Tim Cook Says Apple Won't Create 'Converged' Mac and iPad

[PBRsg]

I'd love for Apple to do something like what Microsoft is doing with Windows 10. It's a nice mix of desktop and tablet features in one. But this has settled it... Will just get a retina MacBook Pro after the next refresh.

Make sure you wait until the Skylake CPU upgrade.

 

[jonblatho]

Office >> iWork

Though the iPad does have LTE. But most people are tethering now.

Office's layout functionality is reprehensible compared to iWork, and Keynote eats PowerPoint's lunch. About the only thing I miss in iWork is equation support.

 

[PBRsg]

I think what he's getting at, which I agree with, is that a lot of people think they want a converged iPad/Mac, but if Apple actually came out with it, people would not like it since it would be a compromised experience.

ARM isn't fast enough to emulate x86 to run old Mac software, and it isn't fast enough to power the iMac or Mac Pro, so Apple would be unlikely to force OS X developers to go through another architecture conversion. On the other hand, Intel processors aren't efficient enough for iOS. The closest is the Core M, and ARM actually outperforms it. Apple would need to emulate ARM on Intel in order for iOS apps to run, which would hurt performance and battery life.

Plus, OS X isn't optimized for touch, so there would be a huge risk of a Windows 8 issue if Apple tried to force touch onto a 15 year old operating system designed for mouse and trackpad input.



Not if the end result looked like Windows 8. Even Windows 10 isn't ideal, particularly since Desktop software doesn't run well in touch mode, and developers aren't rushing to develop Metro apps. Plus would this OS X tablet run iOS apps? See above.




What processor would you recommend Apple use for the MacBook? The MacBook Air processors use up too much power (so it would be more of a Surface Book, which weighs as much as the MacBook Pro). ARM doesn't run x86 software natively, and would be even slower than the Core M if Apple tried to emulate x86.

I agree with what you said, however I would like to point out that Apple would never create a monstrosity like Windows 8, even if they were to take the unfortunate decision to merge OS X and iOS.

 

[tampageek]

The iPad Pro will never replace the laptop no matter how much Tim Cook says it can, there's no file system. It's just fundamentally hobbled. I'm not saying iOS is bad. It works great for a phone. It works alright for a tablet, but there's a lot of tasks that are going to be very difficult if not impossible to do as efficiently without a solid built in keyboard and mouse, and a file system that can be accessed to store and retrieve any files you want.

The Surface Book is a great example of what Apple could do. It has all the power of a real computer, all the battery life of a real laptop (12 hours when plugged into the base) and 4 hours of battery when detached as just a tablet. It's the size of an iPad Pro, slightly higher resolution, and it includes the pencil. Apple could do this very easily, just make the tablet turn into iOS mode when detached and run in Mac OS X when docked into the laptop keyboard in laptop mode. Honestly this would be ridiculously easy for a company with $200B sitting around and some of the best minds in computer engineering on the planet. I am actually really tempted to buy the Surface Book and I still may, it's just a bummer I lose iMessage from my laptop capability. hmm, I really wish Tim Cook wasn't so stubborn about following Microsoft's lead here.

Honestly, the hybrid I described would be just as good as as either a tablet or a Mac but Apple would lose being able to sell iPads to Mac owners and vice versa. I know some people said he's just buying time to make his own but I think Tim Cook honestly doesn't want to do it. Reason is, he is making his own processors now and he's not about to become anymore reliant on Intel than he already has to be. Mac OS X would have to be running on an ARM processor, that's a nightmare and a half. He'd rather just slowly stop investing in the Mac line and invest in the iOS line and hope Mac becomes less relevant.

Spot on!
I also think that Tim is too worried about products cannibalizing each other. If each category has a top notch entry there would be nothing to worry about. I fail to see why all these companies - including  - seem to be more obsessed with constant change than simple perfection of what already exists. Just look at the revolt MS had when they ditched Win7 and forced everyone to relearn how to work their computers with Win8.

The bottom line is - it's all about the bottom line. Apple (and MS) have to keep changing the products and create false needs so they can sell more products.

 

[npmacuser5]

Try being a programmer: the idea of a OS X/iOS merger terrifies me.

Interested as to why?
Netflix has a Windows App, for example, and has one for almost every device. Does not seem to scare them.
Just wondering.

 

[PBRsg]

It's better but Windows 8 set a pretty low bar. Plus, it isn't as if Microsoft really wanted to produce Windows 10 and go back to the desktop. They wanted to wean their dependence from Intel and were hoping that the Metro interface would take off and developers would write for Windows on ARM. Since that isn't happening, they are going all in on Windows 10 and convergence.

I'm sure within Microsoft there is some jealousy that Apple has been able to get developers to write for an ARM platform.

What's more likely is that Apple will continue to gradually improve iOS to address the complaints of those who want more functionality. Apple basically confirming that the iPad Pro will eventually get USB 3.0 support is the first of those moves. The Smart Connector opens up the possibility for more hardware docks (possibly supporting external displays), and Apple can add a more visible file system in a future release of iOS. If it did that, I think we'd see a lot of the chatter about OS X tablets go away. That may be exactly what Apple is thinking.



True. Look at how pricey Surface Book gets. It's a MacBook Pro plus an iPad Air.

I agree. Just improve iOS with multi-windows, multi-tasking and a visible file system - and leave OS X separate.

 

[Dahkoht Lewin]

Ever worked in Finance? USB drives are locked down due to security. No chance of ever using one of those, ever. That has been the norm for the past 5 years. No removable media. Similar to the legal industry, insurance and medical. Audit, security and regulation requires the ability to track data and not allow it to be sent outside of an organization.

An iPad is more secure than a laptop/desktop. That's actually a good thing.

Ever worked in IT in the real world ?

We've got clients in all those categories from major hospitals to small law firms and accounting - finance etc.


I'd say less than 10% of the firms in the US in all those categories follow those rules.

I've seen the BDO auditors come and go and then the USB drives come right back out and out the window go all those rules for example.

 

[citysnaps]

You could've said that the first time around to be more clear.

As for the iPad Pro, I don't plan on buying it until they get their priorities straightened out. I'm still not impressed from what I've seen and read about their latest device.

I believe Tim Cook is a hypocrite. It's going to bite him in the rear once he realizes the iPad Pro is limited when he plays around with it more and ends up returning to his desktop/laptop in his private office. He can't just go around, opening his mouth saying the iPad Pro is going for replace a desktop/laptop, and then end up using them which I'm very sure he does.

A hypocrite? How so? I assume you own an iPad Pro in order to make the claims you have about it being limited. Right? How long have you been using yours? And you know how he uses his because you are friends or a close co-worker?

"opening his mouth saying the iPad Pro is going for replace a desktop/laptop"

Except he didn't say that. He said it could replace a laptop for many many people. Who is opening their mouth?

 

[Solomani]

Jack-of-all-trades, master of none....I can truthfully state that you don't speak for all Mac users. I and several people (and posters here) have no desire for a hybrid OS.

Wow way to completely misinterpret what I said. Did you even have any reading comprehension?

You are not all Mac users, because this Mac user and many others vehemently disagree that a hybrid OS is a good idea.

I agree. Sadly, your failed to read who I was quoting. I was disagreeing with someone who opposed Cook's statement and that poster said "This has everything to do with making more money by selling two products, and nothing to do with what people want."

Read Post #16 again to understand, ok?

 

[shaqdonalds]

Hopefully now they'll get rid of Launchpad in OS X

 

[spinedoc77]

I don't have any to not use! As an infrastructure engineer by day and gamer by night, the only "touch" device I have (that I use with any regularity) is my [Android] smart phone which upon becoming too smudged for my tastes can easily and quickly be rubbed against a pant leg thereby rectifying the situation.

Can't do that with an all-in-one.

(Speaking of getting rid of hardware, my vote is to trash the mouse and keep the trackpad. It actually just occurred to me yesterday in fact that I've actually become more adept with the trackpad for gaming than I am with a mouse. I remember when I thought that would never be the case...)

Lol, we need to get you some. I never found smudges to be an issue with my SP3/4, but I'm assuming you may be more active in your career than I am. I'm in awe if you can game with your trackpad, I'd instantly develop arthritis from pinching my fingers around for so long and having my arm at an awkward angle. I can understand the need for trackpads before touchscreens, but their need with a touchscreen baffles me. If I'm reaching over to my trackpad, I might as well go the extra inch or 2 and hit the screen, and be much more accurate in the process.

 

[Dmunjal]

beside giving up gas mileage, you can't carry big load like pick-up truck. so you still have to buy a truck.

so are you willing to lose 10-hour battery life of the ipad so that you can have something like Surface Pro? what about heat and weight? are you willing to lose these advantages that current ipad has?

for most people, including kids, all they want to do is casual gaming, mail, browsing.

You know people give up a 7.9" iPad screen when they bought a 5.5" iPhone 6+. There are always compromises. But cost and maintenance of two devices is always more expensive than one.

A big reason the iPhone is successful is because it did just that. It consolidated a cell phone, an mp3 player, a digital camera, and much more.

This is just the next step.

One day, well just carry a phone and dock it into a docking station connected to a keyboard, monitor, and maybe a mouse to run desktop apps.

Think different is what Jobs used to say. Unfortunately, I don't see a lot of that anymore from Cook or from folks on this board.

It's all about protecting profits now.

 

[apolloa]

Yes Tim, and your customers never asked for glued together computers with non user replaceable battery's but you gave them it, they also never asked to have razor thin devices but you gave it to them.
Your customers are crying out for 4K or higher thunderbolt Apple displays but instead you fit 4K and 5K screens to the iMac and choose to ignore what your customers want, although a 5k screen iMac is pretty good.

Sorry but to say you listen to your customers is I think hypocrisy and against Apples mantra of do as we tell you.

Talking about the iPad Pro, I do find it hilarious you chose to launch a device with gaps between the icons so big that they match the resolution of the iPhone 3G! They couldn't have even changed that? I'm not surprised the iPad Pro is getting good but not great reviews.

 

[dk001]

My knee-jerk reaction was to agree with Tim: the tablet and the laptop (or the tablet and the PC) are two different animals, and trying to merge them into one will result in a less satisfying experience.

I am sitting here, working on my MacBook Air, doing things I cannot do on an iPad (certainly not as easily). My workhorse is the MacBook Air. But I do occasionally use my iPad but not very much any more.

However, if I could have this very same MacBook Air experience, and then when I'm done, and ready to go out for coffee, and just remove the "monitor" -- i.e., the tablet, that would be awesome. Most folks know that Apple users can partition their Apple computers to run on Apple OS as well as on a PC operating system. There should be no reason that when the monitor is attached to the MacBook Air keyboard it runs the standard Apple Mac OS, but when the monitor comes off, it flips to Apple mobile OS.

Imagine how much more capability the complete system would have. One would have battery power in the monitor (the tablet) as well as in the MacBook Air keyboard. There would be memory in each half -- both RAM and flash.

My hunch is that Apple engineers are already working this issue, and some day we will have a tablet that remains a 100% tablet when standing along, but then becomes a simple monitor when plugged into the MacBook Air keyboard.

So right!!!
A tablet I can use how I want that I can hook to a keyboard and use as a laptop with or without a mouse/stylus/touchpad/etc... or I can dock and it turns into a desktop to use for ....

Why do people limit their thinking? Open your mind and see what you can make of it instead of "this is good enough".

 

[\-V-/]

I feel strongly that Apple has no idea what consumers want.

 

[spinedoc77]

I use a iMac 27" at home, and travel with an iPad. So I don't travel with 2 devices. At the home office I use the iMac mainly for website creation and processing orders with QuickBooks.

Traveling I have no need for either of these. Traveling it is reading and replying to email, web surfing, maps, booking hotels, etc. For this type of thing the iPad Pro with the keyboard will be ideal. I also use the iPad in my job in the office in meetings taking hand written notes using NotesPlus. For this, the Apple Pencil will be ideal (when it finally ships). At work, I am forced to use a Windows Laptop, which is company provided. A Dell 17" Precision 6700. A very powerful workstation, but extremely heavy to take on the road. So when I am in the work office I am on the the Dell, with the iPad for support, and used as a second monitor.

Coupled with the Apple Watch and iPhone 6, this all works very well for me. A Surface 3 or 4 wouldn't be a good replacement for the 27" iMac retina, nor could it replace the Dell Workstation running intensive engineering software, nor would it be a good replacement for the iPad Pro.

Wouldn't the windows OS ever come in handy on the road? Just curious as I could never see losing the functionality of a full OS unless you gained something in terms of battery life, weight, etc. I'm still taking a wait and see approach, but currently the ipad pro is just a huge iPhone, although the pencil elevates it above that IF the consumer utilizes it.

I'm also curious why a SP4 couldn't replace the 27" imac? I have a SP3 as my office computer, it powers 2 4k screens and chews up anything I throw at it, which is a lot. Popping off my SP3 at the end of the day and having all my stuff with me is amazing, although in all honesty I don't use it like this due to HIPAA, I have a SP4 that goes along with me. I always found it extremely difficult to get real work done on an ipad, but keep in mind my "real" work may differ from yours respectfully.

Having something which is powerful enough to replace every single computer in your life is pretty amazing. Honestly I'm more excited about the long term evolution of Continuum as that takes it to another level, having a smartphone replace every computer in your life, amazing stuff. I'd much rather simplify than add more devices to my responsibility. It's ironic, but I see Microsoft doing MUCH more to usher in the post-PC era than Apple. Although that entire post PC terminology is nonsense, it's more of a shifted PC era.

 

[tayalva]

this is so dumb. everyone wants OS X on the iPad pro. It would seriously be amazing. I'll still have a macbook pro for more heavy lifting, but I'm actually not getting the iPad pro because of it's lack of OSX. who exactly is saying they don't want it? it's insane

 

[modemthug]

Why? If I remember right the A9 has caught up to the i5 processor. It's all the other things around the main processor that make a workstation so powerful.... not just the processor.

lol no it hasn't; not even close

 

[Altis]

I think if you're looking at a PC, why would you buy a PC anymore? No really, why would you buy one?

Maybe I want to do some extreme multi-tasking.

Like being able to pause/scrub a YouTube video while I'm writing a comment on it......

 

[Phoenixx]

"We feel strongly that customers are not really looking for a converged Mac and iPad," said Cook. "Because what that would wind up doing, or what we're worried would happen, is that neither experience would be as good as the customer wants. So we want to make the BEST tablet in the world and the BEST Mac in the world. And putting those two together would not achieve either. You'd begin to compromise in different ways."

Perhaps Tim Cook thinks the BEST Mac in the world should have a brand newly released 21" model with a slow hard drive (similar to that in machines sold more than 10 years ago), soldered memory, and no dedicated GPU. If Apple were actually serious about releasing the BEST Mac, they would up the specs considerably ON ALL MODELS. Perhaps if they did, they would get considerably more market share in the desktop computer area, and not be constantly laughed at by people who want high spec computers, and can buy them for less than half of the price of an equivalent Mac.

Apple's greed is costing them a lot. If they upped the specs and lowered the prices of Macs into similar territory to equivalent Windows based machines, they could easily wipe the floor with Windows. Price is one of the biggest reasons people don't by a Mac. Lowering the prices could easily make OS X the dominant OS (and increase the number of Macs sold substantially), but instead they chose to gimp the Mac, charge a ridiculous price, and then have the audacity to pretend it is a premium product.

 

[AlexH]

I'd buy a convergence device. If the iPad Pro could pull a Microsoft Surface trick, and while attached to a keyboard/trackpad module it ran OS X, I'd buy one today.

 

[JazzAV]

Convertibles are great devices, until you actually use them.

I had a MS Surface Pro. The pen stayed in the drawer at work until I gave it back. The type cover never came off of it, It was used exactly as a laptop, and a poor one at that. The Surface 3 is far better, but still not great.

I have a HP Envy Convertible now. I use the touch screen for exactly one purpose, hitting the answer button on my soft phone. And only because that's quicker than grabbing the mouse and clicking the button that way after I get my headset and put it on.

In the office all the IT guys, except myself, the sales team, and various other people have Surface Pro convertibles. They all get used exactly like laptops and generally get left of the desk at night.

I use both my Macbook Pro and my iPad for pretty much everything, and I use them for what they are best at. Convertible Hybrids don't end up being a best of all worlds, they end up being a compromise. For some that might be fine, but most people I know who are IT professionals... even the Microsoft Fan Boys... the convertible aspects simply don't get used. Options like hand off, and message forwarding between your phone, laptop and iPad are much more useful.

Th big issue is getting one UI that works across both a primarily touch based experience, and a primarily Keyboard / pointer based experience. Microsoft tried that with Windows 8 and failed dismally. They are getting better with Windows 10, but that it must more a keyboard / mouse OS than it is a touch based.

I for one will stick with two separate devices that are each really good at what they do, instead of one device that is OK at both.

 

[MacDanF]

Globally, Apple as a much more higher market share in the high end tablet segment than in laptops. If a good portion of the laptop market were to migrate it would probably represent a lot more money for Apple. If you add that to the fact that margins are probably better on an Ipad (Intel processor cost > 200$ and an A9 is estimated at under <20$) plus some some peoples do want a Surface/hybrid kind of device and it' a market were Apple was absent there a lot of reasons for Tim to hope that a significant portion of the consumers will stop buying laptops and go the tablet way. If it can be achieve without changing iOS to much and the core of what is an iPad the better for Apple.

 

[Tech198]

Apple (e.g. Tim Cook) really need to stop talking about others. Just makes them sound like dicks.

Best post i seen all day
----

i doubt Tim is "shoving" anything in our faces.... if he did, then no one else would be doing it.. U see the same ultra-thin PC laptops too, so obviously there is customer demand over-all

And if no one can see that maybe it IS time to look outside the box.

 

[Essenar]

The only reason 80% of you are saying you don't care about what he's saying, is because it's what he's saying. The minute Tim Cook pushes out some horrible iPad with desktop software, you'll all claim how great and innovative it is.

But let's be clear, the best Apple tablet is the iPad Air 2. Anywhere beyond $600? Sorry but the Surface Pro is better. It just is. It runs better software, it runs full desktop software, you can run MATLAB, Sketch, Illustrator, video editing, convert to PDF, all of that.

I use a MacBook because, at the moment, OSX is the best operating system in existence for desktops and laptops. I use an iPad Mini 4 because under $600 the iPad is the best device. But I'll never buy an iPad Pro because for the money, it's garbage. it's honestly garbage. It's a 12" smartphone with a Galaxy Note pen. This was a great chance for them to finally implement touch on a full x86 operating system and instead we get a $800 giant iPhone.

Great, Tim. Great. You claim you wanted to give us the best Mac and the best iPad, but instead we got an under powered 12" MacBook without a touch screen and an under performing 12" iPad without an operating system. Instead of compromising and giving us the best of both worlds, they cut the world in half and gave us the pieces of each world that don't do us any good.