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Apple's Greg Joswiak: No Plans to Merge Mac and iPad
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Why can’t I shake the felling that ever since the release of the Surface line, merging desktop and tablet OSes was the obvious evolution for you? Yet even today, neither Microsoft, Apple or Google have managed to do so (at least not in a satisfactory manner).
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I still don’t think they are destined to merge.
Google has no desktop OS to speak of, so of course they were never going to succeed.
Microsoft is trying to force their desktop OS onto a tablet form factor to compete with the ipad, with equally disastrous results.
Apple has zero incentive to do so, not only because that may result in sales of fewer devices, but also because I don’t believe it would make for a great user experience.
People also have different understandings of what might or might not merge.
You can have all Apple mobile and desktop devices running "AppleOS", sharing underlying frameworks, yet still have each device category with distinct interaction paradigms and user experience. This is likely what Apple wants, because A) it means that software can, if desired, relatively easily be made to run on a variety of different devices, and B) they can sell you multiple devices depending on your needs.
The distinction between an iPad and Mac could be determined by Apple Pencil support, or the presence of a built-in keyboard or multitouch screen. It's not a case of merge everything or merge nothing.
You can have all Apple mobile and desktop devices running "AppleOS", sharing underlying frameworks, yet still have each device category with distinct interaction paradigms and user experience. This is likely what Apple wants, because A) it means that software can, if desired, relatively easily be made to run on a variety of different devices, and B) they can sell you multiple devices depending on your needs.
The distinction between an iPad and Mac could be determined by Apple Pencil support, or the presence of a built-in keyboard or multitouch screen. It's not a case of merge everything or merge nothing.
Google still has Chrome OS for Chromebooks and Android for tablets. Neither might be the largest player in each device category, but they do are used in substantial numbers each and they remain distinct to this day.
It would make more sense for google to try and copy something like Samsung’s Dex mode rather than try and merge android and chromeOS.
Personally, I am still not sure why chromeOS even exists.
The only thing Jobs said was: “If you see [a devices that requires] a stylus [to be operated], they blew it.”
If you are unwilling to acknowledge the difference between a device that requires a stylus and a device that can make use of a stylus for certain operations, I don’t know what else there is to say.
Well, I personally find that trackpad for an iPad quite weird and counter-intuitive. Firstly, the primary interaction with a tactile screen is our fingers, by design. Secondly, MK’s trackpad is just not as good as what we got used to with MacBooks over the years, with plenty of space to slide over and a more precise pointer. On iPad, currently, the cursor is a round “soft” spot, so selecting anything is actually easier with your fingers or a pencil, especially when we can zoom. I appreciate the keyboard, as it frees-up extra screen space on an iPad, but that trackpad... What is it really useful for? 🤷🏻♂️
Timing is extremely important in this context.
Two executives denies that Apple has any plans for merging the Mac and the iPad.
Many commenters in this thread don't believe them which means, if they are correct, Apple do have plans for merging. If Apple has concrete plans for such a product, implicitly they also believe that such a product will be released in just a few years.
Apple having no plans doesn't mean they will never do it.
If someone in 2010 said Apple will release a touchscreen Mac within 20 years it would be an almost useless prediction. Apple would not start in 2010 to plan for a product to be released in 2030.
If Apple releases a touch screen Mac in 2025 that could still indicate that they have no plans for it today.
So, timing is important.
So which year do you believe that iPad OS and macOS will be completely merged and undistinguishable from each other and a Mac will have touchscreen support?
Craig Federighi, VP at Apple denies it:
"I gotta tell you when we released Big Sur, and these articles started coming out saying, ‘Oh my God, look, Apple is preparing for touch’. I was thinking like, ‘Whoa, why?’
We had designed and evolved the look for macOS in a way that felt most comfortable and natural to us, not remotely considering something about touch.
[...]
It's just they all feel like the natural instantiation of the experience for that device. And that's what you're seeing not some signaling of a future change in input methods."
Apple tells us how it made its new chip and MacBooks
Exclusive: Apple’s hardware, software and marketing chiefs explain how the company’s new processors came to exist
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It is the single most important difference between the two! It is the user experience which defines the device!
Besides the difference in UX, there's not as much difference between Windows 7, OS X and Linux these days.
That's not very useful. It's like saying we will have fully self driving cars some day.
If you believe Apple has a plan for this I would like to know what you believe is the time frame. Which year?
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I don't see them changing it up to having macOS on the iPad, ever. I could see them blurring the lines though by advancing iPadOS in several aspects like allowing any app with an iPhone variant to run in iPhone mode (e.g. a floating phone-sized app window you can freely move around) or the big one, allow macOS full-screen sized variants optimised for KBM input to run on iPadOS (via Catalyst).
I think Catalyst is their end goal, allowing 3 screen size / input category variants on iPadOS (iPhone sized floating & freely movable, iPad variant possibly also freely movable via iPad mini size mode & macOS fullscreen optimised for KBM).
I'm also almost 90% certain we get really big professional news with iPadOS 15: XCode support? There were rumors & leaks about certain XCode functionality (e.g. 2nd screen) in iPadOS 14, if I recall correctly.
Disclaimer: I DO NOT want macOS on iPad, I want them to further innovate iPadOS and free themselves of the ancient shackles that is the macOS codebase.
I think Catalyst is their end goal, allowing 3 screen size / input category variants on iPadOS (iPhone sized floating & freely movable, iPad variant possibly also freely movable via iPad mini size mode & macOS fullscreen optimised for KBM).
I'm also almost 90% certain we get really big professional news with iPadOS 15: XCode support? There were rumors & leaks about certain XCode functionality (e.g. 2nd screen) in iPadOS 14, if I recall correctly.
Disclaimer: I DO NOT want macOS on iPad, I want them to further innovate iPadOS and free themselves of the ancient shackles that is the macOS codebase.
merge
combine or cause to combine to form a single entity
blend or cause to blend gradually into something else so as to become indistinguishable from it
This is how I use the word.
To me, the most important aspect to determine if it is the same OS, is the application compatibility and somewhat the user interface.
If any valid copy of the binary representation of the application can run on all devices supported by that operating system and the user interface is essentially the same, the operating systems have merged.
One important corollary from this is that I should be able to program the application without being required to take into considerations the details of the hardware of the different devices the OS is supporting, although that might be necessary to make a good program.
In the same way:
if you are unwilling to acknowledge the difference between a device that requires a touchscreen and a device that can make use of a touchscreen for certain operations, I don’t know what else there is to say.
I cannot remember having talked about touchscreens here. So now you are just making things up.
Depends on what one means by “merge”. They’ve already taken steps in this direction by enabling Macs to run your iPad apps directly. How much more of a step is it, really, to simply encapsulate Mac apps and enable them to run full screen on an iPad that uses the same CPU?
That was for the sake of the argument, for anyone who thinks touchscreens on Mac would be a bad idea, not specifically for you.
Everything Apple does can’t be self-serving. Consumers don’t exist for Apple, and competitors will bridge the gap and beat them out for consumers if they don’t do it first.
Just like the macOS user base, they’re not getting any younger. Having larger spaced out icons may be easier to see?
There will come a time when macOS users will have aged out of the market. Only then will folks stop attempting to insist on it’s relevance.
Problem is competitors have already bridged the gap, but yet Apples iPads still sell like hot cakes, and so does the MacBook Air... always remember apples old moto ‘Think Different’, apple will go their own way about it, and we can already see that starting...
They are separating iPadOS from iOS, and in time iPadOS will become its own fully fledged OS born from an iOS foundation this in the long term is a much better idea...
WatchOS - Touch based operating system for an extra small screen.
iOS - Touch based operating system designed for a small screen.
iPadOS - Touch, Mouse, Keyboard and Trackpad based operating system designed for a medium sized screen.
MacOS - Trackpad, Mouse, Keyboard based operating system for a medium to large sized screen.
Doing it this way provides a far better user experience as each OS is designed for the devices they are intended for, rather than making sacrifices to one to suit the other.
SO WHY USE M1?
Three reasons:
1. Reduction In Cost, by using M1 it saves them the hassle of developing an X series chip every 18 months which is only used on one single device (iPad Pro), instead they have a chip which gets developed for their mac line as well as the iPad Pro line, streamlines it for Apple, makes it cheaper for apple and ultimately its better for the end user.
2. Marketing, by advertising that a MAC CHIP is now in the iPad Pro, it will lead less tech savvy peeps to think that suddenly the iPad is a real laptop replacement, but more tech savvy peeps know the M1 is basically an A14X, just named differently
3. Compatibility of certain pro apps (this is no doubt coming), what we will see is pro apps likely launching for the iPad Pro soon, notice how I say iPad Pro... these apps will strictly be apps for iPads using the M1 chip, so won’t work on the likes of the Air, Mini or standard iPad lines.
You are saying things which are demonstrably false.
The diameter of the iOS slider control is 27 pt, smaller than the recommended minimum of 44 pt, but I think we can agree that it’d look silly if it were much larger (plus it gets a pass because it has a distinct control shape unlike regular buttons, providing a specific hit region). In any case, the diameter of the macOS Control Center sliders is just 20 pt.
As for the UIBarButtonItems, it’s difficult to measure spacing without icons that aren’t exactly square or at least fixed-width, but to help us out we can use the shapes that appear when using a cursor on the iPad and outline the buttons' hit areas:
In this Safari screenshot, the left gap is 5.5 pt, and the right is 7.5 pt. Both of these are far larger than the spacing for macOS menu bar hit areas, which is negative. By overlaying the hit areas there, we can see that there's an overlap of exactly 4 pt between the hit areas.
And even then, the spacing isn't the only issue. The controls themselves are still way too small to be touchable. They'd have to essentially double the height of the menu bar and then likely get developers to update their sometimes years-old menu bar apps with larger icons. Text menu bar items would look clownish against these larger icons without increasing the font size, which eats up a lot of horizontal space, fast. (Not an issue for me on a 27" iMac, but I suspect 12"/13" MacBook users would feel differently.)
Also, do you feel like trying to touch the correct traffic light? Aim carefully!
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