All iPads Would you buy a Convertible 11in iPad/MBA hybrid?

[0000757]

I was thinking, what if there was an iPad Air/Macbook Air combination? It would be like a regular air only first off, completely squared off body, probably thicker than an Air but not thicker than a retina MBP, in the space grey/silver/gold color choices, with a touch enabled front panel.

When in MacBook mode, it runs OS X completely with the touch panel disabled, and instead you rely on the trackpad and keyboard (since OS X isn't optimized at all for touch) and you just use Yosemite like your normally would, however once you flip it past a certain point it switches over to iOS completely, while disabling the trackpad and keyboard (as they'd be behind the device).

As far as software, you could easily have continuity work so say if you're working in Pages and you want to switch to iOS, once you turn the device to iOS mode it launches pages for iOS. In addition, when in desktop mode you could have the option to run your iOS apps.

Just curious, would you ever buy an Apple device like this? I probably would, though it they'd make it $$$.

 

[Jessica Lares]

Only if it had Thunderbolt and USB ports.

 

[macduke]

I envision it being a 12" iPad Pro that has a keyboard clamshell style dock. When it snaps into that, it transforms the OS UI from touch friendly to mouse friendly. The dock would have a keyboard and trackpad, along with a single USB port, speakers and mag safe charging port. You could also house additional components inside the bottom clamshell, such as an extra battery, or you could do some really crazy stuff with Thunderbolt such as a more advanced graphics card when docked. You would have some invisible or nearly invisible contacts on the side of the iPad that would connect to the dock and transfer power, Thunderbolt, etc. As for other ports, it could potentially have an HDMI and SD card slot, perhaps a bottom located audio jack, but not much beyond that. Not too far off from a MacBook Air.

Software wise it would have somewhat limited driver support for USB devices, and those drivers would come from that company's app. For instance, if you had a Canon scanner you would download the Canon Scanner app and use that to scan in files and save them to your iCloud Drive. Then other apps could access those files easily. They might even build in a simple file manager for such a device. If you were using, say, Pixelmator on the device and want to import a scan, you could use an extension which would open up a window over top that utilizes the Canon app to scan in a document and import it right into Pixelmator. Done!

Apple has a patent for an iMac that when you grab the edges of the device, it detects your heartbeat and disengages the lock holding the display in place. You then pull it down and the UI transforms into touch mode, and the display is now located below you at an angle so that you can use the thing like a giant iPad. There have been some sketchy rumors over the years of Apple working on an ARM version of OS X. With the advent of 64-bit ARM processors that are extremely power efficient yet very capable, and given how advanced iOS is and the underlying similarities with OS X, I'm quite certain Apple has a MacBook in their labs running an ARM chip, and probably some prototypes like I've described. If they think there is a market for it, and they can make everything including the UI switch extremely fluid and easy, then I think they will finally release it.