[HN Gopher] MacPad: I created the hybrid Mac-iPad laptop and tab...
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MacPad: I created the hybrid Mac-iPad laptop and tablet that Apple
won't make
Author : robenkleene
Score : 125 points
Date : 2024-03-04 16:30 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.macstories.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.macstories.net)
| tuananh wrote:
| This just show that the iPad OS is severely under developed.
|
| They got the M* chip but all we can do is just checking emails &
| watching youtube
| criddell wrote:
| You should check out Procreate. For me, it alone is enough
| reason to get an iPad.
| falcolas wrote:
| Procreate is pretty cool. But my own dream is being able to
| run Procreate and Photoshop (gimp too, since _why not_ ) on
| the same device.
| megraf wrote:
| Can't you run UTM (QEMU) on these devices? You should be
| able to run anything you want
| citrusybread wrote:
| can't on latest ipad os, at least not without a jailbreak
| first? at least as far as I can tell, from UTM's own
| documentation. wish it was a developer option at least.
| dlachausse wrote:
| https://getutm.app/faq/#does-this-require-a-jailbreak
|
| You can side load it using a developer account without
| jailbreaking.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _Procreate is pretty cool. But my own dream is being able
| to run Procreate and Photoshop (gimp too, since_ why not _)
| on the same device._
|
| Adobe shipped Photoshop for iPad in 2019:
| https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/ipad.html
|
| GIMP for iPad: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/xgimp-image-
| editor-paint-tool/...
| bugglebeetle wrote:
| Photoshop for iPad shipped in 2019 and still to this day
| is half-baked garbage that you can't do anything
| productive with. Photopea is more useful on the iPad and
| it's a web app.
| CharlesW wrote:
| Sure, there's a lot of great choices for professional
| photo editing -- Affinity Photo, Adobe Lightroom,
| Darkroom, Pixelmator Photo, etc. I just wanted to make
| _@falcolas_ 's specific dream come true.
| rchaud wrote:
| Any device you cannot program yourself is a toy. Apple
| understands this, hence the pivot to entertainment rental
| services like Apple TV, Apple News, Apple Music etc.
| dlachausse wrote:
| Despite the name, Swift Playgrounds is surprisingly capable.
| It is much more than just a child's play thing and learning
| tool. I use it all the time to prototype ideas or whip up
| quick programs to solve an immediate problem when I'm away
| from my Mac. It even supports submitting SwiftUI apps to the
| App Store (with some limitations of course).
| Razengan wrote:
| > _Any device you cannot program yourself is a toy._
|
| That has to be one of the dumbest of dumb takes.
|
| A car is a toy. A fridge is a toy. A spaceship is a toy.
|
| (Hint: Those are all controlled by predefined knobs and bits
| and not ""programmable"" by the user. If your argument is
| that you can rip open a car and do whatever you want with it,
| well, nothing's really stopping you from doing the same to an
| iPad or iPadOS, if you can figure out how to do it.)
| Zetobal wrote:
| Even some toys are toys.
| vundercind wrote:
| It's a common POV on this site and I don't get it at all.
| All I can figure is there are a bunch of folks who think
| the only useful thing you can do with computers is make
| software for computers, so if a computer's anything less
| than excellent for that specific purpose, it's just a toy.
|
| Meanwhile everything important in my actual life that
| involves a computer takes place on my phone (an iPhone, the
| greatest bogey-man for that crowd, as far as I can tell) or
| on some purpose-specific device of one sort or another.
| Zero percent of it happens on a "real" computer--their role
| in my personal life is _entirely_ toy-like.
| vundercind wrote:
| TL;DR: Removed monitor from a MacBook, made a mount for a
| removable iPad in sidecar mode to act as its monitor instead.
|
| It's not really what I was expecting. The appeal seems to be if
| you hate having an attached monitor for some reason. You can do
| the same thing _without_ removing the monitor, and then you have
| two monitors.
| EricE wrote:
| Had instant flashbacks to the Outbound (number 4 on their list)
|
| https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/mac-conversions/
| jacknews wrote:
| "I'd accidentally create the hybrid Apple computer of my dreams."
|
| And of other people's nightmares. A macbook _and_ an ipad
| frankensteined together into an actual laptop?
|
| Sorry, it's a good hack and all, but definitely not for me.
|
| An ipad that's actually internally a macbook, running the full
| unix-like system, to which you can attach a keyboard of your
| choice, is more likely what people have in mind as the solution
| here. use it like an ipad when you just want to read, then stick
| it on the keyboard dock to do work. Actually let's make it an
| ipad that's actually a thinkpad or framework; something less
| coercive than apple or microsoft.
| jclardy wrote:
| Honestly I'd just want an iPad as it is today + a built in,
| sandboxed VM running macOS. So I can run macOS apps when needed
| (Basically Xcode/terminal/slack for me) and for everything
| else, I'd use iPadOS. Plug it into a monitor/keyboard and it
| just runs the macOS VM.
| j45 wrote:
| This reminds me that a Microsoft surface like device running
| macOS is a dream state.
|
| It was a different time back when the 12" MacBook was tested
| against the iPad+keyboard.
|
| Apple like other manufacturers wants you to own more devices, not
| less of theirs, which is why they probably won't do this.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| I just want a Windows Surface-like device that runs iPadOS when
| detached from its keyboard (as the current iPad is now with its
| keyboard case) and when attached, it runs macOS. Is that so
| difficult? But of course, why sell you only one device when Apple
| can sell two?
| s3r3nity wrote:
| You could get an iPad Pro (or even a regular iPad) and remote
| into a cloud Mac.
|
| If people wanted what you described, then Surfaces would be
| skyrocketing. However it looks like according to MSFT that
| Surface sales are sinking, which might explain why the previous
| head has left Microsoft:
|
| https://www.zdnet.com/article/can-microsoft-recover-from-the...
| idontpost wrote:
| I switched from a Surface Book to a Macbook Pro + Ipad Pro
| combo.
|
| I preferred the Surface Book from a device ergonomics
| perspective -- but I finally got sick of trying to do dev
| work on Windows.
|
| So I paid 2x as much for the same functionality instead. And
| that's why Apple won't make that form factor.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Exactly. I also used to have a Surface (both the regular
| one and a Book 3) but the smaller screen of the former and
| the higher cost and weight, and lower performance, of the
| latter made me buy a MacBook. The form factor appeal is
| there for the Surface, it's just death by a thousand cuts
| in terms of their other problems. I never had an issue with
| Windows development however, as I generally used WSL 2.
| tiltowait wrote:
| Apple's shown some willingness in the past to cannibalize their
| own sales (the iPod is a prime example), so my take is less
| pessimistic than yours. Though I also really want such a device
| (at least in theory), I think it's likely there are a lot of
| technical hurdles and trade-offs Apple finds unacceptable.
| vundercind wrote:
| You'll know they're _maybe_ thinking about it when iPadOS gets
| multiple accounts.
|
| Until then, it's hard to define the right thing for such a
| device to do when it's logged in to a second account on macOS
| and you un-dock it.
|
| You'd also take a pretty big hit in disk use for such a dual-OS
| device, until they do a ton more work to unify a lot of their
| software (I'm thinking not just of the OS, but their office
| suite and other programs).
| themagician wrote:
| They will merge, _eventually._
|
| iOS/iPadOS is the future. Ever iteration macOS becomes more iOS
| like.
|
| The compute model is changing. I am now old and enjoy doing
| computers the "old way." I watch younger people wizzing through
| apps on an iPad and they are able to do 85% of what I can do on
| a desktop--and if I'm being honest they can often arrive at the
| same output faster.
|
| There are tons of exceptions, of course. No terminal, limited
| filesystem access, no Xcode, applications like Photoshop and
| Final Cut run with a limited feature set, etc.. The list is
| actually quite long. But every year the list gets shorter.
|
| Somewhere in a room at the Apple spaceship is a chart that has
| all three OSes converging under a single OS, probably aptly
| called OS. I'm sure they keep pushing the date off into the
| future, but it will happen. The numbers are really getting up
| there too--macOS 14, iOS 17, etc.. If I had to guess, there
| will be no iOS 20. We will get AppleOS v1.0 instead.
| iddan wrote:
| I remember sketching such a device 10 years ago as a young Apple
| fan-boy. Love this!
| ChrisLTD wrote:
| For most folks I imagine there's little value in having the iPad
| around with its' own OS and apps to manage if you've got the Mac
| right there.
| drivingmenuts wrote:
| They don't need to create it - they have the iPad with a
| detachable keyboard. What you've created is an unnecessary
| duplication of effort and an incredible expense for any user who
| would try to buy it, if it existed.
| yreg wrote:
| iPad doesnt run macOS
| cloudengineer94 wrote:
| I use the iPad Pro with a keyboard and Remote Desktop to my Mac
| or my server at home.
|
| Works good enough...
| pjot wrote:
| Same. Connecting a Bluetooth mouse works great too.
| baerrie wrote:
| The real take away is that apple should sell a keyboard and
| trackpad combo that is laid out like a macbook body, not that
| they should make a hybrid device
| nerdjon wrote:
| The Magic Keyboard is similar to a MacBook setup. Not 100% but
| it's very close.
|
| https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MJQJ3LL/A/magic-keyboard-...
| dpcx wrote:
| Many of those buttons look like they'd be horrible to
| actually use. They give you same sized arrow keys, but tiny
| tilde/right brace/slash? I can see I wouldn't be doing much
| development on it.
| nerdjon wrote:
| It is interesting the choices they made, I just grabbed my
| partners Magic Keyboard to compare to my 16" MacBook Pro.
|
| Most of the space difference seems to come to the smaller
| space bar. Tab, caps, and shift on left and delete, return,
| and shift on right. And the brackets, plus, and minus.
|
| Other than that, the actual letters seem identical.
| LorenDB wrote:
| Of course, if Apple made a 2-in-1 laptop (like e.g. my Lenovo X1
| Yoga), you could theoretically just flip the screen out of the
| way.
| prmoustache wrote:
| For the keyboard + trackpad maybe, although you would be likely
| damaging the screen in the long run. I also have a lenovo yoga
| and it spends very little time flipped. It is just too heavy to
| be used as a tablet regardless of the UI (gnome3 works quite
| well for that.
| jaxn wrote:
| So, a modern Apple IIe?
|
| I used a Comodore 64 plugged into a black and white TV as a kid.
| This would be the same kind of thing. Sure, an iPad could be the
| monitor, but so could your TV, or an actual monitor. A computer
| with storage and input device as a single unit, but without a
| monitor.
|
| That is quite different from an iPad with detachable keyboard, or
| even a Microsoft Surface Book (which had auxiliary computing in
| the keyboard / base, but the CPU and storage was with the
| display.
|
| I like it. Seems like a great idea to me.
| nerdjon wrote:
| I have long been torn on the idea of touch screen on a Mac. I
| feel like by now Windows should have shown us that the different
| ways in controlling the OS leads to problems and just doesn't
| mesh well.
|
| You end up with buttons that are way to large to allow for finger
| taps that make no sense with a mouse, so a lot of wasted space.
|
| Forcing stupid gestures and UI animations that make zero sense
| with a keyboard and mouse.
|
| And of course, the fact that you have legacy applications that
| will never be updated to fully support it (and likely even new
| ones) and the experience will never be great.
|
| A single device that is meant to be fully usable with a k/m and
| touch screen is always going to be a compromise for one (or both)
| setups. At least iPad OS while you can attach a k/m (with decent
| results if really not how it was designed to be used) the OS is
| clearly touch first.
|
| I doubt we are ever going to truly see an OS that can handle both
| with the respect that each input method deserves. The only way I
| really see that possible is if the OS forces every application to
| use built in libraries for navigation, buttons, etc (and I mean
| force!, like it would not run if you don't use it) and the OS
| then shifts between the 2. But even then you could not naturally
| switch between, oh I am typing but let me just press this button
| on the screen because the OS would be on a specific mode.
|
| Its easy to say that Apple just wants to sell us another device,
| but let's not forget that Microsoft tried and failed...
| horribly... And we still see the problems with this idea in
| Windows 11.
| jwells89 wrote:
| I'm not sold on the idea of touch on laptops either,
| particularly since it often comes with compromises that make
| the display worse at its traditional job -- large touch-
| sensitive screens are typically glossy and have some of the
| worst antiglare coating I've ever encountered, to which the
| iPad is not exempt (treating glass to be both oleophobic and
| antiglare must be cost prohibitive beyond smartphone sizes or
| something), as well as visible touch sensitive wire matrices
| which is commonly seen on touchscreen PC laptops.
|
| I think the idea would be better implemented by a second screen
| on a swiveling laptop lid. This allows the user to signal to
| the OS to toggle touch specializations by way of closing or
| swiveling the lid and lets the main display remain a great no-
| compromises traditional laptop display.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I've been using a laptop/tablet with Windows 11 and touchscreen
| for a while now. It has many problems and is so janky and is
| really annoying sometimes and it's also so much better than
| being without it.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| I really think this is the big issue. No disrespect to people
| who feel differently, but I do not use the touchscreens on
| laptops for anything substantial. I had one, for years, and I
| used it probably a handful of times for actual tasks, and the
| vast majority of the time, it was to like... dismiss a dialog
| box when I wasn't actually using the machine and was standing
| over it to where the mouse was out of reach.
|
| A mouse is fast, precise, and most importantly, does not block
| the screen with itself while in use. Your hand is none of those
| things, and unless you use the screen in the exact same
| orientation in the exact same place day after day, you'll find
| it markedly harder to develop muscle memory with regard to it.
| And, if your software updates, all that could go out the window
| anyway. A mouse feels like a mouse, barring some hardware
| change. Once you have your settings dialed in, you know on an
| instinctual, unconscious level how far it takes to get from
| here to there.
|
| Add to it, even the most basic mouse has two discreet actions-
| left and right click- out of the box. The shittiest mouse you
| can find has those two buttons, and these days, probably a
| third too with the mouse wheel click. A touch is a touch,
| unless it's a long-press (but don't move your hand by mistake,
| or it's now a drag) or if you touch with two or more fingers
| (but that might also mean you want to touch two things? And if
| you add any lateral movement at all the software will struggle
| even more.)
|
| And all of that happens with zero feedback to the user. Touch
| screens have a much harder time implementing haptics, and you
| could use sound but not everyone is going to be comfortable
| with that.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I love my phones and my tablets. But I have
| no desire at all for touch features on any of my computers, Mac
| or Windows or Linux. It's just not a good interface for when I
| need to Get Shit Done.
| dr_kiszonka wrote:
| I use a convertible laptop for taking handwritten notes,
| annotating PDFs, "prototyping" plots, and occasional drawing.
| I tried navigating the OS using touch, but it is pretty
| inconvenient and, in my case, not very ergonomic.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| Oh yeah, I have a Kindle Scribe my wife got me for my
| birthday and it's bloody amazing for taking quick notes and
| making doodles, diagrams, that sort of thing. But I have no
| desire to use that interface on my entire machine. It's a
| specific tool good for specific things.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > And all of that happens with zero feedback to the user.
| Touch screens have a much harder time implementing haptics
|
| AOSP has a feature which shows every tap the system registers
| as a fading circle. It's part of the dev-mode options but it
| really should be included in the display- or accessibility-
| features, it makes the system a whole lot more usable than
| the default of showing no feedback whatsoever. Knowing
| instantly _where_ the tap has registered makes for a huge
| increase in accuracy and overall confidence with the UI.
|
| Besides, the best implementation of advanced "discreet
| actions" on touchscreens probably involves gestures (like the
| secret unlock pattern on AOSP) or radial/pie menus.
| aranelsurion wrote:
| My understanding is that what most people want out of a MacPad
| is not necessarily the Mac UI on iPad form factor, but Mac
| capabilities. iPad has a Pro model but iOS doesn't have a Pro
| edition that lets one use their iPad as a fully capable
| computing device like any other PC.
|
| Basically an iPad that is not just a big iPhone but a capable
| computer in iPad form factor, not necessarily one that uses
| MacOS even.
| kvmet wrote:
| Exactly my feelings. I have an IPad Pro M2. Why shouldn't I
| be able to run software that works on my M2 MBP?
|
| I would even accept having to hook up KB/mouse for input. But
| carrying around a MacBook AND an iPad is a lot of weight.
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| > Why shouldn't I be able to run software that works on my
| M2 MBP?
|
| Well, there's the technical reason which is that the
| userland of MacOS and iPadOS aren't the same.
|
| But there's also the ideological reason which is that the
| iPad is strictly sold as a device for consumption, not
| creation. They don't want you to run any code on it that
| they haven't authorized.
| al_borland wrote:
| >But there's also the ideological reason which is that
| the iPad is strictly sold as a device for consumption,
| not creation. They don't want you to run any code on it
| that they haven't authorized.
|
| The iPad Pro is heavily marketed as a device to create
| things.
| jonfw wrote:
| Yep, an ipad w/ a *nix OS and fileystem where I can run
| arbitrary code
| fl0id wrote:
| Well you just a sweeter your own question. They may not want
| the UI, but to function the same you need the UI. Do this
| only strengthens the argument you replied to
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| I agree with you, but interestingly everything wrong with touch
| Macs is present in the Vision Pro, and without the benefit of
| touching glass.
|
| Oh wow, I wrote that before even reading the article.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| I had a touchscreen laptop in one work environment, and like
| others, very rarely used the touch interface. It's actually
| surprisingly tiring to use for more than touching a button or
| scrolling, and I only use it for that over a mouse if I wasn't
| at the keyboard (if I was off to the side writing in a notebook
| or something). I have certainly never missed having the
| feature.
|
| I think this project is cool but it looks like a lot of
| annoyances compared to just having a macbook plus ipad, and
| doesn't really seem more portable than a normal macbook plus
| ipad.
| tomatotomato37 wrote:
| It's surprising how often people advocate for interfaces that
| require more muscle movement to do the same thing. I
| regularly use a pen display for drawing, and even with a tool
| that is more precise than finger touch input and optimized
| ergonomically for long art sessions I still regularly switch
| back to a mouse or even laptop touchpad when interacting with
| anything outside of a purpose-built art program.
| Tagbert wrote:
| I no longer have it but for quite a while I used a touch screen
| Windows laptop. I found touch useful and natural for some
| actions. I never expected to use it for everything. No worries
| about gorilla-arm.
|
| For me it was about having a mix of interaction methods.
| Sometimes would use touch, sometimes mouse or trackpad, and
| sometimes keyboard. It was all very situational. Actions like
| scrolling, dragging, and tapping buttons lend themselves to
| touch. Fiddling with forms or small UI elements may need a
| pointing device. Editing text works best with a keyboard. It's
| about options.
|
| In addition, I felt that being able to switch methods meant
| less RSI as I wan't using the same movements as much. I was
| never bothered that some UI elements were too small for touch
| because I was always ready to switch to a pointer when it was
| called for.
|
| I do the same now on an iPad Pro that almost all the time sits
| in a keyboard case next to a mouse. I am constantly switching
| between those and sometimes picking up the pencil, too.
|
| it might not be for everyone but I would like the option to do
| that on Mac OS as well.
| MenhirMike wrote:
| I found touch really useful for taking notes (OneNote) and for
| drawing (Clip Studio Pro) - and that's it. I could try to build
| some Star Trek-like giant touch UI, but never found it useful
| to use touch for apps that work better with keyboard/mouse.
|
| So yeah, I agree that I wouldn't want a Windows or macOS device
| that uses touch for the primary UI, I just want touch-enabled
| apps that make good use of a pen, on a device that has a proper
| keyboard/trackpad for everything else.
|
| Arguably, the Wacom Cintiq already solved that issue
| completely. I did think that the Surface Studio were the most
| interesting Surface products, though the price wasn't
| attractive.
| tomrod wrote:
| Just add zoom function so old apps can work somewhat with
| touch. Works well enough for mobile phones and old.reddit.com.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| The GNOME built-in apps seem to work just fine in touchscreen
| mode. Yes the buttons and window titlebar are larger, but not
| _too_ much. (And there are ongoing 'tweaks' that allow for a
| better use of the resulting space; e.g. the large, touch-usable
| titlebar now has a room for a subtitle and a few app-specific
| buttons.) The clearest issue with GNOME on touchscreens right
| now is that it ships with a crappy on-screen keyboard, missing
| many of the PC keys (which leads to usability issues with many
| apps) and a lot less usable than what you can get on AOSP.
| hawski wrote:
| I have a touch enabled Chromebooks and when you change to a
| tablet mode the interface changes in front of your eyes to be
| more tablety. It is actually quite nice.
| maxsilver wrote:
| I don't think people want to fudge the different interaction
| styles together. I think they just want to have both
| experiences out of the same hardware.
|
| I carry an M1 MacBook Air, and a iPad Air 5th-gen. They both
| have identical fanless M1 Apple ARM silicon, both have
| identical ram (8GB) and identical storage (256gb), it's
| practically the same device. I even also carry the iPad Magic
| Keyboard. I have to carry two sets of everything, just because
| Apple artificially prevents any of their own software from
| working on any of their own hardware.
|
| It makes perfect sense to me that, when in tablet/touchscreen
| interaction, I get a traditional iPad experience.
|
| It makes _zero_ sense, that when I attach the $300 traditional
| keyboard /trackpad to that iPad Air, I get thrown into a weird
| iPad-kinda-pretending-to-be-a-laptop-but-failing mode, where
| you "kinda" have a mouse cursor, and "kinda" have windows (but
| only 2 or 3!) and you can "kinda" resize them, and you can
| "kinda" have an external display (but despite being huge, you
| still can't have more than 3 windows!).
|
| macOS already works great, "iPad Stage Manager" feels like a
| bunch of people trying desperately to justify breaking macOS
| conventions and UI/UX, mostly for no good reason.
|
| There's no reason I couldn't be put into normal macOS, and even
| have my existing iPad apps still running (the software portion
| of this already works on macOS today, iPad apps _run_ on macOS
| right now! You just cant experience this on any of the devices
| that have touchscreens -- you can 't do this on the devices
| that would most benefit from it.)
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > "kinda" have windows (but only 2 or 3!)
|
| Historically, that was basically coping with the fact that
| mobile devices would ship with low amounts of RAM _and_
| crappy, bottom-of-the-barrel eMMC storage, so they couldn 't
| really have swap space. One would think that the latter
| factor is a lot less important nowadays, since storage size
| and quality has improved with things like UFS.
| al_borland wrote:
| I thought Apple had the perfect groundwork, at least from UI
| elements, to make the single device work.
|
| My thought was when a keyboard/mouse were connected it would
| be in macOS mode, with a normal desktop, windows, and the
| dock. Without these input devices, it would switch to touch
| mode, forcing all the apps to full screen (or now Stage
| Manager as an option) and forcing LaunchPad in place is the
| normal desktop/dock. Developers would be instructed to use
| larger touch-friendly UI elements for full screen mode, which
| would be used in the touch mode.
|
| It seemed like Apple was laying a lot of ground work, and it
| made so much sense to me that they'd do this. This was many,
| many years ago. I've since given up thinking they'll do this.
|
| I thought the same thing about the iPhone, even before the
| iPad. Once it got fast enough, allow it to plugin to a dock
| and use a normal desktop with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
| Some Android devices have since come out that do this, but I
| think Apple is in a much better position to make something
| happen.
| Jun8 wrote:
| I've got the admit, this looks a bir ridiculous. However, if
| Apple had a MAcBook shell (keyboard+screen+battery) that, in
| place of the trackpad you can snap in your iPhone, it would be
| awesome. For the life of me I don't understand why somebody does
| not create such a phone-turns-into-laptop thing (it was tried by
| Motorola some years ago but never caught on).
| jwells89 wrote:
| Samsung phones have a feature like this (DeX I think it's
| called?) but it's a bit kneecapped by the selection of apps
| available for Android. It'd be more useful if when plugged into
| dock, a Linux desktop with GNOME or KDE or something is what
| appears.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| Steam Deck does this. It's a touch screen + joystick (btw I
| love the double-trackpad onscreen keyboard, better even than
| using the touch screen), that becomes a KDE desktop when
| docked.
|
| Well, sort of. Under normal operation it requires a (fast)
| system reset to switch between desktop and "handheld" modes.
| However, you can open Big Picture (the handheld mode) from
| desktop mode, it's just not as gaming-focused when you do it
| this way.
|
| Anyway, I would install SteamOS on a tablet form-factor in a
| heartbeat if I was looking for this experience.
| jwells89 wrote:
| Yep, I have a Deck and think it's a cool feature, though
| not one that I've personally gotten a lot of use out of
| yet. It's mainly been nice for getting a keyboard and mouse
| to do more involved emulator setup with.
|
| A Linux tablet with hardware that doesn't suck would be
| pretty interesting, especially if the manufacturer
| integrated Waydroid as well as WINE/Proton is on SteamOS.
| vundercind wrote:
| The Steam Deck is real janky in desktop mode. Way more so
| than I was expecting. Any time I have to switch over to it,
| I sigh and grit my teeth as I prepare for a bad time.
| Killed my highest hopes for the device dead ("hm, maybe
| this could double as a light-duty Linux workstation?")
| moolcool wrote:
| Does anyone else remember the Modbook from the early 2010s?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modbook
| jwells89 wrote:
| One of my college classmates toted one of the lower end
| versions made from a white polycarbonate Macbook around. Worked
| surprisingly well for what it was but its stylus was a must, it
| would've been disastrous if it had tried to take a finger-based
| approach.
| rzzzt wrote:
| A Wacom tablet went in that one. I don't think they were
| sensitive to fingers back then.
| modzu wrote:
| is this supposed to be taken seriously? they are using a laptop
| with apple vision and thought the screen is wasting space so they
| took it out. but wait, sometimes they do want a screen, so lets
| pop in an ipad? what in the hell? bet this kid has an iphone for
| each pocket. if only we all had this kind of spare time and
| nothing better to waste money on
| jijijijij wrote:
| This setup has been done before with the Mac Mini, which makes
| more sense to me... Or you know, just ssh into some server.
|
| In any case, these "iPad as Screen hacks" still do not address
| the main issue at hand: Hardware-wise, you simply don't need the
| (Macbook Air) laptop, at all.
|
| The laptop form is technically obsolete for most users, since
| Apple Silicone chips are very similar in Air and iPad. The iPad
| offers more than enough processing power, while having additional
| capabilities. Breaking this stupid redundancy and better
| ergonomics are the things Apple won't make for the sake of
| completely artificial market segmentation. Probably to keep up
| supply to the golden iOS Appstore prison and consequent double
| spending on not just hardware, but software, too.
|
| Honestly, every time Apple tries to green-wash their business,
| you shall remember how they keep the demand for a whole device
| line up artificially - and its unnecessary production impact on
| the planet. Dear Apple, who cares about your headquarter's solar
| panels, or aluminium recycling rate, when you could simply give
| people a unix shell on the iPad, with a much, much better
| environmental impact? Yeah...
|
| Side note: Fool me once... the iPad-paperweight experience is the
| sole reason I would never, never ever even consider getting into
| their AR/VR ecosystem. Specs my ass, shell or GTFO. Stallman
| really do be right.
| tomrod wrote:
| I wonder if you could use this to use old pads as a beowolf-like
| cluster. That'd be neat and perhaps prevent some ewaste.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| 11" MacBook Air or 12" MacBook
|
| Isn't this effectively what the 11" MBA or 12" MB was?
|
| Whereas today, there is no macOS device with a built-in screen
| smaller than 13".
| mouse_ wrote:
| You can run modern macOS on the thinkpad x1 tablet gen3. Might be
| more practical than what OP has.
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