New iPad pro M4 would make more sense with macOS | Hacker News Reader

New iPad pro M4 would make more sense with macOS

12 pointshamzazafridi14 comments

Like so many others I also think the new ipad pro m4 is an overkill. With this form factor and power, if it was running macOS, possibilities of the thing you can do with it are endless. The form factor will make things more appealing!

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A touch based OS is fundamentally different from a mouse based OS. There’s much to improve in ipadOS, but making it macOS is not a solution. What I’d like is more interoperability (files) between apps instead of them having their silo. And less restrictions about building your own apps (if someone wants a virtualization app to run macOS, let them be)

Steve Jobs said the last area of complexity they needed to solve for was the file system, as many users found it confusing. From what I understand, this is why iOS and iPadOS were app based instead of file based. Eventually they got a file browser, but it took years and a lot of bad and weird conventions were established before that happened.

When asked about the keyboard being confusing for people back in the 80s, Jobs said death would take care of it. If he has that same view on the file system, iOS and iPad OS would probably look very different today.

Before, workflows happened outside of computers, so integration was not required. The computer was a tool used in specific part of those workflows, and each app was discrete. Now we have lots of thing happening digitally and often whole workflows start and end on the computer. Data processing should be continuous and not discrete steps. A good solution I've seen is the File provider API [1]. One example is Working Copy. Each repository you clone is available from the Files app. An app like Textastic can then link a folder or a file to its working space. But so many apps (PDF Experts) are reluctant to add that (local files, not online storage).

[1]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/fileprovider

With iOS and iPadOS Apple created a new way make money even after they sell you the device, i.e the app store, every app purchase or other in app transactions that you do on these devices makes Apple money and this is not the case with macOS where people can buy software from any source without giving Apple anything. So I don't think macOS will ever come to iPad.

We as consumer loves the idea of "one device that does everything" but that's not what tech companies want.

Does anyone want a Palm like pad? I feel pads like iPad is trying to do too much that they are essentially computers.

I'd like something that plans things for me, shows a well designed calendar, can show epub/pdf files, a simple text editor to write my thoughts and save as text files, a screen size of iPad mini, and with no Internet.

Wait! Let's get a cheap Android pad then -- but then the preinstalled softwares are a headache to remove. Is there a Linux pad available?

What you want is Apple Configurator. You can create profiles for your devices that can reduce it to the subset you want.

> Is there a Linux pad available?

May be this: https://us.starlabs.systems/pages/starlite

Can’t you just delete the apps you don’t want, install the ones you do, and then turn off the WiFi?

Builtins cannot be removed without rooting the device I believe.

There are a few that can't be, but most of them can be removed now (and re-downloaded from the App Store if needed again). Those that can't be can still be removed from the home screen, so they only live in the App Library.

How would Apple then sell any of their MacBook Air range? (I don’t mean this as a criticism of Apple either - they need to differentiate their products somehow, and giving the iPad Pro MacOS would simply cannibalize their own products).

“If you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will” - Steve Jobs

WWDC might reveal some innovations to give us a path for iPads to merge into useful laptops.

Or they might reveal exciting new sticker packs for Messages.app

This is already true for a few generations really. Either that or a less restricted iOS would work too. But Mac OS is better.

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