Steve Troughton-SmithMay 8, 2024

When I finally pull the trigger, a new 13" iPad Pro w/ 16GB RAM, keyboard & stylus is gonna cost me €3,107. It would be by far the most powerful computer I own.

That's more than twice as much as what I paid for the Mac mini I do *all my development on*. It even beats out my high-end gaming PC whose GPU alone was €1800.

All of that goes to waste because it’s paired with a simplified, stripped-down OS using the same technology stack and limitations as a $300 Netflix device for your grandparents

Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithMay 8, 2024

There are 2 ways out:

Either investment in iPadOS is massively expanded to bring the OS & capabilities up to par with macOS (which is still a moving target, not a legacy OS), fixing all the half-working, flakey re-implementations of the last 14 years.

Or iPadOS leans on Apple's virtualization stack to run macOS as an app, with native performance and graphics, a la 'Classic' mode on Mac OS X, immediately ending all the angst you see about iPad, and buying an infinite runway for no. 1 to happen

Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithMay 8, 2024
All of the counter-arguments for some form of macOS on iPad have fallen away over the past 14 years. The hardware is the same exact hardware that runs the Mac lineup. iPadOS is now a platform with keyboard, mouse and external display support. It already has a mode to shrink UI elements down dramatically beyond what would traditionally make for safe touch targets. Mac and iPad apps today share an awful lot of code, if not entire codebases, and it all transparently/freely syncs between devices
Show threadRj
@stroughtonsmith False. There is nowhere near enough RAM in most iPads to run MacOS in a VM and insufficient to create a compelling experience in even the most expensive current models.
May 10, 2024 at 3:19amWeb
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithMay 10, 2024

@rjvs my development workstation has the same amount of RAM as the current iPad Pro. I run macOS VMs on it all the time, alongside the iOS Simulator and visionOS Simulator.

In short: nonsense

Show threadRjMay 11, 2024
@stroughtonsmith okay, I’ll grant you that the current top-of-the line 16Gb iPad Pro might have enough memory, if swap is fast enough on iPad… but that still leaves every other model they are currently selling, along with every other iPad that exists.