Let’s not pretend that Apple could come up with some sort of dual windowing system (or just dual boot) scheme. We’re not limited by drive space anymore.
It works pretty nicely on linux, you have "mobile" environments like phosh, KDE mobile and that are pretty seamless between handheld and docked "desktop" usage. They have support in app toolkits like gtk and qt for applications that change based on screen size to accommodate mobile users. It's pretty nice: https://tuxphones.com/convergent-linux-phone-apps/
The reason why it didn't work for microsoft is because adobe, valve, and aren't going to whatever framework just because microsoft wants them to. But in the linux world you can just fork and fix. Even apple has a lot of leverage to force developers to act in a certain way if they want that app store $$$.
Obviously the hardware isn't all there yet in the open source world (the pinephones are pretty underpowered), but in terms of software all of the right stuff is there. And don't tell me the UX is too complicated for new users. Gnome's design is literally a ripoff of MacOS and KDE's interface is pretty much Windows.
In addition, Android apps and Debian Linux VM can co-exist on the same mobile display and there are rumors of desktop convergence between Android and ChromeOS on Chromebooks.
> still doesn't offer touch on any of their notebooks
Is that a feature people actually use? My last laptop had it, but I eventually disabled it in the BIOS because I never really used it, except by accident. I didn't find it comfortable holding my arm out at that angle, and I didn't like having all the fingerprints on my screen.
> Windows 10/11 it's a shit show. The last good Windows was 8.1. And the last great Windows was 7.
Yeh I think there's this weird stigma that stuck after Windows 8 was a bit iffy but 8.1 was fine.
I preferred Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 (and MUCH preferred it to 11) because at least it still had all the old core Windows control panel stuff under the hood. Windows 10 feels like a way more awkward mismash of things because they seem to have simply just taken a bunch of stuff away.
The zillions of different UI paradigms smooshed together started in Win8 but Win10 is where they really seemed to pile it on.
Anyway, I'm not a Mac user. But I absolutely see why they want to keep touch interface separate from keyboard & mouse. It's hard.
Oh right; I always forget that XP shipped with the insulting and horrible Fischer-Price motif enabled by default. The first thing I did was switch it to "classic" mode, which was the last revision of MS's GOOD windows GUI.
They also started obscuring the color-scheme editor, the eventual removal of which was a major blunder. By the time people finally realized that inverse color schemes are dumb, the color-scheme editor was gone and they had to wait for Microsoft and everyone else to implement hard-coded "dark mode" all over the place.
From Windows 3.1 through XP, I had simply created a "dark mode" color scheme at the system level; all properly-written applications inherited the system color scheme in Windows. Such an obvious, useful mechanism that Microsoft "forgot" and Apple to this day has never learned.
Even '90s Unix GUIs let you set up a color scheme, if I remember correctly.
Imho the samsung dex approach is a fine concept (not saying that was fully developed or as extensive as what would be required to do it seriously for a proper desktop os)
Two totally seperate UIs that can run at the same time, a desktop one and a phone one.. it worked shockingly well imho.
Maybe an additional case where you can use the tablet as an extra screen, but honestly that could probably manifest as an app in the mobile UI.
Apple has already done that to iPadOS. It's not the best either. Honestly if they just let you run a full speed Mac VM, even if it was only while a KB/M was attached it would be a massive massive improvement.
(I've seen them. Thought that they were pretty cool as hardware, pity about the OS. I'm not aware of what's transpired, though obviously it hasn't dominated the mobile/tablet market.)
Do you mean dual-booting macOS and iOS? If so, they probably don't because it would work like crap. The tablet is a touch based device and macOS isn't optimised for touch. Unless they want to release something very janky they'd need to invest a lot of time making macOS more touch-optimised and I think the number of people that would care about that or use it is miniscule. The tablet and laptop are completely different form factors and have completely different use cases. Making both devices capable of doing the same things would just unnecessarily compromise the design of both.
See Samsung DeX. It's not dual booting like 2000 with Windows and Linux. It's instant, switching from touch to desktop mode when docked. In the case of an iPad, it would switch to desktop mode if a keyboard is attached. It would allow people with an iPad to have a proper desktop experience when docked or connected to a keyboard, and an iPad experience when handheld. It would really be the best of both worlds. To make it easy, the touch display could even be disabled while in desktop mode.
I do think there will be better convergence over time. The magnetic keyboard for the iPad is definitely a step towards that although I'm still debating whether to take that or my old MacBook on an upcoming month-long trip.
I also don't really disagree with your basic point. And I don't write it off (just) to Apple wants to sell more hardware. A lot of people like essentially a plus-sized iPhone and don't want a laptop. Probably hard to believe for many people on this forum but I heard people at work tell me that they have kids that don't want a laptop and are fine with just using their phones, much less a tablet.
Microsoft really tried to converge the different form factors from an operating system perspective and it never really clicked with people. Would I like a device that really a converged a 13-14" laptop and a tablet in the same general size range? Probably, in part because I wouldn't travel by air with both. But I don't think we're really there today outside of very casual tablet use outside of a browser or watching media.
I don’t even think they need an entirely new windowing system, just a tweak of what they have on macOS.
Have the iPad run macOS, but instead of the desktop, always show LaunchPad, and force the use of Stage Manager or full screen apps. Have developers optimize their full screen view for touch. That’s basically the iPadOS experience without the limits.
What do you mean by dual windowing system? If you mean having multiple windows open at the same time the iPad does support that either simply having two windows sharing the screen (Split View/Slide Over), or having multiple windows on the built-in and external monitor that you can move around (Stage Manager).
I would love to be able to run a linux VM on my iPad though, it would make travel so much simpler for me. I know there are hacks to get it going with UTM etc. but there are too many compromises for my use case.
They aren't afraid of hurting MacBook sales they're afraid of breaking the app store chains. You can get software outside of the app store on the MacBook.