Apple Software Chief Rejects macOS on iPad

Apple software chief Craig Federighi has ruled out bringing macOS to the iPad, amusingly using a kitchen utensil analogy to explain the company's design philosophy. 'We don't want to create a boat car or, you know, a spork,' Federighi said in an interview. 'Someone said, 'If a spoon's great, a fork's great, then let's combine them into a single utensil, right?' It turns out it's not a good spoon and it's not a good fork. It's a bad idea. And so we don't want to build sporks.'

The new version of iPadOS, which will ship to consumers later this year, features dynamically resizable windows that users can drag by their corners and a menu bar that is accessible through swipe gestures or cursor movement.

Some observers might consider the iPad Pro itself a 'convertible' product that blurs the line between tablet and laptop, he said. However, the Mac and iPad serve distinct purposes, he asserted. 'The Mac lets the iPad be iPad,' he said adding that Apple's objective 'has not been to have iPad completely displace those places where the Mac is the right tool for the job.' Rather than full convergence, Federighi said the iPad 'can be inspired by elements of the Mac' while remaining a separate platform. 'I think the Mac can be inspired by elements of iPad, and I think that that's happened a great deal.'

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