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Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...

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Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...

#131

Post by tomjen3 »

detaro wrote: post #93
acollins1331 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You literally just described a really shitty laptop from like 1995. Woah guys my PC is so cool and I love it! I can plug in another monitor and soon it will support a mouse . Have you ever tried a real computer, saying an iPad is more useful than anything else is just wrong.

What "really shitty laptop from like 2002" had the weight, the display, the battery lifetime, ... of an iPad Pro?

Does the display matter for a terminal application? As for battery and weight, you are talking about pluggin in various other devices that you presumably don't carry around, so it wouldn't make any difference if you plug it in to the power or not.

If you often do carry it (without the other gear), then I can maybe see it, though you can buy a used small thinkpad that can easily run the terminal programs.

Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...

#132

Post by blinkingled »

Apple product ecosystem has fast become a solution looking for problem combined with touchy feely hokus pokus aided by synthetic exclusivity and nonsensical differentiation.

Why the hell do we need the iPad to take over the PCs? Why the hell do we need ARM CPUs in Macs? Nobody is solving any real problems with those things - it's only purpose is to make Apple's margins and control even greater. And we as consumers are supposed to pay attention to the news outlets droning on about it for no benefit!

I think Apple will do well going back to the basics - simplifying the product lines, selling what matters and focusing on increasing the reach of its products to price conscious buyers. I don't think the market has a big enough appetite for more BS however well marketed it may be.

Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...

#133

Post by rubbingalcohol »

blinkingled wrote: post #132

Apple product ecosystem has fast become a solution looking for problem combined with touchy feely hokus pokus aided by synthetic exclusivity and nonsensical differentiation. Why the hell do we need the iPad to take over the PCs? Why the hell do we need ARM CPUs in Macs? Nobody is solving any real problems with those things - it's only purpose is to make Apple's margins and control even greater. And we as consumers ar…

The trash can Mac Pro and butterfly keyboards are perfect examples of solutions looking for problems.

But I don't think making the iPad's operating system usable is an attempt to somehow position the devices as "PC killers." For use cases where a tablet is sufficient to produce a particular work product, a more usable OS only enhances its effectiveness. This has no bearing on the huge number of use cases where a tablet is insufficient.

I agree with the author that Apple would be barking up the wrong tree trying to switch the Macs to ARM processors. Macs are already comparatively a low-volume market and segmenting that market would not do them any favors in the face of increasing competition from Microsoft and Linux implementations.

Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...

#134

Post by lyime »

eridius wrote: post #48
lyime wrote: post #33

I don’t believe Apple will transition away from x86 anytime soon but for different reasons. They would abandon the pro market if it moved to arm. Most x86 pro applications would have to be rewritten. What would be the incentive for software makers? Apple might very will be able to bring out a arm stack for consumer market but there is no indication that they can compete with x86 pro or server market.

They did a migration like this once already for PPC -> Intel (twice if you count 68k -> PPC).

That was a different time. They had to do that otherwise they were dead. PPC was not keeping up with Intel.

Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...

#135

Post by blinkingled »

rubbingalcohol wrote: post #133
blinkingled wrote: post #132

Apple product ecosystem has fast become a solution looking for problem combined with touchy feely hokus pokus aided by synthetic exclusivity and nonsensical differentiation. Why the hell do we need the iPad to take over the PCs? Why the hell do we need ARM CPUs in Macs? Nobody is solving any real problems with those things - it's only purpose is to make Apple's margins and control even greater. And we as consumers ar…

The trash can Mac Pro and butterfly keyboards are perfect examples of solutions looking for problems. But I don't think making the iPad's operating system usable is an attempt to somehow position the devices as "PC killers." For use cases where a tablet is sufficient to produce a particular work product, a more usable OS only enhances its effectiveness. This has no bearing on the huge number of use cases where a tabl…

> But I don't think making the iPad's operating system usable is an attempt to somehow position the devices as "PC killers.

I agree with that one - meaningful improvements to make the iPad a better choice for the users that can get away with using only the iPad as their primary device is a good thing. There's also a significant number of those users. But in practice, deciding what those capabilities are and how best to implement those are far more complicated questions - adding a mouse pointer is maybe a perfect illustration of the conundrum - should we, how should it look, what about the click targets, what about touch first, pencil etc.

Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...

#136

Post by _ph_ »

danaris wrote: post #128
_ph_ wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can repeat what I wrote: people like me are dependant on MacOS and on Linux. Currently the Mac offers this ability. I would like to use a native Linux machine, but the only alternative for me would be Windows + VM. And in any case, if the developers are happy with a non-Mac machine, Apple shouldn't be :). Unless they really want to continue their course of driving anyone who does not depend on a Mac for living and…

All signs are pointing to Apple releasing a laptop with a new scissor-switch keyboard design Soon™. I'm not sure what you mean about "realistic upgrade pricing"...it's not like you've ever been able to "trade in" an old computer to any manufacturer for a steep discount on a newer model (analogous to upgrade pricing of software)...

I mean the prices you need to pay to upgrade the machines beyond the basis configuation. Currently Apple charges 240€ for 8g of memory, and 240€ for 128g of ssd upgrade. The latter is 1920€/tb, while market prices are between 100€ and 300€/tb. A MB Air with 16g/512g is at 2000€, not counting Apple care, which is basically mandatory.

Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...

#137

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

eecc wrote: post #72

Frankly I’m surprised no one hasn’t built an external core/ram expansion docking station yet. With OS support for Numa and a broker to schedule tasks on Big/Little cores all the pieces are there. My guess is the halo effect around the cloud that put these devices back into the drawers; when you can sync files across two conventional independent devices, risk aversion wins. But people might become aware and weary of r…

Suddenly disconnecting a dock today is a minor annoyance; worst case, you lose some file descriptors/mountpoints, and network connections. If you plug in processors, accidentally unplugging outright drops processes, and likely panics the kernel.

Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...

#138

Post by mcintyre1994 »

wodenokoto wrote: post #57
ChuckMcM wrote: post #7

I see a lot of Surface Pro in the iPad[1]. That isn't a bad thing, it is great to have two design studios trying to out do each other. If you agree that these devices should work better on ARM chips rather than x86 chips, then the iPad has an advantage with an already ARM based ecosystem. Of course the Surface R/T tried that too, and stumbled. But I wonder if Apple saw that as a hint of where Microsoft might go. I fi…

This trope about jobs needs to die. He made fun of the idea of putting a color screen on the iPod and a year or so later presented the iPod color. Of course apple was gonna put a stylus on the iPad, with or without Jobs. Apple might be content with asking users to buy third party hardware to draw on Mac, but they aren’t stupid enough to say you need to buy a Citrix to draw on your iPad.

I’m not sure you actually mean Citrix for that example, but I actually have a mouse somewhere for iPad from when I was working for Citrix and they built an iPad mouse that works with virtualised apps. I think Apple are even adding official mouse support to iPad OS now too.

Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...

#139

Post by ken »

dmix wrote: post #69

It’s amazing to think the iPhone launched without copy and paste and now it’s a prominent feature on the iPadOS sales page. I’m a bit happy we’re movinf back to just letting people do stuff and let the developers figure out how to make it work.

Every feature on the macOS sales page today is something that macOS shipped without for almost 20 years (and Mac OS for almost 20 years before that). That's what sales pages are for: they show off the new features.

Apple didn't withhold copy/paste out of spite. They were shipping a completely new platform, and you can't do everything in 1.0.

For comparison, with the first version of the Macintosh system software, copy/paste crashed 50% of the time: https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...

Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...

#140

Post by wodenokoto »

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #138
wodenokoto wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This trope about jobs needs to die. He made fun of the idea of putting a color screen on the iPod and a year or so later presented the iPod color. Of course apple was gonna put a stylus on the iPad, with or without Jobs. Apple might be content with asking users to buy third party hardware to draw on Mac, but they aren’t stupid enough to say you need to buy a Citrix to draw on your iPad.

I’m not sure you actually mean Citrix for that example, but I actually have a mouse somewhere for iPad from when I was working for Citrix and they built an iPad mouse that works with virtualised apps. I think Apple are even adding official mouse support to iPad OS now too.

Cintiq, by Wacom. Looked it up and I have been calling those screens the wrong company name for years.
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