Why running macOS on an iPad isn’t the obvious solution that the corporate tech press thinks it is
Let’s dissect the latest attempt to try to force Apple to make the iPad something it’s not.
Over at Fast Company, Jared Newman wrote the following:
Apple really doesn’t want you to replace your Mac with an iPad.
That much became clear at the company’s WWDC event, where it announced more half measures to make the iPad feel more—but not too much more—like a laptop. With the launch of iPad OS 16 this fall, you’ll be able to open apps in floating windows, connect the iPad to external monitors, and adjust the iPad’s display scaling to fit more elements on the screen.
These improvements, however welcome, won’t do much to change the way people use their iPads. Without an actual desktop software ecosystem—one that’s unconstrained by the limits of iOS—the iPad will remain trapped in productivity limbo, offering more complexity than an iPhone but less utility than a Mac.
Instead of constantly trying to reinvent the wheel on multitasking, Apple should do the obvious and make MacOS available on the iPad.
The basic thrust of the piece is that Apple is too afraid to unleash the full productivity potential of the iPad out of fear that it’s going to undermine the Mac. I don’t find that a compelling argument at all. If the concern is that the iPad would undercut the Mac on price, that sounds compelling until you stop and think about it.
Let’s say Apple decided to do as Newman suggests and make it so that an iPad runs iPadOS until you connect it to a keyboard and mouse. Sure, the iPad starts at $329, but even Newman wouldn’t suggest that the entry level iPad get these software capabilities. Realistically it’s got to be an iPad that comes equipped with an M1 processor. That means the threshold for this type of iPad is the iPad Air. And it’s true that the iPad Air starts at $599, which is significantly less expensive than a MacBook Air. However, that entry level iPad Air comes with only a 64 GB SSD. Hardly sufficient for any kind of pro workflow, particularly when you consider that to meet Newman’s suggested functionality, it would need to have both iPadOS and macOS installed. That’s a lot of space you’d need to dedicate to just the operating systems. So realistically you’d have to go up to the $749 iPad Air, which comes with 256 GB of storage, matching the entry level MacBook Air. But then to truly make it comparable, you’d need to add Apple’s Magic Keyboard accessory. That starts at $299. So at this point you’ve got a MacBook Air replacement in the form of an iPad, but at $1048, or $49 more than the cost of the entry level MacBook Air.
Plus, what kind of Mac would an iPad undermine if it ran macOS? Really, it’s the MacBook Air and only the MacBook Air. Like the iPad, the MacBook Air is fan-less. That allows these devices to be very thin and quiet, but it also limits sustained peak performance. The MacBook Pro has a thicker chassis with an active cooling system (fans) because that allows pro software to drive the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips to higher power levels for long periods of time. There’s no way Apple’s going to release an iPad with a thick case and a pair of fans.
But in Newman’s defense, he’s got another idea in mind as to why Apple won’t port macOS to the iPad: it would harm Apple’s revenue because customers would have no need to purchase both a Mac and an iPad. And that’s definitely true. But the fact that many of Apple’s customers are buying a Mac and an iPad shows that those customers are finding value out of what each specific device brings to the table. That customer is probably someone who is using a MacBook Pro for its power and flexibility, and using an iPad for media consumption, or possibly creating art using an Apple Pencil.
Sure, there’s a sliver of Apple’s customer base who would get everything they need out of an iPad that ran both operating systems, but I think that’s a fairly small pool of users relative to the customer bases for the iPad and the Mac. Consider Microsoft’s SurfaceBook computer. It was a two-in-one device that had a detachable screen. That meant that you could use it as a laptop for laptop work, or detach the screen and use it in tablet mode. Are there SurfaceBook users who regularly used each mode? I’m sure there were. But in my experience, I’ve almost never seen a SurfaceBook user actually detach the screen. While two-in-one device sound good, I think in practice most consumers prefer a device that is purpose-built for a specific task.
Apple is continuing to expand the iPad’s capabilities as a real laptop replacement with each year, but it’s doing so at a pace that feels too slow for iPad users who really push the limits of what an iPad can do. I sympathize with those users. However, I’m pretty excited that Apple continues to evolve the iPad’s pro capabilities in ways that feel authentic to what the iPad is. As I wrote the other day in summarizing Stage Manager, the new window management tool for enabling advanced windowing and a more desktop-like experience in iPadOS:
As Apple has grown the iPad’s feature set, it has added additional input methods that complement this touch-first approach without changing it. iPad has always been about reconceptualizing what a computer is and how it functions.
There’s certainly a sense in which porting macOS would “solve” the productivity shortcomings of the iPad, but it would kill the opportunity for Apple do something really revolutionary with how we define “computer,” and it would be sad if that opportunity were lost to appease customers who really are better suited on a Mac. I’m glad Apple continues to ignore calls from the corporate tech press to port macOS to the iPad.