A couple of years ago I suspected they were looking at moving toward a unified platform. As Apple has moved on I see more clearly what they are doing. What's more I think it makes a lot of sense. Keep iOS and macOS separate. Strengthen iOS until many people can just use that. Already I do a lot of work on the iPad. The vastly improved text editing tools in iOS11 allowed me to move most of my writing to the iPad. LumaFusion is a powerful video editing tool. The drawing and graphics tools +ApplePencil are my tools of choice. The selection of iOS games is more than enough for me. I now use my iMac for just finish work, recreation, and things where I need a 27 inch screen. Eventually iOS will be the more powerful platform.
I absolutely love my iPad, and I love my Macs. I don’t want them merged. What I do want, though are some touch features on my MacBooks. I use my iPad Pro with its Smart Keyboard so often that I’ve been conditioned to reach up and use touch gestures on the screen. Out of habit I do the same on my MacBook, where I frequently reach up to pinch-zoom or select things. Having SOME touch features on a MacBook would not kill Apple or compromise the Mac interface. I’m not looking for my MacBook to replace my iPad. I don’t need my MacBook to be as thin, light, or have as long a battery life as my iPad. I still want menus and to use a track pad and mouse on my MacBook. But I also want to be able to reach up and pinch-zoom a photo or select a spreadsheet cell with my finger. And, no, the touch bar is not the right solution. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was at the bottom of the screen, but lying flat against the keyboard makes it difficult to see without moving your focus off of the screen, which is terrible for someone like me who is a touch typist.
I get it...
But, there's a difference between using an iPad with an attached keyboard -- where everything is compressed tightly together and there is very little physical movement needed to go from the keyboard to the screen -- and a larger laptop form factor where you have to stop what you're doing and reach out to use a touch screen...
Frankly, I don't see anything inherently wrong with a touchscreen on a laptop form factor. But neither do I see it as, in any way a necessary feature that would enhance the device.
I think that's why Apple rejected the idea of touch screens on MacBooks and went with the TouchPad thingee. But, that's not to say they can't change. At one time they said "No Big iPhones".
I just don't want Apple combining OS into IOS or the other way around. Mac OS needs to stay with Intel for another reason. The ability to run multiple operating systems such as Windows and linux. The complications of going to there own processors would be immense and would ruin compatibility and capabilities that we have today. So I hope that is also the case.
Mobile and non-moible applications use different principles of design. Some keep forgetting it promoting for example dumb idea and poor designs of one window application on regular computer that can use multiple screens and serves different work purpose than mobile device. That is for mobile where screen is too small because it is for mobile work and it has to be small (BTW when someone relizes that if we have more pixels on small screen with retina resolutions it does not mean we have to buy magnifier to be able to read text and some stylus to type text on those tiny keyboards).
iPads and Macs should have different UIs while having the same features. iPads should be designed to be used like a piece of paper, flat on a table or being held while reading with fingertips or styli for input. Macs should be designed to be used with the display vertical, with the various input devices it has. So I agree with Apple here. So, hopefully, this Marzipan rumor is true and Apple will have a new or modified set of app frameworks that will be supported on iOS and macOS, with some automagic translation of input events.
Where I think Apple is wrong is not driving feature parity between iPads and Macs. There should be better interapp communication, better backgrounding, more types of apps, similar hardware features for iPads. Getting closer with iOS 11, but more work to do.
Yep! iPads lie flat and never stand up. Macs stand up and never lie down.
That's what God ordered... It's in the bible....
Yup!
I’ve been using an iPad Pro 10.5 laid flat on a table using the onscreen keyboard, or hand held, for the past 5 months as a personal computer along with my MBP15 with both its display and an Apple Thunderbolt Display, and have been very satisfied so far.
I would like to see several improvements, there’s always room for improvements.
1. The iOS text selection and trackpads cursor insertion point code is buggy in Safari. When editing a post such as in this Appleinsider forum post editor, you can move the text insertion point using the keyboard as trackpad feature with two simultaneous touches. Sometimes you can’t move the insertion point to the edges of the text box. Then, text or content highlighting is buggy in Safari. It’s like the smart selection feature is running into issues with the HTML code for what constitutes a paragraph, and it messes with manual movement of the text selection handles. They really don’t need the smart selection feature on iPads, so should turn it off, or fix it.
2. Scrolling of text boxes in post editors is buggy, in Safari at least. It’s like the touch zone for grabbing the scroll view inside the text box is miniscule. The touch zone for scrolling inside a text box should be the size of the text box. Safari is also a little buggy in split view with the onscreen keyboard out.
3. The UI doesn’t scale with screen size that well. This is the primary reason that I went with the 10.5 instead of the 12.9. I didn’t think there was enough of a benefit to the 12.9. The onscreen keyboard wasn’t much of an improvement even though the display was bigger. They really need to have overlapping windows, which would make increasingly large displays more productive.
After 5 months, I’m a firm believer that this could work and could completely replace my MBP15. It’s all software related, not hardware. Maybe a couple of hardware things I would like to see are 12” and 15” 5:4 aspect ratio displays for the iPad Pros for more display area for apps while the keyboard is out, and external monitor support. I can see a time, when the iPad UI has overlapping windows, I can plug a 30” external monitor to the iPad, and use the iPad display as the input device with an onscreen keyboard, trackpad, stylus, and who knows what else.
Apple need to produce light low price MAC book call MAChrome so new pencil $299 iPad and similar priced Machrome at lower end especially in education market can compete well with everyone. Than, rest middel to high end iPads and MAC products.
Why? Competing with no profit is pointless. Much like comments with poor grammar and spelling.
So why does Apple Music exist then?
Huh? The services business, of which Apple Music is a part, is profitable and growing.
Apple need to produce light low price MAC book call MAChrome so new pencil $299 iPad and similar priced Machrome at lower end especially in education market can compete well with everyone. Than, rest middel to high end iPads and MAC products.
Why? Competing with no profit is pointless. Much like comments with poor grammar and spelling.
So why does Apple Music exist then?
Huh? The services business, of which Apple Music is a part, is profitable and growing.
I disagree that competing with no profit is pointless -- but only when it comes to education. They should treat education more as an investment -- less as a profit center... but that does not mean compromising on quality... just that they don't mark it up much at all. With a couple of billion dollars invested in educational software (not books, interactive) I think the iPad would be the best alternative (if they allowed for full development on there).
Apple is really starting to bother me. First, Mac updates simply do not happen with enough frequency - regardless of the product. Second, Tim Cook's "Upgrade Fun House", to get a 1TB SSD or more ram is DEFINITELY NOT how I want to buy a computer. And now, making a "MacPad" (an iPad that can run macOS) seems like low hanging fruit, but Apple doesn't want to do it. Apple used to enter existing product categories, innovate them, and be more successful than those that created them. Now .. they have a CEO touting the benefits of "staying in lanes." Apple ... You've become a boring company.
Low-hanging fruit isn’t particularly attractive when it’s hanging off a cliff. Especially when that isn’t necessarily the long-term future of computing.
They’ve been watching Microsoft going over that cliff to pluck the low-hanging fruit, and now they’re watching them hang in there and wonder “Now what?” Surface has been around for a long time now, and for something that purports to be a vision for the future, it really isn’t convincing people (judging by revenues). “Now what? Er...let’s try a new version of Windows RT. It sunk like a stone last time because...people weren’t ready! Yeah.”
Apple tends to watch all sorts of spaces closely and then casually bomb the party once they’ve figured out what’s wrong and fixed it.
MP3 players: too fiddly, annoying to operate.
Phones: see above.
Bluetooth Headsets: see above.
Smart watches: People like to wear nice things.
I think they believe that they’ve already fixed the future of computers with the iPad. A traditional mouse-based interface is not the future. It won’t be going away, but glomming a fixture of the past onto something that’s the future is a short-term aberration, and that’s not where they’re heading.
firelock said: Out of habit I do the same on my MacBook, where I frequently reach up to pinch-zoom or select things. Having SOME touch features on a MacBook would not kill Apple or compromise the Mac interface. I’m not looking for my MacBook to replace my iPad. I don’t need my MacBook to be as thin, light, or have as long a battery life as my iPad. I still want menus and to use a track pad and mouse on my MacBook. But I also want to be able to reach up and pinch-zoom a photo or select a spreadsheet cell with my finger. And, no, the touch bar is not the right solution. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was at the bottom of the screen, but lying flat against the keyboard makes it difficult to see without moving your focus off of the screen, which is terrible for someone like me who is a touch typist.
I do hope as a MacBook user you realise all MacBooks and MacBook Pros released in the past ten years allow pinch to zoom of photos using their built-in trackpads; why else did you think Apple Macs have such large trackpads? Ergonomically it's definitely much less effort and movement for a hand to use the trackpad for pinch to zoom than to lift it onto the screen with the added worry of whether your laptop display stays in position whilst you drag your fingers all over the screen.
iPads and Macs should have different UIs while having the same features. iPads should be designed to be used like a piece of paper, flat on a table or being held while reading with fingertips or styli for input. Macs should be designed to be used with the display vertical, with the various input devices it has. So I agree with Apple here. So, hopefully, this Marzipan rumor is true and Apple will have a new or modified set of app frameworks that will be supported on iOS and macOS, with some automagic translation of input events.
Where I think Apple is wrong is not driving feature parity between iPads and Macs. There should be better interapp communication, better backgrounding, more types of apps, similar hardware features for iPads. Getting closer with iOS 11, but more work to do.
Yep! iPads lie flat and never stand up. Macs stand up and never lie down.
That's what God ordered... It's in the bible....
Yup!
I’ve been using an iPad Pro 10.5 laid flat on a table using the onscreen keyboard, or hand held, for the past 5 months as a personal computer along with my MBP15 with both its display and an Apple Thunderbolt Display, and have been very satisfied so far.
I would like to see several improvements, there’s always room for improvements.
1. The iOS text selection and trackpads cursor insertion point code is buggy in Safari. When editing a post such as in this Appleinsider forum post editor, you can move the text insertion point using the keyboard as trackpad feature with two simultaneous touches. Sometimes you can’t move the insertion point to the edges of the text box. Then, text or content highlighting is buggy in Safari. It’s like the smart selection feature is running into issues with the HTML code for what constitutes a paragraph, and it messes with manual movement of the text selection handles. They really don’t need the smart selection feature on iPads, so should turn it off, or fix it.
2. Scrolling of text boxes in post editors is buggy, in Safari at least. It’s like the touch zone for grabbing the scroll view inside the text box is miniscule. The touch zone for scrolling inside a text box should be the size of the text box. Safari is also a little buggy in split view with the onscreen keyboard out.
3. The UI doesn’t scale with screen size that well. This is the primary reason that I went with the 10.5 instead of the 12.9. I didn’t think there was enough of a benefit to the 12.9. The onscreen keyboard wasn’t much of an improvement even though the display was bigger. They really need to have overlapping windows, which would make increasingly large displays more productive.
After 5 months, I’m a firm believer that this could work and could completely replace my MBP15. It’s all software related, not hardware. Maybe a couple of hardware things I would like to see are 12” and 15” 5:4 aspect ratio displays for the iPad Pros for more display area for apps while the keyboard is out, and external monitor support. I can see a time, when the iPad UI has overlapping windows, I can plug a 30” external monitor to the iPad, and use the iPad display as the input device with an onscreen keyboard, trackpad, stylus, and who knows what else.
It's curious you mention the post editor on AI.
I've been having all kinds of problems with the post editor for months. Not only here but the problems are much more notable on this site.
I thought it was an Android, Chrome/gBoard thing and struggled on. I wonder if more people are seeing issues like these in the post editor:
Unable to select passages of text using sliders. A double tap will select a word and multiple taps a paragraph. Out of the post editor, selection sliders work as expected.
If the first word in a post is auto corrected it gets moved into the quoted text and is impossible to get the text insertion point out of it.
If you accidentally tap inside the quoted text before writing your reply in the non quoted area, the insertion point jumps into the quoted text as in the previous example and is impossible to move from there.
Using auto correct is so unreliable as to be unusable. Sometimes it will refuse to substitute the word for the one you choose. Other times, it ads random characters to what you have typed. Sometimes it will destroy a whole sentence but there are times it does work.
Lastly, very often I think I'm replying to one person but when the post is finally processed, it shows the original quote was from someone else.
My keyboard isn't a regular setup as I use three languages simultaneously and autocorrect all three.
In regular use WhatsApp etc the keyboard behaviour is perfect.
I’d still like to have an iPad with all the workings of an iPhone along with an Apple Watch and a pair of EarPods. Eliminating the need for the separate phone. I have no need for the massive computing power of a Mac but I need more screen than an iPhone offers. Presently I must have the iPhone to operate the Apple Watch! Why?
Ever heard of the Apple Watch series 3?? No phone needed.....
Heard of it? I have one. You need to pair it to a phone to set it up, update the OS, install Apps, oh and at present if your phone isn't connected to the telecoms infrastructure, the LTE features of the watch won't work. (I presume this last is a limitation set by the carriers, and could be fixed with a firmware update if they ever get the go ahead. The rest of it still stands, though.)
Ah, also your iPhone is required to be on and connected to the Internet all the time for iMessage and text to work. I have Apple Watch Series 3 myself, I turn off my iPhone. After it’s off, iMessage and text won’t work.
I've been a Mac lover since my first Mac in 1990—a Mac IIx. Since 1991, I've been hearing from PC DOS and Windows users that Apple will fail, and the Mac will never last… It's been almost 30 years since I first heard that, and it sounds like Apple is STILL in good hands.
I just went through the frustrating experience of replacing my mid-2010 MacBook Pro (I didn't want to lose my 17" screen) with a new refurbished one—no, not an oxymoron, it was a December 2018 model someone had returned… Thanks for that, whoever you are!!
I'm frustrated because I think they've gotten too expensive, and I like being able to hardware upgrade myself. I don't want to pay a few thousand dollars extra to have a 4TB internal SSD, when I can pay a few hundred and put one in myself.
However, I do understand the convenience to Apple of of soldering certain parts of the MBP innards to the motherboard. It means fewer calls/tickets demanding Apple replace a "broken" system because someone—who didn't know what they were doing—opened up their Mac and fiddled around inside it.
Thanks for THAT, whoever YOU are.
All of that aside, one of my biggest fears over the last couple of decades, almost, has been that Apple would decide to combine the two platforms into one, primarily iOS, system. Thankfully, that does not appear to be in the cards and I, for one, couldn't be more relieved.
My latest MBP may have been seriously expensive, but I will still never buy a Windows machine. I'm just so relieved I won't have to run an iOS on my Mac in a year or two.
I've been a Mac lover since my first Mac in 1990—a Mac IIx. Since 1991, I've been hearing from PC DOS and Windows users that Apple will fail, and the Mac will never last… It's been almost 30 years since I first heard that, and it sounds like Apple is STILL in good hands.
I just went through the frustrating experience of replacing my mid-2010 MacBook Pro (I didn't want to lose my 17" screen) with a new refurbished one—no, not an oxymoron, it was a December 2018 model someone had returned… Thanks for that, whoever you are!!
I'm frustrated because I think they've gotten too expensive, and I like being able to hardware upgrade myself. I don't want to pay a few thousand dollars extra to have a 4TB internal SSD, when I can pay a few hundred and put one in myself.
However, I do understand the convenience to Apple of of soldering certain parts of the MBP innards to the motherboard. It means fewer calls/tickets demanding Apple replace a "broken" system because someone—who didn't know what they were doing—opened up their Mac and fiddled around inside it.
Thanks for THAT, whoever YOU are.
All of that aside, one of my biggest fears over the last couple of decades, almost, has been that Apple would decide to combine the two platforms into one, primarily iOS, system. Thankfully, that does not appear to be in the cards and I, for one, couldn't be more relieved.
My latest MBP may have been seriously expensive, but I will still never buy a Windows machine. I'm just so relieved I won't have to run an iOS on my Mac in a year or two.
And were can you get a 4TB (a performance oriented one to boot) for a couple hundred. I installed 4TB (2 x 2TB) in a DIY build (Samsung EVO not PRO) and it cost probably around $1600.
Comments
As Apple has moved on I see more clearly what they are doing. What's more I think it makes a lot of sense.
Keep iOS and macOS separate.
Strengthen iOS until many people can just use that.
Already I do a lot of work on the iPad. The vastly improved text editing tools in iOS11 allowed me to move most of my writing to the iPad. LumaFusion is a powerful video editing tool. The drawing and graphics tools +ApplePencil are my tools of choice. The selection of iOS games is more than enough for me. I now use my iMac for just finish work, recreation, and things where I need a 27 inch screen.
Eventually iOS will be the more powerful platform.
Yup!
I’ve been using an iPad Pro 10.5 laid flat on a table using the onscreen keyboard, or hand held, for the past 5 months as a personal computer along with my MBP15 with both its display and an Apple Thunderbolt Display, and have been very satisfied so far.
I would like to see several improvements, there’s always room for improvements.
1. The iOS text selection and trackpads cursor insertion point code is buggy in Safari. When editing a post such as in this Appleinsider forum post editor, you can move the text insertion point using the keyboard as trackpad feature with two simultaneous touches. Sometimes you can’t move the insertion point to the edges of the text box. Then, text or content highlighting is buggy in Safari. It’s like the smart selection feature is running into issues with the HTML code for what constitutes a paragraph, and it messes with manual movement of the text selection handles. They really don’t need the smart selection feature on iPads, so should turn it off, or fix it.
2. Scrolling of text boxes in post editors is buggy, in Safari at least. It’s like the touch zone for grabbing the scroll view inside the text box is miniscule. The touch zone for scrolling inside a text box should be the size of the text box. Safari is also a little buggy in split view with the onscreen keyboard out.
3. The UI doesn’t scale with screen size that well. This is the primary reason that I went with the 10.5 instead of the 12.9. I didn’t think there was enough of a benefit to the 12.9. The onscreen keyboard wasn’t much of an improvement even though the display was bigger. They really need to have overlapping windows, which would make increasingly large displays more productive.
After 5 months, I’m a firm believer that this could work and could completely replace my MBP15. It’s all software related, not hardware. Maybe a couple of hardware things I would like to see are 12” and 15” 5:4 aspect ratio displays for the iPad Pros for more display area for apps while the keyboard is out, and external monitor support. I can see a time, when the iPad UI has overlapping windows, I can plug a 30” external monitor to the iPad, and use the iPad display as the input device with an onscreen keyboard, trackpad, stylus, and who knows what else.
They’ve been watching Microsoft going over that cliff to pluck the low-hanging fruit, and now they’re watching them hang in there and wonder “Now what?”
Surface has been around for a long time now, and for something that purports to be a vision for the future, it really isn’t convincing people (judging by revenues). “Now what? Er...let’s try a new version of Windows RT. It sunk like a stone last time because...people weren’t ready! Yeah.”
Apple tends to watch all sorts of spaces closely and then casually bomb the party once they’ve figured out what’s wrong and fixed it.
MP3 players: too fiddly, annoying to operate.
Phones: see above.
Bluetooth Headsets: see above.
Smart watches: People like to wear nice things.
I think they believe that they’ve already fixed the future of computers with the iPad. A traditional mouse-based interface is not the future. It won’t be going away, but glomming a fixture of the past onto something that’s the future is a short-term aberration, and that’s not where they’re heading.
I've been having all kinds of problems with the post editor for months. Not only here but the problems are much more notable on this site.
I thought it was an Android, Chrome/gBoard thing and struggled on. I wonder if more people are seeing issues like these in the post editor:
Unable to select passages of text using sliders. A double tap will select a word and multiple taps a paragraph. Out of the post editor, selection sliders work as expected.
If the first word in a post is auto corrected it gets moved into the quoted text and is impossible to get the text insertion point out of it.
If you accidentally tap inside the quoted text before writing your reply in the non quoted area, the insertion point jumps into the quoted text as in the previous example and is impossible to move from there.
Using auto correct is so unreliable as to be unusable. Sometimes it will refuse to substitute the word for the one you choose. Other times, it ads random characters to what you have typed. Sometimes it will destroy a whole sentence but there are times it does work.
Lastly, very often I think I'm replying to one person but when the post is finally processed, it shows the original quote was from someone else.
My keyboard isn't a regular setup as I use three languages simultaneously and autocorrect all three.
In regular use WhatsApp etc the keyboard behaviour is perfect.
I just went through the frustrating experience of replacing my mid-2010 MacBook Pro (I didn't want to lose my 17" screen) with a new refurbished one—no, not an oxymoron, it was a December 2018 model someone had returned… Thanks for that, whoever you are!!
I'm frustrated because I think they've gotten too expensive, and I like being able to hardware upgrade myself. I don't want to pay a few thousand dollars extra to have a 4TB internal SSD, when I can pay a few hundred and put one in myself.
However, I do understand the convenience to Apple of of soldering certain parts of the MBP innards to the motherboard. It means fewer calls/tickets demanding Apple replace a "broken" system because someone—who didn't know what they were doing—opened up their Mac and fiddled around inside it.
Thanks for THAT, whoever YOU are.
All of that aside, one of my biggest fears over the last couple of decades, almost, has been that Apple would decide to combine the two platforms into one, primarily iOS, system. Thankfully, that does not appear to be in the cards and I, for one, couldn't be more relieved.
My latest MBP may have been seriously expensive, but I will still never buy a Windows machine. I'm just so relieved I won't have to run an iOS on my Mac in a year or two.