“Amid the battles over bezels, screens, and battery life, there’s one thing that all iPhones have in common: They’re powerful enough to replace your PC,” Michael Simon writes for Macworld.
“For the majority of people, an iPhone is enough. Apple knows this. It’s already marketing the iPad as a computer, and the iPhone is just a stone’s throw away, with the same processor, OS, and storage capacity,” Simon writes. “The only real problem is that the screen is too small for doing lengthy work.”
“But if Apple were to think of the iPhone like a MacBook Air, it just might work,” Simon writes. “By combining the mobile prowess of the iPhone and the MacBook Air, Apple would create the ultimate mobile device, one that works as well in your hand as it does when you hook it up to a 20-inch screen.”
MacDailyNews Take: This reminds us of what we’ve asked many times over the past few years: Who’s in the market for a 12.9-inch device that’s an OS X-powered MacBook when docked with its keyboard base and an iOS-powered iPad Pro when undocked?
As we wrote just over a year ago: Here’s an idea: Apple could sell iPad Pros as they do now, and for those wanting a “Mac,” Apple could sell them the macOS-powered display-less keyboard/trackpad/cpu/RAM/SSD/battery base unit. Attach your iPad for the display and off you go, you Mac-headed truck driver! Plus, you get to use the iPad’s battery, too, extending battery life to provide a truly all-day battery for portable Mac users. Detach the display and you get your iOS-powered iPad back, same as always.
Too outside the box? We’d love to be able to take our 12-inch iPad Pro, mate it with this theoretical Mac base unit, and turn it into a portable Mac. Right now, we carry 12-inch iPad Pros and MacBooks in our backpacks. Guess what’s redundant? Right, the displays. We don’t need to carry two screens on the road. The iPad Pro’s screen would do just fine, thanks.
Buy the Mac base on its own (for those who already have 12.9-inch iPad Pros) or buy it as part of a package (get a new 12.9-inch iPad Pro at a nice discount when you buy it with the Mac base). Imagine if Apple had unveiled this headless MacBook that you use with your iPad at their iPad event last fall. How many more 12-inch iPad Pro sales would such a product have generated? Enough to return iPad to unit sales growth, we bet. And, how many more Macs would have been sold, too?
Illustration from Apple’s hybrid Mac-iPad patent application
“Who’s in the market for a 12.9-inch device that’s an OS X-powered MacBook when docked with its keyboard base and an iOS-powered iPad Pro when undocked?”
Or better yet build a device like the PixelBook but running ARM / iOS. Don’t call it iPad. Call it iBook => iBook for mainstream users, MBP for Pro users.
They have such an advantage to do that better than the opposition owning the whole platform, operating system. And hardware it seems it’s about time Apple created such a device not to mention one that operates seemlessly on the desktop.
Your iPhone WILL BE your computer shortly. iCloud enabled this. You will plug your iPhone into the lightening port, which will be attached to a monitor/display. Bluetooth keyboard and mouse will pair, and you’re online and rolling like it’s a MacMini. The tech is there.
The issue is the OS. Most users want a desktop OS (el cap) on their desk. Once OSX can be loaded and run from the iPhone and there’s a handoff to iOS when appropriate, this will happen.
In the same way you gave up your landline phone, you will give up your “computer”.
>> and you’re online and rolling like it’s a MacMini
Don’t think so. My mini has 11 connectors (plus the power connector) 10 of which are always used, plus about 9 devices connected to USB hubs. There won’t be much rolling here, apart from my eyes.
“Here’s an idea: Apple could sell iPad Pros as they do now, and for those wanting a “Mac,” Apple could sell them the macOS-powered display-less keyboard/trackpad/cpu/RAM/SSD/battery base unit.”
MDN, you’re confused. You think Apple is in the game to bring you the best solution. They are in the game to SELL YOU THE MOST HARDWARE. That’s why they will not do this. Why sell you 2-in-1 options like this when they can sell you a full touch tablet+keyboard+stylus that supposedly can replace your laptop computer, then turn around and convince you that you ALSO need a full laptop computer that (by their definition) shouldn’t have touch on it?
Double the hardware, double the revenue.
They are driven by selling you hardware, not solutions. You can’t see this?
“Who’s in the market for a 12.9-inch device that’s an OS X-powered MacBook when docked with its keyboard base and an iOS-powered iPad Pro when undocked?”
Or better yet build a device like the PixelBook but running ARM / iOS. Don’t call it iPad. Call it iBook => iBook for mainstream users, MBP for Pro users.
They have such an advantage to do that better than the opposition owning the whole platform, operating system. And hardware it seems it’s about time Apple created such a device not to mention one that operates seemlessly on the desktop.
MDN Take©, I am!! Great idea!! Build it, I buy.
What’s with everything being in italics all of a sudden? It okay, just shock me a bit…
Your iPhone WILL BE your computer shortly. iCloud enabled this. You will plug your iPhone into the lightening port, which will be attached to a monitor/display. Bluetooth keyboard and mouse will pair, and you’re online and rolling like it’s a MacMini. The tech is there.
The issue is the OS. Most users want a desktop OS (el cap) on their desk. Once OSX can be loaded and run from the iPhone and there’s a handoff to iOS when appropriate, this will happen.
In the same way you gave up your landline phone, you will give up your “computer”.
>> and you’re online and rolling like it’s a MacMini
Don’t think so. My mini has 11 connectors (plus the power connector) 10 of which are always used, plus about 9 devices connected to USB hubs. There won’t be much rolling here, apart from my eyes.
Yay! Then we could have computers with no connectors at all!
“Here’s an idea: Apple could sell iPad Pros as they do now, and for those wanting a “Mac,” Apple could sell them the macOS-powered display-less keyboard/trackpad/cpu/RAM/SSD/battery base unit.”
MDN, you’re confused. You think Apple is in the game to bring you the best solution. They are in the game to SELL YOU THE MOST HARDWARE. That’s why they will not do this. Why sell you 2-in-1 options like this when they can sell you a full touch tablet+keyboard+stylus that supposedly can replace your laptop computer, then turn around and convince you that you ALSO need a full laptop computer that (by their definition) shouldn’t have touch on it?
Double the hardware, double the revenue.
They are driven by selling you hardware, not solutions. You can’t see this?