Sounds good. I was concerned they'd go overboard with the glass effects (transparency only works well in certain situations) and having stage manager and resizable windows is a nice step forward.
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The iPad Just Got a Lot More Like a Mac Thanks to These 20+ New Features
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iPad Air 13in (256GB) + Pencil + Keyboard = $1,347 retail
MBA 13in M4 (256GB) = $999 retail
You can get really good discounted prices on base M4 MBAs....$850 isn't uncommon, but let's set that aside. Which would you prefer; iPad or MBA? No right or wrong answers here. Depends entirely on your uses and preferences.
For me, I prefer the MBA because I primarily work with documents and data. I almost never need touch or an Apple Pencil. So, I prefer an OS designed for keyboard and trackpad, rather than touch first. That said; it will be interesting to see how things change with this latest OS update.
MBA 13in M4 (256GB) = $999 retail
You can get really good discounted prices on base M4 MBAs....$850 isn't uncommon, but let's set that aside. Which would you prefer; iPad or MBA? No right or wrong answers here. Depends entirely on your uses and preferences.
For me, I prefer the MBA because I primarily work with documents and data. I almost never need touch or an Apple Pencil. So, I prefer an OS designed for keyboard and trackpad, rather than touch first. That said; it will be interesting to see how things change with this latest OS update.
No it's not. It's just an evolution of Stage Manager and Split Screen.
And Dex is just the Samsung version of Mac OS/Windows.
I tend to agree though it's already the case for myself (and I assume others) that my owning a MacBook air is a very large part of why I don't own an iPad.
I suppose that’s one way to look at it, but it was supposed to be the biggest redesign in 10 years and it basically looks the same.
Since I don't want to pay for iPad versions of Logic Pro and Final Cut (and other specialized music production and graphic design software), my Mac remains. DVD extractions for example can't be done on an iPad, nor importing old VHS tapes or cassette tapes - or recording a vinyl. CD/DVD writing can't be done on an iPad. You'll say it's old stuff... I know. But in a few decades, my data/files will still be safe having been backed up on these media. HDs or SSDs tend to fail. HDs or SSDs have never been my only backup system. Transferring books on my digital reader need using a Mac, if purchased from independent libraries. Preparing documents with a Mac is much easier using Numbers or Pages on a mac than with an iPad. I know you can attach a keyboard to an iPad - but that becomes more expensive than having an macbook air for example. And more cumbersome. Some games work only on Mac - not on iPad. That's my experience anyway. In the future, when an iPad has a 15 inch screen and can become as flexible as a Mac (iMac or macbook air/pro), maybe I won't see the need to keep a mac. But at this point, in spite of all the welcome improvements (which I'm afraid will also slow down my iPad M2), I don't see when (if ever) the mac will become irrelevant or useless.
true, but then again, even the previous BIG change of ios7 basically looked a lot like the previous versions.
I found the iPad enhancements the most interesting of all the updates announced today. For a while during the keynote, I was actually laughing so hard that my eyes were watering to the point that I could not see the video.... in a less humorous way, I kept thinking "didn't phones do this years ago", "didn't google do this years ago", "didn't.... especially when it came to the colouring of folders... I seem to remember another Mac OS doing this a long long time ago... oh well...
Random.. but you can also add 25 apps to the dock now instead of 17 in iPados26
This is MS' answer. And it's really good
Surface Pro - The new AI-powered 2-in-1 business and education tablet | Microsoft Surface
Discover Surface Pro 12-inch, the new versatile, lightweight, and durable AI-powered 2-in-1 tablet. With this powerful Copilot+ PC, it’s the best laptop for business and personal use.
www.microsoft.com
Apple used to sell an 11” MacBook Air and it ran macOS just fine
Anyone that tries to push a Surface as a legit tablet tells me they’ve never tried to use one strictly as a tablet. Surface is a PC first where iPads are tablets first. Then there’s the whole OS difference…This is MS' answer. And it's really good
Surface Pro - The new AI-powered 2-in-1 business and education tablet | Microsoft Surface
Discover Surface Pro 12-inch, the new versatile, lightweight, and durable AI-powered 2-in-1 tablet. With this powerful Copilot+ PC, it’s the best laptop for business and personal use.www.microsoft.com
Did you ever use one? Scaling was awful and so was everything else due to the poor hardware. Would be different with Apple’s chips now but we don’t need another laptop size.
Is it usable if I use sidecar or Duet to get the Mac’s display on the iPad and get work done from there?
Where this and most other Windows machines particularity fall short for me is max screen brightness. I work in a bright environment. Even this new Surface Pro maxes out at 400 nits. That’s pretty low these days.This is MS' answer. And it's really good
Surface Pro - The new AI-powered 2-in-1 business and education tablet | Microsoft Surface
Discover Surface Pro 12-inch, the new versatile, lightweight, and durable AI-powered 2-in-1 tablet. With this powerful Copilot+ PC, it’s the best laptop for business and personal use.www.microsoft.com
I had one back in 2010. The resolution was 1366x768. That wasn’t bad at the time, and even the 13” MacBook Pro was only ever 1280x800. Yes, these are low by today’s standards, but we were used to them back then. Also, I had no issues with its performance. In fact, with an SSD as standard it was quite fast at the time.
The 11” iPad Air at 2x scaling would have a resolution of 1180x820 in terms of real estate.
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You all complaining before you've even tried it 
.
I tried the new multi tasking feature today while on a call through the iPad - had an iMessage window open, email open, and browser - all on the same screen while coping info between them, sending screen shot of a PDF etc… It was vastly more useful than it's ever been.
Made me think I might actually be able to take this on a trip and not have to bring my macbook.
TL;DR: try it before you declare it useless.
.I tried the new multi tasking feature today while on a call through the iPad - had an iMessage window open, email open, and browser - all on the same screen while coping info between them, sending screen shot of a PDF etc… It was vastly more useful than it's ever been.
Made me think I might actually be able to take this on a trip and not have to bring my macbook.
TL;DR: try it before you declare it useless.
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But if iPad was more Mac like would you just own an iPad instead of a Mac?
Probably not, I'm more of a keyboard, trackpad person than touch screen. Other than that it would just be a matter of the normal attributes like CPU horsepower, screen size and resolution, etc. just like one considers when picking a MacBook air vs pro
THIS is what the iPad Pro should have for certain. The iPad Airs/minis and regular iPads could have iPadOS only. But for the price of a MacBook with the same SoC, it's stupid to not allow simple MacOS to run freely or dual boot, or simultaneously on the iPad Pros. It's better than it was, but still not what it could be. And the biggest problem of this is it's about the money - I mean anticompetitive practices that make people buy in the App Store to run what they want on a device they bought with their own money. For those who want to just run App Store apps, be my guest, but for the rest of us let us do what we want at these insane prices. This is what happens when a bean counter runs a tech company. Can read it in his emails between Phil about forcing everything to pay 30% fees in App Stores. Apple is a bully, but I do love their hardware - and there software could be great with two or three years of no new features solely focus on fixing it and allow us to do what we want on MacBook-priced iPads.