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Unifying iPadOS and macOS

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Re: Unifying iPadOS and macOS

#41

Post by mhuffman »

still_grokking wrote: post #33
mhuffman wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is bad for IT. Maybe for how we do IT. But consider the future where 99% of apps are developed on a tablet or phone (for a tablet or phone) using a cloud web interface with mostly low-code or no-code widget drag and drops.

Drag and drop HW drivers, or similar, in a cloud IDE? I'm skeptical.

>Drag and drop HW drivers, or similar, in a cloud IDE? I'm skeptical.

Perhaps you are thinking too "now".

In the future why would you personally need hardware drivers? Any hardware that you subscribe to (ownership will be a thing of the past) would have factory-installed drivers constantly updated from the few reified "real" programmers that work for a few dozen mega-corporations.

For that matter, I could imagine a future where there are only a few dozen hardware drivers approved and any new hardware that is approved to be sold to the public must conform to one of them.

Re: Unifying iPadOS and macOS

#42

Post by laurent92 »

mhuffman wrote: post #28
scoopertrooper wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a natural limit to what may be achieved with a low/no code tool. Kids might be able to drag a few elements on screen to create charts and games, but that sort of work doesn't really advance the field.

>There's a natural limit to what may be achieved with low/no code tool. Kids might be able to drag a few elements on screen to create charts and games, but that sort of work doesn't really advance the field. Ahhh, who said the point in the future would be to advance the field? That is how we think. Future generations might be content with a few "programming geniuses" and everyone else making simplistic apps for work…

A bit like today, I feel like a toddler playing with Java coloured cubes, while the “real programmers” are the Linux contributors, people who write drivers and so on. Tomorrow it will be 3 layers: The C programmers, the people from Atlassian or Apple who build the platforms, and us, programming with the subset of the language they give us.

Re: Unifying iPadOS and macOS

#43

Post by laurent92 »

mhuffman wrote: post #41
still_grokking wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drag and drop HW drivers, or similar, in a cloud IDE? I'm skeptical.

>Drag and drop HW drivers, or similar, in a cloud IDE? I'm skeptical. Perhaps you are thinking too "now". In the future why would you personally need hardware drivers? Any hardware that you subscribe to (ownership will be a thing of the past) would have factory-installed drivers constantly updated from the few reified "real" programmers that work for a few dozen mega-corporations. For that matter, I could imagine a f…

And the path to this, is to raise a constant stream of vulnerabilities. Therefore you need a constant upgrade from upstream. Therefore insurances only cover you if you are using a maintained system. And since there are distributions with vulnerabilities, insurances will only insure you for public service if you use a few pre-approved OSes.

Or just use the cloud provider who has all the preapproved workflows. The world just needs a little notch to tip into regulating the provision of services to the public, and at that moment, any independent OS will be dead, and we’ll be forever tethered to the cloud.

“He didn’t use a safe OS”, we’ll say, of everyone using an independent Debian version and meeting a vulnerability. “It’s only fair he’s the hammer fell on him.”

Re: Unifying iPadOS and macOS

#44

Post by fallenhitokiri »

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…

This is IMHO a really good point. Somewhere in between App Groups, Share Extensions and custom URL schemes I really hoped at some point we would see a way to make this happen.

My wife is currently using Affinity and Adobe products to work on illustrations. It works mostly the same for her as on her Mac. She does not care about small, specialised tools, she wants one app that does everything she needs. The iPad is doing a great job running those apps.

I am not sure how many users (outside of the ones who got used to it) want UNIX-like flexibility vs "give me an app that does everything I need". If the later group keeps getting larger the walled garden approach to apps might actually work.

Re: Unifying iPadOS and macOS

#45

Post by simonh »

stevenhuang wrote: post #31
simonh wrote: post #7

It's amazing to me that Apple made a very strict distinction between touch UI systems and keyboard/mouse UI systems, right from the start, has maintained that rigorously, and has been right all along. Their competitors and the pundit-sphere saw this as a fatal weakness, but every attempt at unifying touch and keyboard/mouse interfaces failed miserably. So I'm not concerned about Apple trying to merge iPadOS and MacOS…

Is it really amazing? Everyone has been saying the same from the start about wanting separate mobile and desktop UIs.

Microsoft's tablet strategy was literally to implement a touch first tablet UI in their desktop OS. Meanwhile loads of companies have been trying to merge desktop UI modes into phones since well before the iPhone. Check out Android desktop mode for a recent example. I remember loads of friends of mine for years telling me 'proper' desktop OSes in tablets would kill the iPad.

Re: Unifying iPadOS and macOS

#46

Post by flohofwoe »

Glide wrote: post #13
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…

Counterpoint to this, is that I’ve seen people be reluctant to click where they are not reluctant to touch. That barrier is vital for people who did not grow up with tech to interact and experiment with it. Here’s one question: hover on focus vs click to focus? Hover makes sense if you think of the pointer as a finger.

Those are just different input paradigms that have evolved over time, one isn't inherently superior to the others. Cars have a much more difficult UX than kbd+mouse, touch, gamepad or (Wii-style) point-and-wiggle interfaces, yet the relative difficulty of driving a car for "technical" vs "non-technical" people rarely comes up in discussions.

Re: Unifying iPadOS and macOS

#48

Post by fallenhitokiri »

john_minsk wrote: post #15
retskrad wrote: post #6

I think iPad is the one product that Apple is the most proud of and it shows. The 2021 iPad Pro is the most sophisticated product in Apple's lineup. It's the smoothest, fastest and most elegant software they have ever made. I know some people who used to work at Apple and they said it was clear that Apple wanted to let the Mac die and focus primarily on iPadOS and iOS but regular users and professionals kept buying M…

I would argue that this is just "timing" thing. If we look far enough into the future I would bet that almost 100% of regular tasks should be done not only on iPad, but on iPhone. Human comes to work => docks/AirPlays their system to external monitor => does work in browsers/office apps. We are pretty close to this reality tbh. Mostly software is a limiting factor. As for computer pros...we probably will be forced to…

> Human comes to work => docks/AirPlays their system to > external monitor => does work in browsers/office apps.

This sounds like Samsung DeX?

Re: Unifying iPadOS and macOS

#49

Post by flohofwoe »

mhuffman wrote: post #20
aj3 wrote: post #8

You can hack macOS using macOS, but kids won’t be able to get that level of understanding how OS works on iPadOS. This is bad for IT. Maybe not as dramatic as an existential crisis but it’s certainly a lost opportunity. My friend's daughter is 10 and she could pass job interview for a junior software developer any day simply because her first PC was running Ubuntu (it’s Arch now).

>This is bad for IT. Maybe for how we do IT. But consider the future where 99% of apps are developed on a tablet or phone (for a tablet or phone) using a cloud web interface with mostly low-code or no-code widget drag and drops.

"Low code" and "no code" solutions have existed for as long as computers exist (for instance to automate tasks, author shaders, or describe simple gameplay logic), yet they were always specialized niche solutions and never replaced "freestyle coding". If such a thing has been tried over and over again for half a century but hasn't had a breakthrough and replaced the alternatives I think it's likely that this also won't happen in the next 50 years.

Re: Unifying iPadOS and macOS

#50

Post by rambambram »

mhuffman wrote: post #41
still_grokking wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drag and drop HW drivers, or similar, in a cloud IDE? I'm skeptical.

>Drag and drop HW drivers, or similar, in a cloud IDE? I'm skeptical. Perhaps you are thinking too "now". In the future why would you personally need hardware drivers? Any hardware that you subscribe to (ownership will be a thing of the past) would have factory-installed drivers constantly updated from the few reified "real" programmers that work for a few dozen mega-corporations. For that matter, I could imagine a f…

I just finished reading two articles from Agre and your comments literally make my head hurt now. I'm sorry.
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