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'iPad Pro' Cases Increasing in Quality Ahead of Rumored Fall Launch
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The new MacBook was only released to sustain the laptop market. However, laptops will NEVER replace tablets. Laptops will always be there for those who want them, but the future of portable computers lie in tablets.
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Just out of interest, why? If this turns out to be a real pro tablet like the SP3, what would make you choose the surface?
I just want an intel based "pro" option. ...so "pro" can refer to doing professional work on it. ...in professional applications. ...on OS X.
An iPad this size is a large enough display to make OS X easily workable with a touch interface. I've tried it.
All they have to do is build it.
An iPad this size is a large enough display to make OS X easily workable with a touch interface. I've tried it.
All they have to do is build it.
Perfect opportunity for Apple to "catch-up" to the Surface by making the iPad pro run OS X. That would shake things up a bit, and make a really great super mobile computer usable even in-flight with the person in front of you leaning back their seat.
For that to be a good product, Apple would need to heavily modify OS X to be controllable by touch. Unless you see the iPad Pro as essentially a very lightweight laptop that can be used for a limited set of features as a keyboard and tracking-device-less tablet. Microsoft has put a touch-based UI on top of desktop Windows to allow a subset of Windows functionality to by used without keyboard and tracking device. Apple hasn't done anything in that regard yet. But even the Surface suffers from that only a subset of Windows features can be accessed reasonably well via a touch screen.
Certainly, Apple could make the iPad Pro a dual-boot device (OS X and iOS), possibly on the same processor (ie, either running both on ARM or on Intel). But any work done in one OS would only be accessible in the other OS for apps that have direct companions in the other OS. That certainly works for apps that are already cloud-based: email, Safari, iWorks, 'iTunes' and many third-party ones. For games it probably wouldn't matter if they only ran on one OS. But the iOS part would not be really more practical than 'conventional' iPads.
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So, in what way would your desired product differ from the new Macbook (apart from having more ports)? That one could remove the keyboard and use OS X via a touch screen? Yuck.
The difference is that Windows 8 has a touchscreen UI layer on top of its desktop OS that makes it useable via a touchscreen for a subset of its functionality. OS X has nothing in that regard.
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One can argue that NFC was a gimmick without a proper use case. Apple Pay was that use case and thus it did not make sense to release NFC before there was software making good use of it.
And which OS would you want this one device to run?
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I find it even more egregious that the they offer 8 GB iPhones (the iPhone 5c) and don't even allow an upgrade to higher capacities (you essentially can get an upgrade to 16 GB for the usual $100 by directly getting the 5s but I really think they should have offered the 5c and the 5s with 16 GB).
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So you want a Macbook with a detachable keyboard?I have a Surface Pro 3 and love it. A very impressive device. But I'd rather have a Surface Pro 3 running OSX 10.10
hmmm.
So is the iPad Pro the unofficial replacement for the macbook pro?
it's the unofficial gauntlet to be thrown down at the Surface Pro and MS - whenever that time comes (eh, Apple??).
if you consider the partnership with IBM and their focus on health kit/research kit, i'd say that the iPad will find its own place in all of it. could really be a competent machine if they'll actually go for professionals with OS X and hopefully 4gb ram - force touch the whole screen for decent pressure sensitivity? man i'm sold. don't want to relearn Windows keyboards and dabble in another ecosystem at the present time. but i'm waiting less patiently every year.
For developers, the big clue that this product is likely real comes from the way iOS8 abstracted screen sizes in to "size classes".
That was necessary for a bunch of reasons, including allowing developers to easily treat the iPhone 6+ as a sort of iPhone-iPad hybrid and simplifying the way apps are notified about rotation changes.
However, there are a bunch of hints in there that larger iPads are coming:
- The iPhone's size class is "Compact", the iPad is "Regular". You might have expected the iPhone to be "Regular" and the iPad to be "Large", possibly with the iWatch as "Compact".
But no - the iPad we have today is only considered a "Regular" sized iOS device. It certainly sounds like they expect (or are at least leaving themselves the option of) a bigger iOS device one day.
- Apps should expect that the size class changes while your app is open. So your App might start up with plenty of space, but it could also get squished up at any point. This is how rotation is now handled - as an abstract "size class change".
What's intriguing is that this is exactly the system Apple would need in order to get split-screen multitasking working. Calendar, for example, switches from its full-screen iPad layout to an iPhone layout which works much better when squished along an edge of the screen. Apple is working on it. Developers have enabled it in beta OSes.
Split-screen multitasking makes a larger iPad much more likely. If you have an iPhone and iPad app squished together on the same display, it makes sense to offer a larger screen size. It also makes it viable for the first time; a bigger version of today's iPad wouldn't be a great product.
i still hope they keep the icons the same size and space them way out in the same grid though. just to watch the bedlam that followed.
I don't remember exactly, but it was reported in Macrumours many years ago. It wasn't anything significant, just some sort of adapter/converter for the iPad.
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Interesting. Thanks for the explaination.
I read other tech websites including ones exclusive to Android but you rarely see case makers make a case for Android tablets/phones without official specs.
It only "doesn't need it" until Apple puts it in. Then, it will need it and wishes for any other amount of RAM- including the former RAM standard- will be entirely wrong.
In another thread, a rumored new
In another thread, NFC technology was stupid or a gimmick that 99% don't want or need in a phone. Then, Apple adopts NFC and we want to boycott stores that won't let us pay with Apple Pay.
In another thread, iPads do not need front-facing cameras when iPads were the new thing. There were 50 passionate reasons why such a camera would be stupid in an iPad. Then, Apple rolled out iPad 2 with FaceTime and the biggest reason to upgrade was... can you guess?
<anything not in current Apple hardware for sale> is "not needed" until Apple puts it in. Then it can magically become THE "shut up and take my money" reason to buy the new model.
I'm with you on this particular topic. A multitasking, 64-bit OS with pinched RAM almost doesn't make sense. I hope a "pro" model brings more RAM too. It will probably be priced so that unit cost can't really be an excuse.
Very well said...
I wouldn't give up on Apple first party styluses just yet. there have been many rumors recently that they are going to introduce something with the ipad pro. it might be something new and different from the current technology but I hope it's coming one way or the other.
+1. I don't know why so many people find this point so hard to understand. a total UI rethink would be required to merge touch and non-touch UI well. This is very hard as Mircorsoft found out and Apple thus far showed zero interest in doing this. all the predictions here about the new macbook and the ipad being the same were total nonsense. they remain total nonsense now. whatever the ipad pro will be it will not be a macbook running os x with touch screen. it will be a primarily touch device running ios.
Ah, finally a rumor I can get excited about instead of all this "look who's wearing the Apple Watch" ****.
I like some of the earlier posters comments about some of the tech introduced in the MacBook making it's way to this iPad Pro. Keyboard, maybe trackpad, and USB-C. The real uncertainty then is the OS. iOS in it's current form is just not really at a "Pro" level. I mean it's fine for what it is, but I'm not sure the hardware differentiates the product enough from the standard Airs to justify a new product category.
I really hope they go the Surface route and finally get a touch friendly OSX UI on this thing, or maybe just expand iOS with more functionality (file system, "true" multitasking, etc.).
And of course, the stylus is a must. Though the lack of a port on these cases for a silo is concerning. If it has a quality stylus experience though, I'm sold. They're really taken off on the PC tablet side, but none of those products have hit the sweet spot the way I expect Apple will.
I like some of the earlier posters comments about some of the tech introduced in the MacBook making it's way to this iPad Pro. Keyboard, maybe trackpad, and USB-C. The real uncertainty then is the OS. iOS in it's current form is just not really at a "Pro" level. I mean it's fine for what it is, but I'm not sure the hardware differentiates the product enough from the standard Airs to justify a new product category.
I really hope they go the Surface route and finally get a touch friendly OSX UI on this thing, or maybe just expand iOS with more functionality (file system, "true" multitasking, etc.).
And of course, the stylus is a must. Though the lack of a port on these cases for a silo is concerning. If it has a quality stylus experience though, I'm sold. They're really taken off on the PC tablet side, but none of those products have hit the sweet spot the way I expect Apple will.
Having spent extensive time with hybrid Windows tablets I hope Apple doesn't simply add touch friendliness to OSX. The expanding of iOS is where I hope Apple focuses.
Given how much Apple has been able to shrink the motherboard of the new Macbook, I'd rather see an Apple hybrid that has both systems... x86 mobo in the keyboard, iPad guts in the screen and seamlessly "handoff" between both modes depending upon whether or not the keyboard is attached... that kind of "continuity" would be revolutionary, IMO.
I agree.
But the applications that support the touchscreen UI are generally separate from the regular windows applications that are expecting a mouse and keyboard. Apple could implement something similar to the iOS simulator that would then allow you to run iPad applications (the iOS version of Rosetta?) They could even then go a few steps further and update UIKit with more features suitable for such a device.
Why not do similar to Microsoft and use a modified version of the iOS simulator for running iPad apps? All that would need to be added is the hooks into the main OS to access whatever peripherals there are. Now you'd have a device that would run both OSX and iOS apps essentially side by side. The simulator stores its data directly on the OSX filesystem so there's even potential for sharing of files (though in Apple tradition they would figure out a way to make not so straight forward).
I'm guessing the biggest issue with all this is Apple thinking this would be "ugly". ie, switching to OSX desktop for OSX apps and iOS style interface for iOS apps. I used to think that was annoying in Windows as well, until I actually used one.
The best part there is iOS apps can still be written as they are and would work without issue by default. They could then even add more features to the SDK to allow for advanced interaction with OSX and the hardware.
