6 ms·
Tim Cook's fear of people not buying a full set of Apple devices for each person is the driving force behind not just the lack of multiuser support, but also th
by tomaskafka 7mo ago
Tim Cook's fear of people not buying a full set of Apple devices for each person is the driving force behind not just the lack of multiuser support, but also the overall nerfing of iPadOS.
For the past 5+ years it's been, "This will be the year of real work on the iPad," but they keep circling around it, trying not to make iPads accidentally powerful enough for someone to skip buying a MacBook.
- nesky 7mo agoThe flip side here is if I could use an iPad to replace the MacMini on my desk and connect to a monitor with the same support my Mac does I'd most likely have a top end iPad Pro as opposed to my mildly spec'd MacMini M2 and iPad Air M1. I'd literally spend MORE money on that 1 iPad than both existing iPad and Macs I have today.
- jclardy 7mo agoSame. Plus with multi-user, I would own multiple size iPads since they instantly become more useful as shared family devices, rather than only being tied to one persons iCloud/messages/email. And more importantly for our old boy Tim - they would be larger storage sizes because they would be logged into multiple users.
- xattt 7mo agoMultiuser is already baked in iOS-adjacent operating systems. tvOS offers user profiles on power on.
- janderson215 7mo agoI’m pretty sure iPadOS supports multiple profiles on Classroom[0] devices. [0]: https://www.apple.com/education/k12/teaching-tools/ https://www.apple.com/education/k12/teaching-tools/
- sroussey 7mo agoYeah, it’s like TVOS. One main account determines apps installed etc (WiFi settings, etc). Then local docs switches per user. Honestly that good enough for home use.
- cachius 7mo agoYou must be a school or business with DUNS number and rigorous, manual verification through Apple to set up shared iPads with managed Apple IDs in the School or Business Manager Portal.
- troad 7mo agoPerhaps someone who's more versed in Apple tech can weigh in, but my limited understanding is that tvOS' users are mostly an illusion - the current user is just a flag exposed to running apps, and each app decides on its own what (if anything) they do with that information. There's no system-level separation of data or permissions for different users. (In my experience, most non-Apple apps just seem to ignore user profiles on the Apple TV, and either behave as single-user apps, or have their own totally unrelated user profiles.)
- spear 7mo agoYeah. For example, the same Netflix account is used even if you switch tvOS profiles.
- nirav72 7mo agoYeah, I think that's a assumption Apple made that most AppleTV devices would be in the same household where people can simply use the streaming app's ability to switch profiles. That sucks if you have roommates that pay for their own streaming subscriptions or the AppleTV device is in a common area such a dormitory. I suppose they could solve this by allowing ad-hoc profiles if AppleTV and user's IOS device is on the same network.
- jon-wood 7mo agoThe user profile stuff as far as I can tell literally just determines the recently watched data in the Apple TV app. It doesn't even use your iCloud account when you select your account - I attempted to show some photos from my photo library on an Apple TV set up by someone else the other day and it just wanted to pop up their photos instead.
- ebbi 7mo agoI wonder if something like that is in the works, given touch screen capability coming to Macs, and Tahoe being geared for touch UX...
- infecto 7mo agoI mean we can always wish but I think Thi’s has been the major gripe for a number of years. They could run macOS today in an iPad. Alternatively they could at the very least copy some of the basic workflows in iOS but it’s just different enough that even with a keyboard the iPad feels off compared to a Mac.
- estimator7292 7mo agoYes, but you see it's even more profitable if apple can convince you to buy both. They can't allow you to not buy both because that will make shareholders sad
- ectospheno 7mo agoI’ve always found this funny because everyone in my family has an iPad and none of us have a Mac.
- recursive 7mo agoWorking as intended. Even the way you framed it. Every family member has a separate physically distinct iPad, paid for separately. It's never considered that two people might be able to use the same hardware, which is the question here.
- ectospheno 7mo agoWe each have our own car too. Hard to share the things people use at the same time.
- overfeed 7mo ago> Hard to share the things people use at the same time. How many TVs do you have in your living area?
- Jeremy1026 7mo agoTVs are traditionally a shared experience. But even still, I have 2 TVs for every person in my household.
- lossyalgo 7mo agoAre you being sarcastic? Why would anyone need 2 TVs, much less every person in the house?
- Jeremy1026 7mo agoI'm not being sarcastic. And I really don't think my household is that far above average. We have three "living room" type areas. One in each bedroom. One in my office. One in my wife's office. I'd wager the American average is >1 per person in the house. Edit: Looks like there is some research to suggest that Number of TVs > Number of People in Household. 2.93 TVs to 2.54 people. https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/more-tv-sets-2-93-than-people-per-us-household-2-54-average-tv-sets-per-home-sets-new-record/ https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/more-tv-sets-2-93-than-people...
- moolcool 7mo agoI could excuse it if the iPad was a $200 novelty like the Amazon Fire tablets, but they're putting M-series chips in them and marketing (and pricing) them like PC replacements.
- gffrd 7mo agoThey _are already_ PC replacements for many of the people who buy them.
- lossyalgo 7mo agoI just picked up a new iPad with A16 chip for roughly $300 - sure they aren't M-series level but it's plenty fast for all of my day-to-day tasks, with good battery life and 3rd party keyboard/case/pen for another $60 and it functions like a laptop when I need a laptop.
- rvanmil 7mo agoI mainly use my iPad Pro like a MacBook with the Magic Keyboard and a Razer mouse (I can even play ARC Raiders perfectly on it, streamed from the gaming pc in another room; having a completely silent gaming setup in the living room is amazing) connected. My macOS muscle memory works most of the time, but there are also quite some details which are slightly different or missing. If they would allow a macOS “mode” on iPad I would choose it over a MacBook instantly for work.
- johanvts 7mo agoDo you mount it on a stand? my neck hurts just thinking about going through a full workday on an ipad.
- rvanmil 7mo agoI’m using the iPad Magic Keyboard which is also a stand. So it’s pretty much the same as using a MacBook. I do have the 13 inch. I tried the 11 inch but personally I found that too small to use comfortably like this.
- johanvts 7mo agoMakes sense, in my head an iPad is 11”, I don’t think I ever saw the 13” version IRL.
- jclardy 7mo agoI’ve been experimenting with a 13” iPad Pro and Mac mini, setup with Tailscale. I love it, minus the general issues you run into with Remote Desktop. That plus not being able to deploy apps unless I’m on the same wifi (as an iOS developer.) A dual boot iPad would be killer. I would go out and by the maxed out M5 if it was possible. MacOS for workdays, and iPadOS for everything else. That or just finish the last mile of iPadOS (Add terminal access, long running processes, lower level file system access, actual developer tooling.)
- tomaskafka 7mo ago
- apparent 7mo ago> trying not to make iPads accidentally powerful enough for someone to skip buying a MacBook. TBH, if you buy an iPad and their nice keyboard case, it costs almost as much as an MBA. This is one of the reasons I simply cannot justify getting a new iPad these days. The other is that my 8 year old iPad Pro still works just fine, in case I ever need to do iPad-ish things like draw with the pencil.
- johanvts 7mo agoBy a wacom bamboo, costs next to nothing and works without charging the stylus. Of course if you are using it on the go it’s inconvenient.
- zadikian 7mo ago$270-$300 (used to be $350?) for the iPad keyboard. I feel like Apple did a good job targeting a user segment that is just happy to spend extra money on gadgets, aside from whoever really needs this laptop-tablet in-between.
- apparent 7mo agoYeah I feel lucky to have picked one up for $199 back in the day. Still use it, though TBH it's mostly as a second monitor for my MBA, when I'm traveling. I don't work on the iPad itself that much, even though the keyboard is delightful.
- vladvasiliu 7mo ago> TBH, if you buy an iPad and their nice keyboard case, it costs almost as much as an MBA. Right. Which, by my calculations, means it costs half as much as an MBA plus an iPad and their nice keyboard case. Don't know how much either the iPad or the nice keyboard case cost by themselves, but probably more than 0. So even skipping the nice keyboard case and buying just a naked iPad in addition to the MBA still makes Apple more money. Why would they forgo this if they're indeed the mustache-twirling capitalists like everyone says?
- bigstrat2003 7mo ago> they keep circling around it, trying not to make iPads accidentally powerful enough for someone to skip buying a MacBook. Which is really silly, because if someone needs to do actual work they are not going to do it on an iPad no matter how capable it is. The form factor simply does not work for getting work done. Apple has nothing to fear here.
- andy_ppp 7mo agoYeah they should even just let you install macOS if you want, they’d probably sell a lot of overpriced storage at a minimum and people still wouldn’t use them for real work…
- moolcool 7mo agoAnd especially more silly, since they'll soon launch a cheap A-series chipped MacBook. Why can I have multiple users on a $700 MacBook, but not a $1500 iPad Pro?
- b33j0r 7mo agoMy dad and my brother use ipad pros for their healthcare business and rarely use laptops. For them, the year of real work happened several years ago. My brother even has a mouse for it somehow.
- lostapathy 7mo agoWhat's the "somehow" about the mouse? They've supported that for a while now.
- alistairSH 7mo agoI may be an outlier, but multi-user support might make me buy more iPads. Basically, an iPad Air for each major room in the house. Then my wife and I, plus guests, could pick up which ever one is closest. Today, we just have on each and have to run around the house whenever we want it.
- zadikian 7mo agoYeah, everyone I know who owns an iPad for personal use, they also own a laptop. It's possible they use the iPad more than the laptop, but they still need the laptop, which might be a Mac.
- dwb 7mo agoI have an iPad and a desktop Mac, no laptop. I like that the more serious stuff stays in one room.
- zitterbewegung 7mo agoPlaying devil’s advocate the only real device I truly would want to have multi user switching is the Vision Pro due to cost and features . If multiple users were to be added to the iPad would there be enough people to justify the long term use of the device ? I feel like this is a HN filter bubble desire just like small phones .
- qwertygnu 7mo agoI feel like you're wrong about this and small phones. Perhaps you're the one in an "everyone on HN must be in a bubble" bubble.
- NetMageSCW 7mo agoSmall phones are definitely only wanted by a minority. A minority Apple catered too, but I guess has left behind or pushed further out.
- truncate 7mo agoI think people want multi-user because most people still need their laptops for work (or hobbies sometimes). Otherwise, I'd be on my phone (for casual messaging, media consumption). iPad is mostly just sitting around most of time, so it can be quite easily shared b/w people in same household.
- folkrav 7mo agoPersonally it'd be for a kid's profile. I feel like that'd be a usecase for many.
- scotchmi_st 7mo agoThey spend plenty of time adding "pro" features and apps like Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro, which they wouldn't do unless they wanted people to use them. I'm willing to bet it's as simple as that no Apple SWEs or anyone who has to edit video or sound uses an ipad for work. As soon as Apple forced some to use one, they'd fix all of the UI problems that make them a nightmare.
- AlphaSite 7mo agoI think if people had a use case for it they’d buy more of the damn things. Right now I’d never need a device separate from my spouse since I just don’t need one. Make is useful and buyers will come. The never had issues selling multiple macs frankly.
- alwillis 7mo ago> trying not to make iPads accidentally powerful enough for someone to skip buying a MacBook. This clearly isn’t the case—the iPad Pro got the M4 processor in May 2024; the Mac didn’t get the M4 until October. So for a few months, Apple’s most powerful chip was only available for the iPad Pro. And while the M5 MacBook Pro and the M5 iPad Pro were announced together in October 2025, none of the other Mac models have been updated to the M5. It’s possible more M5 Macs will be announced this week; we’ll see. I don’t think it matters to Apple whether you spend $1,000+ for an iPad or for a MacBook.
- cachius 7mo ago> iPads powerful enough to skip a MacBook This is about software
- alwillis 7mo agoThe huge advantage for some people: you can get a cellular data connection for an iPad. If you need internet connectivity on the road regardless if Wi-Fi is available, only the iPad has that option. Yes, you can use a Mac laptop with your phone acting as a hotspot but unless you have unlimited data, that gets expensive real fast. Now that Apple makes their own cellular modems, it should be feasible to add them to MacBooks in the near future.
- ahtihn 7mo ago> Yes, you can use a Mac laptop with your phone acting as a hotspot but unless you have unlimited data, that gets expensive real fast. And why exactly is that different from having the cellular connection on iPad? You can have the exact same data plan on your phone that you use as hotspot.
- vladvasiliu 7mo agoI'm not really in this boat (don't have an ipad, no use for it) but if I did, it would actually cost me more to have a SIM in it than just share the internet from my phone. Having a second SIM for my plan would cost me 2€ / moth extra, with no other benefit: internet usage by that 2nd SIM would be deducted from my plan, which would remain otherwise the same.
- MetalSnake 7mo agoWhy is it getting expensive when using the phone as a hotspot, but not when using the iPad or MacBook directly with cellular data?
- nasretdinov 7mo agoI think some (most?) carriers in the US charge for hotspot traffic separately from direct access from the phone (by looking at packet's TTL, it's lower by 1)
- actionfromafar 7mo ago
- hyperbolablabla 7mo agoI don't understand how a trillion dollar company can't at this point say "you know what, I think we're good on the profit front, let's convert some of that into improving UX"
- Epa095 7mo agoIts not in their DNA, the don't get that large by making that kind of decisions.
- user_7832 7mo agoIf only any of their former leaders and one of the most famous people ever had said something like "If you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will"... Well maybe that kind of company would've been aggressive about always being competitive, yeah? Instead of whatever Tim Cook is doing...
- wiseowise 7mo agoBloodsuckers say “we’re good, let’s do something beneficial for the world”, hear how that sounds?
- user_7832 7mo ago> ...but they keep circling around it, trying not to make iPads accidentally powerful enough for someone to skip buying a MacBook. Kinda ironic for a company when it was Jobs who said"If you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will"... I have an ageing iPad, but the crap software really makes me reconsider ever wanting to spend so much money for a shiny toy.
- sinnsro 7mo agoBean Counter Tim is going to drive Apple into the ground before he does anything useful. Just look at the current state of the ecosystem when it comes to UI/UX and software stability.