MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be • Hacker News Board

Re: MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be

#51

Post by gambiting » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:02 PM UTC

paultopia wrote: post #45

Hard disagree. The iPad is a fantastic mac replacement for many purposes. I use the iPad Pro w/ the “magic keyboard” case for working essentially whenever I’m not physically in home or office in similar ways that I do my Mac, for two really big reasons: (1) The (11-inch) size is fantastic: you get enough screen real estate to see what you’re reading and writing, but it still fits into an arbitrarily small bag and is…

I finally found someone who uses the cellular feature in laptops! I always wondered who the hell that was for, now I know at least one person.

Re: MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be

#52

Post by gambiting » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:05 PM UTC

rchaud wrote: post #49

elboru wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in 2011, when Motorola released a phone that could do something similar, I was sure that was going to be the future. It’s been 15 years. I still dream of the day when my computer lives on my wrist, and I just have a few dummy screens in different formats that can connect to it so I can consume media or be productive.

Samsung, Motorola and Huawei have had this for years. Samsung DeX is probably the most popular desktop environment of its type, and has been available for 9 years. Plenty of people use it (like myself), but it's too niche of a use case for the masses. The 2011 Motorola Atrix came with a proprietary dock to connect to. Modern desktop environments can use the USB-C 3.2 DP ports on the phone to provide video out. Lapdoc…

The thing is, Samsung DEX works great but I've never met anyone who has heard of it even among people who have owned nothing but Samsung phones forever. Samsung just sucks at advertising the feature. They should sell a bundle of phone + portable USB-C screen + Bluetooth mouse and keyboard and the thing would sell pretty well I would imagine. But right now no one even knows this exists.

Re: MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be

#53

Post by benoau » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:07 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #39

reacharavindh wrote: post #34

The part that makes ipadOS feels like a toy is Apple’s iron grip in “App Store only” app delivery. The thing has so much power, but to do anything useful, you gotta play by Apple’s rules. All that dream of quirky, useful, innovative ipadOS leveraging apps would show up if they relinquished that software control and let indie or otherwise apps get there without the Apple Tax both in money and rules. Would the iPad sti…

I disagree. Don’t get me wrong, I want Apple to open up devices like the iPad. But I can think of few apps that would transform the iPad from “toy” to “serious” that are blocked by the policy. That transformation is largely blocked by the OS UI.

Well they removed the virtualization framework and prohibit apps from using JIT, so you can't just have a "macOS" app (or Ubuntu, Windows etc).

They ban apps from downloading and executing code except for educational purposes - in fact very recently this has manifested in banning apps that use AI to build and publish apps - but it has always prevented VSCode and the like, at best you can have something SSH'd into something else. This also affects software that is extendable through plugins and addons.

Re: MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be

#54

Post by gambiting » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:08 PM UTC

tomaskafka wrote: post #15

I sign this essay. Apple has apparently multiple opposing goals for the iPadOS: 1. Make it powerful enough so that it can be sold as equivalent to macOS 2. Keep it locked like iOS, to be sold as secure alternative to computer for your parents and kids (which rules out all the workflow customization pros need) 3. Don’t make it powerful enough for people to stop buying Macs (Tim Cook’s biggest fear is of you not buying…

>>Tim Cook’s biggest fear is of you not buying another slab of glass - no multiprofile for you, ever

In which case they already failed because I still see no reason to replace my M1 iPad Pro, it just powers through anything I throw at it including games.

Re: MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be

#55

Post by prmoustache » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:11 PM UTC

paultopia wrote: post #45

Hard disagree. The iPad is a fantastic mac replacement for many purposes. I use the iPad Pro w/ the “magic keyboard” case for working essentially whenever I’m not physically in home or office in similar ways that I do my Mac, for two really big reasons: (1) The (11-inch) size is fantastic: you get enough screen real estate to see what you’re reading and writing, but it still fits into an arbitrarily small bag and is…

It really depends how frequently one is outside. I have had many laptops with cell chips and sim slot but never bothered to pay for a sim when I could just tether my smartphone connection, even when using the train. I usually plug the phone to the laptop if I need to charge the phone.

Re: MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be

#56

Post by horsawlarway » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:12 PM UTC

exidex wrote: post #13

vessenes wrote: post #9

Buried in here is the very nice idea of an AI dividend for CLI users - as we keep designing interfaces for LLMs directly, those interfaces are text-oriented, and afford us a look at a future with the command line being central. I like that. My recent tools are mostly AI first, and therefore CLI first. I’ve been toying with adding JSON modes to them, and this is undeniably useful, but I think I’ll keep JSON under flag…

That is only because there is no viable platform to build similar gui-based tooling on

I don't actually think this is true. I think the issue is that the CLI is a much better paradigm if you're going to operate with text and text based commands.

LLMs excel at text, text is incredibly powerful in a cli environment.

It's not just that there's no GUI alternative, it's that the GUI itself is a bad affordance.

The only GUIs that even sort of successfully play in this space solve it by having a GUI that basically just embeds a CLI (see - all the vscode editors, antigravity, etc..).

Re: MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be

#57

Post by prmoustache » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:16 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #51

paultopia wrote: post #45

Hard disagree. The iPad is a fantastic mac replacement for many purposes. I use the iPad Pro w/ the “magic keyboard” case for working essentially whenever I’m not physically in home or office in similar ways that I do my Mac, for two really big reasons: (1) The (11-inch) size is fantastic: you get enough screen real estate to see what you’re reading and writing, but it still fits into an arbitrarily small bag and is…

I finally found someone who uses the cellular feature in laptops! I always wondered who the hell that was for, now I know at least one person.

Fun fact, I once bought a reconditionned laptop and the sim card of the previous owner was still on the slot. More interestingly I could use it to connect to the mobile network for at least 2 years without even knowing the PIN (and having reinstalled to linux).

Re: MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be

#58

Post by pzo » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:19 PM UTC

I kind of disagree. I always wished apple could copy Microsoft Surface Go and Surface Book.

I would still use macbook for most things but I did use my surface go more often for (deep) work than now my ipad pro (which is better for consumption).

Surface Go in app mode was not as good as ipad and many apps lacking but it shined if I had to to more work/research and I didn't have laptop with me.

I would just love to have something like even smaller size Macbook Neo where I can unplug screen and then would behave like iPad consumption device.

Right now I hate keeping everything synced in apple ecosystem so I usually even won't bother to use ipad while in train or plane.

Re: MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be

#59

Post by benoau » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:20 PM UTC

troupo wrote: post #42

benoau wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You would get software actually designed to fully exploit the capabilities of the device. Or you would just have a void where that hypothetical software could be, and this is what actually happened to the iPad (and AVP).

iPad could run iOS software since forever. Did it help iPad?

Compared to having even less software? Yes.

Compared to a hypothetical scenario where developers care to build iPad apps? No.

I don't think the availability of iPhone apps on iPad is what derailed development of iPad apps either, practically all the ROI building software for Apple hardware comes from impulse spending on the iPhone and even with 500+ million iPads in circulation today it doesn't come close.

Re: MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be

#60

Post by troupo » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:36 PM UTC

benoau wrote: post #59

troupo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPad could run iOS software since forever. Did it help iPad?

Compared to having even less software? Yes. Compared to a hypothetical scenario where developers care to build iPad apps? No. I don't think the availability of iPhone apps on iPad is what derailed development of iPad apps either, practically all the ROI building software for Apple hardware comes from impulse spending on the iPhone and even with 500+ million iPads in circulation today it doesn't come close.

iPad was sabotaged by Apple themselves, as they never figured out how to position it, and what capabilities to give it.

Multi-tasking? Half-assed. Keyboard and mouse support? Half-assed. OS capabilities beyond iOS on a laptop-like device? Non-existent. This was additionally hamstrung by "just check a checkbox, and a half-assed port of your app will run on iPad".

We've now seen the same play out with MacOS: why bother creating an actual app when you can just run a mobile app? Even Apple's first-party apps do this now.