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Unifying iPadOS and macOS

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Re: Unifying iPadOS and macOS

#171

Post by vbezhenar »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #111

I've written about this before, in "The Mac and the iPad aren't meeting in the middle yet": https://micro.coyotetracks.org/2021/04/21/the-mac-and.html While I won't repeat myself too much, my basic point is that Apple sees iOS (and iPadOS) devices as application consoles and Macs as general purpose computers, and there is no good business case for changing that any time soon. The Venn diagram of "users likely to walk…

Locking users in AppStore will not happen for Macs, because users just won't upgrade and buy new hardware. Who needs computer which he can't control. That's absurd. They might hide that switch to enable full control over computer, but that's about it.

Re: Unifying iPadOS and macOS

#172

Post by PaulHoule »

neilalexander wrote: post #169
PaulHoule wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's completely practical to ship the (almost) same kernel with different a different userspace. That's the difference between desktop Linux and Android, XBOX and Windows, etc. In fact if you care about performance and reliability (particularly add more cores and get more performance) there is no option rather than build on a mature kernel. Google's Fuchsia, for instance, is a high risk project which might never reac…

> Google's Fuchsia, for instance, is a high risk project which might never reach parity with Android. If you write an app using the Android APIs and not native code then it wouldn’t matter if you were really running a Linux-based Android or a Fuchsia-based Android, as long as the API contracts were met. Google knows this — it’s not impossible to imagine that one day Android might not be Linux-based.

It's possible, but Google has to get all the details right to make it "good enough" if not better.

For instance they have to get the story right w.r.t. to drivers and the needs of handset vendors, carriers, etc. Performance has to be good. Microkernel and capability-based systems are notorious for having bottlenecks.

Personally I liked the original WSL from Microsoft a lot but Microsoft didn't feel it was good enough because filesystem metadata operations are much slower in Windows NT than they are in Linux. If you do something that involves an excessive number of files (say build the Linux kernel) some people find the performance of WSL unacceptable. Yet, nobody complained about the slowness of filesystem metadata operations before on Windows -- people figured that was just the way it was, might not even have known some operating system was faster, and they stuffed data in SQLLite and otherwise reduced the number of files that they handled.

Microsoft felt they had to do something about it and came out with WSL2 which is inferior to WSL and to just running a normal Linux kernel under Hyper-V, VirtualBox, VMWare and the like -- because it is still closely coupled to Windows in ways that make "it just works" elusive. (e.g. just requiring that you install it from the Windows Store means you can't install it if your Windows Store is b0rked, which mine often is)

So Fuschia might be the future, but getting there involves confronting a lot of details that they might not want to confront. If there are ten critical "non-functional requirements" and they only get nine of them they are doomed.

Re: Unifying iPadOS and macOS

#173

Post by paulcole »

FractalHQ wrote: post #29

I bought an iPad Pro recently, and I hate the fact that I can’t run any of my favorite macOS apps on it despite the fact that the hardware is more than capable. And no web browsers / browser extensions / PWAs? It feels like a toy. Very disappointing.

You knew what it was when you bought it right?

As far as I know, Apple never said “you’ll be able to run your favorite macOS apps on it because the hardware is more than capable.”

Re: Unifying iPadOS and macOS

#174

Post by whywhywhywhy »

eddieh wrote: post #166

I see a bunch of posts about the iPad being a "consume" only device and that's totally totally wrong. I've had an iPad since day one, generation one and took notes with an aftermarket stylus. I used Keynote and OmniGraffle to make slideshows and diagrams. I even bought an Apogee JAM and was able to record my electric guitar in GarageBand and used several other apps for guitar effects and simulated amplification. My f…

To me the real question is if a machine running MacOS existed in a Surface-like form factor that had touchscreen and pen support would it be better than the iPad at the tasks you just described.

I'm finding it harder and harder to justify that the divergence even needed to happen at all when more and more iPad users are just interacting with it via keyboard case and trackpad.

Re: Unifying iPadOS and macOS

#175

Post by walterbell »

vbezhenar wrote: post #167
walterbell wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people were expectantly waiting for this to be announced at WWDC 2021, especially with the M1-based iPad including silicon support for hypervisor/virtualization and the 16GB RAM / 1TB storage model. Yet nothing was announced, suggesting that the only use of 16GB RAM will be upcoming memory-consuming Adobe "Pro" apps.

IMO this is the first future-proof mobile device from Apple. Apple has bad habit to install absolutely minimum amounts of RAM into their mobile devices. iPhone had 2 GB RAM when Androids (with similar price) had 8 GB RAM. It means that RAM will be main issue for supporting those devices in the future iOS versions and eventually they'll be dropped, despite extremely powerful CPU and huge storage. But with 16 GB it won…

Agreed, but not worth almost $2K for the 16GB/1TB model. Until Apple un-cripples the iPad Pro, it's better to buy a lower-end iPad + MacBook.

Re: Unifying iPadOS and macOS

#176

Post by _ph_ »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #111

I've written about this before, in "The Mac and the iPad aren't meeting in the middle yet": https://micro.coyotetracks.org/2021/04/21/the-mac-and.html While I won't repeat myself too much, my basic point is that Apple sees iOS (and iPadOS) devices as application consoles and Macs as general purpose computers, and there is no good business case for changing that any time soon. The Venn diagram of "users likely to walk…

It might make Apple currently more money, or it at least might appear to them that it does. But I really think they are missing the boat great time by gimping the iPad with the built-in limitations. The hardware is fantanstic, and by starting with a complete new OS, they had the chance to grow it into an entirely new computing device. But limiting the iPad to apps which harve to adher to arbitrary app store rules, they might miss the next big step. Which could cost them way more revenue long term, that the short term profit on people who buy a new iPad and a new Mac.

Re: Unifying iPadOS and macOS

#177

Post by idle_zealot »

derefr wrote: post #70

Y’know Samsung’s DEX, where you plug a Samsung Android device into an HDMI output and the output is not a mirror of the phone’s mobile UI, but rather a full Android desktop UI? There’s little reason that Apple couldn’t do the same thing with iPads, where the “desktop UI” is macOS. Unify the kernels/userlands, keep the “Desktop Environments” distinct, but ship them both on iPads, with the macOS DE just waiting around…

> Unify the kernels/userlands, keep the “Desktop Environments” distinct, but ship them both on iPads, with the macOS DE just waiting around for you to plug your device into a monitor.

I want basically what you’re describing, but rather than having 2 distinct desktop environments I posit that the iPadOS environment, with a few refinements, would be better for desktop usage than macOS’ DE. Specifically, the refinements I’d want would include allowing more than 2 apps in a split view, and perhaps some reconsideration of that floating app-stack thing to make it less clunky. As a daily user of tiling window managers on a Linux desktop, floating desktop windows seem like a UI dead end that we’ve somehow been trapped in for decades. Growing existing “smartphone/tablet” UI to offer more power seems like a more realistic way to widespread adoption of a better desktop paradigm than removing “features” that most current desktop users have become familiar with.

Re: Unifying iPadOS and macOS

#178

Post by saagarjha »

vbezhenar wrote: post #167
walterbell wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people were expectantly waiting for this to be announced at WWDC 2021, especially with the M1-based iPad including silicon support for hypervisor/virtualization and the 16GB RAM / 1TB storage model. Yet nothing was announced, suggesting that the only use of 16GB RAM will be upcoming memory-consuming Adobe "Pro" apps.

IMO this is the first future-proof mobile device from Apple. Apple has bad habit to install absolutely minimum amounts of RAM into their mobile devices. iPhone had 2 GB RAM when Androids (with similar price) had 8 GB RAM. It means that RAM will be main issue for supporting those devices in the future iOS versions and eventually they'll be dropped, despite extremely powerful CPU and huge storage. But with 16 GB it won…

My iOS devices with 2 GB of RAM are still going strong today. Actually, I’m responding to you from one running the latest iPadOS 15 beta.

Re: Unifying iPadOS and macOS

#179

Post by musicale »

flohofwoe wrote: post #4

It's not about the touch screen, the UI, the hardware or "casual" vs "professional" users, but simply about the ability to create(!) and combine small specialized tools into something that's bigger than the sum of its parts. The "walled garden app ecosystem" is exceptionally bad for this, and the UNIX shell is exceptionally good, but both are extremes. It's hard to imagine how a UNIX-like flexibility can be achieved…

You can automate and glue iOS apps together using Shortcuts, script them with Scriptable or Pythonista, etc..

It's somewhat analogous to using Automator and/or macOS' Open Scripting Architecture.

Re: Unifying iPadOS and macOS

#180

Post by saagarjha »

vbezhenar wrote: post #168
warning26 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily disagreeing, but my key question here is: how will Apple handle lower-level development cases? It's not difficult to imagine a watered-down iPad XCode shipping, but what about the tooling they use to build iOS itself? After all, Apple has to use something to develop iOS, and I think it's unlikely they'd create a special in-house operating system for the exclusive use of their OS development teams that…

I'm sure that they could just use Linux for that. I wouldn't be surprised if they're using Linux right now.

Almost all Apple engineers use Macs.
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