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What are the chances iPad Pro will eventually have OSX on it?

Turnpike

Turnpike

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 2, 2011
597
330
New York City!
People keep saying how the iPad Pro is redundant. I think it's a cool option to have an iPad with a larger screen, even if for no other reason. But could this be a first step in a super slim portable laptop type machine, isn't it possible that down the road the internals could evolve to run an actual desktop OS?
 
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You never know what Apple might do, but the last two years it seems they've become more conservative as CEO and management grow older. We'll just have to wait and see.
 
Hopefully, if Apple ports OS X to run on iPad hardware, it's very possible. Now the likelihood of that is very slim... Apple has to be forced, either by declining sales or high demand. Hence the existence of the 6+. I for one am craving a tablet with a sleek design and a desktop OS.

I just saw a surface book in stores and I love it! Full desktop OS with decent internals and a beautiful design. It runs Windows... But damn, that thing is pretty! I'm considering selling my MacBook to get one of these!

I hope apple goes this route eventually. I'm hoping that iOS 10 can be the hybrid iOSX.
 
sonicrobby said:
Hopefully, if Apple ports OS X to run on iPad hardware, it's very possible. Now the likelihood of that is very slim... Apple has to be forced, either by declining sales or high demand. Hence the existence of the 6+. I for one am craving a tablet with a sleek design and a desktop OS.

I just saw a surface book in stores and I love it! Full desktop OS with decent internals and a beautiful design. It runs Windows... But damn, that thing is pretty! I'm considering selling my MacBook to get one of these!

I hope apple goes this route eventually. I'm hoping that iOS 10 can be the hybrid iOSX.
Click to expand...

If this is what you believe then you should buy a Surface Book. Seriously!

You're talking about Apple "porting" Mac OS X to run on the iPad but this makes no sense. iOS is already derived from Mac OS X but they remain distinct and separate in important ways, not because Apple couldn't merge them completely, but because Apple does not believe that they should be merged. The UI metaphors of a desktop OS and a mobile/tablet OS are quite different and if you try to merge them then the result is just a terrible compromise. There is no benefit and no need for Apple to merge these OSs - they are already sharing technology in all the ways that is beneficial but without the downsides of a complete merger.

The secret to knowing why Apple does what it does is simply to listen. They are actually very consistent and transparent.
 
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It doesnt make sense for this to happen right now for a number of reasons. To build apps for a tablet you need full OSX. Also one of the things that keeps people buying macs is that OSX is great for doing development on. OSX on a tablet is confusing. There isnt much space and the tablet and OSX have different goals. For most people iPad pro is all the machine they could possibly need. For developers and design folk they probably are the people who actually need a mac. Most people do web, email, and word processing and listening to music.... Thats 90% of all use cases right there.

I think there are things that can be done to make iOS better but OSX isnt it. I think youre just stuck on the semantics rather than if it actually makes sense to put OSX on a tablet.
 
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craig1410 said:
If this is what you believe then you should buy a Surface Book. Seriously!

You're talking about Apple "porting" Mac OS X to run on the iPad but this makes no sense. iOS is already derived from Mac OS X but they remain distinct and separate in important ways, not because Apple couldn't merge them completely, but because Apple does not believe that they should be merged. The UI metaphors of a desktop OS and a mobile/tablet OS are quite different and if you try to merge them then the result is just a terrible compromise. There is no benefit and no need for Apple to merge these OSs - they are already sharing technology in all the ways that is beneficial but without the downsides of a complete merger.

The secret to knowing why Apple does what it does is simply to listen. They are actually very consistent and transparent.
Click to expand...
I am planning on it first chance I get

It makes perfect sense. iOS is very watered down and lacks productivity. I can't even have 2 safari pages open side by side... That alone is crippling to my needs. My experiences with iOS has been to have to compromise to get the productivity I need. Either OS could be modified to accommodate. Apple also believed the the iPhone 5 was the perfect screen size for everyone, where is that size now I ask?! Because I did think it was perfect... The point is, their position changes based on the market and demand.

The UI is whatever they choose to make it. Splashtop Remote Desktop is actually the best interface of what a full OS X could be on a tablet. On screen trackpad, keyboard, the only thing missing is the multitouch gestures (which obviously can't be incorporated because it would interfere with the iPad's native multitouch). If the iPad ran OS X just like a Mac, with a pop up on screen keyboard, and a touch screen that had a tap to click interface with the option to switch an on screen trackpad with a 3 finger tap, what's the downside to that? I'm just not seeing it.

I remember when the whole "islate" rummors were running around, and the excitement of the Apple tablet running OS X before the iPad was announced! Then they announced it having iOS, which lets admit, came out at a low level when compared to OS X. And since then, they been working on trying to improve the OS to be more productive to the OS X level. I agree that merging the two OS s would be a terrible compromise, that's why they should just have OS X available native to the iPad. The iPad pro was a perfect time to take the OS X and modify it for the interface, but all we get is a bigger screen that holds the same number of icons per page as the iPad mini. I guess iOSX was the wrong terminology, just OS X on the iPad.

But man, if I someone can make a hackingtosh out of the surface book, it would be the perfect device for me!
 
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sonicrobby said:
I am planning on it first chance I get

It makes perfect sense. iOS is very watered down and lacks productivity. I can't even have 2 safari pages open side by side... That alone is crippling to my needs. My experiences with iOS has been to have to compromise to get the productivity I need. Either OS could be modified to accommodate. Apple also believed the the iPhone 5 was the perfect screen size for everyone, where is that size now I ask?! Because I did think it was perfect... The point is, their position changes based on the market and demand.

The UI is whatever they choose to make it. Splashtop Remote Desktop is actually the best interface of what a full OS X could be on a tablet. On screen trackpad, keyboard, the only thing missing is the multitouch gestures (which obviously can't be incorporated because it would interfere with the iPad's native multitouch). If the iPad ran OS X just like a Mac, with a pop up on screen keyboard, and a touch screen that had a tap to click interface with the option to switch an on screen trackpad with a 3 finger tap, what's the downside to that? I'm just not seeing it.

I remember when the whole "islate" rummors were running around, and the excitement of the Apple tablet running OS X before the iPad was announced! Then they announced it having iOS, which lets admit, came out at a low level when compared to OS X. And since then, they been working on trying to improve the OS to be more productive to the OS X level. I agree that merging the two OS s would be a terrible compromise, that's why they should just have OS X available native to the iPad. The iPad pro was a perfect time to take the OS X and modify it for the interface, but all we get is a bigger screen that holds the same number of icons per page as the iPad mini. I guess iOSX was the wrong terminology, just OS X on the iPad.

But man, if I someone can make a hackingtosh out of the surface book, it would be the perfect device for me!
Click to expand...
Having two Safari tabs open side-by-side should definitely have been a feature for the 2GB iOS devices.
 
sonicrobby said:
I am planning on it first chance I get

It makes perfect sense. iOS is very watered down and lacks productivity. I can't even have 2 safari pages open side by side... That alone is crippling to my needs. My experiences with iOS has been to have to compromise to get the productivity I need. Either OS could be modified to accommodate. Apple also believed the the iPhone 5 was the perfect screen size for everyone, where is that size now I ask?! Because I did think it was perfect... The point is, their position changes based on the market and demand.

The UI is whatever they choose to make it. Splashtop Remote Desktop is actually the best interface of what a full OS X could be on a tablet. On screen trackpad, keyboard, the only thing missing is the multitouch gestures (which obviously can't be incorporated because it would interfere with the iPad's native multitouch). If the iPad ran OS X just like a Mac, with a pop up on screen keyboard, and a touch screen that had a tap to click interface with the option to switch an on screen trackpad with a 3 finger tap, what's the downside to that? I'm just not seeing it.

I remember when the whole "islate" rummors were running around, and the excitement of the Apple tablet running OS X before the iPad was announced! Then they announced it having iOS, which lets admit, came out at a low level when compared to OS X. And since then, they been working on trying to improve the OS to be more productive to the OS X level. I agree that merging the two OS s would be a terrible compromise, that's why they should just have OS X available native to the iPad. The iPad pro was a perfect time to take the OS X and modify it for the interface, but all we get is a bigger screen that holds the same number of icons per page as the iPad mini. I guess iOSX was the wrong terminology, just OS X on the iPad.

But man, if I someone can make a hackingtosh out of the surface book, it would be the perfect device for me!
Click to expand...

No offence but you clearly don't understand the real reasons for the differences between iOS and Mac OS X. iOS isn't a watered down OS in the slightest. Quite the opposite in fact, iOS is a distilled version of OS X.

You talk about "...take the OS X and modify it for the interface" - well guess what? That's iOS!

I'll be buying an iPad Pro when it's released but I can tell you right now that I wouldn't be if Apple were running OS X on it! While I love OS X on my iMac and MBP, it has no place on a tablet or phone. Apple as in the dominant position they are in right now BECAUSE they realised that iOS and OS X needed to be very different.

Apologies for appearing argumentative but you are looking at this in a very superficial way and you need to pursue a much deeper understanding of the subject matter. I've been designing electronics and programming computers for nearly 35 years and currently work as an IT consultant. I read a great many books and listen to podcasts on Apple and related companies and technologies and am still regularly surprised at how much I still have to learn on the subject.

Hopefully the iPad Pro will become available in the next week or so and we can see how iOS performs on such a powerful machine. I can't wait!
 
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Turnpike said:
People keep saying how the iPad Pro is redundant. I think it's a cool option to have an iPad with a larger screen, even if for on other reason. But could this be a first step in a super slip portable laptop type machine, isn't it possible that down the road the internals could evolve to run an actual desktop OS?
Click to expand...

As others have noted, it is very unlikely that Apple releases an iPad that natively runs OS X (in its current state).

A desktop OS on iPads will cannibalize sales of Apple laptops. Until the market sufficiently demands productivity tablets, Apple will be satisfied selling laptops for serious productivity, and iPads as consumption devices or lightweight productivity devices. Many customers will buy both. So there's no reason for Apple to forcibly jump ahead here.
 
Maybe somebody will hack this. Could be done. I mean, it's sort of asking for it, isn't it? :D

4GB ram, cpu, BIG.

A challenge to somebody perhaps.

Of course this sort of thing always is excruciating. Slow slog into something sub-functional.

I'll pass :D
 
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I'm honestly really baffled at all the people on here that constantly talk about wanting OS X on an iPad. The OS wasn't designed for touch interaction. The dock, the menu bars, none of that crap would work properly with your fingers - you would constantly miss targets and get frustrated. It's the same reason the Windows 8 on a tablet thing never worked out and now MS is trying to push "Continuity" so that the OS flips around drastically when you go into tablet mode.

I don't want a tablet / hybrid that does several things in mediocre fashion. I want dedicated devices that perform their given function exceptionally well.
 
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I don't need the iPad to run OS X well in touch mode, I just want it to be able to run OS X so that I can carry one device instead of two when I travel. I'll pull out the mouse and keyboard if I need to do work and it can run OS X the rest of the time.
 
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sketchguy said:
But there IS this, originally filed in Q3 2011:

http://www.patentlyapple.com/patent...-and-future-magic-keyboard-with-3d-touch.html

Personally, I'd love to see a keyboard section with dedicated graphics running OS X, and keep iOS when tablet is detached. The pencil is the sole reason i'm upgrading to the iPad Pro next Friday.
Click to expand...

This is the only thing that would make any sense at all. Because in this case the "iPad" would be only a display for the OS X computer (Mac) in the keyboard base when docked and a real iPad (with a real tablet OS, i.e. iOS) when undocked.

I still doubt it, though. It would be possible, but this hybrid could never be as refined/compact as a normal Mac notebook. And Apple would rather sell you both anyway.
 
craig1410 said:
No offence but you clearly don't understand the real reasons for the differences between iOS and Mac OS X. iOS isn't a watered down OS in the slightest. Quite the opposite in fact, iOS is a distilled version of OS X.

You talk about "...take the OS X and modify it for the interface" - well guess what? That's iOS!

I'll be buying an iPad Pro when it's released but I can tell you right now that I wouldn't be if Apple were running OS X on it! While I love OS X on my iMac and MBP, it has no place on a tablet or phone. Apple as in the dominant position they are in right now BECAUSE they realised that iOS and OS X needed to be very different.

Apologies for appearing argumentative but you are looking at this in a very superficial way and you need to pursue a much deeper understanding of the subject matter. I've been designing electronics and programming computers for nearly 35 years and currently work as an IT consultant. I read a great many books and listen to podcasts on Apple and related companies and technologies and am still regularly surprised at how much I still have to learn on the subject.

Hopefully the iPad Pro will become available in the next week or so and we can see how iOS performs on such a powerful machine. I can't wait!
Click to expand...

I understand the reason, it was to simplify it. Make everything big for the blind to see, make it simple so that nothing complex can even be done on it. And it's a shame. And iOS is not a modified interface, it's a redesigned interface. I was saying to take the OS X input, and tweak it for touchscreen.

But you still haven't answered my question, why not? What's so bad about OS X on an iPad? What is your issue when you use a Remote Desktop app? I'm open minded about it, but if you don't provide any valid reasons of why this is a bad idea, how can I be convinced? And let's face it, Apple has been in a dominant position because they're software is just better... Not because of the split of iOS and OS X. Actually thinking about it, maybe you're right. By distinguishing the two, people have to now but two products...

I like arguments, it opens the doors for possibilities. I'm not in the IT business, but I'm a user of complex programs, a fan of Apple software, and a great desire of a tablet as my only device. I feel trapped because I don't have a device that will work for all of these. I'm stuck carrying around at least two devices all the time. And as a minimalist, that just bothers me that in this day and age, there is still no Apple solution that is actually a laptop replacement that works for me. I'm not denying your knowledge on anything, I just want a good reason of why it would be bad to have OS X on a tablet. You just keep saying I don't know what I'm talking about, it's superficial, and a bad idea; you just haven't told me why.

I guess what I'm saying, is I wish Apple made a table with a software that can act as a main device, and not a auxiliary device. Apple is making progress, it only took them 7 years to bring decent multitasking to iOS, when OS X has had it since the iPads initial release. iOS is a distilled version, but they are still adding a lot of ingredients to make it as effective as the undistilled version, and they are still quite a ways away.

I can share the excitement of the iPad pro, but how will iOS perform any differently than it does on the iPad Air 2? Not starting an argument, literally just asking.
 
sonicrobby said:
I can share the excitement of the iPad pro, but how will iOS perform any differently than it does on the iPad Air 2? Not starting an argument, literally just asking.
Click to expand...

by allowing Devs to utilise the better spec, screen size and Pencil and importantly, extra power into new and exciting apps the Air2 potentially cant utilise or match. Lets hope the Devs take full advantage.
 
sonicrobby said:
I understand the reason, it was to simplify it. Make everything big for the blind to see, make it simple so that nothing complex can even be done on it. And it's a shame. And iOS is not a modified interface, it's a redesigned interface. I was saying to take the OS X input, and tweak it for touchscreen.
Click to expand...
I think you're underestimating the effort required to "tweak" a desktop interface to work in a touch-first environment. I'm not certain anyone has been able to get it right yet, actually.

Apple didn't build IOS so that everything was big for "the blind to see," but for fat fingers like mine to hit touch targets without ambiguity. And they didn't make the interface simple so that "nothing complex can even be done on it," they made it simple because the dimensions of the screen and the interaction mode demanded it. Now that screens are bigger, side-by-side multitasking and picture-in-picture style interfaces begin to make sense, but can you imagine running a full-up windowed display manager on a iPad (or iPhone) sized screen?

Wait, we don't have to imagine - you mention it yourself. It's the remote desktop apps. I use them from time to time, but only for kicking off batch jobs or checking status of something or other. The experience is uniformly a pain, even on an iPad sized screen. I'm glad Apple (and Google with Android) decided on a touch-first experience.

Now, with regard to complexity of apps: there are some tremendously complex applications available for iPad (and iPhone, for that matter). It's just that, to a greater or lesser degree, they're not nearly as visually complex as OS X (or Windows) applications. They can't be, because they rely on fingers as the pointing device, and fingers aren't nearly as precise as mice or trackpads.

So, why not design a system that can use fingers or pointing devices? Lots of folks on these forums seem to prefer this mode of operation, but it's less than ideal. Either you design for the lowest precision pointer - the finger - but then why do you need the mouse again? - or you design for the high-precision pointer - the mouse - but then touch targets become impossibly small. As several people on these forums have pointed out, Microsoft went with the latter solution, and compromised the tablet experience.

There'll be an opportunity to see how Apple resolves the target size conundrum as developers begin building applications for the Apple Pencil. It provides the direct interaction of touch with the precision of a mouse. We'll see how app developers use this newly developed capability.
 
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Turnpike said:
People keep saying how the iPad Pro is redundant. I think it's a cool option to have an iPad with a larger screen, even if for on other reason. But could this be a first step in a super slip portable laptop type machine, isn't it possible that down the road the internals could evolve to run an actual desktop OS?
Click to expand...
You should study philosophy.
 
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