back to article Is Apple incubating a Macbook, iPad bastard child?

What do you think would happen if an iPad made sweet, sweet love to a Macbook? Just go with it please, for the sake of argument. It would give birth to a misshapen, outsized fondleslab, running a delicate and (probably) delicious integration of OSX and iOS. And a full suite of apps, naturally. But it's not going to happen, is …

  1. Lost in Cyberspace

    This sounds like Windows 8 territory

    and look how's that's working out for them so far.

    Would Apple dare to go down a desktop / ios approach?

    1. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

      Re: This sounds like Windows 8 territory

      Yeah, but MS got there first with a tablet too. And while I'm not a big Apple fan, you'd have to say that if any company were going to succeed at it, it would be Apple.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This sounds like Windows 8 territory

      This sounds like Windows 8 territory

      and look how's that's working out for them so far.

      Would Apple dare to go down a desktop / ios approach?

      I have a hard time believing this. Apple has already tried iOS features on OSX (but, unlike Microsoft, left actually the "regular" UI in place, they just ran in parallel) and it didn't really work.

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: This sounds like Windows 8 territory

        OSX has already incorporated ideas from iOS's user interface. I'm thinking of multi-touch gestures - on Macbooks or desktop Macs with the touchpad peripheral. .

        However, Apple introduced these gestures without removing more traditional means of user interaction, such as Menus or Keyboard Shortcuts.

    3. Daniel B.
      Boffin

      Re: This sounds like Windows 8 territory

      Would Apple dare to go down a desktop / ios approach?

      They've already kind of done it with Launchpad. Something nobody uses. Other features like those due to come in Yosemite are probably less jarring and might be accepted. I for one dislike they're reverting the Dock to 2D flatness. I'm also less impressed with their switch to Hipstervetica as the new System font. But all in all, Apple hasn't had a Windows 8 moment on OSX, and thanks to MS they probably know it is a bad idea.

      I doubt they'll try something like this. They may have done dumb changes (i.e. iOS 7 UI) but they seem to have kept it mostly on the sane side. They're probably taking note that nobody actually wants a tablet/phone UI on their full-blown computers, and that the Surface devices are a disaster.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This sounds like Windows 8 territory

        There was a much earlier version of 'one click to launch' icons as an option in the finder in pre-OSX days (OS 8 perhaps?), introduced at the same time I think as the 'coverflow' option. The icons appeared as raised square 3D buttons with rounded corners and just needed one click, making it understandably a pain in the arse if you wanted to move or rename one. I found it unusable, and at some point it was evidently removed.

        1. Zolko Silver badge

          Re: This sounds like Windows 8 territory

          I use KDE with 1 click (to open files and folders), and I also configured my Win7 workstation to function like that. To drag, rename ... you click and hold, and it knows that you're not opening. Also, make good use of right-click, and now I feel that double-clicking is soooooo old-school.

          Much less clicking overall.

        2. Andrew Newstead

          Re: This sounds like Windows 8 territory

          Called Launchpad and turned up in OS7.

          1. Colin Ritchie
            Windows

            Re: This sounds like Windows 8 territory

            "Called Launchpad and turned up in OS7."

            Called Launcher and first appeared in System 7 about 23 years ago. To be precise.

        3. Daniel B.
          Boffin

          Re: This sounds like Windows 8 territory

          There was a much earlier version of 'one click to launch' icons as an option in the finder in pre-OSX days (OS 8 perhaps?), introduced at the same time I think as the 'coverflow' option.

          I think every OS with a GUI has added this 'feature' at some point. I know KDE has it (and the places where I haven't disabled it, it's because I don't know how to do it), Windows9x added it around the time they brought the "Active Desktop" feature and made it the default option on new installs (this is how I learned how to disable the feature) and now I learn they added it on MacOS as well (can't remember seeing it, last MacOS Classic version I used was 8.x but I was more familiar with 7.1 and 7.5.5. I'm still used to call it System 7, which will probably give away how old I am...

    4. Steve Channell
      Facepalm

      Re: This sounds like Windows 8 territory

      Could work very well, all you need to do is detect whether a keyboard/mouse is attached to flip back to the desktop with the iOS home screen being a desktop app.. remove the keyboard and it default to a tablet.... so very simple, make you wonder why it never occurred to Microsoft before imposing such a stupid interface on Windows 8

      1. Frank N. Stein

        Re: This sounds like Windows 8 territory

        Someone within MS wanted to force everyone to switch to the Metro Interface as the main mode of operation. Consumers, developers, and businesses all avoided the Metro Interface en masse and thus, Windows 8 failed. Judging by Apple's past OS updates, they won't make jarring changes all at once to iOS or OSX. They're more likely to make big changes under the hood and add features and functionality that users will actually use and like. We shall see.

  2. sad_loser

    Convergence done properly

    the true convergence is probably 3 years off but as Mac has been 64 bit for 5 years and iOS for 1 year you can see how a common code base would be a good thing.

    Cleverly, they made the big jump OS upgrade (Mavericks) free and pretty bug-free to take people with them.

    MS tried to do it with win8, but instead of showing their supporters the love, they couldn't help themselves and just rogered them senseless with big fees and a non-intuitive UI. Meanwhile android and chrome are cannibalising their core market.

    All good fun

  3. Van

    Those UBUNTU netbooks were ahead of their time yet got a right slagging off, not least from Steve Jobs.

    Downvote city

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Reading websites on the first generation of netbooks was a shit experience, due to the screen aspect ratio and poor resolution. It might have been almost okay if the screen rotated through 90º to 'portrait', but they didn't.

      Ubuntu Unity was a reasonable attempt top address poor hardware choices - i.e, it would allow a vertical taskbar to make up for overly wide screens. Maybe its' a better idea to just start with a screen ratio that was better fit for purpose, no?

      Unity also had an end-goal of working across a range of UI paradigms - i.e phone, tablet, laptop, TV with IR remote control. Ambitious... and at the mercy of 3rd party developers, too.

      Apple's way is to have a UI that is suited to the hardware it is running on. Individual documents can be worked on across devices by either saving to the cloud or by some of these new OSX and iOS 'continuity' features.

      Interesting times.

      BTW, don't worry about what Steve Jobs has said. He once responded to a question about next iPod after the 'iPod Photo' doing video... "Yeah sure, and the next version will make you toast as well". The next iPod did indeed play back video.

      1. Craigness

        "Apple's way is to have a UI that is suited to the hardware it is running on." And Ubuntu's was Ubuntu Netbook Remix, not Unity.

      2. Daniel B.
        Boffin

        Screen resolution on netbooks

        Reading websites on the first generation of netbooks was a shit experience, due to the screen aspect ratio and poor resolution. It might have been almost okay if the screen rotated through 90º to 'portrait', but they didn't.

        I blame the HDTV market. PCs in general have always been 4:3 and had no need to change said resolution, but somehow 16:9 became the new "hotness". 16:9 is crappy, 16:10 is still far wider than what I need but at least the height is workable. The suckiness of 16:9 was just more noticeable with the netbook because of the reduced resolution they had. If anything, netbooks were the kind of product that would have benefited of a plain old 4:3 screen...

  4. Mark Allen

    Apple Touchscreen?

    Is there really still not touch screen enable Apple Computers yet?

    Can you even buy a touch enabled monitor and use it with an Apple Computer?

    1. Gareth Gouldstone
      Happy

      Re: Apple Touchscreen?

      Yep, it's called an iPad...

      If you want a touch interface on a Mac that is called a Trackpad and you can use gestures to interact with the system without having to point at a vertical screen. Great, innit?

    2. Frankee Llonnygog

      Re: Apple Touchscreen?

      If it's USB class compliant or has a driver, yes.

    3. Frank N. Stein

      Re: Apple Touchscreen?

      I've never understood the need for a touch screen on a desktop or laptop computer. That's what you have a mouse or trackpad for. I don't want to be reaching over my keyboard and mouse to tap on the screen of a monitor and it's just not necessary for my Macbook Pro. No one that I know has a touch screen laptop or desktop Monitor. This is just some crap that Microsoft tried to push on everyone as an excuse to make the Metro Interface make sense to most of us. Obviously, that didn't work very well, as Windows 8 is less popular than 7 and businesses aren't running around buying touch screen monitors or laptops in large quantities, due to price. What do you gain by tapping on a screen, versus using a mouse? Looking cool to Teenaged girls while using your touch screen laptop at McDonalds?

  5. dogged

    OH MY GOD APPLE HAVE INVENTED THE SURFACE

    1. VinceH
      Trollface

      Well, it's about time that form factor was invented.

      (We safely can dismiss any prior art, such as the Surface itself specifically, as not yet having been invented until it has been invented by Apple. We might as well, because when Apple finally do unveil such a device - be that next week, next month, next year, next decade - we all know the fanbois will claim it was invented by Apple, and that anybody else who brings out anything similar will be considered copycats.)

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The "giant iPad" rumors have been around for several years

    Since Apple has stubbornly refused to release a giant iPad, I guess they're modifying the rumors to suggest Apple is following the success of Surface by copying it.

    Except that Surface has been pretty much a flop outside a small niche of buyers who were never going to stray outside the Windows fold to iOS or Android anyway.

    I've always thought it would make a lot of sense to have the iPhone/iPad capable of running the OS X GUI and API as an app, so you could plug your phone into a monitor (or use the one on the iPad) and use a bluetooth keyboard and mouse to run Mac apps (assuming they'd be recompiled as fat x86-64/ARMv8 binaries) For that majority of people who don't have much need for a proper computer, but not zero need, that would be useful.

    For something like this, having a larger iPad might be useful only insofar as it could eliminate the need for a monitor, and I suppose if you must, a keyboard cover with a touchpad could take the place of the keyboard/mouse. I still think it would be more popular with an iPhone, Apple would just have to make a dongle that connects to Lighting and keeps the phone charged (since this OS X app is probably going to suck down battery pretty hard) and outputs HDMI to a monitor/TV. Maybe has a couple USB ports to use the keyboard/mouse left over when they throw their Windows XP PC they came with in the trash.

    1. Daniel B.

      Re: The "giant iPad" rumors have been around for several years

      I've always thought it would make a lot of sense to have the iPhone/iPad capable of running the OS X GUI and API as an app

      This. It should be obvious to anyone that if convergence is to be achieved, it would be by having a phone acting by a full-blown computer once "docked" to PC-like hardware and thus making a second PC redundant. The Sinofsky/Ballmer take on this was the opposite: force the phone UI on desktops which turns your awesome PC into a useless giant phone.

      I remember seeing a Motorola phone w/Android back in 2011 that could be "docked" to a laptop-lookalike-thingy which turned it into an Android laptop. That looked awesome enough to get us looking at this as a viable substitute for laptops, yet we never saw Motorola (or anyone else) going down this path. It is far more useful than Win8.

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: The "giant iPad" rumors have been around for several years

        You plumb your phone into the TV, connect your BT mouse and keyboard, settle down on the sofa.... and then someone rings you up.

        Hmmmm.... not sure.

        1. P. Lee

          Re: The "giant iPad" rumors have been around for several years

          >You plumb your phone into the TV, connect your BT mouse and keyboard, settle down on the sofa.... and then someone rings you up.

          No, you plug your "apple tv" into the tv and mirror the screen over the 802.11ac network.

          What they could do is have a touchscreen and a dedicated fullscreen OSX desktop for IOS apps running on an ARM chip inside a macbook. You do still have to deal with the greasy fingerprints though.

          I doubt it though. They'd rather sell two devices and I think that's what people would rather use.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: The "giant iPad" rumors have been around for several years

            I don't understand the commenters who are talking about running iOS apps on a desktop. What is the purpose of that? What apps would you want to run on a desktop that don't have equivalent or better functionality available on desktops already?

            If someone calls you while this is happening, what stops you from taking the call via speakerphone? It isn't like you can't do other stuff with the iPhone while you're on a call. Or you can refuse the call by clicking "ignore" on the popup window that would open (on your monitor, not the phone) to alert you of the incoming call, and maybe send them a quick text back "call you later, I'm writing my term paper".

            While Broadwell chips might be interesting for Microsoft to do this, Apple would do it with ARM. OS X already has the infrastructure for fat binaries, and don't have to worry about 64 bit support. They'd need more than 1 GB in the iPhone, but LPDDR4 addresses the power draw issues of mobile DRAM so they could stick 4GB in the next one. Maybe only include the extra RAM in the models with more flash (you'd probably need more than 16GB if you want any room left after installing OS X anyway) as a way of encouraging sales of the higher spec model.

            While I sort of agree with the sentiment Apple would rather sell you two devices, I don't think they really care about maximizing revenue per customer as much as maximizing overall revenue. If some customers who bought two devices now buy only one, that's fine is they increase revenue by selling iPhones to people who figure "instead of having a PC and an Android, I'll get an iPhone and have both". If they calculate wrong they'd split the OS X platform between Mac and iPhone and risk causing its demise, so they'd have to plan and execute it well.

            There'd still be a market for traditional Mac hardware for power users, as well as those who want to dual boot/VM Windows. An A7/A8 could do a good job of running OS X, but it couldn't emulate x86 at acceptable performance to run Windows.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: The "giant iPad" rumors have been around for several years

              There'd still be a market for traditional Mac hardware for power users, as well as those who want to dual boot/VM Windows. An A7/A8 could do a good job of running OS X, but it couldn't emulate x86 at acceptable performance to run Windows.

              Apples gamble is probably that Microsoft have to take the fight to Android and iOS by doing full fat windows on ARM and they are gambling that Windows 10 cuts all the legacy code making it a lot less resource hungry

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: The "giant iPad" rumors have been around for several years

                I don't see how Windows on ARM "takes the fight to Android"? There are no ARM CPUs that can touch x86 performance on desktop/laptop, so there seems to be little point. I think it is more likely Microsoft quietly buries Windows on ARM and pretends it never existed, like they did with Windows on MIPS, PPC and Alpha.

      2. TheOtherHobbes

        Re: The "giant iPad" rumors have been around for several years

        I think it's more likely to be the other way around - iOS running in a window as an OS X app on an iX processor.

        Why? Because the Xcode emulator already does this, and Apple could either include a simple build-for-emulated-iOS option for a new set of hybrid apps, or do some clever code conversion thing, as they've done before with various OS updates.

        Whether or not this is a good idea is up for debate. I think it would fly with the fanbois - lots of apps are still iOS only - but might not do much to attract new interest. And comparisons with the Surface wouldn't do Apple any favours.

        Still - it might be gold. Which would make all the diff.

      3. Thomas Wolf

        Re: The "giant iPad" rumors have been around for several years

        I completely agree. In the past the problem was that the phone's CPU simply wasn't powerful enough (if you stuck a desktop Intel chip into a phone, it would melt it without a fan). Now, with Intel's Broadwell as well as multi-core SoCs where cores can be turned on/off depending on energy availability, true desktop class performance in a smartphone body and without fan becomes possible.

        My dream has always been a personal device that you can simply dock wherever you need to - it would wirelessly communicate with peripherals nearby. This is all possible with Bluetooth LE and wireless HDMI.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    i name this child...

    ..."TWATpad".

  8. Only me!
    Windows

    Well

    This was always going to "surface" as a rumor.....a dual tablet and laptop.....but remember it has not been done yet, so it will be an Apple invention next year!

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "What do you think would happen if an iPad made sweet, sweet love to a Macbook?"

    I've no idea what it would produce, but in Britain if you videoed the action, you'd probably get nailed for some Extreme Porn violation.

  10. MrDamage Silver badge

    MacPad

    Sounds like a scottish sanitary napkin.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Inevitable

    We've got Microsoft trying to push 'Metro Apps' on full fat desktops we've got Google trying to shoehorn Android apps on to chromebooks, so it is inevitable that we will get Apple allowing iOS apps on OS X.

    Features from iOS have slowly been creeping in since 10.8 and they've been pushing the trackpad gestures, which will probably be used in place of a touchscreen for the running of the apps. I've no doubt they'll have been refining it all in the background, which is why OS X is slowly but surely taking on more iOS like features then in 12 months time they'll give it the big reveal.

    The interesting thing is they are rumoured to be releasing a new retina Macbook Air next month along with their new iPad, but the intel fanless chip they were going to use isn't available for production. Could they be using an ARM chip instead?

    People said that there was no need for a 64 bit ARM chip in a mobile phone that only has 1 gig of RAM, but introducing that 12 months ago has given Apple the chance to refine the process of manufacturing it and testing it to see how far they can push it. I've no doubt it won't take them much effort at all to port OS X to ARM and I wouldn't be surprised if they've already done it. It'd allow the new Macbook Air to be more power efficient and there was talk that it wouldn't feature a trackpad, so it could well be a touch screen Macbook air with an ARM processor that can run OS X and iOS apps.

    Personally I love the phone that becomes your computer suggestion. Such a logical idea and should've been the path that Microsoft went down after buying Nokia.

    1. Daniel B.
      Boffin

      Re: Inevitable

      I've no doubt it won't take them much effort at all to port OS X to ARM and I wouldn't be surprised if they've already done it.

      Technically, they already did it. iOS is basically a cut-down OSX to the core, which is what gave Ballmer the grand idea of using the NT kernel for the next WinPhone iterations. Of course, he forgot that OSX uses a far more suitable microkernel (Mach) while NT is still a monolithic monstrosity. I'm guessing that the only things that actually require porting are the apps themselves, as most of the base system is already ported to ARM.

  12. Alan Denman

    Its gonna happen..

    ...so why else were they crippling much of their OS/X software ?

  13. Swarthy
    Unhappy

    "What do you think would happen if an iPad made sweet, sweet love to a Macbook? "

    I suddenly have a dubstep/chiptunes hybrid version of Marvin Gaye stuck in my head. Damn you.

  14. Frank N. Stein

    It would be hilarious if Apple did make a two in one device and it outsold the MS Surface Pro, especially if the price was lower. It would be even funnier if the price is close to the Surface Pro and it sold like crazy. At that point, the only choice MS would have is to lower the price of the Surface Pro.

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