…. is probably all the computer most normies need - so long as you have a type C display and a keyboard/trackpad/mouse.
Also probably almost all the computer (well: laptop/desktop as opposed to something headless running services) I need if i’m honest and was to give up gaming; with a few caveats.
I’ve got an ipad air M1 that i use mostly for note-taking, sketching diagrams, checking email, etc.
However, since i got a type C monitor…
Can drive an external 4k display in HDR at 60hz
mostly secure, has touchID / pros have faceid
super portable, can draw on it
good battery life
apple USB ethernet adapter works
app store apps are generally much cheaper tha full PC/MacOS apps and getting pretty damn close to feature parity
For my job, most admin stuff is now either mobile app friendly, cloud website or can be done via RDP
Basic office docs are doable with the mobile office suite.
I’m pretty surprised to be honest. No, it can’t run VMs on it. No it can’t do high end graphics. But for most people…. I really think its the platform that normies are probably safe with!
There’s a few annoyances with the current implementation of stage manger, but if apple can fix that and maybe bring stage manager/multitasing/multi desktop to A19 or put say a19 pro in the new lower tier models… i think they’re on a winner.
Thread kind came to mind because i’m planning to travel light to work tomorrow and figured i’d just take the ipad and was running through the list of daily work tasks i might need to do that require my Macbook Pro. The flip side - i regularly take notes and sketch diagrams on the ipad… which is awkward on the macbook without a pencil.
I have a desktop i run VMs on that i could remote desktop to in a pinch so… there’s not a lot i’d miss!
Even before M series this was doable for sure but yeah for sure more of a thin client then PC but i mean most people could get away with just docking their phone at this point.
I’ve done a considerable amount of work on my iPad Mini using just a bluetooth keyboard. Wireguard into my home server, then RDP either a session on the server or send a magic packet to wake my workstation up and then RDP that.
It genuinely is a perfectly good laptop substitute in many cases. It fits easily in a purse, or even some jacket pockets, and I have a folding keyboard which is even smaller.
Yeah, for a slim keyboard it’s quite good. I do prefer Logitech’s MX Keys for a slim keyboard (and buckling springs for a very much not slim keyboard), but compared to the keyboards you get with a Windows computer Apple’s is genuinely very good. My folding keyboard is about on par with the junk you get in a Windows laptop, but it’s near enough to full-size that I can type easily on it, and it folds to be more or less the size of a modern phone, so it’s easy to bring along anywhere.
i.e., external display, different apps running concurrently with the inbuilt display.
As to all the compute being done on the cloud and this being just a thin client?
For the most part: no. Native apps for basic office stuff, note taking, photo editing, drawing, etc.
This isn’t just a netbook.
The things I typically need to do via cloud or RDP are 365 management or Windows on Prem AD management which needs windows RSAT tools on a Windows install. And not just an ARM windows install - even on my Mac I need to RDP for that because the RSAT is not supported on Windows 11 for ARM.
That and stuff like ChatGPT. I can run some local models on my MacBook 14" Max, but they aren’t as good as chatGPT in the cloud, not by a long shot.
Dev stuff: yeah, Xcode doesn’t run on it, but that’s way far away from “normie” stuff.
I guess I’m just becoming more impressed lately at just how much the iPad can now do that the Mac can… and how much stuff I use the iPad for that the Mac can’t do (like sketching, hand-drawn diagrams, etc, without some sort of expensive tablet).
Ipad has replaced paper notes for me, 100%. The only handwriting I’ve done on paper in years has been to fill out paper forms handed to me.
Depends on what you need for a device. If you need to build and run stuff locally then thats a big nope.
If you just need a text editor, a git and SSH client you are set.
Having said that I haven’t found the best tools. There are plenty SSH clients and some editors with git and ssh support. I’d like a terminal with both. There is also ish which is slow AF and a-shell which is weird AF.
Since I’m in the EU I got the altstore version of UTM. I’ll try to use an actual virtual machine with command line tools only when I have time.