macOS & iPadOS

iPad is a weird device. An experiment.

And with putting insanely powerful chips in those devices, Apple has prompted users to ‘compare’ them against laptops. Pro’s (me included) have been calling, hoping, waiting for Apple to port macOS to iPadOS.

But iPad is not a laptop. Even though it is also a computer, and even though it can have a touchpad and keyboard. iPad is a reinvention of the paradigm of digital user interfaces. An experiment in how to blend touch, with cursor-pointer, with pencil, with keyboard. A complete reinvention of interaction, and with that, a complete reprogramming of our collective muscle memories.

I think professionals calling for macOS on iPad are seeing the potential. They can envision using Photoshop on their couch, instead of behind their 4K displays. The fact that Apple straight up refuses to port Mac to iPad drives these people nuts. The vision seems so close and within reach.

But in fact, I think we’re further from that vision than we might think. We forget that Photoshop, as used on desktop, is not made for use on a couch. It’s not made for touch or pencil.

Simply porting the desktop app over to iPad would ruin the vision. Because we would get disillusioned with an unusable app. And we would abandon the vision of tablet computers altogether.

And as much as I am rooting for the tablet-computing vision, and (secretly) hoping for macOS on the iPad - I think that I’m even more hopeful that Apple won’t give in. Instead of hoping for MacOS, I hope that in a month time, Apple has made a miraculous leap in interaction design. A refinement of the interaction system that would allow those more fine-grained ‘pro’ use cases (like context menus), to work seamlessly on iPad.