[carlycue]

In 2021, the Mac grossed $30B. iPad ($30B) and iPhone ($196B) together grossed $226B. Mac users might think they're still the most important part of Apple but it turns out, the Mac is quite insignificant compared to Apple's mobile OS's when you put things in perspective.

I am still surprised that Apple is pouring resources into the Mac. Nowadays, smartphones and tablets are the main computer for 90% of people. The sooner Apple rebuilds Xcode from the ground up for the iPad, the quicker we can get rid of the Mac with its decades of legacy baggage.

[jbverschoor]

Developers, developers, developers...

Now more than ever it's important to keep developers / desktop users.

If they destroy macos, lots of developers will actually go somewhere else. What do you need these days? Chrome..

If I'd move off of the Apple ecosystem with my laptop, I'd probably look into other fields to jump ships as well.

MacOS X became popular bc of developers. We are the ones creating things for people.. I hope they don't forget this.

[pjmlp]

Apple ecosystem developers, developers != UNIX.

[filoleg]

Don't get me wrong, I definitely like my iPad pro a lot, and use it on regular. And I also think that having some functionally useful version of Xcode on it would be amazing.

However, that wouldn't replace macOS for me at all. I see a lot of value in iPad as a device I use on a regular basis, but even with all those features, I still need a general purpose computing machine for plenty of reasons. No matter what features iPad might end up having in the future, it wont replace macOS for me.

Killing Mac not only hurts Mac itself, it also hurts all the adjacent products. Two features I personally really like on iPad are universal control over mac+ipad screens (one keyboard+trackpad controls both devices at the same time, but keeping the OS and everything else entirely separate) and the extended screen (where ipad can act as a simple external screen for a mac, either as wired or wireless). That class of features straight up wouldn't exist without mac existing. Hell, part of the reason i even use an iPhone is because of how smoothly it interacts with macOS (shared clipboard+imessage ftw).

Sure, the general public needs might change, and they might swing towards ipads over similar form factor general purpose computing devices (aka laptops). I don't see it happening, however. The people who would be the ones to do it, they had already done it by switching from laptops to smartphones over the past decade with the rise of iOS and Android. And i just don't see them switching away from smartphones to iPads (or tablets in general, for that matter).

[mch82]

Out of curiosity, do you use a lot of windows?

I’ve used a Mac my whole life. Recently, I’m using 4-finger swipe to switch full screen apps. I’m also choosing the “snap” layouts over dragging windows around. It’s useful to have 2 folders on screen to be able to move files between them, but I don’t stack windows like I used to.

[filoleg]

> do you use a lot of windows?

I do, yeah. Though I stopped using windows for work and just use it daily for gaming or just general reading/browsing/minor task machine. Occasionally I would write a bit of code on it, maybe a small python script or some in-browser debugging, but that's about it. For work, audio/music recording related stuff, coding side projects, and all other sort of personal usage, it is macOS. I also use linux for work quite a lot, but usually from an ssh terminal on a mac machine.

If I had to put numbers on it, it would be around 60/40 mac/windows split on weekdays, and around 30/70 mac/windows on the weekend. Heavily averaged out, because there are definitely days and even streaks of days when i exclusively use only one OS or the other.

Also, do you mind elaborating a bit on what you meant by the swiping story?

On a personal tangentially related note though, I also like a lot how the swipe gestures are shared between macOS and their touch-based devices' gestures. That's how i accidentally ended up discovering a few nice and useful macOS ones. Once i realized that three-finger gestures on a mac trackpad act as an equivalent of single-finger gestures on iPhones, the first thing i tried was a three-finger swipe left and right. And yup, it was virtual desktop switching. Then i tried a three-finger swipe from the bottom, and it zoomed out and brought up all open windows on screen at the same time, and then returned back to what it was before when swiped back down. Not gonna lie, it felt a bit mindblowing how nicely designed and thought through it felt.

[mch82]

Actually, I was wondering if you drag, resize, or organize desktop windows (https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...) to do things that aren’t possible on iOS.

Though, I also use Windows for gaming, mostly Rocket League :-)

[filoleg]

So sorry, I totally misread what you meant and wrote a wall of text about Windows OS, rather than desktop window management.

I do use quite a lot of application windows on macOS, and I use Rectangle Pro to snap/organize them. I saw someone else mentioning Moom in the comments as well, also heard good things about it.

However, I will admit, I definitely like the way FancyZones (feature built-into PowerToys, which is a first party Microsoft tool for Win10/11 full of other nifty things) window management works more than that of Rectangle Pro. But the combination of Rectangle Pro + virtual desktop organization + trackpad gestures is imo amazing for overall window management for me. I definitely like that overall package more than FancyZones on its own.

[sixstringtheory]

I use Moom which lets me resize/reposition/layout sets of windows using keyboard combos.

But even with full screen windows, you don’t have to four-finger swipe between them–you can still cmd-tab or use spotlight to switch apps.

I encourage everyone to learn more keyboard shortcuts, it is just so much faster to stay on home row vs reaching for a mouse or trackpad.

[api]

The iPad can't replace the Mac unless I can run my own software on it outside the App Store.

Part of the definition of a "real computer" is that it's truly general purpose. Anything not meeting this requirement is a special purpose device or at most a "console," which is the category I place iOS devices into.

[cglong]

Unfortunately I don't think a lot of people understand the implications of this distinction.

[imwillofficial]

That argument is shortsighted. Classic business school thinking. No consideration of second order effects or long term strategy.

Sure, that’s where things stand today, but the Mac is part of Apples brand. They screw it up enough and iPhone won’t win on its strengths anymore. Design and execution.

You’re on top of the world…

Until you’re not.

[carlycue]

> Sure, that’s where things stand today, but the Mac is part of Apples brand. They screw it up enough and iPhone won’t win on its strengths anymore. Design and execution.

It used to be but not anymore. The iPhone is Apple's most important product and the majority of iPhone users aren't interested in the Mac.

[happymellon]

That's because the majority of iPhone users are consumers.

The majority of Mac users are producers, creating content for the iPhone users. If they kill Mac then their iPhone cash cow will dwindle as they will no longer have content.

[0x457]

> The majority of Mac users are producers

That's not true at all, and sounds like Mac user elitism that everyone hates.

It is true, that many iPhone users aren't interested in mac and some not interested in any kind of desktop/laptop device at all. The same true vice-versa - I have a mac* and not interested in iPhone and plenty of my colleges are the same.

*: One because compliance is easier than on Linux and another one because I need to develop for mac and iOS.

[happymellon]

Sorry, that's not what I meant, I incorrectly phrased that the wrong way around.

If you are making stuff for iPhones, you essentially have to have a Mac because XCode to create iPhone apps requires a Mac to run. I meant the majory of app creators are Mac users. So if they kill the Mac workflow then they will castrate the cash cow that is the iPhone.

I know there are alternative workflows you could make by using something that can cross compile to iPhone and using a Windows/Linux system, then renting a Mac device via a cloud service like AWS, but I would be surprised if it made up a significant amount of development.

[0x457]

> If you are making stuff for iPhones, you essentially have to have a Mac because XCode to create iPhone apps requires a Mac to run.

I would assume people at Apple aren't brain-dead to kill mac and not have an alternative development flow, haha. "killing mac" if it's on a table would include allowing other platforms to build iOS / iPadOS apps.

[jaywalk]

This is pretty much only because the Mac is the only way to "officially" create iPhone apps.

[happymellon]

And, while it is really the only way to create iPhone content Apple cannot let the Mac die.

[imwillofficial]

Let’s do a thought experiment.

If the Mac disappeared today in a puff of smoke, would that result in less iPhones sold, a less prestigious brand, or maybe an improvement?

An additional argument is that companies rarely have one major product. Apple is big enough to execute well on several synergistic fronts.

$30b is an awesome business all on its own, and compliments, not detracts from, the iPhone brand.

Apple should be able to execute in multiple domains with a high degree of quality all at once.

[andrekandre]

  > $30b is an awesome business all on its own, and compliments, not detracts from, the iPhone brand.

yep, and just because the ratio of revenue is heavily in favor of iphone, there is no reason to subsume (subvert?) the mac ui into its paradigm... the worse ux could result in that 30bn shrinking, wherein they will just devote more resources to consolidation, again accelerating the mac's decline.... its a potential negative spiral if i ever saw one...

[imwillofficial]

Exactly!

[Apocryphon]

There's huge amounts of work that can only be done on desktop or on laptops, and not on smartphones, simply because of form factor. Unless we're imagining a future where people plug their phones and tablets into monitor-keyboard setups and type away, all the time.

[GoOnThenDoTell]

I think that could be a reality one day, if they get the UI right. An iphone is plenty powerful for most office-style workloads

[freediver]

> I am still surprised that Apple is pouring resources into the Mac. Nowadays, smartphones and tablets are the main computer for 90% of people.

All those apps used by people on smatphones and tablets get developed on a Mac.

You should also compare sales trends vs point in time stats to get a better picture, as Mac sales got a significant boost with the introduction of the M1 chip.

[sharikous]

> The sooner Apple rebuilds Xcode from the ground up for the iPad, the quicker we can get rid of the Mac with its decades of legacy baggage.

There is still a market of billions of dollars for those people who need a general purpose machine and not a walled garden.

Even if you are right and the mac will be no more, there will be people doing general purpose computing on Linux and Raspberry pis. Those people will be willing to pay for a better experience.

[weikju]

> the quicker we can get rid of the Mac with its decades of legacy baggage

legacy baggage, a lot of which is/was well-designed or well-thought-out baggage, that is also being thrown out the window in the rush to mobile-ify everything, making people less productive overall, because big companies (and users) are bent on the idea that users shouldn't learn how to use their tools.

[linguae]

To be honest, before the release of Apple's M1 Macs in 2020, I thought that the Mac was on its way out, especially around 2017 when we had to endure many years of waiting for new desktop Macs (the Mac Mini had a long period between updates from 2014 to 2018, and the Mac Pro had an even longer period from 2013 to 2019). I still think with the gradual adoption of iOS UI/UX idioms by macOS and the growing adoption of SwiftUI, combined with the fact that Macs now run on Apple Silicon just like iPads, that eventually macOS and iOS will merge despite Apple's repeated claims to the contrary.

Still, I think this will be a major loss for longtime users of macOS who enjoyed roughly two decades of using a well-polished operating system that was unabashedly designed for desktop computing workloads, unlike Windows and some Linux desktops with their confused aims of trying to merge the desktop, mobile, and Web experiences. While iOS's success has been undoubtedly wonderful for Apple, in some ways the success of iOS was the worst thing to happen to the Mac. What hurts in particular is that there is no alternative with the polish of macOS and its ecosystem; it's all ports of Web apps and mobile apps from here on out, with the usability and flexibility issues inherent in these engineering decisions, and all running on platforms that support the moats that Microsoft, Apple, and Google built.

I saw the writing on the wall years ago and my daily drivers are now PCs running Windows 10 and FreeBSD. I don't work for Apple and I'm just one complainer on Hacker News, and so I have little control over the Mac's direction; the best I can do is vote with my dollars. But I'm hoping projects like helloSystem and ravynOS will gain traction and help keep the spirit of Mac OS X alive, and I'm working on my own side project that will explore ideas influenced by the classic Mac OS, OpenDoc, Smalltalk, Lisp machines, and Plan 9; basically, explorations of what could've happened if some of the dreams of early 1990s Apple researchers and engineers had been realized.

[jmnicolas]

I wouldn't call $30B insignificant! Would you lose these 30 billions because you can't bother to take care of the Mac?

[cpach]

As a Mac fanboi I wish I could refute your argument, but… those numbers are pretty telling.

[feifan]

$30B is still A LOT in absolute terms