On The iPad Pro, or How Apple Platforms Will Still Merge in 2016
I picked up the new iPad Pro on launch day on Wednesday, and after playing with it a little bit, as well as reading reviews from a number of bloggers, I thought now would be a good time to revisit the predictions in my own blog from July of this year: Apple platforms will merge in 2016.
In short, the new iPad Pro is only providing more fodder to my theory. It is the clearest sign to date from Apple of what is yet to come, and it is very much pointing further to a unified Apple world.
Even without looking at the device itself, you don’t have to go very far from the horse’s mouth. Just a few days ago, Tim Cook was publicly dissing Microsoft’s Surface tactics and emphasizing how the iPad Pro was now the only computer he carried with him, along with his iPhone.
“It’s a product that tries too hard to do too much,” Cook reportedly said of the laptop, which offers a removable screen that turns into a quasi-tablet. “It’s trying to be a tablet and a notebook and it really succeeds at being neither. It’s sort of diluted.”
Cook’s message is clear: if you want to see how to do hybrid mobile computing right, Apple is going to show you how it’s done. And they likely have been planning this for a very long time.
Using the new iPad Pro feels a lot like using a laptop-class device. The screen size is comparable to most laptops of this size, yet its Retina screen still manages to pack in more pixels than a 15" MacBook Pro.
The on-screen virtual keyboard is actually modeled after a regular Apple keyboard, a lot more functional than the virtual keyboard in previous iPads. No wonder that keyboard covers like the Apple Smart Keyboard are very popular accessories, though I didn’t get one myself.
The first thing that jumped at me was when using iPad apps that haven’t been optimized yet to work with the dimensions of the new device. The experience is very much reminiscent of when iOS apps designed for 3.5" iPhones were being run on the larger iPhone 6. The system scales up the interface, so that it looks blurry and out of place. Text input is particularly cringe-worthy in these apps: the old virtual keyboard designed for smaller devices takes over half of the screen. It is much more cumbersome, and lacks all the easy access to the expanded keys.
Performance-wise, benchmarks of the new Apple A9X CPU are off the charts, easily competing with Intel laptops, and finally cementing the fact that Apple is now a world-class chip designer. The writing is clearly on the wall for x86 processors — it won’t be long until they will be relegated to the dustbin of history, along with PowerPC, SPARC and other niche platforms now mostly relegated to specialized data centers — if that. With 4GB of RAM, the new iPad is much more in the class of laptops than any previous iPad. Along with the larger screen, this makes split-screen multitasking a breeze to use.
Horace Dediu released a pretty cool video retrospective of Apple devices over the years, and I mostly agree with his conclusions, putting the iPad Pro into perspective. It makes the compelling argument that this is a new class of desktop computer, more than just a bigger tablet.
The main thing holding the iPad back presently is its operating software, iOS 9.1. It feels very much like a platform in transition, still carrying tremendous baggage from previous touch-driven devices. Many apps (including some of Apple’s) haven’t been fully adapted to the new device.
There is no doubt that further improvements will come in later point releases of iOS 9, but I believe that iOS 10 — to be announced at WWDC 2016 — will be focused on the final merging of the iOS and OS X platforms, unlocking the full potential of the iPad Pro and its successors. I actually doubt it will actually be called iOS 10, but this will have to do for now.
My main point is this: I wager that the future of the Mac will be much more like the iPad Pro than the new Macbook. A MacBook-like device may still have its place in the lineup for years to come, mostly for people who prefer using a trackpad to a touch screen. But this will be pretty much the only differentiating factor.
It is also interesting to see how the latest Apple TV platform may actually fit in this picture. While very close to iOS (to the point that a lot of iOS code can just be recompiled as is), tvOS introduced some UI concepts that will also be useful on a more keyboard-driven Apple OS on large tablets.
Just earlier this week, it was discovered that the API used to implement control focus (via the Siri Remote trackpad) is secretly included in the current iOS. It would actually make sense for this API to become officially part of a later version of iOS allowing interfaces to be navigated via the cursor of a keyboard — or even a trackpad like the one on a MacBook. This is an example of an API that wouldn’t be at home on a purely touch platform, but suddenly starts to make sense when considering the tendency of all of Apple software platforms to converge.
I think the main reason most observers don’t see this convergence right now is because of the aforementioned baggage currently all over iOS. It currently doesn’t feel like a real desktop-class operating system, like OS X does on the Mac. Yet as of right now, they both share a huge amount of underlying technology. Certain classes of apps were just not practical on previous devices, but they suddenly start to become attainable on a device like the iPad Pro.
Really, in many ways the iPad Pro is able to handle pretty much all classes of mainstream apps that would be available on a Mac. Especially all the creative apps, particularly for art or office use. These are downright very usable, particularly with a physical keyboard attached — not to mention the new Apple Pencil. Many of the available apps will catch up with the platform in the coming months, bridging the gap until the OS itself catches up next year.
Even video games will be covered by this — especially in light of what is now possible with tvOS. Not that the Mac was ever a major gaming platform, but it is now easy to make a universal iOS/tvOS game that is usable on both the Apple TV and iPad. I bet it will be possible to hook up Bluetooth game controllers to current iOS devices soon enough, the same way they can be paired with the Apple TV.
The one class of app currently missing? Developer tools.
I wager that something like Xcode will be provided by Apple to actually start developing apps on the device itself, without needing a Mac. This sentiment was echoed just recently by Steve Streza. Anybody with an iPad device will be able to start making their apps, very likely only in Swift, compiled right on the device.
It is likely that this will start as a much simpler offshoot of Xcode for Mac — think GarageBand as it relates to Logic Pro, or iMovie to Final Cut Pro X. As some have suggested, interactive Swift Playgrounds would be a great way to start as a simpler iPad app for developers.
While there have been a few apps on the App Store dedicated to programming (Codea comes to mind), publishing an App Store app is right now a Mac-only endeavor. This new tool would make app development finally mainstream. You will see apps pop up on the Apple App Store that will have been written by little kids with only their iPad, without ever touching a Mac computer.
Maybe the recent Mac App Store fuck-up is actually a sign of how little Apple actually cares about maintaining what is slowly becoming a dying platform. As I speculated back in July, there will soon be only a single App Store for the unified Apple OS, which will serve all Apple products. The Mac App Store itself will eventually be merged into the bigger store, serving legacy Mac apps.
This I believe is where we are headed. This transition will probably take years to complete, but sooner rather than later we’ll be looking at the current crop of Intel Macs the same way we now look at PowerPC Macs.
In summary, here is how I would amend my original predictions from back in July:
- The iPad Pro is the future of the Mac. Future devices will be equipped by Apple chips from top to bottom, including for successors of the iMac, MacBook and Mac Pro.
- Apple will make developer apps available on the new unified Apple OS, making it possible to build apps without a Mac. The first iterations probably won’t allow to submit to the App Store, though.
- tvOS will be further unified with the new Apple OS, further extending continuity between the various hardware platforms.
Many commentators don’t seem to understand that technologically speaking Apple is actually a very conservative company, and plays a long game strategically. They are not knee-jerk reactionaries like many of their competitors. I think they are on the cusp of unveiling their next iterative revolution.
We’ll see how right (or wrong) I was at WWDC 2016 next summer, but I’m feeling pretty confident about these predictions right about now.
