I am the opposite. Even though I spend most of my time with a touchscreen on my iPad Pro, my last few traditional laptops I almost never touched the screen and regretted it immediately if I did (fingerprints).When I had a ThinkPad Extreme I never used the pen that I got with it except to see if it worked and how well.
Clearly people differ. But I completely understand when people hear about a MacBook Pro with a touchscreen, scratch their heads and think “why?”
Hopefully, if the Macpad does come to fruition, they retro the specs back to M1 iPad? The thing should be more than powerful enough. Could we get that lucky?
If that price is anywhere near correct, I don’t know how encouraging the rest of the rumor is. Unless I have full MacOs, and not just a lite version, I still doubt I’ll be able to do my day job with it, so it would be pointless for me to pay such a high price for something I still could only really use as a tablet for most of my workflow. The M2 IPP 11 is looking more and more tempting right now at only $750 ish if I can find a good deal.
It took me a good year of using my MBP before I finally stopped touching the screen after I moved over to it from my Miix 700. Even after 3 years with it, anytime I use my wife’s touchscreen Lenovo, I still find it intuitive to just touch the screen for 90% of what I want to do with it.
I’m almost SURE there will be a reason this is only for the M3 and above iPP - $$$$$$$$$$$$$
Official song for this and the WinPad topic:
“You can’t always get what you want… but if you try, sometimes you can get what you need.”
Wrong song…
Kidding aside, it seems what is wanted is for the iPad Pro to be more MacOS-like, and MacOS to be more Windows-like (particularly the file system). And what you’d end up with is… The Surface Pro, more or less.
What is the advantage of Windows file-system-wise?
Do you mean you want File Manager?
I’ll admit that I miss the “Unix Expert” checkbox from NeXTstep, but I can’t see that either Windows or Mac OS file handling is that markedly different, aside from the bizarre usage of file dialogs as File Manager windows.
Familiarity, I think. I’ve seen a lot of comments on this forum about how much someone or other dislikes the Finder. So there must be something that they see as inferior to Windows.
I’m not speaking for myself since I’m fine with macOS and the Finder.
Agree with this, I am completely fine with the finder. What I would like, is to have a way to make the M1 iPad Pro 12.9" I have much more useful. What would be even better is if it had a full version of safari (which could run full blown Mac web apps like Inkarnate.com for my fantasy world maps) and full Mac finder, etc., while still maintaining what the iPad is phenomenal for–media consumption like Netflix, etc.,
And, yes, it would end up as a de-facto Mac/iOS version of a Surface Pro. Which would be completely awesome! No one is saying that the Surface Pro is awesome as a tablet. Instead they tell you to go iPad if that is all you need. What if that iPad could be both?
I think I have only used Inkarnate on Safari on my IPP. What features am I missing? It seems to work fine for me.
But, aside from that, I generally agree. The Surface line and any Windows experience in general, has not been great, or even good as a tablet. iPadOS for the most part has. My main gripe with iPadOS is the file system and how hard Apple makes it for anything to use any cloud storage other than iCloud. For instance, I do a lot of my finishing work for my art in Clip Studio Paint, and I have a OneDrive account, which CSP technically supports. Anytime I save files from CSP to OneDrive though, sometimes the program just crashes and I lose my work. This is partially on CSP, but mostly because Apple makes it difficult to program for this. CSP will fix it, then I’ll get a new IOS update, and it will break again. CSP will fix it, and IOS will update and so on and so on, for 3 years now. So now, I have to save a copy on my iPad storage, (which doesn’t allow me to save in any folder I want, only giving me a certain number of folders to save my art in), and then once I’m sure I have my work saved, attempt to save a copy on OneDrive as well and just hope it works.
As far as MacOS goes with the file system, it’s a similar amount of bias that makes it more annoying to me than Windows. OneDrive is available, but it’s not well integrated. With Windows it seems you can use any cloud storage you want easily and it will integrate easily, but with MacOS, if it’s not iCloud, it’s not going to be easy. And sure, I could pay for iCloud and get my terabyte of storage there to save me the headache, but by paying for MS Office Suite for the same price, I get the same terabyte AND full Office Suite, which my wife uses fairly regularly. But the file system on MacOS is a fairly mild complaint compared to iPadOS, which is borderline atrocious.
All this to say, if the iPad could be both, that would be awesome. But if the rumors are true that it’s going to be MacOS “lite” on the upcoming IPPs, then I am very cautious on what that could mean. Because if the file system is closer to iPadOS than MacOS, and I still have the same problems with CSP that I currently have been dealing with, then my 2 device solution will still be much better than a single crippled device. Right now I can at least AirDrop with ease to my MBP and take advantage of its full file system when I need it.
For the longest time I felt this way, but not anymore. With so many services moving to the internet (streaming, audio, banking, etc.) the REAL advantage of iPad over Windows as a tablet are the Apple specific services - iMessage, FaceTime, Photo sharing, iTunes (now TWO separate services of Music and AppleTV), and iCloud across devices. even Stage Manager is a lame substitute for MacOS on an iPad. The mobile version of Office on iPad is superior to Android and Windows, but I get FULL unedited Office on my Surface Pro 8.
In fact the experience of using SP8 for all things productive PLUS a browser has left my iPad Pro 11 gathering dust, EXCEPT as a second screen for my SP8 when I have remote heavy lifting. I just don’t want to juggle multiple devices anymore (by that I mean more than a computer and smartphone). I cling to the iPhone for those Apple Service above, and if the 90% majority of my family weren’t iPhone users, I’d switch to a folding phone full time, even with my dislike of Android.
I come to believe Apple will never deliver a MacPad - over and out…
It’s always that one thing (or a very few).
For example, there are the several reasons why I decided to go all-in with Ulysses app for my writing despite the hefty subscription. One is because it synchronizes across iPad, iPhone and Mac seamlessly with iCloud. The next competitor which has even more features (not necessarily a plus for me) requires Dropbox and I’m not ever going to touch that thing again. So I’m locked out of that app—which is a one-time buy per device type—unless I want to do a Dropbox subscription or go without cross-device synchronized cloud backup (um, no).
And the Ulysses app is exclusively on iStuff, so…
Lock in, lock out, there’s always something. And of course it differs from person to person.
But I’m not gonna make that into a gripe. It is what it is. Choose your poison/bliss. It’s not like there aren’t alternatives. No solution is perfect.
I know exactly what competitor you mean, and I still use it and Dropbox–despite having my own cloud server. Just so I can use it on my iPhone, iPad, MacBook Air, and Windows gaming PC. I really really want to consolidate away–I even have Ulysses, but I couldn’t handle the way it treats novel scenes and chapters. Not to mention how it does the publishing part. It’s a problem with no good solution–unless you happen to love Dropbox (which no one does).
Edited to add: there is also the problem that Apple seems to care a whole lot more about user and data security (with the advent of Advanced Data Protection); while Microsoft seems to care a whole let less about user and data security with every Windows release.
Heh, yet another diff’rent strokes example. The ability to make output templates and the ultra clean HTML output for epubs in Ulysses is one of the reasons why I chose it.
When I say tablet experience, I mainly mean a touch first centric design. I admit, I haven’t tried Windows 11 as a tablet yet, but in the past, there have just been too many compromises for it to feel natural. Ironically, I think the often hated Windows 8.1 was the closest to a good Windows tablet experience that I have tried. On the Apple side of things, I don’t use any of the Apple specific services. I still find the tablet experience to be generally smooth. The only real gripe is the horrendous file system that makes being productive practically non existent, even with the majority of what I do being web based. There is enough, particularly with art, that just makes it difficult to use for anything other than casual use. But I’m not one who uses Office much at all, that’s my wife’s terrain. I guess it’s a little ironic, as a software developer, and someone who has always been in the technology field, I use very little software in general outside of Chrome/Safari, and a few art apps.
MacWorld author weighing in on the pro MacPad argument.
As I’ve said before I just don’t see it happening and recent releases show that if anything the Macs are going to become more IOS like and not the other way around.
And FWIW and it likely is at least to some degree drinking the Kool Aid, but some of the Apple folks we work with are claiming that the Stage Manager experience on the iPad is superior and the “future”. Not endorsing that view, just relaying the sentiment.
The key to the Mac’s survival isn’t a new Air–it’s the next iPad Pro | Macworld
Jason Snell is a long time Apple devotee and expert. That often “colors” his opinions (his blog is Six Colors for understanding the pun), but I am in agreement with him on this one. I also agree with you @Desertlap that it’s not likely to happen, even if MacOS is adopting more of iPadOS. The most frustrating part is that Apple has PROVEN ipad apps can run natively on a Mac with an M processor, so it just seems pure profit motivation that prevents them from opening up an a MacPad. Then again, you don’t get to be the world’s richest company (by almost any metric) by straying from the PT Barnum mantra - there’s a sucker (like Strauss) born every minute…
