Author argues the iPad should be radically touch-only with weird native apps, while the MacBook Neo delivers what iPad Pro promised but never could.
Key Takeaways
MacBook Neo is cheaper than an iPad with a Magic Keyboard and far more capable for writing, LLM tooling, and file management.
Apple’s mistake post-M1 was pushing iPadOS toward fake macOS (broken multitasking, bizarre windowing) instead of doubling down on touch-native design.
PushPopPress (acquired by Facebook, then gone) is cited as the last serious attempt at genuinely touch-native iPad UI, 15 years ago.
macOS malleability makes it the natural home for Claude Code and LLM tooling; iPadOS locked-down model increasingly excludes serious operator workflows.
Author’s reform plan: gut iPad to touch-only with Procreate-class apps, kill most Air SKUs, freeze macOS for a 3-year speed/refactor sprint, no touchscreens on MacBooks.
Hacker News Comment Review
Commenters broadly agree Apple’s iPad strategy is incoherent: three irreconcilable internal goals (powerful enough to sell as pro, locked enough to sell as safe, not so capable it cannibilizes Mac sales) produce a product that satisfies none.
The core tension the author glosses over: their own use cases (email, Claude Code, writing) are exactly where touch input is weakest, making the “finger ballet” vision structurally incompatible with their stated workflow needs.
The LLM-first framing resonated: several builders noted that AI-native tooling is CLI-native by default, and a keyboard-first macOS is already the best positioned OS for the agentic wave, no redesign needed.
Notable Comments
@vessenes: frames LLM-first interfaces as an “AI dividend for CLI users” – text-oriented agent tooling quietly rehabilitates the command line as the primary UI.
@nayroclade: touch-only iPad only becomes viable with substantially better haptic feedback; without it, gesture-heavy UI hits an unresponsive glass ceiling.
@ginko: the real ask is a 10” iPad-weight machine running desktop software – frustrated that the iPad hardware could run macOS but won’t due to intentional market segmentation.
