Author argues iPads should be radical touch-only devices, MacBooks should stay keyboard-first, and Apple’s convergence strategy serves neither well.
Key Takeaways
The MacBook Neo (cheap, light, macOS) delivers what iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard promised in 2020 but never could, at lower cost.
Apple’s post-M1 mistake: instead of sharpening iPad’s touch identity, they added broken multitasking and fake-macOS windowing that satisfied no one.
iPadOS’s “paper cuts” (no image duplication in Lightroom, iCloud sync failures, no real shell access) make it unworkable for serious workflows including LLM tooling like Claude Code.
Procreate is cited as the only true iPad killer app – the template for what touch-native software should look like across every creative category.
macOS Tahoe’s rumored touch and convergence direction repeats the same error in reverse: adding touch to a keyboard-first OS creates complexity the software team isn’t ready to handle.
Hacker News Comment Review
Commenters broadly agree on the ergonomic case against MacBook touchscreens – reaching up from keyboard to touch a vertical display causes fatigue fast, a point validated by extended iPad-as-laptop use.
A recurring counter-proposal: ship two separate OS modes on one device (a VM or container switch), letting iPad hardware run a locked-down macOS when docked with keyboard and monitor, reverting to touch-only iPadOS when undocked.
One thread pushed the debate further upstream: the real unmet need is iPhone desktop mode – USB-C display plus Bluetooth keyboard running something close to iPadOS or macOS, skipping the iPad entirely.
Notable Comments
@QuiEgo: proposes automatic OS-mode switching tied to dock state – macOS when peripherals attached, iPadOS when undocked, two clean silos on one device.
@hbbio: “The elephant in the room is something else. iPhones need desktop mode” – reframes the whole debate around convergence on the phone, not the tablet.
@pzo: dissents via Microsoft Surface Go comparison – argues a detachable MacBook Neo form factor beats both iPad and a dedicated touch-only device for mixed work and consumption.