I can’t put Apple’s new iPad Pro down, but we really need ‘padOS’

“The early reviews made much of the iPad Pro still not really being a computer,” Ben Lovejoy writes for 9to5Mac. “Apple totally brought that on itself by so vocally declaring that it is one.”
“Now, I get where Apple is coming from here. For your average non-tech person, a computer is a device where they do simple things – like web-browsing, email and video viewing – and they do one thing at a time. For those people, the iPad plus Smart Keyboard absolutely is a computer. And, actually, a really good one: beautifully easy to use, delightfully portable, totally reliable, genuine all-day battery-life,” Lovejoy writes. “I often recommend an iPad rather than a Mac to non-techy friends, and I will do so even more often now.”
“I think Apple is absolutely right to argue against converged devices. A Mac is one thing, an iPad another – even if Apple does now insist that they are both computers,” Lovejoy writes. “But while the iPad Pro isn’t trying to be a Mac, it is a grown-up device and it needs a grown-up operating system. Not macOS, but rather a tailored version of iOS, designed to take advantage of the additional capabilities of the iPad. What some people have termed padOS.”
The new iPad Pro with Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard Folio offer take-anywhere power and versatility.
 
Here’s what I’d consider the minimum acceptable spec for padOS – if you gave me these things, I’d be pretty happy:
• A Home screen with a fully-flexible layout
• Properly windowed apps
• Support for a trackpad
• Developers taking padOS apps as seriously as desktop apps
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Well, we called it “iOS Pro” three years ago, but it’s the same general idea:
Imagine an “iOS Pro” mode.
Turn on iOS Pro on your iPad Pro
1. Tap Settings > General, and make sure iOS Pro is turned on.
2. There is no step two.
Hey, we can dream, can’t we?
Shouldn’t such a thing already exist? Where would iPad sales be if it did? — MacDailyNews, December 29, 2015
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The answer isn’t to try to make the iPad into a MacBook. The answer is to provide all the tools possible in iOS for developers to make robust apps that can take advantage of the multi-touch paradigm. — MacDailyNews, May 16, 2017
SEE ALSO:
The Verge reviews the new iPad Pro: Apple’s approach to iOS is holding back powerful hardware in serious ways – November 5, 2018