[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.