Live data from Hacker News

MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be

craigmod.com

181–190 of 210 posts

Re: MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be

#181
post #112

So I agree the iPad range is more complicated than it needs to be but I'm not as enthralled by the Macbook Neo as the author. For one thing, a base iPad is US$349. Sure you need a keyboard too but it is less than $599. And the core of the Macbook Neo is a previous generation iPhone chip whereas the latest iPad has an M14. If anything, a better melding of these product lines looka a lot more like the Huawei Mate Book…

The $349 iPad has an A16 chip. The Neo has an A18pro chip. the iPad Air has an M4 chip but is $599. The single-core performance of the A18pro and the M4 are the same as they have the same kind of chip cores. The M4 has a couple more cores though.

I’m not sure why you are having to much problem with FaceID. Low light shouldn’t matter as it doesn’t use ambient light to “see” your face. It has an infrared emitter that shines a pattern on your face and that is what the sensor picks up.

Re: MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be

#182
post #81

My dream is having an “app” on ipadOS that switches out userland from ipadOS to macOS when launched. Let them be two silos, containers, VMs, whatever. Only allow “Mac mode” if you have a keyboard and monitor attached. Hell, automatically “sleep” it if you undock. Make it unapologetically keyboard-and-mouse first. One UI for keyboard/mouse. A second UI for touch. One device that can do it all. That’s the dream. I feel…

iPads have M-series chips in them that support hardware virtualisation. But Apple goes out of its way to disable the hypervisor for its iOS/iPadOS builds[1]. All they have to do is stop doing that and allow apps to make use of the virtualisation APIs. UTM hypervisor already exists in App Store, so Apple is clearly not against the principle of it. As soon as that happens, running macOS (or Linux) will become elementar…

When Google ships unified ChromeOS+Android on pKVM on ex-Apple Qualcomm laptops from Dell/HP/Lenovo, Apple executives will have a market-driven reason to make this change. Some iPad improvements appeared after Microsoft shipped Surface 2-in-1.

Re: MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be

#183
post #145
post #81

My dream is having an “app” on ipadOS that switches out userland from ipadOS to macOS when launched. Let them be two silos, containers, VMs, whatever. Only allow “Mac mode” if you have a keyboard and monitor attached. Hell, automatically “sleep” it if you undock. Make it unapologetically keyboard-and-mouse first. One UI for keyboard/mouse. A second UI for touch. One device that can do it all. That’s the dream. I feel…

I want the same mode, but on iOS! Imagine carrying nothing but the phone in your pocket, sitting down at your desk, plugging your phone into the monitor, which has your keyboard and mouse docked, and you have a full development environment.

Partially there on Android Pixels with "Linux Terminal". With the rumored convergence of ChromeOS and Android, it should be possible to have a desktop ChromeOS pKVM VM with accelerated vGPU graphics on Android mobile devices that have enough RAM.

Re: MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like what the iPad is and it just doesn’t make sense to have a keyboard and mouse with it. Let’s leave the tablets as is and use laptops for serious typing.

People write out books on their phones. There's no need to be so rigid in the distinction between the types of device. But I do agree with the original point that everyone has failed to make a unified interface for both modes and a distinct switch would be better until they can converge from real world learned lessons. Apple will never make a product like that though.

They will if/when Google does, which may happen this year.

Re: MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Think about it like this: Would you manage a fortune in crypto on Windows? I wouldn't Most banks on the planet manage trillions on Windows, so I'm not sure what you're trying to prove by dying on this hill. Just because you wouldn't do something doesn't make you knowledgeable or right about that. >MS employees have access to a lot of your work/data/fingerprints. I wonder how all those companies, banks and government…

I doubt workers stealing data (which is more frequent than you might think) will just openly post about it... Do you really believe it's normal that banks are on Windows? Do you want governments, military and such to be on Windows, really? It's not a popularity contest, we know that most corpos do terrible choice about IT stuff (at least back then and now they are doomed). It breach basic every security principles, w…

>I doubt workers stealing data (which is more frequent than you might think)

Can you post a source for this? I'm sure every newspaper on the planet would love to publish headlines reading "MS workers are stealing your data", but that would require some actual proof, not made up FUD.

>Do you really believe it's normal that banks are on Windows?

It doesn't matter what I believe, what matters are the facts and reality on the street which is what I'm arguing. You are free to believe whatever you want, that doesn't make you right.

Re: MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be

#187

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.

Coming soon to Macbooks, now that Apple's in-house modem removes the need to give Qualcomm a percentage of retail sales price.

iPads offer $2/GB prepaid US data via eSIM.

Re: MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be

#188

After steve I couldnt see true innovation in the product. Hope the new CEO would bring some new changes to the table.

So much talent, resources and yet-to-be-realized potential already proven by those who have unshackled iPads to use JIT and VMs. In this golden CLI age of LLMs, Apple ships some of the world's best silicon (e.g. M5) for local LLMs on iPad, but it's actively prevented by Apple leadership from running performant CLI apps.

Re: MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be

#189

I've used Mac for 20 years and iPad on&off for 10 years.. largely I agree with Craig. Touch on MacOS is basically useless, you won't realize this until you try using an iPad like a MacBook for an extended period of time. Reaching up from keyboard/trackpad to touch the screen quickly gets fatiguing. It is not ergonomic. The iPad is meant to be used in touch mode while in your hands generally. If they were brave they'd…

My wife just retired, and with that went the work computer (that she rarely used for personal stuff to begin with). Now she uses her iPad. But that has the problems of no keyboard/mouse, so I gave her an old Apple keyboard and trackpad. But as parent points out, there's still a lot of touching going on. It's just not the setup for real work.

I find it particularly frustrating to watch, because she has an account on the weeks-old MBP I just bought (which will connect to a 27" monitor). But instead she'd rather just keep poking at that iPad screen while she complains about how hard it is to use: "I just don't get along with this Mac stuff." This woman worked at Microsoft for over fifteen years, she's not technically illiterate, but apparently it's easier to work with a horrible setup than to walk 20 feet down the hallway and put her finger on the fingerprint reader. :eyeroll:

Re: MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Think about it like this: Would you manage a fortune in crypto on Windows? I wouldn't Most banks on the planet manage trillions on Windows, so I'm not sure what you're trying to prove by dying on this hill. Just because you wouldn't do something doesn't make you knowledgeable or right about that. >MS employees have access to a lot of your work/data/fingerprints. I wonder how all those companies, banks and government…

I doubt workers stealing data (which is more frequent than you might think) will just openly post about it... Do you really believe it's normal that banks are on Windows? Do you want governments, military and such to be on Windows, really? It's not a popularity contest, we know that most corpos do terrible choice about IT stuff (at least back then and now they are doomed). It breach basic every security principles, w…

>>I doubt workers stealing data (which is more frequent than you might think) will just openly post about it.

Can you explain what mechanism is there for Microsoft workers to steal data off my Windows PC that doesn't upload anything to OneDrive? Like I'm genuienly curious - how do they do it?

Post reply on HN