A simple question - is there any reason why an iPad Pro with an M4 chip couldn't be capable of running both iOS and MacOS? I think the top of the line M4 iPad, fully loaded, is around $3000. For that kind of money, I'd want an iPad Pro that switches to MacOs when connected to a magic keyboard. You get the best of both worlds. An iPad AND a MacBook Pro.
Capable, yes. Should it? No. There are multiple reasons why it’s a bad idea.
First of all, despite having an M4, the iPad is still not nearly as capable as the hardware on an MacBook Air since the battery and thermals are worse. At best, running macOS on it would turn it into a MacBook Air Junior. Since most people consider MacBook Airs to be consumer base models that are not meant for high end professional work, why do people assume a weaker device could perform like a high end MacBook Pro?
Second, supporting two completely separate OS’es would take up an awful lot of storage space, something most purchased iPads do not have. You’d have to have space for two OS’es and two entirely separate set of apps. While you can deck out an iPad with 2TB, it’s not economical. iPad Airs have half the storage the Pros do, and you know that if macOS came to the iPad Pros, the whining would be insufferable from those demanding Apple also run macOS on the iPad Air “because they run the same processors”!
Third, macOS is incredibly touch-hostile. The user experience is awful, as Craig Federighi said years ago when he mentioned in an interview that they had macOS running on iPads in their labs. Because of that bad experience, Apple decided it would be a bad idea to adopt macOS on iPads.
Fourth, it would completely kill the iPad. I’ve mentioned any number of times that it’s really hard to write a good touch-based app, the main reason iPad apps lag behind their desktop counterparts. I’ve used the example of Photoshop. Adobe promised it would eventually have feature parity with the Mac version. Three years later and it’s still not close. Apple’s own Final Cut Pro took years to write and it still lags quite a bit behind the desktop version. If iPads started running Mac apps or ran macOS, developers would stop making iPad programs entirely. We’d end up with a Mac Surface instead of a tablet.
I’ve heard a lot of people say that if you don’t want macOS, you don’t have to use it and just stay on the iPadOS side of things. But that makes the erroneous conclusion that the presence of macOS wouldn’t affect those users. Developers will take the easy way out and just write mouse-based programs for macOS that would substitute for iPad apps. That would either deprive iPad users out of future iPad apps or would force those users into a touch-hostile environment, defeating the whole purpose of even buying an iPad. Lack of apps is what has stymied Android tablets. They have excellent hardware, too, but nobody buys them because there are no apps. The small niche users who want Mac apps would get what they want, but everyone else loses, eventually killing the iPad. Apple’s not going to sabotage the best tablet in the world by turning it into a bad hybrid. People think a hybrid is a panacea. If it were, Microsoft would dominate the tablet market with the unlimited apps Windows has. Instead, they flail with their Surface Pro line, forcing them to break their promise of Windows 10 being the last OS they’d ever make. It turns out Surface Pros are so compromised due to bad thermals and small battery that they end up being mediocre, underpowered laptops and horrible tablets since MS can’t convince any developers to optimize their apps for touch.
I’d also mention that almost nobody buys a fully decked out iPad, so almost nobody is paying $3000. Nobody’s paying $7000 for a fully decked out MacBook Pro either except maybe iJustine or MKBHD. Most people are paying $1600-2400. Using maxed out prices doesn’t mean anything. Just look at a fully decked out MacBook Air. Does anyone think it’s a good idea to buy one of those for nearly $3000? Yet I don’t see anyone complaining about any of those prices because nobody buys them. However, when it comes to iPads, I’ve seen multiple people complaining about the price of a fully loaded iPad, something I doubt anyone who mentions such a thing has any intention of buying one even if it did run macOS. Just as a $3000 MacBook Air would be ridiculous, so is paying $3000 for an iPad. Most would pay half that or less. For $3000, you should buy a $1300 iPad and a $1300 MacBook Air and end up with an excellent tablet and an excellent laptop and have some change left over.
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