I did precisely this in 1997 with my powerbook 180c. It actually was quite ok back in the days.
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Other Bring macOS to iPhones, Apple!
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I did precisely this in 1997 with my powerbook 180c. It actually was quite ok back in the days.
Funny, that was one of my first thoughts when I saw this thread. I've installed a version of Linux on a few inexpensive Android phones and tablets and found it extremely useful (for a very niche purpose) and have been quite surprised how well it runs. Of course, the phone isn't natively running Linux, it's an Android app with a separate filesystem inside your user space, but it works fine for what I want. I've developed a web app for mapping/gps use and thought it would be cool to get it working without cell service. So, a very straightforward solution was to install a web server on the phone and access the web app on the localhost with Chrome.
Took some effort to get it setup, but it works and was even quite fast with the site located in internal storage. But I needed more space and put it on a 1tb sd card (something else an iPhone can't do), which still worked fine but was slower. Even then, just about the same as accessing the real web app with a cellular connection.
I really wanted to do something similar on my iPhone/iPad, but it didn't seem possible. I tried "ish" and some other web server apps, but none of them really worked for me. The biggest problem was (apparently) iOS doesn't support real background apps like Android. So, you can have a web server, but it just stops if it's not the "front" app.
Anyway, sorry to wander off-topic a bit, but it's related. I wouldn't want to do much administration or programming in linux on my phone directly, but I can ssh into it and the environment is nearly identical to a big linux server that I lease. It's nice to have that capability, if you need it, and it's a free app that anyone can install.
If a phone ran MacOS, I can see why that might appeal to some users as a replacement for a Mac Mini. But then you'd need a screen, keyboard and mouse (unlike just ssh-ing into my linux phone). Apple would have to charge more for such a phone, wouldn't they? It would be one more (completely different) device that needs to be fully supported by MacOS.
If they call it iPhone Ultra or whatever with 2 TB storage and charge 2.999,- € I would buy it. Would give you so much more power inside your pocket with mac OS, but let´s see what future brings...
Looking forward to Google´s solution with future Android desktop mode, since I use and know both platforms (iOS, mac OS / Android, Chrome OS).
And as you mentioned, it would not only replace a Mac Mini for some people... Think of all the iPhone users (couple of 100s of millions I suppose) who use Windows as their home desktop operating system and never tried mac OS.
This would also be Apple´s opportunity to let more users try mac OS and get rid of Windows and even consider buying a Mac if they want more storage, more power than the iPhone would offer.
Ok so the interaction feels great for you. But I still question the validity of installing macOS on iPhone directly. Even outputting iPhone display to a bigger monitor similar to DeX feels very niche, and iOS on large screen won’t do much.
iPhone already has 2TB storage today, and it costs 2 grand. Android desktop mode I have no idea, but I can see how limited that support would be, and how mostly portrait mode apps would need to be optimised so it works similar to desktop app in said mode, something many if not most android devs aren’t really keen to do I’d argue.
And Windows isn’t going anywhere. Windows on ARM already existed. Microsoft ain’t gonna let windows die quietly. Decades worth of countless programs and unparalleled backwards compatibility across multiple versions still make windows a great platform to run just about anything you can imagine on. macOS? Sure, some classic macOS versions have been virtualised but Apple absolutely hates people virtualising their desktop operating system. At most you can only virtualise macOS on Mac. There are hacks for older OS but performance isn’t great. And losing 32-bit support means tons of old applications are no longer available.
Besides, what’s best trying out macOS on an actual laptop (even as cheap as base MacBook Air) than on a small iPhone screen or iPhone with keyboard, mouse and a monitor?