I ’ve never feel the need to choose between the iPad and the Mac . I practice and prize them both . But over the last few years , it ’s started to experience like both the Mac and the iPad are more and more specify by an artificial barrier that Apple has placed between them .
The iPad has slowly become more Mac - ilk without ever really reaching the promised solid ground . The Mac , meanwhile , has flush it to break up up many features from the iPad .
I admire the discipline Apple has had in keep its product lines separate , but it feel like that decision is set about to harm the futures of both products . The Mac and the iPad are on a collision line , and I ’m concerned that they ’re both about to run into the brick wall that Apple has erected between them .
Apple makes attempts to develop iPadOS into its own, with mixed results.
Not quite a Mac
In the iPad Pro earned run average ( i.e. , the last eight geezerhood ) , Apple has put a raft of effort into build Mac - like features into iPadOS . Rather than just bump off Mac feature , Apple has sample to reinvent that functionality in an iPad context of use .
Foundry
When it work well , as it did with the 2020 addition of cursor support , it can be a victory . But too often , the accession seem limited or partial in slipway that wait on to highlight how much more powerful the Mac is . Files is like Finder , but more limited . Stage Manager is like Mac windowing , but more limited . Some fundamentals of iPadOS ( like the audio recording subsystem , which can only play from a undivided app at a time and ca n’t platter system or app audio frequency ) were build for the special domain of the iPhone and apparently never revisit .
Apple makes attempts to develop iPadOS into its own, with mixed results.
And , of course , even with full keyboard and trackpad support , the closest iPadOS has been allowed to issue forth to a MacBook is with lend - on accessories like the Magic Keyboard . AniPadOS - base laptop computer might be deserving trying , but it never will exist because it infringes on the Mac ’s sward .
One MacBook, no exceptions
While the iPad has always particularize in flexible bioengineering , the design of the MacBook line has been immobilise in amber since the early 2010s . you’re able to bribe legion Windows - base laptops that experiment with ergonomics in interesting ways that break out the laptop paradigm of two for good attached rectangles . While those PCs can be weird , they also offer a tier of ergonomic flexibility that the Mac ca n’t . MacBooks are laptops , and that ’s all they are allow to be .
Of naturally , it ’s hard to be a convertible mobile computer if there ’s no manner to control the gadget without a keyboard and trackpad . Rumor has it that Apple might finally tote up a touchscreen to MacBooks in a couple of years – which would be an globe - shake development if PCs had n’t had them for eld now . The addition of the Apple Pencil has been another big boost for the iPad , but the Mac can only utilise one if you connect it to an iPad and draw on the iPad ’s screen .
Still , the Mac has all the power and flexibleness that the iPad – even the iPad Pro – lacks . I can do every panorama of my caper on a MacBook Air from pretty much anywhere in the universe . Podcasting alone wee-wee that a no - go for the iPad Pro , and there are legion other features on the iPad Pro that are just not quite as powerful or compromising as those on macOS .
Apple’s paradigm for the MacBook hasn’t changed in decades. Maybe it’s time.
Let’s explore the middle
Sometimes I reckon back at all the effort Apple has made with the iPad Pro and wonder if it was worth it . All the additions of Mac - ish feature have added complexness that ’s plausibly lose on most users of iPadOS , and the power user for whom they were intended are probably well cognisant of all the means they do n’t really match up the Mac feature they ’re duplicating .
I want to see what happen when the wall get along down . Today ’s iPad Pro is power by the same chip that ’s in the MacBook Air . Would it be such a calamity if I could just boot that iPad into macOS or go macOS inside a practical machine ?
Likewise , what if the Mac had a touchscreen and Apple Pencil support and came in shapes that were n’t the traditional laptop ? What if the Mac began to offer the ergonomic flexibility that iPadOS is so good at ? What if I ripped the keyboard off a MacBook and had the option to switch to a touch - base mode that was essentially iPadOS ?
I ’m not quite saying that macOS and iPadOS need to merge together . But I am set out to wonder if users would be better serve if the iPad Pro could be more like a Mac and the MacBook could be more like an iPad Pro . ( Of course , in this scenario , there would also still be traditional laptops persist macOS and lower - last iPads running iPadOS ) .
For days now , Apple has pushed the iPad Pro up into a neither - Pisces - nor - fowl outer space where , as hard as it try , it ca n’t ever be a Mac . Meanwhile , the Mac ca n’t ever be an iPad . It feel like the clock time has come for the barrier to follow down and for Apple to allow these two product line spread their wings . As long as the Mac and the iPad are n’t allowed to use the strengths of one another , I dread that neither will become the good version of themselves .
