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I remember, a couple of years ago, there was a phone which ran Ubuntu(i think), and it had a smartphone interface when the internal screen was used, and switched to the Ubuntu Desktop when connected to an external display, mouse and keyboard.

I hope Apple releases something like this eventually.

You might be on to something here. An iPhone will soon be powerful enough for many mundane tasks like running MS Office so why not use it as a portable pc that can be hooked up to a dock with a screen, keyboard and mouse? 🤔
 
I think this is a natural progression. I remember a patent or sketch quite a while ago for what looked like a iPhone dockable "Brainless" iMac.

 
Microsoft tried this a while ago (continuum) but it didn't really catch on, I think that's partly due to a lack of power and App support in the mobile version of Windows 10, but also because it's not necessarily as useful as it sounds (if you're going to carry a laptop mule around, why not just carry a laptop? Ditto who wants to be carrying around a mouse and keyboard even if there's a screen available in a coffee shop, library or university campus, etc).
 
This is how I've always wanted an iPad to work. Hook up a USB-C monitor, that has all your peripherals attached, and you've got MacOS. I really hope this is Apple's way of answering the "allow iPads to properly use external monitors" requests.

Except for the iPad doesn’t have enough RAM to run macOS with any decent level of performance.
 
It would make more sense to me if the iPad got more robust (i.e. full-screen) external monitor support, and then the iPhone could also produce the same UI as the iPad when hooked up to a monitor. Feel like there are more commonalities there to have iOS mimic iPadOS.

Although, now that I'm thinking about... they already have a UI made for monitor output / keyboard & trackpad input and that UI is in macOS...
 
Yeah, something like that. But I was remembering something something about an iMac maybe 6 or 7 years ago... I'll have to dig around and see if I can find it.

Might have been thinking of this...

 
I always thought the ultimate device would be a phone that you can dock to use like a desktop. At this point I would consider paying over $1000 for a phone.

I can't see Apple doing this as they want you to buy as many devices as possible.
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Agreed. It's the last major thing left they need to do to with the iPad to make it a personal computer IMO. Mirroring just doesn't cut it.

It would make more sense to me if the iPad got more robust (i.e. full-screen) external monitor support, and then the iPhone could also produce the same UI as the iPad when hooked up to a monitor. Feel like there are more commonalities there to have iOS mimic iPadOS.

Although, now that I'm thinking about... they already have a UI made for monitor output / keyboard & trackpad input and that UI is in macOS...
 
This absolutely is the end goal. Let's just look at this from a very high level: in an ideal world, you shouldn't have to change your usage patterns to fit the device. The device should adapt to you. Meaning that by carrying around an iPhone, you shouldn't need workarounds to do what you'd ordinarily do on a Mac (issues with screen size and UI navigation aside). Getting everything on Apple Silicon brings us one step closer to this reality. Eventually, it may be that we just have devices of varying screen sizes, but that all run the same underlying OS. The experience then just changes based on the screen size, but what we can do with the software stays the same across all screen sizes.
 
Thanks for sharing anyway. I think this would be well cool to see, but knowing Apple it's a few years away.
 
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