{"id":23668,"date":"2018-12-11T16:36:20","date_gmt":"2018-12-11T21:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=23668"},"modified":"2018-12-19T10:46:16","modified_gmt":"2018-12-19T15:46:16","slug":"make-the-ipad-more-like-the-mac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/11\/make-the-ipad-more-like-the-mac\/","title":{"rendered":"Make the iPad More Like the Mac"},"content":{"rendered":"

Radu Dutzan<\/a> (via Daniel Cohen<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Fast forward to almost-2019: the iPad is now “Pro”, the screen goes up to 13\", it has an optional keyboard and pointing device, and bests over half the MacBook line in benchmarks. Yet it still runs the iPhone’s OS. Yeah, they added a fancier multitasking UI and the ability to run up to 3 apps at once in a limited set of configurations, but it still behaves like it’s a pocket-sized device for use with your imprecise fingers as you walk down the street. The home screen is still just a sparse grid of apps, a useless mess left to the user to manage. Things like Spotlight, Siri, voice calls or interacting with notifications still take up the entire screen, and so do apps (except for the highly limited and sometimes confusing floating window mode). Undo is still a mess. And text cursor behaviors are a bureaucratic hassle, even when used with a Pencil.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

I’m so tired of holding my breath for Apple to release some sort of iPad Xcode, and the people at Sketch said back in 2015 that it just didn’t make financial sense for them to build a touch version, so I pulled the trigger, and got the Luna on Black Friday. It arrived yesterday, and I’ve been living my dream: I’m running macOS on my iPad. Well, not so much as running it on<\/em> the iPad, more like streaming it from my Mac, but it’s pretty close.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

There are so many places where the iPad could benefit from some adaptation of tap-and-drag selection. […] That same heuristic could be applied to iPad text fields and layout apps such as Keynote: after holding a touch still on a text field or on the canvas for a set amount of time, the gesture could become a selection drag, and moving your finger could begin selecting the text or objects encompassed by the net dragged distance.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously: iPad Pro 2018<\/a>, Using an iPad as a Mac mini Display<\/a>, Proof That iOS Still Hasn’t Gotten Undo Right<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Update (2018-12-12): Michael Love<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

This; but, RAM is still a fundamental issue we don’t have a good solution for. Essential to iPad’s nature that it always be running \/ turn on instantly, but you can’t do that with 16 GB RAM without a gonzo battery.<\/p>\n

Apple can come up with an utterly flawless desktop-replacement OS for iPad in 2019, but as long as it’s stuck at 4-6 GB of RAM it’ll never be able to run Xcode or other professional apps without offloading most of the work to a server somewhere.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Colin Cornaby<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

I also want to tack onto this that iOS’s no-swap-file memory architecture is basically unacceptable for pro apps. Alone it is a blocker for things like Xcode and Final Cut Pro.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Update (2018-12-19): See also: Dave Mark<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Radu Dutzan (via Daniel Cohen): Fast forward to almost-2019: the iPad is now “Pro”, the screen goes up to 13\", it has an optional keyboard and pointing device, and bests over half the MacBook line in benchmarks. Yet it still runs the iPhone’s OS. Yeah, they added a fancier multitasking UI and the ability to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2018-12-11T21:36:22Z","apple_news_api_id":"775c1f1e-02b8-49de-af91-8fbe6a518d08","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2018-12-19T15:46:21Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/Ad1wfHgK4Sd6vkY--alGNCA","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1271,31,1610,145,1269,1563,30,1609],"class_list":["post-23668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-apple-pencil","tag-ios","tag-ios-12","tag-ipad","tag-ipad-pro","tag-luna-display","tag-mac","tag-macos-10-14"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23668"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23693,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23668\/revisions\/23693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}