iPad Pro & MacBook Air get mashed up into the MacBook Apple won't make

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The iPad is pretty great, and so is the MacBook Air. This creator thought they'd be even better if they were combined to make the ultimate convertible Apple computer.

Why settle for an iPad or a MacBook when you can have both?

People love the M4 iPad Pro because it's super portable and incredibly performant. But there are still times when a Mac makes the most sense for a ton of people.

That's why it's great that Apple offers iPads and laptops that do different things for different people. But YouTuber ShuCanTech wanted to see what would happen if the two devices were merged, mixing the best of both worlds.

The result is similar to the Tablet PCs of the turn of the century -- a touchscreen display that can be removed, turning into a tablet as it goes.

In this case, the display is actually an iPad Pro running iPadOS.

Attaching an iPad to a MacBook's keyboard is one thing, but this video goes a step further. While iPadOS is fine, it isn't macOS. So what if you could run both?

That's where the magic happens.

"Is it a tablet, is it laptop? No, it's super-Mac!"

You can watch the full video to get the lowdown on exactly what happened, but you'll need to speak Chinese to get the best from it. It's fairly easy to follow along regardless, and it's still a great watch.

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From what we can see, the creator took the display off a M1 MacBook Air and 3D printed a mechanism that would allow an iPad Pro to replace it. So far, so good.

But things get really interesting when they dock the iPad Pro and hit a shortcut to enable "MacBook mode."

It isn't clear exactly what that mode does, other than invoke SideCar or similar, but the result is a fully functional macOS experience on the iPad Pro display. The result is impressive -- including passthrough Apple Pencil support.

The result is a hybrid machine that runs macOS when it's a laptop and switches to iPadOS when its display is removed.

The best of both worlds? You bet, and now we've seen it, we really need Apple to make it.



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tht

As I recall, Apple patented this implementation, or applied for it, over 15 years ago. 

When they were prototyping the iPad, all these type of modular computer hardware ideas, like inserting a tablet into an iMac enclosure to provide a large screen and this one involving removing the laptop display and turning it into a tablet. 

Federico Viticci already did this 2 years ago as well, it’s functional, with an iPad, MBA, and some hacks for the hinge and magnetic latching. 

mfryd

An easier implementation would be to put the M4 iPad on Apple's Magic Keyboard.  That gets you a keyboard and trackpad.   That's basically the same hardware as a MacBook Air, but with the addition of the touchscreen.

The trick is to jailbreak the iPad, or to get Apple to allow us to run Mac OSX on it.   OS-X already supports running iPad apps.  A lot of people would really love the option of running OS-X on a suitably configured iPad.

mike wuerthele

mfryd said:

An easier implementation would be to put the M4 iPad on Apple's Magic Keyboard.  That gets you a keyboard and trackpad.   That's basically the same hardware as a MacBook Air, but with the addition of the touchscreen.

The trick is to jailbreak the iPad, or to get Apple to allow us to run Mac OSX on it.   OS-X already supports running iPad apps.  A lot of people would really love the option of running OS-X on a suitably configured iPad.

I would love to be able to dual-boot an iPad into macOS. 

I also don't think it's ever going to happen.

dewme

The iPad is a wonderful and nearly perfect device for the use cases it was designed to serve.  The MacBook Air/Pro is a wonderful and nearly perfect device for the use cases it was designed to serve. Personally, I'd rather pay to own two devices that are each perfect for their intended use rather than a compromise device that can't do both jobs perfectly. If I wanted that, I'd buy a Surface Pro, a good PC but shitty tablet.

However, I have no problems with Apple allowing macOS to run on iPad, but only as long as I'm not paying more for or losing any iPad functionality in the process. I'm sure there are a some folks who would like it. Good for them. 

I think Apple would get more bang for their buck by developing a device-focused Family Sharing feature for the iPad devices. This would allow multiple family members to share a single iPad without exposing the iPad owner to the risks associated with sharing Apple Account and iCloud credentials with other users. Of course there would be storage allocation limits, differentiation of use account types, and other technicalities to be overcome. But many of these issues have already been addressed in the educational use of iPads. The software-focused and cloud storage features provided by the existing Family Sharing features would play very nicely with a device-focused Family Sharing plan.