Apple’s challenge will be to carry off the transition smoothly and convince third-party developers to update their apps accordingly.
The firm said it had already developed native versions of several of its own apps, including Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro. And iPhone and iPad apps will now be able to be run on the computers.
Apple said that Microsoft was working on an optimised version of Office, and Adobe a version of Photoshop.
Other developers should be able to recompile their apps to get a version running “in just a matter of days,” said the company’s software chief Craig Federighi. He added that old apps would automatically be translated at point of installation to run, although they would not work as well.
I think it’s a good thing. ARM64 is a pretty good chipset, not the best by far, but pretty good, and a far far cry better than x86-64 chips. Though it does mean that closed-source garbagesoftware will have to be recompiled at ‘best’, but probably require internal changes as well since most devs don’t keep architecture issues in mind when programming.
I believe this is also for cost reasons, even if for the long-haul (they could be spending a bit more initially). But probably the main motivation is power usage (modern ARM chips are definitely much more frugal than Intel / AMD desktop chips). And maybe cooling as well.
Unlikely. That would mean Apple would cannibalise their own market IMO.
Side note: I recently tried Sidecar – e.g. for using my iPad Pro as a secondary display of my Mac – and the experience was blurry and laggy. And the router is literally 2 meters behind me. Sigh.
I think you are underestimating how different the average iPad and MacBook users are. My mom learned iPhone (and iPad) in just a few short weeks and I know for a fact she’d be hopelessly lost on a Mac.
Different purposes and use cases. From what I see the iPadOS is becoming mix of macOS and iOS, so why would you run macOS on iPad? I really se no reason.
Sorry should have been clearer, I meant when ‘docked’ (so with a monitor, bluetooth keyboard and mouse). That’s essentially what we saw in their demo - the A12 chip inside a Mac Mini connected to a monitor, keyboard and mouse.
However I’m sure it could be usable with some tweaks on a touch device too (with pop up keyboard etc) - if the hardware is the same… it’s just the interface that’s different/needs tweaking.
But you can have all that with iPadOS. You can connect the mouse and keyboard (even they sell such cover with keyboard and touchpad). I do not see the reason to expand it much further as it would just complicate the OS and UI.
What I want is a device like an iPad Pro that I can use like an iPad when on the go and when I want to, and with the option of using my Mac programs too on the go too, but perhaps more importantly, one that when docked becomes a fully fledged Mac. That is the future of computers imo, for the foreseeable future anyway - one device.
With Catalyst there will probably be less and less “Mac programs” that you can’t use on iPadOS.
Ubuntu tried that, Microsoft tried that, many tried that. So far with no success. For me it is better to have separate devices and provide first-class synchronisation like Apple is trying to do via iCloud rather than trying to make one device to catch’em all.
