[simonh]

It's amazing to me that Apple made a very strict distinction between touch UI systems and keyboard/mouse UI systems, right from the start, has maintained that rigorously, and has been right all along.

Their competitors and the pundit-sphere saw this as a fatal weakness, but every attempt at unifying touch and keyboard/mouse interfaces failed miserably.

So I'm not concerned about Apple trying to merge iPadOS and MacOS, because they already know it would be a mistake and are sticking to their guns until maybe our eyes and fingers get about 4x as sharp.

[jakelazaroff]

What do you mean? iPadOS has keyboard and mouse support. Apple sells a first-party keyboard accessory for iPad.

[simonh]

Like the pencil these are for specific subsets of use cases, they are not a primary interaction mode but more like specialist support for optional peripherals, the same way desktops support graphics tablets and trackballs. When I described Mac interfaces as keyboard/mouse you didn't say "oh, and also graphics, tablets, trackballs and VR headsets". They're an edge case.

[gjsman-1000]

Yes... but it's still a very touch-focused system. The mouse support on iPad, you'll notice, has very little precision in where you click. It's a round dot like a finger - you can't precisely click a few pixels. They found a way to make a touchpad while keeping the touch focus.

[zozbot234]

> Their competitors and the pundit-sphere saw this as a fatal weakness, but every attempt at unifying touch and keyboard/mouse interfaces failed miserably.

Only because it wasn't really tried. Heck, GNOME on a touchscreen or tablet PC has a better "unified" touch+mouse interface than any of its competitors on the desktop and mobile side.

[MikusR]

The only reason there is a sepparation is that it allows to sell you two devices instead of one. That's alo the reason for no multiuser switching on consumer iPads

[stevenhuang]

Is it really amazing? Everyone has been saying the same from the start about wanting separate mobile and desktop UIs.

[simonh]

Microsoft's tablet strategy was literally to implement a touch first tablet UI in their desktop OS. Meanwhile loads of companies have been trying to merge desktop UI modes into phones since well before the iPhone. Check out Android desktop mode for a recent example. I remember loads of friends of mine for years telling me 'proper' desktop OSes in tablets would kill the iPad.

[matthewfcarlson]

I switched from a windows only company to an apple only company. I generally like macOS but I still touch my screen on my MacBook way too often expect the page to scroll or zoom in.