Steve Troughton-SmithIf Apple's afraid of eating into Mac sales by putting macOS on iPad, *just* put the Hypervisor and Virtualization frameworks on iPadOS so third parties like Parallels can virtualize Windows 11 or Linux instead. Windows, at least, is much better suited for a touchscreen than macOS is. Let the developer/userbase validate the concept if you won’t — is a virtual desktop good or bad for the iPad platform?
Cesare Forelli@stroughtonsmith thing is, the answer is so clearly that more choice is good, so the part of the company against it doesn’t want to hear the response
KRSX@stroughtonsmith Without stuff like Docker/Podman the iPad will never be attractive for many kinds of developers. So yes. Long overdue.
Corbin Davenport@stroughtonsmith apple doesn't get 30% of your purchases from a windows VM though!
Fabian Pimminger@stroughtonsmith I think the issue is that if that happens, Apple’s services revenue would (potentially) decline because virtualized apps are not using the App Store (30% cut). Modern Apple would never 😐
Jonathan@stroughtonsmith the real problem is Apple wants all the devices they sell except the Mac (and that’s only because they realistically can’t change that) to only have the App Store as a way to get apps. That’s the reason why they don’t want us to be able to use MacOS or any other OS on the iPad.
@stroughtonsmith the reason is not technical it’s ideological (and probably financial). That’s why we’ll never be able to use Apple devices except the Mac to their fullest potential.
Joe Rodricks@stroughtonsmith or require a Mac be logged in the same iCloud account to use macOS on iPad.
bergmayer@stroughtonsmith the one thing keeping me from being able to do all my work (as opposed to stuff like running a Plex server or Amiga emulation) is that desktop Word has necessary features for legal briefs and iPad / web Word don’t. Windows ARM in a VM would be fine. Like dropping down to the terminal to run a script
Ant Cooper@stroughtonsmith this would SO GOOD and allow me to switch to the iPad full time. Apple would still get my share of hardware cash as I’d willing splash out for a high end iPad Pro if I could truly use it for development.
@stroughtonsmith Also... surely allowing VMs on iPadOS is way for the few that need it to run more powerful tools and the 95% who are happy with a 'big iPhone' OS can carry on blissfully unaware and not subject to yet another rework of multi-tasking etc
Owen 🇦🇺@stroughtonsmith Government legislation may need to force Apple’s hand on making iPad Pro support VMs if Apple is unwilling to allow it. This would bring more competition to the platform. I suspect a major reason Apple still hasn’t allowed VMs is that doing so could threaten to reduce Apple’s services profits.