Agreed. Additionally this paves the way for the M1 and it's future iterations without baggage that would slow it down.
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Apple's Greg Joswiak: No Plans to Merge Mac and iPad
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There are some.
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There is Pythonista which has been around for a long time. It is a full-fledged Python IDE on iPad.
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Virtualized Apple Silicon Big Sur would be pretty close to the same speed as native. That's the beauty of virtualization, you are mostly running native code with a few extra steps when you need kernel and hardware access. It's going to be a few percent slower than pure native but nothing significant for most uses.
As for apps, I suspect that would be a real Apple hold-up. Apple wants rigid control over installing apps on an iPad. That wouldn't work too well for the kind of things that I want to do on a virtualized Mac for the iPad Pro. I need things like homebrew and the ability to install a bunch of developer utilities. A lot of these are open source and would never be on the App Store. That's one reason that I don't think Xcode is coming to the iPad. Too much development has to work on an open system. Apple could get Xcode to work but for a lot of uses it still wouldn't be that useful.
As for dividing storage, a virtual machine could have its own folder hierarchy. Every iOS and iPadOS is already given a local directory that is sandboxed from the rest of the system. The VM could just use that sandboxed folder as the root of the macOS filesystem. This is an implementation detail that I would trust Apple to get right. Since on Big Sur the OS system directories are completely unwritable, they could be skipped and just user accessible directories included. But I need things like /usr/local and /opt which are not part of the /Users hierarchy.
All this is fun speculation but I doubt Apple will do any of this unfortunately.
Multitasking is most definitely a function of the OS. You could put 64GB of RAM in an iPad today and you could still not leave five apps running indefinitely in the background like MacOS or Windows because the the OS simply does not allow it.
But could. If it were updated under the assumption that more RAM would be available than currently is. There are other OSs other than MacOS that allow 5 apps to run in the background. iPadOS could easily be one of them.
Why do people keep looking at this like MacOS and iPadOS are static entities? MacOS also used to be a cooperative multitasking environment that didn't allow "true" multitasking, and it was updated. I don't see any reason iPadOS couldn't be.
Well the cooperative multitasking in macOS 9 and earlier was a different problem. The code that Apple wrote wasn't pre-emptive and fixing it was a very costly problem. They fixed it by having NeXT buy them and using Unix.
The issue with iPadOS multitasking isn't bad code but because the iPad has its roots in a low power, low memory system from iOS. Having any application just run in the background without restriction was going to be a problem (look up the "tragedy of the commons"). You can't trust third-party software not to use up too many resources. The system has to enforce restrictions.
Apple could fix this pretty easily by allowing new software that uses new APIs to remain running in the background for longer periods. They could restrict this to only M1 iPad Pros with 8 or 16 GB of RAM. The question is will they change iPadOS for the new M1 iPad Pros while leaving other iPads to lesser functionality?
I agree this is the key question. Well one of the key questions. The first key question for me is of course can Apple make the iPad as functional as a Mac without taking away any the lightness/agility/simplicity that makes the iPad ideal for its target market: the everyday non-technical person (eg. grandparents, children, technophobes)? My techknowledge is limited, but intuitively speaking, I don’t see how the answer can be yes when Mac is free to be as functional as it wants to be and iPad has that rather large requisite. In the functionality game, it’s like the iPad is playing with one arm tied behind its back (which is a disadvantage compared to the Mac, but still good enough for many people).
But if it is possible, the second question is of course what is the best way to bring functional parity without compromise? You mentioned macOS virtualization, which sounds like it’s close though it might have some minor disadvantages compared to native macOS. [By the way, another question I had about that is memory management/background processes—since ipadOS is much more rigid/limited in that regard, how would that work with virtual macOS basically existing as an app within iOS, would it follow its own rules on memory? What happens if say you have a macOS app going and switch to an iPadOS app, what happens to the macOS app?]
So then if not’s not possible, will Apple:
- alter the target market of the entire iPad line?
- split the iPad line into two different products with two somewhat different target markets? (Right now I think the ipad pro target market fully encompasses the non-pro market functionally, meaning eg. grandpa could use an iPad Pro and have exactly the same or better experience as a non-pro iPad. But a split would mean that would no longer be the case.)
- keep the iPad line’s target market as is, but continue to see how far it can push the functional boundaries of the iPad/pro without introducing compromise? (So even if macOS virtualization is not as functional as native, if it doesn’t compromise the “iPad” experience and there’s a good return on investment, it might appear here.)
As I said, intuitively I don’t know how there can be functional parity without compromise because of the iPad’s unique requisite. And as I believe I alluded to in a previous post in this thread, a change in the target market of the iPad or an offshoot of the iPad would likely only happen if the market is strong enough, and my feeling is it’s not at this point.
I think the interaction model of the iPad will not fundamentally change, so I think Apple will unlikely make the iPad more difficult to use.
With the use of M1 and up to 16GB of memory for the iPad Pro, I think Apple is going to first address the content creation pro market's demand where this will allow large projects to be handled. I suspect that we will see in WWDC '21 that iPad OS (for M1 iPad Pro) will get virtual memory support for the currently running application. This should help in situation where the iPad runs out memory and kills the running application.
WWDC '21 should be shed some light on Apple's decision to use the M1 for the iPad Pro.
If I had to guess, could be that they see the handwriting on the wall. As Steve Jobs had said he would do, Apple has milked the Mac for all it’s worth and they’re moving onto the next great thing. For example, is macOS “worth” having a separate CPU from the iPad? No.
At some point in the future, we’ll be bidding a fond farewell to macOS. BUT, until that day, folks with a fondness for macOS will never give up the dream that one day, Macs will start selling in huge numbers and will take it’s right place back at the forefront of Apple’s focus.
the swift playground app is very very limited. No standalone code project, no real usable debugger. Swift itself is also not so useful comparing to python.
teaching programming without letting kid build up an app is inefficient.
EDIT: just read the apps above, looks nice. But I don't think I will spend 10$ to check these apps, while everything on mac is free and easy to use.
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That will only happen when something comes along that can do everything macOS can do (and can potentially do). Not sure if you mean that iPadOS will be that thing—if so, I don’t believe it will, not as long as it is aimed at its current target market. The light/fun/simple experience requirement that Apple puts on the iPad is a handicap that macOS doesn’t have. So when it comes to all out functionality, I think macOS will always have the upper hand over iPadOS.
I agree, they’ll start with the device they NEED, which will most likely be one or the other. And if they have the funds and desire, they’ll get the other. I’m sure some need both, but it’s probably a small group.
Why in the world won’t Joswiak call the iPad a tablet??A new interview with Greg Joswiak was released today by Techcrunch and he reiterated again, no merging iPad / macOS or macOS coming to the iPad Pro.
Interview: Apple executives on the 2021 iPad Pro, stunting with the M1 and creating headroom | TechCrunch
When the third minute of Apple’s first product event of 2021 ticked over and they had already made 3 announcements we knew it was going to be a packedtechcrunch.com
Well it's not besides the point is it - that's the entire user experience. You must have SOME idea how you expect that to work even at a software level because management between two OS's on one device would be just as bad as management between two OS's on separate devices and you'd have a worse device over all. It's absolute pointless it should just never ever be done and thankfully it won't.
Because there is no tablet market, only the ipad market.
From March 2020 to March 2021, Apple sold 56% of the tablets sold globally. To call the other 44% "no market" is quite a statement.
Looking at some prior actions taken by Apple, this MAY not be the case. By the time they shut down OS9, there were features of it that were incomplete, BUT there were other things Apple decided just wouldn’t be included in macOS. Same with Final Cut Pro, when X became the only game in town, there were some things FCP could do and some ways it worked that were never brought over to FCPX. Some things in macOS are bound to go away just like the track-based view in FCP went away in favor of the magnetic timeline. There are features that some folks feel are 100% required that Apple will just say, “We don’t do it that way anymore”. And, looking at the shortlist of “things iPadOS can’t do”, some of them feel to me like where Apple would draw the line in the sand.
Because to Apple it’s a computer, not a tablet. According to their marketing department.
It’s true there are those examples and probably others, and anything is possible, but what gives me doubt is most examples affect niche groups, and I believe all examples can be worked around if needed by using third party apps or adapters for example. Cutting off functionality that much of the mainstream including businesses considers important with no workaround other than buying a competitor’s device (when Apple’s bread and butter is selling hardware), seems like a different beast.
Do they actually call it a computer though? I think they just pose the question, what is a computer? Apparently to Apple, the iPad cannot be categorized.
I get that but just because it obliterates other tablets doesn’t mean it’s not a tablet. Society has an accepted definition of the word under which the iPad squarely falls. I just find it pretentious.
Ah, I just think the opposite. Apple gets a lot of telemetry from users that share their diagnostics. If what they’re getting back is that the vast majority of folks aren’t using a feature, that lets them know how much value it is to bring that feature over to iPadOS (or whatever they call it).
That’s exactly what they did with 32 bit support, though. There are lots of individuals with legacy equipment and hardware that will never receive a driver update. Those folks are stuck. They may not be moving to a competitor, but they’re definitely not a part of Apple’s buying public anymore.
Apple currently does a good business selling Mac hardware, but they’re in an enviable position of being profitable while being nowhere near the market leader. With half of Mac purchases every year going to folks that have not owned a Mac before, they’re comfortable losing a few million customers knowing that they’ve got 9 million NEW customers to replace them. Then, the elephant in the room is that most new customers are buying iPad anyway (because most folks don’t need a Mac to do what they do day to day), so I doubt they mind if Mac sales trend to zero as long as iPad sales continue to trend upward.
The Mac has had quite the resurgence during the last couple years, especially the last year. It'd be interesting to see if that's still the case.