No, your iPad is not getting MacOS. Stop asking

January 15, 2025

This is going to be a short post as I have already touched on this topic, a while ago. Recently there has been an increase in iPad related talk on the internet, mostly on Apple forums, news sites and reddit. One sentiment I see time after time in the comments is stupid.

“The iPad is held back by iPadOS. We need MacOS on the iPad.”

Your iPad is not going to get MacOS. Here are some reasons why. This is just off the top of my head.

  1. Most users are happy with iPadOS. Seriously, 99% of all the people who purchased an iPad did so because it does not have a desktop OS. They like it as an iPad, if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have purchased one.
  2. Have you EVER in the history of computers seen a consumer electronics device offer an alternate operating system? Have you? PCs have alternate operating systems but that’s hist historical events leading up to an open platform. Almost all people think of a PC as a Windows machine. Apple will launch another product instead of offering a second OS option because it would baffle most people.
  3. The reason Apple use the same chips in iPads and Mac’s is not because they think people need more power in the iPad. It’s because of two numbers – first – people will upgrade for a faster machine that they don’t need, it sells. Second – it’s cheaper for apple to manufacture one range of chips. That’s the real reason we have M series iPads.
  4. Putting macOS on iPad would not be ‘simple’ like many commenters think. While the CPU is the same between devices, all the hardware is not. It would mean a major refactoring of the OS. The best you are going to get is macOS applications running on iPad OS and frankly, I think that is very unlikely to happen.
  5. The iPad out sells the Mac. Why would they take a more successful device and make it work like a less successful one? that’s not good business.

You want a touch screen MacBook; not a new operating system. Thing is, you are never getting a touch screen MacBook, foldable MacBook or detachable MacBook. You know why? Because Apple has a range of devices which all complement eachother. Mac for traditional computing, iPad for content consumption and artwork with the ability to ‘step up’ in a pinch, because they know it’s with you most of the time. And, the iPhone and iWatch (I know, it’s not called the iWatch… it should be!) which are your daily, general tools which do a little bit of everything.

Apple killed the iPod because it was too much like the iPhone. There is no way they will ever muddy the waters by letting you treat your iPad like a real computer.

Now stop posting about how iPadOS is holding things back and buy a Surface Pro, or whatever else. You don’t want an iPad, you want a pipedream.

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