jdb8167

Got excited for a moment but then read that it was an Arm64 emulated on a x86-64 CPU on Linux. Why not use an M1 Mac with QEMU’s hvf accelerator to virtualize MacOS at nearly native speed. Oh well, maybe there is enough info in the paper to do this. I’ll check it out. 

melgross said:

jdb8167 said:

crowley said:

jdb8167 said:

melgross said:

J0na17anT98 said:

Slide said up to 16gb of ram. M1 has 8gb of ram minimum. macOS requires 8gb of ram to run. Maybe someone will get macOS or windows on arm running on this new iPad Pro. That would be epic!

I wish people would stop asking for macOS on an iPad. It’s not feasible. We see from Microsoft’s attempts in that with Windows. Look at your Mac, whichever one it is, and figure than in a 13” screen, with you trying to poke those tiny elements with your finger. It’s almost impossible. In order for Microsoft to have done that they had to run the high resolution screen at a lower resolution for the Desktop to be usable with a stylus, which is a necessity for that. But you really do need a keyboard there, with a mouse or trackpad. For iPadOS, those are considered as speciality devices, not normally needed for the Desktop or most software.

so if you’re going to need a keyboard and pointing device, from wanting macOS on an iPad, you might as well buy a device that’s already designed for it, which is a Mac notebook. And yes, I’d like my 13” M1 Macbook Pro to have a touchscreen too, but that may never happen.

I think Apple should release MacOS on the iPad Pro as an app. The M1 has support for virtualization—a first for an iPad SoC. Virtualizing MacOS would maintain the iPadOS walled garden but still allow for access to virtualized hardware like the Thunderbolt port and external displays. The Mac file system would be sandboxed to a single “on my iPad” directory but allow a full Mac Finder for that folder hierarchy and also iCloud access. 

All this could be done with minimal work and would make the objections about GUI target size moot. If you need MacOS on your iPad you install it and use it with a magic keyboard. I already use third-party tools to access my Mac as a Remote Desktop. That has the same limitations and works just fine. Inconvenient without a keyboard and trackpad but perfectly usable with them. 

  

Sure it could.

Not sure I understand your comment. Do you think creating a VM with the built-in hypervisor is difficult? It shouldn’t be. MacOS is already ported to the M1 so just hardware access needs to be virtualized. Parallels has done this in less than a year on the M1 Macs for Windows and Linux. You can get open-source QEmu that also does it. Why would Apple have any trouble?

That’s not the important question. The question is why, and nobody has given a good reason, just some jumbled ideas that aren’t even correct.

Because many people would love the simplicity of the iPad for their most used daily activities. But sometimes you need a more sophisticated/complicated system. I agree that it is a relatively small niche and I would never support the idea of putting macOS on an iPad on par with iPadOS. But as a user, if I can install macOS as an app for a few niche uses, it is a total win. I can ditch my mostly unused MacBook and use the iPad Pro for everything, all the time.

The beauty of installing macOS as a virtual machine as an App Store application is that it doesn't change the nature of the iPad at all. Even if you have it installed, outside of taking up a fairly serious amount of SSD, you won't notice it until you need an application that only runs on macOS. It expands the potential iPad user base which is good for all of us that love the iPad. I'm a developer, I can't use the iPad Pro as my primary computer even though I want to. I don't just write software using Xcode but use a variety of different tools. I literally can't use an iPad Pro as my primary computer because there is no way to use the tools I need. If macOS was virtualized under iPadOS, I could literally never need an MacBook ever again. I will still need a desktop macOS computer but that isn't a change, I could never do all my work with just a notebook.

I want my iPad Pro to be my only mobile system. Given the current environment, I can't use it the way I want. I don't want to change the iPad--I love the iPad for its simplicity and the cohesion of iOS & iPadOS apps. It is a better system for most than macOS but there is some software that will never work with the existing iPadOS restrictions and that limits its scope. With a macOS VM, the issues go away. Mac users can continue to buy MacBooks but iPadOS can start making inroads in the areas where it currently doesn't work well. I personally can't see any downside.

crowley said:

jdb8167 said:

melgross said:

J0na17anT98 said:

Slide said up to 16gb of ram. M1 has 8gb of ram minimum. macOS requires 8gb of ram to run. Maybe someone will get macOS or windows on arm running on this new iPad Pro. That would be epic!

I wish people would stop asking for macOS on an iPad. It’s not feasible. We see from Microsoft’s attempts in that with Windows. Look at your Mac, whichever one it is, and figure than in a 13” screen, with you trying to poke those tiny elements with your finger. It’s almost impossible. In order for Microsoft to have done that they had to run the high resolution screen at a lower resolution for the Desktop to be usable with a stylus, which is a necessity for that. But you really do need a keyboard there, with a mouse or trackpad. For iPadOS, those are considered as speciality devices, not normally needed for the Desktop or most software.

so if you’re going to need a keyboard and pointing device, from wanting macOS on an iPad, you might as well buy a device that’s already designed for it, which is a Mac notebook. And yes, I’d like my 13” M1 Macbook Pro to have a touchscreen too, but that may never happen.

I think Apple should release MacOS on the iPad Pro as an app. The M1 has support for virtualization—a first for an iPad SoC. Virtualizing MacOS would maintain the iPadOS walled garden but still allow for access to virtualized hardware like the Thunderbolt port and external displays. The Mac file system would be sandboxed to a single “on my iPad” directory but allow a full Mac Finder for that folder hierarchy and also iCloud access. 

All this could be done with minimal work and would make the objections about GUI target size moot. If you need MacOS on your iPad you install it and use it with a magic keyboard. I already use third-party tools to access my Mac as a Remote Desktop. That has the same limitations and works just fine. Inconvenient without a keyboard and trackpad but perfectly usable with them. 

  

Sure it could.

Not sure I understand your comment. Do you think creating a VM with the built-in hypervisor is difficult? It shouldn’t be. MacOS is already ported to the M1 so just hardware access needs to be virtualized. Parallels has done this in less than a year on the M1 Macs for Windows and Linux. You can get open-source QEmu that also does it. Why would Apple have any trouble?

melgross said:

J0na17anT98 said:

Slide said up to 16gb of ram. M1 has 8gb of ram minimum. macOS requires 8gb of ram to run. Maybe someone will get macOS or windows on arm running on this new iPad Pro. That would be epic!

I wish people would stop asking for macOS on an iPad. It’s not feasible. We see from Microsoft’s attempts in that with Windows. Look at your Mac, whichever one it is, and figure than in a 13” screen, with you trying to poke those tiny elements with your finger. It’s almost impossible. In order for Microsoft to have done that they had to run the high resolution screen at a lower resolution for the Desktop to be usable with a stylus, which is a necessity for that. But you really do need a keyboard there, with a mouse or trackpad. For iPadOS, those are considered as speciality devices, not normally needed for the Desktop or most software.

so if you’re going to need a keyboard and pointing device, from wanting macOS on an iPad, you might as well buy a device that’s already designed for it, which is a Mac notebook. And yes, I’d like my 13” M1 Macbook Pro to have a touchscreen too, but that may never happen.

I think Apple should release MacOS on the iPad Pro as an app. The M1 has support for virtualization—a first for an iPad SoC. Virtualizing MacOS would maintain the iPadOS walled garden but still allow for access to virtualized hardware like the Thunderbolt port and external displays. The Mac file system would be sandboxed to a single “on my iPad” directory but allow a full Mac Finder for that folder hierarchy and also iCloud access. 

hodar said:

So, basically Parallels remains a waste of money for anyone who bought an M1 Mac.

Rehash MY user case; which is probably a significant number of user cases.  Why did I buy Parallels?  Why pay $$ for this program?

So, I can have the CAPABILITY to boot, and run WindowsXP, Windows 7 and Windows10 disk images, and either run programs on my Mac that are not available outside of the Windows environment, so I can play old games I purchased before I switched to the Apple ecosystem, and so I can play more games (emulation mode, which is surprisingly good) on my Mac, and play online with my friends who use PC games.  Open Parallels, run any version of Windows I chose, launch Steam and play online games with my friends (games that are not available on the Mac.

For work, Excel on Windows has the capability to allow me to write scripts in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA); for reasons I don not understand, these advanced libraries are simply not available for the Mac community.  So, while my Excel workbooks have ~60,000 lines of VBA to allow it to link into the corporate database and dateline quality assessment info, I cannot do the same thing with my MSFT Office license for Mac.  So, I have 2 different licenses.

Now, I have no choice but have multiple computers at home.  Because programs that USED TO work flawlessly, no longer function at all.

Most of your x86 and x86-64 software should work on Window on Arm through Microsoft’s compatibility software. It works like Rosetta 2 does on the M1. The biggest problems are that you can only get WoA through Microsoft’s early access program right now. No one knows if that will change and Microsoft isn’t saying much of anything. Also, x86-64 compatibility is currently only through the fast-track updates.

Until Microsoft allows sales of WoA, I wouldn’t buy an M1 to run Windows software in Parallels. It’s nice that Parallels for the M1 exists though.