5 ms·

We've seen a slow march over the last decade towards the unification of iOS and macOS. Maybe not a "it runs macOS", but an eventual "they share all the same app

We've seen a slow march over the last decade towards the unification of iOS and macOS. Maybe not a "it runs macOS", but an eventual "they share all the same apps" with adaptive UIs.

asabla 2y ago
I think so too. Especially after the split from iOS to ipados. Hopefully they'll show something during this year's WWDC
DrBazza 2y ago
They probably saw the debacle that was Windows 8 and thought merging a desktop and touch OS is a decade-long gradual task, if that is even the final intention. Unlike MS that went with the Big Bang in your face approach that was oh-so successful.
- zitterbewegung 2y ago
  People have complained about why Logic Pro / Final Cut wasn't ported to the iPad Pro line. The obvious answer is that making workflows done properly take time.
- a_vanderbilt 2y ago
  Even with the advantage of time, I don't think Microsoft would have been able to do it. They can't even get their own UI situated, much less adaptive. Windows 10/11 is this odd mishmash of old and new, without a consistent language across it. They can't unify what isn't even cohesive in the first place.
- mvkel 2y ago
  I'd be very surprised if Apple is paying attention to anything that's happening with windows. At least as a divining rod for how to execute.
- bluescrn 2y ago
  At this point, there's two fundamentally different types of computing that will likely never be mergeable in a satisfactory way. We now have 'content consumption platforms' and 'content creation platforms'. While attempts have been made to try and enable some creation on locked-down touchscreen devices, you're never going to want to try and operate a fully-featured version of Photoshop, Maya, Visual Studio, etc on them. And if you've got a serious workstation with multiple large monitors and precision input devices, you don't want to have dumbed-down touch-centric apps forced upon you Win8-style. The bleak future that seems likely is that the 'content creation platforms' become ever more niche and far more costly. Barriers to entry for content creators are raised significantly as mainstream computing is mostly limited to locked-down content consumption platforms. And Linux is only an option for as long as non-locked-down hardware is available for sensible prices.
  - eastbound 2y ago
    On the other hand, a $4000 mid-game Macbook doesn’t have a touchscreen and that’s a heresy. Granted, you can get the one with the emoji bar, but why interact using touch on a bar when you could touch the screen directly? Maybe the end game for Apple isn’t the full convergence, but just having a touch screen on the Mac.
    - bluescrn 2y ago
      Why would you want greasy finger marks on your Macbook screen? Not much point having a touchscreen on a Macbook (or any laptop really), unless the hardware has a 'tablet mode' with a detachable or fold-away keyboard.
    - dghlsakjg 2y ago
      Mouse and keyboard is still a better interface for A LOT of work. I have yet to find a workflow for any of my professional work that would be faster or easier if you gave me a touchscreen. There are plenty of laptops that do have touchscreens, and it has always felt more like a gimmick than a useful hardware interface.
  - dialup_sounds 2y ago
- kmeisthax 2y ago
  You're right about the reason but wrong about the timeline: Jobs saw Windows XP Tablet Edition and built a skunkworks at Apple to engineer a tablet that did not require a stylus. This was purely to spite a friend[0] of his that worked at Microsoft and was very bullish on XP tablets. Apple then later took the tablet demo technology, wrapped it up in a very stripped-down OS X with a different window server and UI library, and called it iPhone OS. Apple was very clear from the beginning that Fingers Can't Use Mouse Software, Damn It, and that the whole ocean needed to be boiled to support the new user interface paradigm[1]. They even have very specific UI rules specifically to ensure a finger never meets a desktop UI widget, including things like iPad Sidecar just not forwarding touch events at all and only supporting connected keyboards, mice, and the Apple Pencil. Microsoft's philosophy has always been the complete opposite. Windows XP through 7 had tablet support that amounted to just some affordances for stylus users layered on top of a mouse-only UI. Windows 8 was the first time they took tablets seriously, but instead of just shipping a separate tablet OS or making Windows Phone bigger, they turned it into a parasite that ate the Windows desktop from the inside-out. This causes awkwardness. For example, window management. Desktops have traditionally been implemented as a shared data structure - a tree of controls - that every app on the desktop can manipulate. Tablets don't support this: your app gets one[2] display surface to present their whole UI inside of[3], and that surface is typically either full-screen or half-screen. Microsoft solved this incongruity by shoving the entire Desktop inside of another app that could be properly split-screened against the new, better-behaved tablet apps. If Apple were to decide "ok let's support Mac apps on iPad", it'd have to be done in exactly the same way Windows 8 did it, with a special Desktop app that contained all the Mac apps in a penalty box. This is so that they didn't have to add support for all sorts of incongruous, touch-hostile UI like floating toolbars, floating pop-ups, global menus, five different ways of dragging-and-dropping tabs, and that weird drawer thing you're not supposed to use anymore, to iPadOS. There really isn't a way to gradually do this, either. You can gradually add feature parity with macOS (which they should), but you can't gradually find ways to make desktop UI designed by third-parties work on a tablet. You either put it in a penalty box, or you put all the well-behaved tablet apps in their own penalty boxes, like Windows 10. Microsoft solved Windows 8's problems by going back to the Windows XP/Vista/7 approach of just shipping a desktop for fingers. Tablet Mode tries to hide this, but it's fundamentally just window management automation, and it has to handle all the craziness of desktop. If a desktop app decides it wants a floating toolbar or a window that can't be resized[4], Tablet Mode has to honor that request. In fact, Tablet Mode needs a lot of heuristics to tell what floating windows pair with which apps. So it's a lot more awkward for tablet users in exchange for desktop users having a usable desktop again. [0] Given what I've heard about Jobs I don't think Jobs was psychologically capable of having friends, but I'll use the word out of convenience. [1] Though the Safari team was way better at building compatibility with existing websites, so much so that this is the one platform that doesn't have a deep mobile/desktop split. [2] This was later extended to multiple windows per app, of course. [3] This is also why popovers and context menus never extend outside their containing window on tablets. Hell, also on websites. Even when you have multiwindow, there's no API surface for "I want to have a control floating on top of my window that is positioned over here and has this width and height". [4] Which, BTW, is why the iPad has no default calculator app. Before Stage Manager there was no way to have a window the size of a pocket calculator.
- faeriechangling 2y ago
  >Unlike MS that went with the Big Bang in your face approach that was oh-so successful. It was kind of successful, touchscreen laptops see pretty big sales nowadays. I don't know what crack they were smoking with Windows 8.0 though.
skohan 2y ago
Unfortunately I think "they share all the same apps" will not include a terminal with root access, which is what would really be needed to make iPad a general purpose computer for development It's a shame, because it's definitely powerful enough, and the idea of traveling with just an iPad seems super interesting, but I imagine they will not extend those features to any devices besides macs
- LordDragonfang 2y ago
  I mean, it doesn't even have to be true "root" access. Chromebooks have a containerized linux environment, and aside from the odd bug, the high end ones are actually great dev machines while retaining the "You spend most of your time in the browser so we may as well bake that into the OS" base layer.
  - a_vanderbilt 2y ago
    I actually do use a Chromebook in this way! Out of all the Linux machines I've used, that's why I like it. Give me a space to work and provide an OS that I don't have to babysit or mentally maintain.
  - presides 2y ago
    Been a while since I've used a chromebook but iirc there's ALSO root access that's just a bit more difficult to access, and you do actually need to access it from time to time for various reasons, or at least you used to.
    - LordDragonfang 2y ago
      You're thinking of Crouton, the old method of using linux on a Chromebook (which involved disabling boot protection and setting up a second linux install in a chroot, with a keybind that allowed you to toggle between the two environments). It was including a Crostini is the new containerized version that is both officially supported and integrated into ChromeOS
0x457 2y ago
I will settle for: you can connect 2 monitors to iPad and select audio device sound is going through. If can run IntelliJ and compile rust on the iPad, I would promise to upgrade to the new iPad Pro as soon as it is released every time.
bonestamp2 2y ago
Agreed, this will be the way forward in the future. I've already seen one of my apps (Authy) say "We're no longer building a macOS version, just install the iPad app on your mac". That's great, but you need an M series chip in your mac for that to work so backwords compatibility only goes back a few years at this point, which is fine for corporate upgrade cycles but might be a bit short for consumers at this time. But it will be fine in the future.
beeboobaa3 2y ago
Until an "iPhone" can run brew, all my developer tools, steam, epic games launcher, etc it's hardly interesting.
plussed_reader 2y ago
The writing was on the wall with the introduction of Swift, IMO. Since then it's been over complicating the iPad and dumbing down the macOS interfaces to attain this goal. So much wasted touch/negative space in macOS since Catalina to compensate for fingers and adapative interfaces; so many hidden menus and long taps squirreled away in iOS.
reaperducer 2y ago
Maybe not a "it runs macOS", but an eventual "they share all the same apps" with adaptive UIs M-class MacBooks can already run many iPhone and iPad apps.

We've seen a slow march over the last decade towards the unification of iOS and macOS. Maybe not a "it runs macOS", but an eventual "they share all the same apps" with adaptive UIs.

asabla 2y ago

I think so too. Especially after the split from iOS to ipados. Hopefully they'll show something during this year's WWDC

DrBazza 2y ago

They probably saw the debacle that was Windows 8 and thought merging a desktop and touch OS is a decade-long gradual task, if that is even the final intention. Unlike MS that went with the Big Bang in your face approach that was oh-so successful.

zitterbewegung 2y ago
People have complained about why Logic Pro / Final Cut wasn't ported to the iPad Pro line. The obvious answer is that making workflows done properly take time.
a_vanderbilt 2y ago
Even with the advantage of time, I don't think Microsoft would have been able to do it. They can't even get their own UI situated, much less adaptive. Windows 10/11 is this odd mishmash of old and new, without a consistent language across it. They can't unify what isn't even cohesive in the first place.
mvkel 2y ago
I'd be very surprised if Apple is paying attention to anything that's happening with windows. At least as a divining rod for how to execute.
bluescrn 2y ago
At this point, there's two fundamentally different types of computing that will likely never be mergeable in a satisfactory way. We now have 'content consumption platforms' and 'content creation platforms'. While attempts have been made to try and enable some creation on locked-down touchscreen devices, you're never going to want to try and operate a fully-featured version of Photoshop, Maya, Visual Studio, etc on them. And if you've got a serious workstation with multiple large monitors and precision input devices, you don't want to have dumbed-down touch-centric apps forced upon you Win8-style. The bleak future that seems likely is that the 'content creation platforms' become ever more niche and far more costly. Barriers to entry for content creators are raised significantly as mainstream computing is mostly limited to locked-down content consumption platforms. And Linux is only an option for as long as non-locked-down hardware is available for sensible prices.
- eastbound 2y ago
  On the other hand, a $4000 mid-game Macbook doesn’t have a touchscreen and that’s a heresy. Granted, you can get the one with the emoji bar, but why interact using touch on a bar when you could touch the screen directly? Maybe the end game for Apple isn’t the full convergence, but just having a touch screen on the Mac.
  - bluescrn 2y ago
    Why would you want greasy finger marks on your Macbook screen? Not much point having a touchscreen on a Macbook (or any laptop really), unless the hardware has a 'tablet mode' with a detachable or fold-away keyboard.
  - dghlsakjg 2y ago
    Mouse and keyboard is still a better interface for A LOT of work. I have yet to find a workflow for any of my professional work that would be faster or easier if you gave me a touchscreen. There are plenty of laptops that do have touchscreens, and it has always felt more like a gimmick than a useful hardware interface.
- dialup_sounds 2y ago
kmeisthax 2y ago
You're right about the reason but wrong about the timeline: Jobs saw Windows XP Tablet Edition and built a skunkworks at Apple to engineer a tablet that did not require a stylus. This was purely to spite a friend[0] of his that worked at Microsoft and was very bullish on XP tablets. Apple then later took the tablet demo technology, wrapped it up in a very stripped-down OS X with a different window server and UI library, and called it iPhone OS. Apple was very clear from the beginning that Fingers Can't Use Mouse Software, Damn It, and that the whole ocean needed to be boiled to support the new user interface paradigm[1]. They even have very specific UI rules specifically to ensure a finger never meets a desktop UI widget, including things like iPad Sidecar just not forwarding touch events at all and only supporting connected keyboards, mice, and the Apple Pencil. Microsoft's philosophy has always been the complete opposite. Windows XP through 7 had tablet support that amounted to just some affordances for stylus users layered on top of a mouse-only UI. Windows 8 was the first time they took tablets seriously, but instead of just shipping a separate tablet OS or making Windows Phone bigger, they turned it into a parasite that ate the Windows desktop from the inside-out. This causes awkwardness. For example, window management. Desktops have traditionally been implemented as a shared data structure - a tree of controls - that every app on the desktop can manipulate. Tablets don't support this: your app gets one[2] display surface to present their whole UI inside of[3], and that surface is typically either full-screen or half-screen. Microsoft solved this incongruity by shoving the entire Desktop inside of another app that could be properly split-screened against the new, better-behaved tablet apps. If Apple were to decide "ok let's support Mac apps on iPad", it'd have to be done in exactly the same way Windows 8 did it, with a special Desktop app that contained all the Mac apps in a penalty box. This is so that they didn't have to add support for all sorts of incongruous, touch-hostile UI like floating toolbars, floating pop-ups, global menus, five different ways of dragging-and-dropping tabs, and that weird drawer thing you're not supposed to use anymore, to iPadOS. There really isn't a way to gradually do this, either. You can gradually add feature parity with macOS (which they should), but you can't gradually find ways to make desktop UI designed by third-parties work on a tablet. You either put it in a penalty box, or you put all the well-behaved tablet apps in their own penalty boxes, like Windows 10. Microsoft solved Windows 8's problems by going back to the Windows XP/Vista/7 approach of just shipping a desktop for fingers. Tablet Mode tries to hide this, but it's fundamentally just window management automation, and it has to handle all the craziness of desktop. If a desktop app decides it wants a floating toolbar or a window that can't be resized[4], Tablet Mode has to honor that request. In fact, Tablet Mode needs a lot of heuristics to tell what floating windows pair with which apps. So it's a lot more awkward for tablet users in exchange for desktop users having a usable desktop again. [0] Given what I've heard about Jobs I don't think Jobs was psychologically capable of having friends, but I'll use the word out of convenience. [1] Though the Safari team was way better at building compatibility with existing websites, so much so that this is the one platform that doesn't have a deep mobile/desktop split. [2] This was later extended to multiple windows per app, of course. [3] This is also why popovers and context menus never extend outside their containing window on tablets. Hell, also on websites. Even when you have multiwindow, there's no API surface for "I want to have a control floating on top of my window that is positioned over here and has this width and height". [4] Which, BTW, is why the iPad has no default calculator app. Before Stage Manager there was no way to have a window the size of a pocket calculator.
faeriechangling 2y ago
>Unlike MS that went with the Big Bang in your face approach that was oh-so successful. It was kind of successful, touchscreen laptops see pretty big sales nowadays. I don't know what crack they were smoking with Windows 8.0 though.

skohan 2y ago

Unfortunately I think "they share all the same apps" will not include a terminal with root access, which is what would really be needed to make iPad a general purpose computer for development It's a shame, because it's definitely powerful enough, and the idea of traveling with just an iPad seems super interesting, but I imagine they will not extend those features to any devices besides macs

LordDragonfang 2y ago
I mean, it doesn't even have to be true "root" access. Chromebooks have a containerized linux environment, and aside from the odd bug, the high end ones are actually great dev machines while retaining the "You spend most of your time in the browser so we may as well bake that into the OS" base layer.
- a_vanderbilt 2y ago
  I actually do use a Chromebook in this way! Out of all the Linux machines I've used, that's why I like it. Give me a space to work and provide an OS that I don't have to babysit or mentally maintain.
- presides 2y ago
  Been a while since I've used a chromebook but iirc there's ALSO root access that's just a bit more difficult to access, and you do actually need to access it from time to time for various reasons, or at least you used to.
  - LordDragonfang 2y ago
    You're thinking of Crouton, the old method of using linux on a Chromebook (which involved disabling boot protection and setting up a second linux install in a chroot, with a keybind that allowed you to toggle between the two environments). It was including a Crostini is the new containerized version that is both officially supported and integrated into ChromeOS

0x457 2y ago

I will settle for: you can connect 2 monitors to iPad and select audio device sound is going through. If can run IntelliJ and compile rust on the iPad, I would promise to upgrade to the new iPad Pro as soon as it is released every time.

bonestamp2 2y ago

Agreed, this will be the way forward in the future. I've already seen one of my apps (Authy) say "We're no longer building a macOS version, just install the iPad app on your mac". That's great, but you need an M series chip in your mac for that to work so backwords compatibility only goes back a few years at this point, which is fine for corporate upgrade cycles but might be a bit short for consumers at this time. But it will be fine in the future.

beeboobaa3 2y ago

Until an "iPhone" can run brew, all my developer tools, steam, epic games launcher, etc it's hardly interesting.

plussed_reader 2y ago

The writing was on the wall with the introduction of Swift, IMO. Since then it's been over complicating the iPad and dumbing down the macOS interfaces to attain this goal. So much wasted touch/negative space in macOS since Catalina to compensate for fingers and adapative interfaces; so many hidden menus and long taps squirreled away in iOS.

reaperducer 2y ago

Maybe not a "it runs macOS", but an eventual "they share all the same apps" with adaptive UIs M-class MacBooks can already run many iPhone and iPad apps.