Tim Cook, during a shareholder meeting, when asked about a possible future convergence of macOS and iOS:
“Expect us to do more and more where people will view [the iPad] as a laptop replacement, but not a Mac replacement – the Mac does so much more,” he said. “To merge these worlds, you would lose the simplicity of one, and the power of the other.”
Translation: Expensive iPad keyboards for fanboys.
No Thank you,I will stick with my Linux laptop running Mint, my unraid Linux NAS system and my Windows 10 Gaming PC. I’m allergic to iFruit devices.
Edited 2017-03-01 12:28 UTC
I use OS X, but when it comes to iOS, the fact iOS doesn’t allow Kodi (hint: Exodus and Real-Movies) or alternative browsers, or emulators or generally any kind of app the Apple Ministry of Apps thinks is bad for Apple’s commercial interests, is enough for me to avoid it. Why “jailbreak” and lose the official warranty (and official updates) in order to install the apps I want, when Android allows me to install the apps I want without losing the official warranty, and it even features them in the Play Store?
Edited 2017-03-01 14:18 UTC
Is this some kind of homophobic swipe at Tim Cook or Apple customers? Pad, pod, and phone are not types of fruit.
The last I heard, apples were a type of fruit.
The last I heard, there was no device called an iApple.
Edited 2017-03-01 20:44 UTC
I can totally imagine a separate touch screen pad dedicated to keyboard functions.
The fact that someone chooses a different product than you doesn’t make them a “fanboy.” I am 55 years old, spent my entire career in hardware and software engineering, and own an iPad. I doubt that you have more tech knowledge and experience than I do.
I said “for fanboys”, not “for owners” or “for iPad owners”. Let’s be honest, if you believe that an iPad (Pro) can be a “laptop replacement”, you are a fanboy ripe for gouging, and those overpriced Apple-branded iPad keyboards are intended for you.
If you don’t believe that, they aren’t for you.
Edited 2017-03-01 22:40 UTC
Agreed. There are legitamite reasons for wanting an iPad Pro and owning one doesn’t make you a fanboy. I once said on this very site that I would never own an iOS device, and now I’ve eaten my words. For me, there is the simplicity of not running a full-fleged OS designed back in the 1990’s for servers and constantly maintaining it/keeping it updated on a device that I will only use when traveling. It provides 95% of what I need with much less headache than a laptop. It’s durable, simple, and it’s not a crap 16:9 display that causes eyestrain due to pwm (pulse-width modulation).
Real work is done on the desktop. When I travel for work, I grab the iPad Pro (in its otterbox) and steal the bluetooth keyboard from the Mac Mini, and I’m set.
Edited 2017-03-02 16:35 UTC
The iPad is getting more powerful, slowly, but the Mac is really losing a lot of the power it once had. Does Cook not realize how his own products actually work and the state they’re in right now?
I think it’s time to boot the bean counter and get a real leader back in there.
— Tim Cook, CEO Apple Inc.
My mind is still blown by the fact that a 2013 Mac Pro (the “trashcan” model) still goes for $4-6k with outdated custom graphics and no way to upgrade the internals. I can take a 2012 tower version of the Mac Pro and through internal upgrades bring it up to nearly the same power, and save a few thousand dollars in the process.
I’d love it if Apple would kill off the Trashcan Pro and return to an upgradeable version, even if it’s half the size of the original tower. At least let us swap in a better GPU and CPU when the time comes for upgrades. There was a manufacturer a couple of years back that made a case the size and shape of a NeXT Cube but looked like the tower Mac Pro (aluminum chassis, rounded handles, “cheese grater” front). That would be the perfect form factor and a true successor to the G4 Cube.
A nice start would be allowing Safari to default to the desktop website on the iPad, as opposed to giving me a mobile page on a 13″ screen.
Safari doesn’t default to anything, it is up to the website designer. If you are getting a mobile page on an iPad, it is because the site is designed to deliver that page to iPads…
Actually, Safari does default to a mobile/iPad user-agent. What the op is saying, and I agree, is it would be nice to force the desktop user-agent as default. It’s all well and good to say “not our problem, it’s the web page” but that doesn’t help those of us who have to deal with those pages.
Actually the web sites should be cognizant of this nature of the device being used.
Because, in fact, while the screen is big, the iPad is not a “desktop”. Specifically it doesn’t have a mouse, rather it’s a touch device.
Tablets need to be treated on their own, large touch displays, rather than small touch display vs large mouse displays.
Apple is reporting the user agent properly, it’s the web sites that are dropping the ball.
The OP said Safari defaults to “giving me a mobile page”. It does nothing of the sort. All Safari does is render what is returned by the website – it has no control in the matter and never has.
Some websites use the UA string to determine what version of the website to return. Its 2017 – those websites are broken. If you want something done about it complain to the website maintainer.
I understand that the world is not perfect, the mechanisms to do this properly have not always existed, and there are sites that don’t always do what you think is the “right thing”. The solution, however, is not to make browsers lie about their nature – an iPad is a mobile device – reporting itself as one is the correct thing to do. Whats not correct is using this information to control content delivery. It will invariably break, sooner rather than later, and it should be avoided like the plague.
Secondly, if Apple changed the UA string to not include “mobile”, thousands of sites would still be broken, because they actually look for the “iPad” string – because whoever made them wants them to return mobile versions to iPads – regardless of what you think about it. That is a really shitty thing to do, and you should be mad at them about it. It has nothing to do with Safari though…
This demonstrates the Apple way of thinking. On a more open platforms, they tend to deal in reality. If you want what the website the creator thinks you should have, you can have it. However, if you want a desktop website, you can have that also. If you also want to “yell at the website”, you can do that too!
Apple has it figured out for you. You really want what the website says you should have. If you don’t like it, then you need to “yell at the website.” Problem solved!
I don’t see how any of what I said has anything at all to do with Apple. The same applies to Mozilla, or Opera, or any browser on any platform…
I can only assume what you are getting at is some of those browsers let you change your UA string. That doesn’t solve anything! The problem is still there, left festering forever, because instead of addressing the real problem you basically just tell your browser to lie. That is duct tape and bubble gum – solving the problem requires getting the developer to fix their bugs, because it is a bug.
Bugs should be reported, not “worked around” through sleight of hand. Bugs that are not reported don’t get fixed…
That said, I would welcome the idea of Apple adding UA string customization to iOS Safari – I have no problem with that. My point though, is that this still doesn’t actually fix the problem.
Edited 2017-03-01 20:29 UTC
It does fix the problem when you don’t have control over the site and the site admins/device makers just won’t fix it.
Take my Synology DiskStation. Awesome device, works great. It has one problem though, it insists on giving me a mobile page when I use my iPad until I tell it to request desktop. It’s stupid, because the desktop interface, once loaded, works fine with a touch interface. In fact, it’s obvious that they’ve done some work to make touch easier… so why does it insist on serving an iPad ua string a stripped down, damn near useless, interface? I can’t fix the Synology, so the ability to fix the problem from my device would be welcome. It’s not the fix we all would prefer, but it is most definitely a fix. I don’t even want to customize it, just let me send desktop as default for certain web pages.
Lol, yeah right. Companies and developers always care about user needs and they always fix their bugs..
Meanwhile, I’m so very much happy my uBlock removes the ads (which the site thinks is a feature), the whitescript addon helps me disable javascript if the page detects uBlock, and the Stylish addon helps me add “display: none” to the shit netflix and HBO thinks I absolutely should be notified about.
If anything, the last few years have shown the OS vendors are no longer on my side. A browser only THEY control? Nightmare.
The OP said Safari defaults to “giving me a mobile page”. It does nothing of the sort. All Safari does is render what is returned by the website – it has no control in the matter and never has.
Sure it does. Some websites have the “Request Desktop Site” option. Safari goes out and fetches/renders the desktop version of a website, and refreshes the page. There’s no reason why this should not be available as a default option for all webpages on a “Super. Computer.”
Maybe I’m holding it wrong.
My argument is ALL websites should have that option, at least if it actually matters. If you want that option, you have to get the developer to implement it on their website. It has absolutely nothing at all to do with the browser.
The handy little UI thing in iOS Safari is just that, user interface stuff. It doesn’t actually do anything unless the site is built to support it. And you can easily support it on a website in a way that works on all browsers, even ones that don’t have this UI helper.
Edited 2017-03-01 20:35 UTC
Even if not all websites implement the function, that doesn’t stop Safari from hypothetically having an option to always request it by default.
galvanash,
That’s the ideal world, but in practice it can be extremely useful to be able to have a browser with UA override. I sometime switch to a googlebot UA on sites like quara and news sites to bypass the annoying registration. The fact of the matter is that lieing about the UA can often get you the least intusive version of many websites.
galvanash,
Including osnews… I’ve brought it up a couple times over the years beacause the UA detection forces duck duck go to return urls to the wrong version of the site. It is so frustrating if you are a DDG user. It doesn’t help much when complaining falls on deaf ears (hint).
Your forecast was reasonable. Your forecast is right now.
Sad thing here, Is Apple forecast. World Is becoming SO, SO UNPROFESSIONAL.
On World becoming so unprofessional, also replaceable and redundant.
Edited 2017-03-01 14:55 UTC
It is definitely the choice of Apple to define what we would like to use.
If you are such a person that thinks you can make your own choices. Well, this brand is not for you.
I would have agreed if we still had issh X11 on the iPad and an esc key on the keyboard for vi and emacs and any future editors
I don’t care so much about X11, however you can pick any old keyboard you want and many of them have esc keys. You don’t have to use Apple’s keyboard.
Then you’re back to text mode in the 70’s instead of a graphical user interface with proportional fonts
If iPad is going to be a “laptop replacement, but not a Mac replacement”, what class of laptops is left to compete with? Chromebook.
Thom’s prediction that iOS and macOS would be merged within the next year or two is looking increasingly unlikely.
No, Thom predicted the opposite
“iOS = consumer, macOS = pro”
Well, they try to eliminate the laptop in favor of iPad however isn’t the iMac simply a laptop logic board slammed to the back of the big retina screen together with external keyboard and mouse? If they get rid of laptop, they should get rid of iMac as well. Or do they really think that their iMac is much more capable than their laptops? The hardware spec says otherwise. The laptop hardware packaged in iMac case does not suddenly perform twice as fast.
The iMac has CPU options the MB Pros don’t, and probably better cooling. But thats probably where the differences mostly end.
Why re-invent a whole different system board for an iMac when they can adapt the laptop system boards which are more widely produced?
The 27″ 5K iMac is a nice machine, I use one with a 4GHz i7 and 1TB SSD at work with a 4K Dell 2nd display, it powers through anything I throw at it. Would be nice if they had 3 or 4 Thunderbolt ports, and a couple more USB, other than that I cant complain!
“…the Mac does so much more,” than the iPad.
And so does the MacBook, pretty much the same actually.
Last time I checked, the iPad did not even allow me to handle files by myself. In which world are Cook & Co living?
I think they continue to miss the boat in regards to the wall/TV interface. They’ve mastered touch and desktop but they ignore these new interfaces at their own peril.
AppleTV is their only foray into the space and it’s just a dumber roku. They won’t open up the interface and promote it to developers, who knows why.
Even the wrist — that’s an interface that’s not very different than wall/TV in the basic selection mechanics. Resolution is very different, and input methods (including sensors) give the UI a very different form, but underneath they are similar.
Apple should launch Tos for Internet of Things OS, where at low resolution it’s a wearable or small interface, and at high resolution it’s a wall/TV interface.
That’s the new frontier. Slab is iOS/Android/Windows. Desktop is Windows/Mac. Server is Windows/Linux.
The frontier of OS is on the wall and on small screens either mounted or worn. Apple is doing good work in some of those areas but not putting it all together yet.
Edited 2017-03-02 18:36 UTC
I’m confused. Isn’t the new Apple TV 4 and TVOS App Store exactly that developer promotion you’re talking about?
A laptop that can only run shitty little toy phone apps?
No fucking thanks!
Test 1
Does it run my favorite browser,
the full version with all my addons?
No?
The Fuck right off.
I have support Microsoft OSs since DOS 1.x. I’ve written programs including drivers for DOS and Windows and applications for bank branches and mortgage software.
In the more than 30 years of using DOS and Windows, I have also hated DOS and Windows. Plenty to absolutely hate.
BeOS – Love it. Now dead
OS/2 – Loved it. It’s now eComStation. I don’t know if Describe still works on it but it is a Word Processor that died back in the 90s. I don’t know what has replaced it. But IBM kept chanting, “OS/2 is dead” so I switched to
Mac OS – Not good but it wasn’t Windows.
OS X – It took five years but finally it was a very good replacement for Mac OS
Through that time I went through over a dozen different Linux distributions. I still have all the boxes for them. Yes, all software came in boxes once upon a time. My wife gets to throw them out when I die.
iOS – Quite a few people say that it is a piece of crap. That’s only for people that don’t know how to use it properly.
– I VPN from my iPad Pro to my high end 2015 iMac and program through that when I’m not at home or at work. This works —extremely— well for me.
– Yes I bought that 169 keyboard. I’m a touch typist which I learned back in the 1970s on manual typewriters and then electric and then electronic and then moved to computers. I was amazed at how well I can touch type on this keyboard. I thought I wanted the Logitech keyboard but that was way too heavy to lug around. I have a very bad back and diabetic feet (peripheral neurapathy) so any weight I can keep off my body the better. And iPads are much lighter than MacBooks and the Apple keyboard for iPad Pro is much light than Apple’s bluetooth keyboard (which I used before my iPad Pro) or the Logitech option.
If you know how, you can do everything (VPN if not native) we need to using an iPad Pro. I’ve managed to work very well without a mouse or touchpad.
Dinosaurs are people that can’t or won’t figure out how to use new technology even if it appears to be less than what you were using before. Dinosaurs kick and scream and blame the device. But the device is not the problem. It’s the person that doesn’t know how to move on.
– In my job I am a programmer which requires a lot of typing. I program in multiple languages on multiple OSs
– In my job I also have to write a lot of reports on projects we are working on
– For fun I write short stories and novels. I’ve never submitted any stories because I would rather write new stories than publish old ones. After all, it’s for my fun and not for others.
EVERY SINGLE thing that I want to do, I can do on or through my iPad Pro.
Do I think everyone should use an iPad for everything? Absolutely not. But just because you can’t figure out how, doesn’t mean it is a piece of shit.
Because of my health issues I had to find a lower weight option. This works almost perfectly for me. But then *nothing* is perfect.
Sabon,
I don’t find touch screens adequate either, and I’m glad you found a solution you are happy with, whatever floats your boat is A-Ok! However in your stated use case you’ve essentially turned the ipad into a screen with an external keyboard. There’s nothing wrong with that, but arguably that is a dumb terminal rather than a PC replacement. Most people calling IOS (or maybe android) “a piece crap” are probably talking about the native software and interface.
The problem I have with a tablet for traveling is that I travel to places that (still) don’t have internet or charge exorbitant fees. Very often airports/hotels technically have wifi, but with intolerable dropouts and latency especially for interactive sessions. On my last trip there was basic web internet service for free, but man was it slow; faster fully unblocked service (including VPN) required a fee. I figure I might as well just bring a laptop to work on locally and not have to worry about always maintaining a connection.
The Surface from MS from what I know of it has become a popular product, and suspect Apple is taking a shot that market with the iPad Pro.
I think its good that Apple maintains two separate operating systems for the iDevices and Macs. MS has taken the other route and has one OS for all, which also has advantages, and disadvantages depending on your needs.
I like iOS for what it is, I dont need a desktop OS on my phone. However iOS and OS X “macOS” have gone down hill in terms of performance and quality over the last 3 or 4 years.