At Apple's spring new product launch in 2021, the iPad Pro equipped with M1 chip arrived as promised. At that time, some brain-opening friends wanted to run macOS on the iPad Pro and make the tablet really productive, but no one has done it so far. It seems that they don't want the gods to worry about this heart again, and Apple decided to take matters into his own hands. Recently, it has been reported that Apple has applied for an iPad-related patent similar to the shape of Microsoft's Surface model, and it is worth noting that it is running macOS, not the iPadOS that has always been in the iPad product line.
Although the iPad Pro and even the new iPad Air and the MacBook series products use the same M1 chip, and iPadOS and macOS are also based on the Darwin kernel, the digital signatures of the two must be completely different, and the execution code of the boot sector will not be the same. Besides, macOS does not set the touch area, so even if it is installed on the iPad product and booted successfully, the high probability of getting it is a tablet that cannot be touched.
In addition to making the iPad series tablets run macOS is not only technically difficult, Apple has also been opposed before this. As early as 2018, when the rumors about Apple's desire to follow in the footsteps of Microsoft's UWP and open a cross-platform integration strategy appeared, Apple CEO Cook firmly stated in the face of the media that he would not integrate the software platform of iPad and Mac, and said, "We do not recognize this concept of 'dilution' for one platform and weakening another platform, and the reason why both platforms are quite good is because we make them each handle their own tasks, and if we integrate the two, we will begin to make various trade-offs and trade-offs." ”
As a tablet product, the iPad series in Apple's product line belongs to the computing terminal that emphasizes portability, even if the iPad Pro is also born for the mobile office scene, its positioning is a touch screen device that supports multi-touch, and the design logic is based on touch. The MacBook series is Apple's laptop product line, and the macOS used is derived from OS X, which is an operating system based on mouse pointer operation.
Running macOS on the iPad means that Apple needs to solve the operation fusion and balance of touch and mouse pointers, and more importantly, Microsoft's attempt to integrate surface and PC is not far away. In the Year of Windows 8, Microsoft introduced the Metro UI, and hoped to unify the UI and interaction of smartphones, tablets, PCs, and game consoles with the help of touch.
In essence, Microsoft's attempt to run macOS on the iPad at that time needed to cross the difference in operation accuracy between mouse and touch. In fact, the design of the mouse determines that this is a relatively precise control service, while touch requires the human finger to achieve, can only carry out vague operations and trending operations, and this is difficult to change even if the iPad is equipped with the Apple Pencil.
In addition, from a business point of view, breaking the boundaries between the iPad and the Macbook series may not be a good idea. After all, after having an iPad running macOS, where is the selling point of the MacBook Air? You know, the iPad Pro 2018 equipped with A12X in part of the performance is not lost to the MacBook Air of the same period, and now the difference between the iPad Pro and the MacBook Air is only the operating system and operating logic.
Of course, the patent document that was recently exposed seems to overturn everything, and it seems that Cook's original statement that macOS and iPadOS will not be integrated are also going to be ancient with the passage of time and changes in the market environment. The M1 chip based on the ARM architecture has made the real unity have a hardware foundation, and Apple's attitude seems to have changed to a certain extent, and all indications are that Apple is indeed gradually blurring the boundary between iPadOS and macOS.
The project project announced at WWDC in 2019, the final product is to allow macOS to run iPadOS and iOS applications. Following iPadOS 13.4 began to support touchpad cursors, with features such as allowing the iPad to become the second screen of the Mac, and the universal control functions of controlling both Mac and iPad products with a set of keyboard + mouse/trackpad, the diaphragm between the iPad and the Mac gradually disappeared. And it is undeniable that if the iPad Pro can really run macOS, it will undoubtedly end the debate on whether the iPad Pro is productive to some extent.
In the current iPad Pro series, Apple provides it with up to 16GB of memory and a thunderbolt interface, which are obviously the configuration of the benchmark MacBook. iPadOS 15, unveiled at WWDC 2021, adds support for Swift Playgrounds 4, enabling developers to code, iterate on, and build apps on the iPad and deploy them to the App Store. Although Swift Playgrounds 4 is not "Xcode", it undoubtedly brings more productivity to the iPad Pro.
Most critically, millennials grew up almost with mice and keyboards, PCs accompanied their youth, and Gen E grew up touching touch devices. You know, the habits of childhood are actually quite difficult to change, why Apple and Google are vying to bring iPads and Chromebooks to schools, obviously to focus on the future. When Gen E enters society, they will naturally choose the devices they are familiar with. Using iPads to learn and entertain when you are a student, and then use iPads to carry out various production activities after becoming an office worker, which is undoubtedly the seamless switch that Apple hopes to see.
Of course, Apple wants to think that this matter still needs the support of developers. Why the positioning of the iPad Pro's productivity tools was questioned before was obviously because the traditional productivity tool software on iPadOS at that time was not so complete, and it was not realistic for most occupations to complete the work of relying on the iPad Pro, so that the powerful performance of the M1 chip could only be shown by the game.
The only explanation for this is that developers and Apple are not "one heart." The reason why traditional productivity software manufacturers are not concerned about iPadOS is not difficult to guess, after all, this kind of software is developed for desktop operating systems such as keyboard and mouse control, large screen and multi-window, and the use group is relatively fixed. Therefore, the situation faced by developers is that if consumers really have demand for this kind of software, they will often choose the Mac instead of the iPad.
From a developer's perspective, developing apps for iPadOS may not broaden the user base. In fact, in simple terms, this is a question of chicken or egg first. What Apple wants is that the same app can run on two different systems, optimized for touchscreen operation when detected when it is running on the iPad, and optimized for mouse operation when detected on a Mac. So having the iPad run macOS looks like a solution that impresses developers enough.
But the question is, when the iPad can really use the macOS system, will you choose the iPad or the MacBook?