think prioritizing iPhone features and QA probably is the right thing to do. I like my iPad, but it couldn’t replace either my iPhone or my Mac, and it’s a supplement to both at its best.

nerpderp82 3y ago
I think you nailed it. I have worked with Apple and know a couple people that work there. They would not be able to operate with the level of precision and scale to pull of a single OS across mobile and ipad. But it wouldn't be a totally different OS, it would be a branch.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

davely 3y ago

I say this as a huge Apple fan: the iPad strategy is ridiculously frustrating (for my purposes). The crux of the issue is that the latest Pros have one of the most awesome and powerful processors on the market for traditional computing purposes, but all that power is locked behind a toy OS that you can’t do much with. There are few meaningful differences in the underlying hardware between this and a MacBook Air, but I can take my MBA anywhere to code, work offline, easily multitask by switching between numerous project windows, install all sorts of open source software as needed, etc. With the iPad, I can watch some videos, and download some popular games with gacha mechanics. Cool? I picked up a cheap refurbed Surface Pro X. While no means perfect, having an actual usable OS that I can do whatever I want with is so nice. Come on, Apple. Just let us run MacOS on these things.

theshackleford 3y ago
> but all that power is locked behind a toy OS that you can’t do much with. You and I may not be able to do our jobs on it, but I know people using it as their primary machine, including people running their entire business off it. (Such as my sister who runs a very successful photography/design Business with only an iPad Pro.) It’s not for me, but I can accept not everybody requires the same of their machine and software as I do.
tonyedgecombe 3y ago
>Just let us run MacOS on these things. I hope they never do that. The UI on Windows has been too compromised by the need to support both tablets and traditional users.