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.
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.
If they did that, every influencer would make youtube videos and tik toks telling people how they should enable that setting to make their phone better or more powerful "for free", and everyone would just do it, especially the people who really shouldn't because they don't know any better.
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?".
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
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.
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.
I hadn’t thought of that. In my mind I think Apple will say “not an iPad, you don’t get it” but the distinction (hardware UI wise) would be much much fuzzier than today.
Yep everyone has their preference. A lot of us have done both. I’ve run multiple distros. I’ve played with low level software. I have used and continue to use open source tools in places.
And I prefer my Mac to this day as my main machine.
Consumer user or Linux hacker is a false dichotomy people sometimes like to try to slot people into (not accusing you GianFabien).
Reverse engineered documentation is very often preferable to the internal kind, which is not necessarily accurate. So either way, the Asahi folks are doing valuable work.
I took the article as talking about the difference between reviews that say “this computer is not going to be great at X” and the reviews that say “this machine is only good for office tasks or Y“. The gatekeeping tone.
It can do most anything. It may not be amazing, but people get buy. And they may be ok with it.
I saw tons of comments in the original post about the Neo from people who talked about how they used extremely old hand-me-down/used laptops to learn to start programming and fall in love with computers.
I was just watching a video from ETA PRIME who tests lots of small computers to see how good they are for gaming.
He was playing RoboCop on it, and it ran pretty well. 45-ish FPS. It was using 11 gigs of RAM at the time. So it was obviously in swap.
It reminds me of the iPhone 5C when I had a 5S, it's a beautiful colorful breath of fresh air that I wish I had but my needs are so much greater. But if I wasn't an engineer who needed a highspeced MacBook Pro I'd go with it.
Bingo! IMO, laptops are best used as thin clients and you do the heavy lifting on servers or a box in a closet somewhere.
I'va been migrating my workflow to this approach and I'm an embedded dev! My closet does have hw strewn about but once you set it up that you don't have to touch wires it's super convenient.
My one gripe with MacBook airs up to m4 was support for only one external monitor. But m4 fixed this.
This is how I mostly use my Windows PC: remote access from my Android tablet via ssh and rdp. My gripe is entirely different: Microsoft has turned to crap.
RDP: Every time a native notification pops up, I get disconnected (usually the notification is about something I've been doing, such as starting a self-hosted server or running winget via unigetui). It randomly disconnects when I've been using it for more than a few minutes, even when there isn't a notification.
All of this so far seems to be limited to Android's rdp client (the Windows app). For Windows built-in RDP client, my issue is that there's no way to make it resize the desktop like vmconnect does when you resize the window (and no way to proxy vmconnect connections easily for home use--I do not want to enable WinRM for the full system and figure out how to secure it, I just want a single PC on the LAN to be able to access a single VM conveniently, preferably able to log in as different users)
But there's issues with ssh (and likely WinRM/ps remoting, though I haven't used it) as well: with Linux you need to use sudo, but with Windows there's apparently no CLI requirement; ssh runs elevated (though apparently you can change this; I make do with connecting to a running psmux session that's not elevated). So far as I know, there's no way to elevate without the GUI being involved (admittedly I haven't looked since I started using ssh with Windows).
Linux? Connecting to Linux works perfectly. I can't use xrdp or ssh or vnc or forwarding x11 over ssh or [other] and they work perfectly. I used to use x2go before Wayland, and despite the pain of actually getting it working even that worked better; XDMCP required some amount of setup, but it was awesome (too bad there's nothing that efficient with Wayland); xpra looks great, but either didn't exist or I was unaware at the time.
The only issues with Linux remoting are, again, Windows-related (it's seemingly impossible to get vmconnect enhanced session to work properly with Linux at all on Fedora 43; the things I've found online don't seem to work for me).
I suspect you would quickly attract a lot of the wrong kind of “developers” the moment a financial reward appeared. Especially now that it’s so easy to use AI to make something that looks slightly plausible.
Although I suspect the other sibling comment is the real reason.
I skipped that entire generation, but the modern silicon keyboards are slick. My workshop computer is a 2012 MacBook "Pro" (disabled GPU), which also has fantastic keys. Best Apple keyboard ever has to be the 12" PowerBook G4, but that may just be nostalgic...
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My major critique of the Neo is: for its intended market (younger), it should be more durable, not less — why is there no MagSafe power connector?
From a computer repair technician's POV, there will be lot$ of U$B port replacement$, due to power supply abusers (have you seen some students' charging cables?!). From manufacturer's POV: if they had MagSafe, they probably wouldn't need separate USB ports (IMHO).
It's almost guaranteed that the second revision of this product line will use MagSafe (you own the patent already!).
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.
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