raoulduke42

Booooo. Make the mini new-Air or Pro-like. Of all the iPads this wee one would benefit the most from the increased display size to device size ratio of the new-Air/iPad Pro design. And yeah, Lightning connector? No bueno. USB-C is so much more capable.

DAalseth said:

Just spitballing, but I'd love to see Apple release a limited edition Mac Mini in a classic case. M1 Mini guts, a built in 9 inch monitor, but all of the ports on the back so you could drive a couple of big monitors too. The extra space inside would be for slots. Drive slots, card slots, and such to make it a real powerhouse.  

But tis just a dream...

Seems like you could pick up a current Mac mini, a small Thunderbolt 3 to PCI enclosure, and work them into an old Mac Classic case. Finding a 9"4:3 LCD might be a challenge and in the end it wouldn't be exactly your dream... but pretty close!

Edit: I just remembered this fun project— 

So yeah, a more modern iPad would fit better, and what with SideCar we're getting even closer to the dream.

OutdoorAppDeveloper said:

An iPad that could run both iOS and MacOS apps would be a killer product. Perhaps this is why they split iPad OS from iOS.

I wouldn't be surprised if we saw some Silicon MacBook Pros with fancy flippy touch screens (you know they won't just slap a touchscreen on a laptop), what with them being able to run all the iOS and iPadOS apps natively (and Big Sur being obviously touch friendy). Which would make sense. Get a MacBook Pro if you need the most power, and can run all the Apple things, and occasionally flip the screen and use it as a heavy iPad. Get an iPad if you want the most flexibility/portability.

Yeah I doubt it. I can see a future where iOS and iPadOS have better external display support and if you've got an Airplay happy TV or an TV then you could have a virtual trackpad/keyboard on the iPhone or iPad that lets you put two or three apps side by side on that external display and control it like that-- not unlike how you can control an TV right now on your iPhone. But yeah, a whole Mac crammed into mobile devices? Seems like the proverbial toaster/fridge combo they've been strenuously avoiding... and yeah- why would they want people to buy less  hardware?

I submit that we are probably not living at the end of time and technological progress is seldom "settled."

micabe2006 said:

 @narwhal: It may look that way but ALOT more programs are X86/64 The rest of the world decided to settle on x86.