alt Hacker NewsTim Cook's fear of people not buying a full set of Apple devices for each person is the driving force behind not just the lack of multiuser support, but also the overall nerfing of iPadOS.
For the past 5+ years it's been, "This will be the year of real work on the iPad," but they keep circling around it, trying not to make iPads accidentally powerful enough for someone to skip buying a MacBook.
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> they keep circling around it, trying not to make iPads accidentally powerful enough for someone to skip buying a MacBook.
Which is really silly, because if someone needs to do actual work they are not going to do it on an iPad no matter how capable it is. The form factor simply does not work for getting work done. Apple has nothing to fear here.
> trying not to make iPads accidentally powerful enough for someone to skip buying a MacBook.
TBH, if you buy an iPad and their nice keyboard case, it costs almost as much as an MBA. This is one of the reasons I simply cannot justify getting a new iPad these days. The other is that my 8 year old iPad Pro still works just fine, in case I ever need to do iPad-ish things like draw with the pencil.
They spend plenty of time adding "pro" features and apps like Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro, which they wouldn't do unless they wanted people to use them.
I'm willing to bet it's as simple as that no Apple SWEs or anyone who has to edit video or sound uses an ipad for work. As soon as Apple forced some to use one, they'd fix all of the UI problems that make them a nightmare.
I mainly use my iPad Pro like a MacBook with the Magic Keyboard and a Razer mouse (I can even play ARC Raiders perfectly on it, streamed from the gaming pc in another room; having a completely silent gaming setup in the living room is amazing) connected.
My macOS muscle memory works most of the time, but there are also quite some details which are slightly different or missing. If they would allow a macOS “mode” on iPad I would choose it over a MacBook instantly for work.
Yeah, everyone I know who owns an iPad for personal use, they also own a laptop. It's possible they use the iPad more than the laptop, but they still need the laptop, which might be a Mac.
I could excuse it if the iPad was a $200 novelty like the Amazon Fire tablets, but they're putting M-series chips in them and marketing (and pricing) them like PC replacements.
I’ve always found this funny because everyone in my family has an iPad and none of us have a Mac.
I may be an outlier, but multi-user support might make me buy more iPads. Basically, an iPad Air for each major room in the house. Then my wife and I, plus guests, could pick up which ever one is closest.
Today, we just have on each and have to run around the house whenever we want it.
Playing devil’s advocate the only real device I truly would want to have multi user switching is the Vision Pro due to cost and features . If multiple users were to be added to the iPad would there be enough people to justify the long term use of the device ? I feel like this is a HN filter bubble desire just like small phones .
The flip side here is if I could use an iPad to replace the MacMini on my desk and connect to a monitor with the same support my Mac does I'd most likely have a top end iPad Pro as opposed to my mildly spec'd MacMini M2 and iPad Air M1. I'd literally spend MORE money on that 1 iPad than both existing iPad and Macs I have today.