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iPad Pro Real OS on iPad via Virtual Machine App?

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macrumors 68020
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Sep 14, 2006
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Maybe I’m wrong on this but wouldn’t it be possible to run a real OS like MacOS, Windows or Linux on an iPad via a virtual machine app like Parallels if latter made a full iPadOS app to do so?

Since the VM is just a container for an OS then it could run it so within that VM and all of the above mentioned OS’s run on the MacOS versions of their M1/ Arm supported OS’s.

No? Yes?
 
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Parallels, or any other virtualization platform or an emulator, will not meet Apple’s App Store Guidelines, specifically section 2.5.2:

  • 2.5.2 Apps should be self-contained in their bundles, and may not read or write data outside the designated container area, nor may they download, install, or execute code which introduces or changes features or functionality of the app, including other apps. Educational apps designed to teach, develop, or allow students to test executable code may, in limited circumstances, download code provided that such code is not used for other purposes. Such apps must make the source code provided by the app completely viewable and editable by the user.

developer.apple.com

App Review Guidelines - Apple Developer

The App Review Guidelines provide guidance and examples across a range of development topics, including user interface design, functionality, content, and the use of specific technologies. These guidelines are designed to help you prepare your apps for the approval process.
developer.apple.com developer.apple.com

So while it may be technically possible, it is not going to happen.
 
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Maybe, but would you want to? Sounds like a lag-fest and a UI mess.
 
You can do it by sideloading an app called UTM.
There are lot of demos on YouTube to see what you can expect by doing it.
Not a viable solution for my standards.
Instead, I just got an old Windows laptop, kept it powered at home 24/7, and I'm using remote desktop to access it whenever I need a Windows application.
Much better performance and versatility.
 
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You can put them in a VM on a laptop, which has a keyboard and trackpad built in so you can use it. I'm not sure they would be much good on a small screened touch only device. Also, iPadOS is based on OS X, which is based on Unix. It doesn't get any more 'real' than that.
 
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I played around with a Ventura VM (via UTM and VirtualBuddy) on an M1 MacBook Air, and I thought it was pretty snappy.
With iPadOS 16 allowing non-mirrored-only external monitor support, might this be a good solution for a "mac" to go in a pinch? Pair the iPad with an external monitor, keyboard and trackpad?

Probably be best on a 1TB iPad Pro with 16GB.

Anyone try this?
 
Arctic Moose said:
But iPadOS has excellent support for external monitors, mice and keyboards.



While true, it is severely crippled, compared to macOS.
Click to expand...
I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was ‘excellent’ support.

And ‘severely crippled’ is an over used trope. It’s different, you do things differently, it’s for a different type of machine. There is very, very little you can’t do that most people need to do in iPadOS, for the type of usages people use an iPad for. And after all, macOS is an extremely mature os. iPadOS is a couple of years old.
 
cupcakes2000 said:
I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was ‘excellent’ support.
Click to expand...

Sure. I'll rephrase.

The iPad monitor, keyboard, trackpad and mouse support is absolutely good enough that a virtualized macOS installation would be fully usable.

Ok?

cupcakes2000 said:
And ‘severely crippled’ is an over used trope. It’s different, you do things differently, it’s for a different type of machine.
Click to expand...

It is severely crippled for what I, and many others, would like to use it for.

There are 4376 posts on the topic here:
forums.macrumors.com

iPad as a laptop replacement

I've have a MacBook Pro Retina for a year now, and quite frankly, it’s simply overkill for what I use the computer for on a daily basis. I would have been fine with a MacBook Air but elected to spend the extra cash for a nice screen. I use writing intensive programs (Final Draft, Pages, etc)...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com

cupcakes2000 said:
There is very, very little you can’t do that most people need to do in iPadOS, for the type of usages people use an iPad for.
Click to expand...

Had the iPad not been so hampered by software limitations, lots of people could and would choose an iPad for more types of usages.

Of course most people don't need more. But for those of us that do, having the option to run macOS virtualized would be a fully acceptable compromise.
 
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Arctic Moose said:
Sure. I'll rephrase.

The iPad monitor, keyboard, trackpad and mouse support is absolutely good enough that a virtualized macOS installation would be fully usable.

Ok?



It is severely crippled for what I, and many others, would like to use it for.

There are 4376 posts on the topic here:
forums.macrumors.com

iPad as a laptop replacement

I've have a MacBook Pro Retina for a year now, and quite frankly, it’s simply overkill for what I use the computer for on a daily basis. I would have been fine with a MacBook Air but elected to spend the extra cash for a nice screen. I use writing intensive programs (Final Draft, Pages, etc)...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com



Had the iPad not been so hampered by software limitations, lots of people could and would choose an iPad for more types of usages.

Of course most people don't need more. But for those of us that do, having the option to run macOS virtualized would be a fully acceptable compromise.
Click to expand...
If you want a mac, buy a mac. What kind of ‘power’ use do you want to use an iPad for that a mac would not be better suited for?

I’m a ‘power user’, I’m a professional photographer. An iPad and its os are perfectly suited to me. There are plenty of other professions that can say the same. In comparison to macOS, iPadOS stays right out of the way. With macs and pcs I’m forever having to deal with the os. With an iPad I pick it up, and just get on with what I want.

As well as a stand-alone laptop replacement - I use my iPad with my desktop Mac regularly. That’s where the iPad shines. Making it an all in one device would be a mistake in my opinion.

PS I have read the near 5000 posts, and it’s 90% whinge, 10% useful.
 
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Just be grateful you're stuck with iPadOS and not Android. Btw, both of these can do this tethered.

Solutions work very well (SideCar for the iPad and SuperDisplay for Android, and a variety of others), This is the workaround, but not exactly portable, and not perfect. My problem with these is it's not 100% stable like a regular
touch monitor.

Anyways, I really like iPadOS a LOT. Screw MacOS. Maybe you want some specific app? That's why I looked into it. I'd say I like iPadOS as much as I hate Android on a large tablet.
 
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cupcakes2000 said:
What kind of ‘power’ use do you want to use an iPad for that a mac would not be better suited for?
Click to expand...

That’s off-topic for this thread, but I believe I have stated it clearly in the iPad-as-laptop-replacement thread. (For one simple and well-defined example, just search for “Xcode” in that thread.)

cupcakes2000 said:
Making it an all in one device would be a mistake in my opinion.
Click to expand...

I fail to see how allowing those of us who would benefit from running macOS virtualized in an iPad app would affect your iPad experience in any way, just as the existence of the option to run command line tools in iSH does not affect you, but greatly benefits those of use that have use for it.
 
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Arctic Moose said:
I fail to see how allowing those of us who would benefit from running macOS virtualized in an iPad app would affect your iPad experience in any way, just as the existence of the option to run command line tools in iSH does not affect you, but greatly benefits those of use that have use for it.
Click to expand...
I’m not against allowing virtualisation in iPadOS…
 
Macalway said:
Just be grateful you're stuck with iPadOS and not Android. Btw, both of these can do this tethered.

Solutions work very well (SideCar for the iPad and SuperDisplay for Android, and a variety of others), This is the workaround, but not exactly portable, and not perfect. My problem with these is it's not 100% stable like a regular
touch monitor.

Anyways, I really like iPadOS a LOT. Screw MacOS. Maybe you want some specific app? That's why I looked into it. I'd say I like iPadOS as much as I hate Android on a large tablet.
Click to expand...
Superdisplay is (by far) the closest solution to a regular touch monitor. And if you have good connection, you can use it wireless with zero lag. For me it's 100% stable with my desktop via ethernet and works great around the house (makes my desktop "mobile", at least at home).
And that's also the main use I have for Android tablets, almost anything else is done with iPads....
 
I cant wait MacOS on the iPad so we can read all the complaints from power-users, who need the power of MacOS to be productive, when their super thin computer with no fan and no vents throttles under the load of desktop pro apps. Not to mention their complaints about the cost of the 13" 1TB iPad which they need for 16GB RAM.

Talk about compromising your work computer just so that it can be an iPad for personal use.
 
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darngooddesign said:
I cant wait MacOS on the iPad so we can read all the complaints from power-users, who need the power of MacOS to be productive, when their super thin computer with no fan and no vents throttles under the load of desktop pro apps. Not to mention their complaints about the cost of the 13" 1TB iPad which they need for 16GB RAM.

Talk about compromising your work computer just so that it can be an iPad for personal use.
Click to expand...
That's the usual debate. I am sure many people would be more than happy to have a desktop Mac (mini or iMac) at home as their "work" device and a cellular 13" iPad pro with Magic Keyboard which can be an iPad at home but boot into MacOS for use on the go (not that this will ever happen knowing Apple)
 
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dgdosen said:
I played around with a Ventura VM (via UTM and VirtualBuddy) on an M1 MacBook Air, and I thought it was pretty snappy.
With iPadOS 16 allowing non-mirrored-only external monitor support, might this be a good solution for a "mac" to go in a pinch? Pair the iPad with an external monitor, keyboard and trackpad?

Probably be best on a 1TB iPad Pro with 16GB.

Anyone try this?
Click to expand...
Yep, UTM scores better in Geekbench on my iPad Pro M2 11” 16GB / 1TB, than it does on my Mac Studio M1 Max (see screenshots. Currently, the only OS that doesn’t crash in iPadOS 17 is the 10.5.9 community mod. Regular Leopard and Tiger probably work, but I haven't tied them. Windows and Linux worked fine in iPadOS 16. I may be able to get things working when I get time, though. iPadOS 17 is still pretty fresh). I can connect to a 4K monitor via HDMI, and full the VM in full screen faster than many computers. UTM just lacks graphics acceleration. Could you imagine if Parallels was aloud to make a an iPad product?

IMG_2296.jpeg
IMG_0908.png
 
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At a bare minimum, Apple doesn’t need to bring macOS to the iPad, it just needs to open things up some and make multitasking better.

For opening up the OS for more software, they can very easily and very securely offer a way to unlock advance features. They could implement a process for booting into a recovery like mode, then you manually allow access to a more advance mode. It doesn’t have to be macOS, it could just be for using non-app store apps that can access features like Hypervisor. This process then can’t be activated within normal iPadOS, making it far more secure, and can Even only be supported on the Pro models. If need be, sideloading or installing non-app store apps could require a Mac and Apple Configurator. I think utilizing the “if you can’t do an advance process, you shouldn’t be doing this“ model is ok in these cases.

For multitasking, Stage Manger is better than nothing, but it’s pathetic at best. They need to make it more Expose / Mission Control like. Make it require 8GB+ of RAM if they’re nervous about the experience, that’s fine, but let us run a bunch of apps at once without jumping though hoops and dealing with a really poor user experience.
 
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Currently posting this from a PPC OS X VM on my iPad Pro. It's going a little slower today, not sure why, but it's honestly about as fast as it would be running on a PPC Mac lol. I just need to get an ARM version of macOS running. I'm also doing it while playing a 4k YouTube video on the YouTube app (not in the VM), so that's a +1 for the iPad over a PPC Mac.
 
Edgecrusherr said:
Yep, UTM scores better in Geekbench on my iPad Pro M2 11” 16GB / 1TB, than it does on my Mac Studio M1 Max (see screenshots. Currently, the only OS that doesn’t crash in iPadOS 17 is the 10.5.9 community mod. Regular Leopard and Tiger probably work, but I haven't tied them. Windows and Linux worked fine in iPadOS 16. I may be able to get things working when I get time, though. iPadOS 17 is still pretty fresh). I can connect to a 4K monitor via HDMI, and full the VM in full screen faster than many computers. UTM just lacks graphics acceleration. Could you imagine if Parallels was aloud to make a an iPad product?

View attachment 2301908View attachment 2301911
Click to expand...

OMG thats so cool!!! Do you have to attach by USB any time you launch UTM though so you can get JIT?
 
thefriendshipmachine said:
OMG thats so cool!!! Do you have to attach by USB any time you launch UTM though so you can get JIT?
Click to expand...
No, but if UTM quits (or more likely crashes, because you're trying to testa new VM lol), then you have to connect the iPad via USB to a Mac running AltServer to reenable JIT. They should get wireless JIT working again at some point too.

Also, I wasn't able to get the JIT in iPadOS 17 working via my Mac Studio when it was running macOS 12 Monterey, had to upgrade to 14 Sonoma.
 
It's rather confusing what you need now, and the steps to make this work. I looked into it a while ago and apparently Altistore would only work on an old version of IOS, and UTM with full virtualization (what you have to have for anything decent) wouldn't work without tethering.

If there's a good way of doing this, we need a manual. If for some reason 17 now is making this a good option (it wasn't before IMO, just a hack), then we really need instructions.

Apple has made it clear they are set against this sort of thing. They want us to believe that iOS is more secure than Mac OS. Well.....

It is a fun sort of thing though. But as someone said, Parallels on an iPAD? Now that would be something
 
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