Discussion
medhir.com
bottlepalm: Anyone have a theory why Apple hasn't done this yet? They release an 'iBook' which is basically a wired or even wireless lapdock for your iPhone running OSX in a partition. Seems like that would decimate the entire Windows, laptop, even desktop market in short order.Everyone with an iPhone, no longer needs their laptop/desktop. Just buy a cheap iBook and there's a good chance it'll already be better than most consumer PCs.
alephnerd: The form factor is a major difference.HNers being more technical than the median consumer are used to text and keyboards - a large portion of humanity isn't.You see this with Foundation Models as well - most have started to shift away from only concentrating on text to TTS and STT usecases.
MBCook: That would also seriously hurt the sales of Macs. Even more so now that the Neo exists.
efskap: I think Apple is just really careful about how they segment their product line for each use case, and would never go for a "jack of all trades" solution like this.
hotpotatoes: The problem is Mac. They've always locked things down citing safety or user experience, but it is profit and walled garden. Samsung Dex has been doing this for years.In before someone explains it's not "exactly" the same. Dex has shown this phone/computer ability in practice long before.
MBCook: I’ve been hoping Apple would allow this for years, although it doesn’t seem like something they would do.The fact that iPadOS now has windowing seems like it would only make it work better. iPads can already do everything necessary, so why not the iPhone?Unfortunately I suspect that if this was ever going to happen, which I would’ve bet against, it’s now let’s likely. I suspect current Apple would rather sell me a Neo then let me use my phone. In other words I think the existence of the product might rule it out under current leadership.Who knows. I could be wrong. Only time will tell.
batchfile: It would decimate their own business.
MrWiffles: This. The more locked down, the less in control we are, the higher margins they command. This is why app stores exist - it has nothing to do with safety or security, and everything to do with monopolizing the distribution supply chain from soup to nuts. Don’t like it? Too bad, it’s fully locked down and cracking it is a (potentially) criminal offense, so whaddayagonnadoaboutit?!
2OEH8eoCRo0: > I'm bothered, as I have been since the original iPad introduction 16 years ago, by the unnecessary restrictions placed by corporate powers to run third-party software and operating systems on devices we own.It's not unnecessary, they do it because they make money as gatekeeper.
MBCook: There are other reasons.A big factor in the success of the iPad and maybe just some degree the iPhone, but especially the iPad, is that it’s “unbreakable”. All out restrictions mean it’s computer people don’t worry will suddenly stop working because they clicked to the wrong link. It won’t get a weird virus from their email.That is a serious upside for a lot of consumers.
quikoa: They could allow unlocking the phone by burying that option deep in the settings with scary warnings etc. Most people could use the device with the restrictions. The fact that this is not possible at all is greed.
bottlepalm: The entire Mac line is a teeny tiny slice of revenue compared to iPhone. Allowing OSX on iPhone would increase the utility of iPhone, leading to more sales.
stronglikedan: iPhone users just now discovering Samsung Dex... cute
bigfishrunning: Is this news to anyone? of course it is! The reason that they don't let you run MacOS is absolutely arbitrary, in support of you buying another device. It also allows them to avoid the cost of supporting MacOS in another form-factor.This feels more like a facebook post that would shock my mom then a HN article...
api: Other than UI and other surface differences, the fundamental distinction between a Mac and an iDevice is... what it is.A Mac is a real computer. I can run any code I want on it. I have root.An iDevice is like a game console. I can only run App Store apps (without jumping through a lot of hoops). I do not have root (without again jumping through many hoops or ugly hacks).If Apple wanted to unify the platform they have two choices. The first is to abandon the "real computer" market entirely. The second is to make iDevices real computers by unlocking them.I suspect they'd rather keep two platforms.Under the hood they both share a lot of code, so it's not two totally distinct platforms. It's more like two sets of defaults and two "skins."
macintux: I think the friction of using a keyboard/pointing device with a touchscreen, or fingers with a desktop interface, is too high to unify them. I know it's been done, I'm unconvinced it's been done well.
crooked-v: If the rumored folding phone with a close-to-iPad-mini Ui handles USB monitor connections the same as the iPad, that would give the basic version right there, albeit at a huge base price.
kevin_thibedeau: They're all supercomputers that would have ranked on the TOP500 in the 90s.
bottlepalm: MacBook Neo has in a way unified the platforms. The only difference is essentially what OS is booted up with the chip.
mrkeen: Because people like TFA pay them not to. It doesn't matter how much you hope Apple changes course - you vote with your wallet.
crooked-v: I feel like that same reason is why you see a lot of seriously tech-savvy people try to use iPads as laptop substitutes over and over even though they're obviously still not suitable for it for technical tasks. There's a lot of latent appeal in "okay, what if I just didn't have to worry about any of that ambient technical crap?".
krab: Why would it decimate the Windows market? From my experience, there's a strong correlation between iPhone and Mac usage.Looking at the stats, the Win:Mac ratio is 4:1 but Android:iPhone only 2:1 so it might hurt Windows. But if iPhone users are more likely to use Mac or don't use computers much already, then expanding iPhone capabilities would cannibalize Apple business.
bottlepalm: Because then most people with an iPhone wouldn't need to buy a separate laptop/desktop. I'm sure Android as well would follow in short order. Sales would plummet. Windows decimated.
AstroBen: You can still have that. Make unbreakable the default, and add an "admin mode" toggle.
ianburrell: There isn't much demand for using phone as computer. If you are at home or work, you can buy a desktop computers for cheap. If you are traveling, you need to find a monitor and keyboard. You could carry small monitor and wireless keyboard, but then you are carrying as much as laptop. People who need to work on the road get a laptop. People who need to send email get iPad and keyboard.Good example of the economics is that Macbook Neo or iPad Air are cheaper than new iPhone.iPhone should export display, but more for showing videos or presentations. My Pixel 10 has USB-C display and I haven't used it, but I have computers for all purposes.Apple should spend more effort making the iPad usable for work. It would be good candidate for USB-C display, but with iPadOS.
jonahhorowitz: FWIW, you can plug your iPhone into an external monitor to do a Keynote presentation. You need a USB-C (or Lightning) to HDMI dongle in most cases, but it works fine.- https://support.apple.com/guide/keynote-iphone/present-on-a-...
alephnerd: > Allowing OSX on iPhone would increase the utility of iPhone, leading to more salesThat assumption is not necessarily true.What this implies is that there is a market of existing consumers that would not buy an iPhone because it lacks OSX support.The iPhone portion of Apple's business generates around $144B in YoY revenue in Q1FY27 [0].Whenever an organization contemplates building a net new capability like the one you mentioned, a quick test is whether it would be able to generate and sustain at minimum the equivalent of 1% of yearly revenue.If this was a $1B revenue opportunity it would have been implemented, but it's not.Nor is it a feature that can actively or dramatically increase Apple's market share in most markets.[0] - https://counterpointresearch.com/en/insights/apple-reaches-a...
bottlepalm: How can there be demand for something that doesn't exist?If Apple releases a $300 lapdock tomorrow, basically a screen, keyboard, battery, that allows using your iPhone as a normal general purpose computer with OSX - why would anyone buy a laptop/desktop?
omegadynamics: Wow everything computer
fmajid: No, the iPhone has over 50% market share in the US, macOS is nowhere near that.
hinkley: Isn’t my Apple Watch faster than a Cray 1?
froobius: It's very clear that the consumer is getting a worse experience than what is technically possible. There is no good phone-slash-laptop, purely because it's less profitable than locking down the devices and selling them separately.
fsflover: > There is no good phone-slash-laptopThere is: https://puri.sm/posts/my-first-year-of-librem-5-convergence/
etchalon: One of the first things help desk scammers do is convince people to turn off antivirus and/or Windows Defender on their computers.
rootusrootus: I have long wished for a future when I could just plug my phone into a KVM and have a full desktop experience.
liveoneggs: I don't want the phone os on a screen but the phone is powerful enough to run a full linux VM and work well-enough as a good desktop.
barumrho: It would be cool if iPhone could double as a laptop by just adding a monitor and keyboard/mouse and switch over to macOS.
fmajid: Tim Apple wants you to pay thrice, once for a phone, once again for a tablet and finally one last time for a laptop.
chmod775: There's nothing much special about phone silicon. They generally run a bit slower than their desktop/laptop counterparts because of power and heat limitations.At the top end on a desktop power usage doubles for lower double-digit percentage gains. You can shave that off and not lose much. Laptops are a lot closer to phones than they are to desktops when it comes to power and thermal limitations*, so re-using a "phone" chip really isn't crazy.* 100W power usage on a laptop is entering silly territory, but on a desktop that's the bottom of entry-level rigs.
hyperhello: Arbitrary is doing a lot of work. With MacOS you can use an iPad as a touchscreen external monitor. Try it and you’ll learn that it’s not a touchscreen OS. It’s not as simple as “not letting you”.
fmajid: Android now has a desktop mode (as Samsung has supported for years with Dex), and it also works on degoogled variants like GrapheneOS.
bottlepalm: It would explode sales of Mac. OSX on iPhone, people wouldn't need the separate Windows laptops they're used to. OSX on iPhone is the gateway for consumers into the OSX ecosystem.And when those consumers want more powerful hardware, instead of buying a more powerful Windows laptop/desktop - they buy a Mac instead.I feel like Apple knows this as well, so I can't figure out why they haven't pulled the trigger. Anti-trust risk? lol
etchalon: Some people insist there is no difference between a product and a capability and I honestly don't know to communicate to those people.
zahirbmirza: The reason the iPhone is so successful is because Apple don't let us use it as a "entire" computer.I am just glad, that we can still run a proper OS on a proper computer. If they made a modified iPad OS for their baby laptop it could have been an ominous sign.
PaulHoule: I remember the period of 1998-2008 or so when Windows seemed to be in absolute crisis because the average Windows user was not qualified to be using a computer connected to the internet.I'd go visit my family in New England (more than one group) and they'd have a 640x480 screen and be doing all their web browsing through 70 vertical pixels because they'd installed 30 toolbars -- and they thought there was nothing wrong with this!The world was reeling from a cyber war between two German teens who were trying to outdo each other with viral "love letter" programs because people would just click on... anything!Plenty of us were looking for some platform, any platform, that would deliver us from that nightmare. It wasn't going to be the Sun Ray, it wasn't going to be Linux (talk about frying pan to the fire), it was going to be the iPhone.
fragmede: There is and there isn't. Your phone, almost certainly, with a shorter list of exceptions than not, has a locked bootloader and consequently cannot run unsigned software with full permissions without additional work. Sometimes that work is impossible to do. In terms of capabilities, sure, your phone is as capable, if not more capable than a desktop computer from a decade or two ago. The phone in my hand that I'm writing this from is 100 times more powerful than the computer I had as a kid. So that's an important point to make. However the specialness of phone silicon is the locked down bootloader and the downstream effects of that. You can point out exceptions where you can unlock the bootloader, but those are exceptions. The vast majority of phones you aren't going to get root on. So in that dimension, that's what's special about phone silicon. The signed chain-of-trust that is baked in and prevents you from running unsigned binaries with full permissions on phone silicon.
retired: Isn’t Dex similar to connecting a monitor to an M-powered iPad? Perhaps that will one day come to iPhone.
7speter: I thought i saw there was similar functionality as dex available on usb c ported iphones (and ipads)?You can hook up a mouse and keyboard, maybe even a monitor? I thought I saw it in passing… I still have a lightning iPhone
bigfishrunning: Maybe it doesn't have a touchscreen interface, but i take issue with it being a touchscreen OS. I suspect most people who would want to run MacOS on an ipad would attach the appropriate user interface devices.
hyperhello: Like a keyboard and trackpad, yes, and the battery would be in the base, and…
xp84: Samsung DEX isn't far off from this, it's just that you're limited to Android instead of Linux, MacOS etc.But Apple will surely never allow such a thing since their main interest is in selling as many pieces of hardware to each of the Apple Faithful as possible. So they with a straight face suggest that a single human needs an iPad Pro (which easily tops $1500 with the eye-wateringly-expensive keyboard and a storage upgrade) and a laptop. Nevermind that they may have the same chip inside.
medhir: My contention is that the definition of said product and its inherent capabilities is being gatekept by a corporation that would love you to buy both an iPhone and Mac, and treat them as separate. In fact, I do have both already! But I still want rights to modify my iPhone as the computer it is.The MacBook Neo is a great example of just how fungible these categories are, at least as far as the SoC that runs them is concerned. I paid for my iPhone in full, there is no reasonable justification for why I can’t repurpose it / modify it as I see fit.
reactordev: [delayed]
Arcuru: I seem to recall the Carriers having some pretty strict requirements on the devices that can connect to the mobile networks. Anyone know if that's (still) the case?I'm not trying to defend Apple here, I'm just curious if there would be some kind of carrier validation issues if you slapped a full desktop OS on a phone.
iamtedd: I doubt that's the issue. Phones already have a baseband processor and OS in control of the modem. Also evidence if viability is all the Windows laptops with WWAN.
purplehat_: I really don't understand the argument here. That the product is locked down by design is a feature, not a limitation.Yes, this has the side effect of making them more money and allowing a walled garden to form, but given that the vast majority of users wouldn't do anything different with their phones if a shell was present, this is in my opinion not that large of an effect.The snide around "clicking on links is dangerous" and locking down the bootloader is unwarranted, because for most people a phone is not a toy (or at least, not just a toy) - it has their communications history, their bank information, their passwords, any many more. And it's really easy to steal people's phones on the subway. This isn't about freedom of computing, this is about the fact that an iPhone in BFU is nearly as secure as a GrapheneOS phone.There are many problems with Apple software. It's buggy, uses proprietary formats that you can't export, and interoperable with open standards. It's bad, and is the primary reason why I won't buy another iPhone, but Macs have that same problem. On the other hand, being cryptographically locked-down is an optional feature. If you don't like it, buy a computer without that feature. It's harmful to us, to tinkerers and people who want to see how things work, but the average person does not care at all and just wants to be able to open LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs without having their 401k get drained.
FpUser: Looking at the price vs what's inside - sorry but I'll pass.
MBCook: The last 25 years of Apple has made it pretty clear that’s not “the Apple way”.Yeah they could. They could do a lot of things people constantly ask about, like upgradable RAM. But there is no reason to think they will.
rootusrootus: I own too many Apple devices, so I may unintentionally qualify as one of those Apple Faithful, but even so I can't really find a place for the iPad in my life. I've tried, I do own an old iPad Pro, but it is semi-permanently mounted to my treadmill as the only use case I've ever had that sticks. As a practical matter I either want my phone, or a real desktop computer.Something like that Samsung DEX with a real Linux OS and maybe I'm getting a new phone.
bigfishrunning: or...plug into usb and use the ipad battery. the ipad already has a battery. Just don't limit what software you could load, that's all that's being asked here.
fixxation92: Why not just get a Linux phone running Ubuntu Touch or postmarketOS. You'd have full root access, sideloading etc and none of that corporate control, likely for half the price of an iPHone. Sure you'd lose all the Apple look/feel but at least you can do what you want with the phone.
kumibrr: I think the author goes more towards repurposing the device after its EoL.
noemit: Progressive Web Apps Exist. You can download any app. And build them too. I build my own apps that send me notifications from my AI Buddy :)Try saving my side project to your home screen : Habit.am - works really nicely once you're logged in.
danielEM: Why would you allow your phone to be a computer if you can sell a computer AND a phone? Allowing "random" OS to be installed on your phone would mean loosing control over your phone (including spying, gathering statistical data to influence major decisions, ability to paralyze communication of your country etc etc)Android phones are nothing but linux phones and video output (DP over USB-C, earlier MHL) is for many years already included in many phones. I would love to carry one device with everything on it. I would be very happy if that device was like a laptop with detachable core, that acts as phone.
Retr0id: If you make a bootloader unlock require a full wipe/rekey of the device, and make unlock status visible at boot, most of the "someone might unlock my bootloader maliciously" concerns go away.
purplehat_: Fair point, but that solution doesn't address the market for theft, so there's a tradeoff there.
Retr0id: If you put the icloud-lockout stuff early enough in the boot chain, that seems like a solvable problem too. I can understand why apple hasn't put the engineering effort into making something like this happen, but I don't think it's because they can't make it happen.
paxys: Desktop computers being as open as they are is an anomaly. It only came to be because the systems originated from research labs and hacker cultures rather than rent-seeking corporations. And even though corporations (like IBM and Microsoft) did push them, there was a lot more emphasis on business rather than consumer use at the time.Vendors keep them open today only because there is a historical exception, but make no mistake if the laptop computer was first introduced to the masses in 2008 you would be downloading apps through official stores and paying a 30% fee on all transactions and would only be able to do a tiny fraction of what is possible on them today.
littlestymaar: > The snide around "clicking on links is dangerous" and locking down the bootloader is unwarranted, because for most people a phone is not a toy (or at least, not just a toy) - it has their communications history, their bank information, their passwords, any many more.And so is their god damn computer!
cheschire: I was talking with someone solidly in Gen X that described their desire to write out longer form documents by hand on paper rather than typing them up. The process of typing helped them work through the content better than typing.In an analogous way, I feel like I'm in that part of the millennial generation that is more comfortable doing things on a PC than on a phone. Sure I can informally browse airline tickets and cars on my phone, or upload some docs for my , but when things get serious, I'm switching to a PC to complete it.There's something about doing things on a phone that just does not feel... robust? Maybe I am just too accustomed to the phone experience being minimal, or minimized in some way compared to the desktop experience.
Hoodedcrow: I don't think it's generational at all, doing things on a phone is pretty objectively less comfortable.
827a: Maybe I'm alone in this camp, but I really value the idea that my phone is an ultra-stable bedrock experience that, sure, I have to sacrifice some freedoms on but ultimately they're not exactly freedoms I care to express on a 5.8" display whose more critical purpose is things like "my car keys", "my door keys", "maintaining contact with family" etc. Versus, my linux desktop feels like its always in a state of nearly falling apart, and that's what makes it fun. I'm constantly pushing it to the edge, installing 550gb LLMs, four different package managers, right now its got a totally dissected USB cable coming out the front that's attached to a small circuit board for some project, all that's ok because that's what I want out of it. I don't want that out of my phone. I want my phone to ALWAYS turn on and ALWAYS be able to get EVERY text or phone call that's sent to me.I think anyone who has devoted their life to computing, in all its forms, over the past 20 years should agree: There doesn't exist an operating system that I feel adequately does all of that under one roof. The closest is Android. And that's what I don't get out of posts like this: Android does exist. What do you want out of Android that Google/etc are keeping from you? Samsung has Dex. It kinda sucks. Google allows free-range application installations (and fortunately that recent effort to block it is dead); that's great. I guess there's no real/root UNIX terminal? Bro, I struggle to envision a world where any device I have that has a root shell is also one that I don't inevitably fuck up, even if only temporarily, its ability to receive phone calls from my doctor about the results of a colonoscopy.The bigger problem that I see right now is that, at least from the perspective of the iPhone: Apple is dropping the ball on their stewardship of this bedrock experience.
