Earlier this year, Apple updated the iPad Pro to include the M1 chip – the same silicon that powers all the new Mac computers. While the M1 allows Macs to run iPad and iPhone apps natively, the other way around does not work. However, Apple has been slowly and steadily merging the differences between the iPad and the Mac over the years.
The raw power of the M1 chip is actually not being used by the iPad Pro because it does not allow users to do very high intensive tasks. While the iPad has some apps like LumaFusion for professional grade video editing and Adobe Lightroom for photo editing, the apps are still not as feature rich as say Final Cut Pro or full-fledged desktop version of Photoshop.
WWDC 2022 keynote could be a big one
At the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2020, its annual developers conference, Apple announced that the Mac would transition from Intel to its own in-house designed silicon. The M-series chips are based on the ARM architecture, similar to the A-series chips that power the iPhone and the non-Pro version of the iPad.
It was widely expected that at this year’s WWDC, Apple would start allowing Mac apps to be run on the iPad or make some major changes to the iPadOS. However, no such move was made by the company and the iPad (specifically the iPad Pro) cannot run any ‘Pro grade’ that are available on the Mac.
While this year’s WWDC did not go as planned, Apple is likely working on merging macOS and iPadOS or at least working on bringing Mac apps to the iPad. All eyes are already on the year’s keynote of WWDC. The question is not whether Apple will merge macOS and iPadOS in some form or the other but “when?”
The iPad Pro is as powerful as the MacBook Air now but it can do very less because of its software’s limitations.
