macOS 15.0 supports Nested Virtualization on M3 chips
developer.apple.comAsahi Linux supports nested virtualization on Apple Silicon M2, where the feature is present in the chip, but not exposed by macOS.
I was shopping for a phone some time ago. iP14 Pro had always-on display while non-Pro version didnt. Apple justified it by non-Pro having lcd, while Pro having Oled.
Next year iP15, both non-Pro and Pro have Oled, but again only Pro has always-on display.
Honestly that is the reason I am still on my Note9, and looking for another Android.
I understand what product segmentation is, and probably I am minority, but damn, it feels like subscription-based heated seats.
The screen on the (non-pro) iPhone 15 still has the 60Hz refresh rate, which is a limiting factor claimed by Apple, not just OLED.
Because in always-on mode, the refresh rate on the Pro drops down to a much lower refresh rate, as low as 1Hz.
Apple could've shipped an always on display mode with either OLED or a variable refresh-rate screen (or neither), but they only wanted to do it when they have both.
OLED so that black pixels are not illuminated and you save a good chunk of battery on that.
Variable RR so that you can drastically reduce that to save battery life as well.
This is not software segmentation though. The Pro's OLED display is really a different hardware component that supports varible refresh rates down to 1Hz ("Pro Motion")
I think if that was the real reason, then the feature would be available but default to off on the non-pro version
That is absolutely not how Apple operates, especially on the iPhone. The
Uh, yes it's not.
Wasn't that the point? Apple loves to use such artificial segmentation to upsell their products
>Apple justified it by non-Pro having lcd, while Pro having Oled.
Did Apple explicitly say something to that effect, or is it just the media or random comments who made this justification on their behalf?
In any case, besides concerns for "best performance/more battery" etc and enabling stuff were it's more well supported, Apple also puts different specs to different models for reasons of product differentation / price segmentation.
All iPhones since the iPhone 12 (except the SE model) have had OLED screens. Non-Pro iPhones don't use LTPO, which is the tecnology that enabled the screens on the pro models to dial down to 1hz. It's also what they use to enable AOD on their smartwatches.
Also, this is completely off-topic to the original comment.
You would NOT want to use always-on with lcd.
Like 10 yo Nokia had it on LCD screen and it was fine, both readability and battery life.
> Apple justified it by non-Pro having lcd, while Pro having Oled.
Where did Apple justified that?
In the iP14 keynotes it explained how the oled allows for always-on display.
Yes, and there they explain, how this is possible with an OLED display which is capable of 1 Hz refresh rate which the OLED display on the non Pro iPhone is not capable of
Yeah, it’s just another artificial limitation to get people to buy a newer laptop. They hit the devs where it hurts
And ipadOS not even one layer of Mac virtualization
At this point, only the EU can save the iPad from being eWaste World Champion.
Mandate support for alternate OSes, like Asahi Linux on Macbook, https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Apple-Platform-Secur...
> ipadOS not even one layer of Mac virtualization
iPadOS 17 on M4 has a "Secure Exclave" OS, https://mastodon.social/@_inside/112440596781136013
What eWaste are you talking about? The lifetime, battery life, and software updates are way longer than those of any other tablet on the market. iPads are not a replacement for Macbooks or PCs; let it be the iPad.
There has not yet been a tablet that was commercially competitive with iPad, measured by sales volume/revenue.
Perhaps a future PC OEM 2-in-1 will be successful, based on Qualcomm Oryon/Arm SoC from ex-Apple Nuvia.
> software updates are way longer
There's no "longer" for comparison, when there is no competitor.
Old iPads could continue to work for years, running Linux. Apple could unlock the boot after terminating support.
And what would you do with an ipad running linux? There's no tablet software.
May sound harsh, but the Open Source movement is just not capable of producing enough software to make Linux a viable on the desktop, let alone on the tablet.
Linux became a thing because computing devices were available for development. I guess if enough Ipad hardware is available without too much black magic, there could be a stack viable based on linux or some other OS (possibly not yet created)
Linux has been 'ready for the desktop' for more than a decade, far longer for those who use it 'professionally' so that old trope can be put to pasture. As to what to run on a Linux tablet there's Plasma Mobile (KDE), Ubuntu Touch, Gnome/Phosh, PostmarketOS with any of the above and more. If you're looking for a single 'Linux tablet interface' you won't find it as there is no single 'Linux $thing' anywhere - you get the choice between many alternatives, some more polished/functional/useable than others.
Complete disagree. Even today they are still trying to get simple stuff like smooth mouse support working, not to mention random crashes of the desktop due to proprietary driver bugs. Every single pro Linux person always claims their desktop works great. Well good for you. You ain't convincing the mass market anytime soon because Linux is NOT at their standard yet. Even if the powers that be manage to completely lock down computing and we lose the war against general computation, people will still not use Linux.
It would be more than easy to write the exact same comment about MacOS, iOS, iPadOS, Windows $version and whatnot. From the dreadful state of the MacOS window manager via the randomly disconnecting 'magic' touchpad to the myriad of annoyances in Windows - which used to crash when you looked at it the wrong way but that problem has been mostly fixed - to the lobotomised experience of running iPadOS to the fancily decorated jail which is iOS which has the nasty tendency to crash and burn when iMessage receives something it doesn't like or the iDevice which needed to be held just so to receive a signal, need I continue? In reality:
- mouse support under Linux was a fait accompli on the first device I installed XFree86 on back in 1993, That was back in the time of serial mice with DB9 RS-232 connectors, more than 30 years ago. What you call 'smooth mouse support' is rather vague, if you mean acceleration and the likes that has been around almost as long. Want to use a mouse/trackpad/trackball/trackpoint/whatever with Linux? Plug it in and it will probably work just fine.
- proprietary drivers are the exception to the rule that Linux is free software. One well-known exception here is nVidia which still rides the fence. While this is far less than ideal the drivers they produce are not known for producing 'random crashes'. Random crashes in Linux-land tend to be related to hardware problems and would crash other operating systems as well.
- the 'mass market' does not need convincing to use Linux since they use it daily, mostly without knowing they do so. Most of them don't use it on 'the desktop' (well, those running Chromebooks do but they mostly don't know about it) but there is nothing really keeping them from doing so.
You're living in a fantasy where 'the desktop' is an ivory tower where only the anointed incorporated entities are welcomed. This has never been the case and that will remain true as long as the hardware is (or can be made to be) open. Go ahead and install a distribution, I suspect you'll be surprised just how 'ready' Linux is for the desktop unless you insist on it being a 1-on-1 clone of Windows or MacOS and insist on everything working exactly like those systems. It isn't and it doesn't, things works differently between those systems and between Linux distributions. Choose one which comes closest to your expectations - probably Gnome-based if you're in the Apple world, Mate or KDE-based if you're used to Windows - and give it a try. If you want to do so, that is. If you don't want to try it that's fine as well. In that case I do wonder where your adamant statements about 'smooth mouse support' and 'random crashes' come from though.
Great and helpful comment.
Bluetooth keyboard + mouse. I have an iPad that is eWaste because Apple said it is even though it technically still functions and would work great if Apple would let me use it as a terminal to my main computer
You caused the ewaste, not Apple. Why did you buy a device that you don't want to use, and why don't you sell or donate it to somebody who wants to use it?
What stops you running Android apps on it?
iPad+Linux could be a single-function "embedded" device.
web browser IoT control panel video conferencing photo frame e-reader kioskYou are not serious, aren't you? You have Raspberry Pi for that purpose. It's like saying Mercedes should allow me to install software on my Mercedes so I can use my $200k car to use it as a tractor.
Since when does Raspberry Pi ship with a 4:3 Retina display?
Does the Mercedes self-brick after 7 years?
You don't need a retina display for those things, thus proving my point. It's a waste of resources.
I have an iPad mini 2 and Air 2, which still work after almost a decade of use.
Customers who paid for a Retina display can apply their hardware to use cases which fall in the simplistic market segmentation between headless SBC and slate.
The utility of a working Retina display need not be limited by unsupported and insecure software when connected to public networks.
I have a 12 year old iPad running as a photo frame. Doesn’t get security updates, but then again it stays at home with only a single app running.
One of the things that keeps fascinating me about Apple is how they keep coming out with better and better iPads, even though they don’t seem to have any real competition. Take the new iPad Pro. It’s super thin, got a brand new tandem OLED screen that goes up to 1000 nits and is decent for using outdoors. They even put a new M4 chip in it which has faster single core performance than any desktop chip by Intel or AMD.
Do you run any specific app for photo frame or just included Photos app?
I have an old iPad, haven’t been using it so this gave me an idea.
I use SoloSlides for Google Photos. It's free to try, but I ended up purchasing it to get the randomisation feature. I've created a separate Google account where I add pictures that I want to show on the iPad.
It's fairly stable. Only really run into issues when the internet goes out and then comes back later, sometimes this would make the app stop showing photos.
https://apps.apple.com/no/app/soloslides-for-google-photos/i...
But old iPads already work for yeeeears.
My work ipad pro is 4 years old, and I can't be bothered to replace it (I can upgrade for free at work, at the 'cost' of having to migrate my apps and data etc...)
My personal ipad mini 3 has been travelling with me until last year, as ebook reader. Sure it was heavily handicapped in the sense that I did not get app updates or any new apps really. But I still have my books and goodreader app, and still had VLC, and until very recently also netflix. That thing was 9 years old and I only retired it because work unlocked my work ipad so I only travel with 1 ipad now.
> There has not yet been a tablet that was commercially competitive with iPad, measured by sales volume/revenue.
There is no tablet market, there is an iPad market and "other".
If they are replacement or not should be decision of person who bought it, not company who sells it.
They can still keep their ecosystem. You should be able to unlock it to install alternative operating system.
Unlocking should be explicit to not give an option for theft.
Nope! In the same way, I don't want to be able to install a "custom" OS in my car; I don't want the ability in more personal devices. "Opening" is weakening; there's no way around it.
> "Opening" is weakening
Please respect ancestors!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)
Darwin is the core Unix operating system of macOS (previously OS X and Mac OS X), iOS, watchOS, tvOS, iPadOS, visionOS, and bridgeOS. It previously existed as an independent open-source operating system, first released by Apple Inc. in 2000. It is composed of code derived from NeXTSTEP, FreeBSD, other BSD operating systems, Mach, and other free software projects' code, as well as code developed by Apple.My ask doesn't violate your freedom.
Your ask violates mine.
Here,
https://www.samsung.com/us/apps/dex/
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface
Vote with your wallet, if enough people do that, maybe Apple will notice.
Now if you already validated what they are selling is enough to keep the masses happy, then it is as it is.
The second link (to Surface) is trying to sell a Surface computer (i.e., hardware).
The first link appears to be... presentation software? I think? It talks a lot about Samsung devices but doesn't appear to be selling a specific device (i.e., not hardware. I don't see how the software would affect sales of the iPad (which is hardware).
(Was there a different link you meant to share instead? :) )
> The first link appears to be... presentation software? I think?
Can you try to do at least the bare minimum of trying to understand the text instead of badly extrapolating from the pretty pictures?
The number of people who are willing and able to “vote with their wallet” for alternative OSes on iPad is insufficient for results.
The vast, vast majority of iPad users want iPadOS and nothing else.
Hope is not a strategy.
Yet another proof that those that want something else, should sponsor someone else for their efforts.
Not give money to Apple, and then complain.
But which software stack? Android? Windows? Both are barely usable and for the most common tasks iPadOS is sadly miles ahead.
Android is just fine. Unless you're an artist who actually wants the super fancy pen interactions and display, there's really not that much difference. You may be more used to one over the other, but I guarantee it works the other way too.
I know many non-artists who want high refresh rate displays and low latency stylus input. It’s not “super fancy”. Let’s not move the goalposts; the iPad hardware is years beyond any other tablet.
Android is not “just fine”. The hardware available is relatively low quality compared to the iPad.
New iPad is super fancy. It's above everything else in many ways. But that doesn't move everything else down. Android tablets (unless you get one from a discount bin) are perfectly functional devices and they really are just fine. You can do almost all the same tasks on them. You don't have to chase the new, shiny and expensive. In the same way, Camry and Civic are just fine cars - they are simple and get the job done.
Waiting patiently for the first Nuvia/Oryon/SDXE tablet or 2-in-1, with detachable non-bluetooth keyboard
The Snapdragon Elite devices launched so far have been laptops.
With the EU now going centre-right (and largely at the expense of Greens) their long-standing stance on eWaste (and similar consumer-oriented regulation) is likely to be casualty.
I was at the most recent CCC conference and there was a discussion on "Spotting tech fictions as replacement for social and political change". What I heard was the same line of thinking I had heard since the COP21 Paris Climate Conference 10 years ago.
The solution is to push the green agenda through activism and pressuring politicians/corporations to enact sweeping motions. During this talk, they discussed pushing people to take the bus in place of getting an EV with a series of methods to penalize owning a vehicle.
Its funny how given yesterday's results the talk that happened in the last days of Dec (so just 6 months ago) is now looking obsolete but I saw this over the last 10 years as the promised commitments of COP21 fell by the wayside anyway. I used to joke about how conservatives in the US lived in a bubble. Now I am seeing techies like the OP are also in a bubble.
I recall speeches by British celebs in the late 90s when this sort of thing first became fashionable. Some lady told a huge crowd that they need to unplug their kettles. You are not serious people.
But I'm sure it feels great to sit around at conferences and discuss "pushing people to take the bus". Heck, it is a whole industry unto itself, isn't it?
P.S. - I do think climate change is a serious issue. Figured I'd mention that before the usual responses that shun and excommunicate me as a "denier".
This will simply not have "political solutions". Realistically the greens are counter productive to the max and always have been. It is simply the self-flagellation remnant bits of defunct religions. Devoid of rationality.
See also: Germany and nuclear power. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Out of curiosity, what do you think should be done to mitigate the climate issue?
I personally believe in engineering solutions that are better than the current solutions. With the collapse in prices for EVs, I am drooling over these super cheap electric cars and hope to one day have a backup used car just for fun trips around town. Or maybe just pick up a single long range EV for a little bit more. Right now the repair market is still in its early stages but its getting there. I dream of owning a single EV model that lasts me for 30 years powered by solar. Plus the cost of electricity is trending towards 0. I am always trying to find ways to swap out my lifestyle with something more efficient. Am I an outlier, yes but I see technical solutions coming to the mass market and I remain optimistic a tiny bit.
Don't drool, it is unbecoming ;)
> Am I an outlier, yes
Nope, normcore to the max. You've been greenwashed.
Your EV won't run on Solar. The cost of electricity is not trending towards zero.
> I am always trying to find ways to swap out my lifestyle with something more efficient.
The best thing you could personally do is squeeze out a few hundreds thousands miles out of a third hand Honda Civic. Not that your personal lifestyle matters one iota.
What should be done? Enjoy life and if you want to promote anything at all promote engineering degrees for young people. And nuclear power.
>Don't drool, it is unbecoming ;)
Unfortunately I am a programmer so I always am thinking of optimizing and efficiency. Sorry but its how my brain is wired! :)
>Your EV won't run on Solar. The cost of electricity is not trending towards zero.
Are you in the US? Because every year I look at prices to install solar panels and it is definitely trending in that direction. Do we have to account for the carbon to produce those panels? Yes but that part of the supply chain is also cleaning up and furthermore we are now seeing the results of the first major solar installs from 25 years ago as they reach their expected end of life. End of life for them means 80-85% of the energy generated when they were new. Given the evidence we have seen, this is definitely not greenwashing...unless you are buying the nonsense expressed in that conference where they talk about greenwashing ;)
>The best thing you could personally do is squeeze out a few hundreds thousands miles out of a third hand Honda Civic. Not that your personal lifestyle matters one iota.
You are right as personal consumption is a drop in the bucket compared to industry. If it does become the norm my hope is that continued supply and labor inflation will force businesses to cut costs wherever they can and once Solar + EV gets to a certain price point, even business will have to adopt to stay competitive.
>Enjoy life and if you want to promote anything at all promote engineering degrees for young people. And nuclear power.
I would love some Nuclear but the ship has sailed. The US has forgotten how to build reactors and China has raced past them in their own custom designs. Now in the US it is just nonsense promoted by the Oil industry pushed down to COnservatives/Libertarians to distract.
>With the EU now going centre-right (and largely at the expense of Greens)
I'm annoyed by the media coverage which all imply the Right won seats at the expense of the Left when, as you say, it's mostly the Greens (who, yes, are technically Left) who lost seats.
What's even more annoying though is I need to take a magnifying glass to even see the additional seats won by the Right. The Left still holds majority and haven't even lost an unusually large number of seats.
There obviously are exceptions when looking at the election more microscopically, like in France, but overall it's mainstream misleadia.
What's surprising to me is this disinformation campaign by the media only serves to try and empower the Right, which I always thought was something the media do not want.
> The Left still holds majority
This is factually incorrect.
Summing the votes of all parties that could be considered left (Green, S&D and The Left) you get 224 seats, which is about 31% of the European Union Parliament.
> the media only serves to try and empower the Right, which I always thought was something the media do not want
Whatever gave you that impression? A significant percentage of all media outlets are owned by very right-leaning businessmen, or otherwise entangled in capitalism to such extent that it may bias their judgement
A plurality of Western media is far-far-left leaning.
[citation needed]
A large portion of western media is state-funded public broadcasters (the BBC, CBC, PBS, ...), and another large swathe is under the control of various explicitly right-leaning corporations (Murdoch's News Corp and Fox, Sinclair, ...).
While there are indeed numerous liberal-leaning media outlets, it is entirely unclear to me that they have equivalent reach to their conservative counterparts.
NPR is state-funded and is far-far left.
If you consider PBS and BBC to somehow be conservative I guess that's why things are entirely unclear to you. What on earth would you like me to cite?
> there are indeed numerous liberal-leaning media outletsplurality /ploo͝-răl′ĭ-tē/ noun A large number or amount; a multitude.Ahem..
Ground News uses bias ratings from Ad Fontes Media, All Sides, and Media Bias/Fact Check; they rate NPR as Center, Lean Left, and Lean Left respectively.
If you consider NPR to be far-far left then what is Jezebel, The Young Turks, Jacobin, or Democracy Now? That's not even getting into things like Socialist Alternative or pod casts like Chapo Trap House.
Between the ones I listed and NPR are sites like Slate and Vox which are to the left of NPR but not as far left as Democracy Now.
The BBC generally tends towards the center-left, but also takes some characteristically right-wing stances - they they have at times been vocally anti-trans), they were on balance pro-brexit, and they tend to lean right on immigration and religion.
No, its not, measured by reach or influence.
Probably not by number of outlets, either, not that it would matter.
The dominant Western media position is center-right neoliberal corporate capitalist (unsurprisingly, reflect both the ruling class of Western society and, as its the same class, the class that predominantly owns corporations, including media corps.)
well if you want to go all conspiracy theory, the media wants clicks because that gets them ad revenue, and so are making it seem like the right is winning because it gets you to click on the article which then, after you've scrolled past a bunch of ads, tells you they didn't actually win that many seats.
Considering the latest EU elections I wouldn’t bet on them
eWaste? What are you talking about? iPads have typically gotten 7-9 years of software updates. Its not intended to be like a direct laptop replacement. Sure you can do laptop like things but that is not what the iPad is. Even then, most laptops don't even get that kind of support. Calling the iPad "eWaste World Champion" reeks of ignorance about what the device is about.
Instead it really is a unique device with unique use cases as evidenced by todays keynote. Did you watch it? I came away impressed with the cool things they developed just for the iPad.
> 7-9 years of software updates
After which they could run Linux, instead of being e-waste.
> unique use cases as evidenced by todays keynote
Mark Gurman, Bloomberg journalist covering Apple for years, https://x.com/markgurman/status/1800348268385521876?
iPadOS 18 did get a calculator.Apple needs to put 25% of the vigor into iPadOS that it just put into Apple Intelligence because this is getting ridiculous. The iPad Pro gets incredible new hardware and an M4 chip and then iPadOS essentially gets nothing of substance.>After which they could run Linux, instead of being e-waste.
There is so much PC based garbage that ends up in the eWaste trash destroyed way before years 7-9 hit and you are complaining about a device that is not even designed to be used in a server/desktop OS configuration?
>iPadOS 18 did get a calculator.
This really does explain it all...Just pure ignorance based on hatred of Apple.
> There is so much PC based garbage that ends up in the eWaste trash destroyed way before years ...
So you're saying people should just accept their old iPads can't have a meaningful life after iPadOS support ends?
And that's because "Apple doesn't want them to", so that's it. No questions asked, just accept the results?
What are you talking about? Its not like the iPad shuts off as soon as year 9 rolls around. The iPad still runs and can be used for many more years.
Apps aren't updated. Web browsing is unsafe.
In your other comment you laid out potential uses for a "unlocked" ipad
The bottom 5 don't really need updates and if Android tablets are anything to go by (looking at you Nexus 10) arguably will work better running on top Apple software instead of whatever half baked garbage gets dumped out of the major distros or "custom rom" makers.web browser IoT control panel video conferencing photo frame e-reader kioskFor web browsing, a nine year old tablet will arguably be slow as molasses for the content that would be on the web nine years from now. We have seen this with using old desktop computers to browse the web.
Your argument is pretty weak. There is a whole lot of work to make this happen among not only Apple but the OSS community for almost no gain. The community's time time would be better spent getting fundamentals of Linux Desktop working well so that maybe one day in our lives it really will be the Year of the Linux Desktop™.
> The bottom 5 don't really need updates
Anything connected to a network requires security updates. The bottom five require network connectivity.
> Slow as molasses for the content
An old tablet isn't suitable for general Javascript-impaired web browsing, but there is a wide world of static online/offline content accessible to slow web browsers, as well as bespoke static content delivered via HTTP.
> Whole lot of work.. for almost no gain
The heavy lifting work is in device enablement, but that's a one time cost. Applications exist, work on other devices and are already maintained. Linux iPads would only expand the userbase for those applications.
> We have seen this with using old desktop computers to browse the web.
That's not always the case though. ;)
About 3 years ago I got hold of a fully function dual Xeon system from around 2004 (!).
Only really wanted the case (old workstation, built like a tank) but the system itself still powered on and ran Win7 perfectly fine. Each of the two Xeon cpus was a single core thing (this was from before multi core), ran at ~3Ghz, and used about ~100w.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Xeon_processors_...
... and it played back Youtube videos perfectly fine. I think they were 1080p ones too, rather then 720p.
---
We've seen that in later years (past this example above), computing power become "good enough" so that even old computers are completely workable more than a decade later.
Later model iPads will probably be the same, "good enough" for years after Apple is done with them.
> pure ignorance based on hatred of Apple
I'm typing this on iPad Air and looking at an iPad Pro, Mac Mini and Macbook Air.
Then you are missing out on all the cool additions that Apple introduced today. Things that are really tailored for the iPad.
Could you recommend an article or Apple web page listing those additions? Or name some here?
Mark Gurman, long-time Apple journalist, didn't find any iPad-specific features, beyond AI/LLM features coming to all Apple platforms. Here's another article that lists "everything" announced at WWDC, which doesn't list any new iPad features, other than AI/LLM, https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/10/everything-apple-announced...
Just watch the darn video from this morning, its only 7 minutes long and you are using a device that is tailored for this very use case ha ha
https://youtu.be/RXeOiIDNNek?t=2584
FYI they even purposely made fun of themselves regarding the calculator app.
Just watched. The announcements were:
Cute features, sadly of low benefit to work use cases. High value would be a VM and CLI terminal to run a web server stack for offline dev, maintenance or publishing tasks in time and space constrained contexts where Macbook would be inconvenient. Macbook is good for hours of dedicated work, iPad for quick tasks.iOS: customize home screen + control center apps: floating tab bar menus apple apps: animations + doc browser screen sharing: pencil annotations calculator: math notes + brett victor animations apple notes: handwriting digital twin
And never will (probably), Apple has been clear for years about market segmentation.
It's about control. If they would allow virtualization then some people would use that to run software Apple can't control, especially not monetize.
Shouldn't people be able to run whatever software they like on a device they've purchased?
Anything less isn't full ownership.
They can purchase something that allows that.
It is no different than Windows Home, Professional, Workstation, Enterprise, Nano, Server,....
No, it is VERY different from Windows Home/Pro. Windows doesn't bar you from running custom code.
Windows Home does not ship Hyper-V, but it allows you to run your own hypervisors just fine.
It's not about running arbitrary code, though; it's that you're specifically trying to use the exact thing that the cheaper edition has removed from it to create market segmentation.
In the case of Windows Home, that's components like Hyper-V. (Imagine taking Windows Home and injecting Hyper-V from a pirated copy of Windows Pro.)
In the case of iPadOS, that's all the components that macOS has that iPadOS doesn't.
The way to "add" those components to iPadOS is different, but the effect would still be the same: having a computer that works like it has the better edition installed, without paying for the better edition.
> It's not about running arbitrary code
But it is. Microsoft just doesn't want home users to run Hyper-V, without paying for a (slightly) more expensive Windows Pro license. Home users still can download free VirtualBox or whatever other solution they care to use. They can also upgrade to a Pro license in-place, by paying $100.
This is all perfectly normal.
iPadOS is completely different. Apple does not _allow_ users to run any non-trivial system-level code. If Apple doesn't want you to access virtualization on iPad, you're out of luck. There are no easy workarounds.
No, I mean, "not allowing you to run arbitrary code" is just a side-effect, not the design choice. The design choice is market segmentation.
In the Windows case, they can enforce your inability to install/enable Hyper-V on Windows Home through simple measures like protecting system files from modification.
But in the iPadOS case, the only way to really prevent you from running a macOS VM, is by preventing you from running any VM.
Due to the Turing-completeness of virtual machines, there's really no lesser measure they can take. You literally cannot create a piece of software that can run arbitrary VMs except for if the VM is semantically macOS. Whatever signal you would look for to blacklist macOS, an adversarial VM creator can mask by modifying the installation. (At an equilibrium point of such a game, the "adversarially-created macOS VM" would end up looking more like a Hackintosh rootfs than like a Mac rootfs — but it'd still look and feel and work like macOS, and that's all users would care about.)
> No, I mean, "not allowing you to run arbitrary code" is just a side-effect, not the design choice. The design choice is market segmentation.
It absolutely is a design choice. Apple wants to control all the code that runs on users' devices. Market segmentation is merely a side-effect.
>Apple wants to control all the code that runs on users' devices. Market segmentation is merely a side-effect.
You have cause and effect reversed
No, I don't. iPhones don't segment anything, yet they are locked tight.
Apple would have liked to lock down macOS, but it's just not feasible (for now).
>iPhones don't segment anything, yet they are locked tight.
Of course they do. There's market segmentation between iPhone tiers, between just using the iPhone as a computer (connecting it to a monitor and running macOS on it), differentiating iOS from the much less tightly maintained Android ecosystem (for which "walled garden" is a feature felt as "less hassle, less malware, more secure, mostly just works"), and several other things.
Their stranglehold on app distribution is absolutely a design choice, and it's done to continue harvesting a 30% tax of as much as they can get away with.
> create market segmentation
Which is the "better edition": $2000 iPad Pro or $2000 Macbook?
If the goal is to maximize hardware device proliferation, third (and Nth) variants could be created with software-locked differentiation. Why stop at 2 hardware editions?
> Which is the "better edition": $2000 iPad Pro or $2000 Macbook?
The one of the two with a lower profit margin for the manufacturer would usually be the one considered to have more "value" in it.
The usual way to measure this, when software editions are locked to particular hardware, is by looking at the cheapest hardware they sell that'll have the given edition of the software installed.
(Another example of this: managed vs unmanaged routers.)
> Why stop at 2 hardware editions?
You're limited by the willingness of your developer ecosystem to develop different versions of the same third-party software for all your different OSes. Nobody wants a device with no third-party app support.
(But that being said, there is actually a third, even-less-capable hardware ecosystem Apple sells, with its own ecosystem of mostly fungible apps: Apple TV!)
> You're limited by the willingness of your developer ecosystem to develop different versions of the same third-party software for all your different OSes. Nobody wants a device with no third-party app support.
If Apple made an iPad Ultra with Linux terminal/framebuffer long-running background VMs, alongside interactive iPadOS apps, it would sell like hotcakes.
We'll have to wait for Nuvia devices to show the benefits of this use case, before Apple claims credit for a new iPad Pro customer segment.
> Another example of this: managed vs unmanaged routers
Do you mean something like Amazon eero vs generic OpenWRT routers? Eero has a few different hardware editions, usually segmented by WiFi speed. They also have a monthly subscription for additional software features. Presumably they make most of their revenue from subscriptions, with a small margin on the router hardware.
No, I mean like companies like Linksys that have product lines with model names that all just look like "N-port network switch, [un]managed" for different prices, that are only differentiated by the number of ports and what firmware is installed on them.
In these product lines, not only do the managed switches cost more than their unmanaged equivalents, but you also only get the option for a managed switch after a certain number of ports.
Not yet, see Win32 sandboxing efforts, bringing UWP security model to everyone.
Well, Windows is also user-hostile and engages in control tactics.
Might be better to compare it to the Xbox or PlayStation.
Windows Server is actually quite tightly controlled licensing wise.
Any client user/device using any service on the server requires a client access licence (CAL).
It'd be super useful if Asahi Linux worked on iPads. :)
Servers aren't really Apple's thing, so it hasn't been much of an issue, but isn't this something Intel CPUs have supported for almost two decades?
Came here to say the same thing
Anyone have a practical case for this? Not complaining just wondering.
CI systems often run their workloads in virtualization (for both security and ease of uniform deployment), but sometimes the jobs themselves use a VM to either run part of the build process (such as depending on a tool distributed using Docker, which relies on such due to the host kernel not being Linux) or run some of the unit/integration tests (whether to create a clean environment or to take advantage of the hypervisor to get fast emulation of a target device, such as an Android phone or whatever). Without nested virtualization, services such as GitHub Actions (or locally hosted options; FWIW, GitHub also lets you bring your own "runners") have thereby been somewhat crippled on Apple Silicon.
Nested virtualization would be needed if you want to test out a Windows VM with the various Hyper-V integrations like WSL2, credential guard, etc.
Oh, that’s an excellent point. Things like WSL2 are very seamless so I don’t normally think of them as being virtualisation even though they obviously are. I might even use this myself as I need to document software development tools for Windows users.
Docker containers (ie Docker Desktop) running inside macOS VMs.
That would fix a current blocking problem, as the lack of nested virtualisation means Docker Desktop (which runs its containers inside a Linux VM) has to run on the host and can't run inside a VM.
Running an older version of macOS, which supports older versions of Xcode and then using that to run older iOS simulators.
Isn't the simulator not a VM? I thought it was more something like wine.
Correct, the simulators run regular macOS processes that are linked against a different set of userland libraries than usual. No virtualization involved.
Could I run an older version of macOS that still ran 32bit apps?
macOS Mojave is the last version to support 32-bit applications. It only runs on x86_64, so you'd be emulating it, not virtualising.
Inception
I'm not a super-advanced user, so could somebody please let me know if this will allow running Windows on an ARM based Macs? Or perhaps running a VM with macOS Big Sur on macOS 15 ( I'm looking to install a specific version of an app via App Store - a version that is limited to macOS Big Sur )? Thanks in advance!
You can already run Windows on Macs, just look at UTM or Parallels. You can also already run Big Sur on macOS 14.
Edit: Should've added that you can only run Windows ARM. Emulating x86 on ARM (= running "normal" Windows on macOS M-processors) may be possible (I'm not sure), but practically not usable as it will be painfully slow. That will probably not change in the near future. However Windows ARM contains a Rosetta-like x86 emulation layer so with some luck you won't even notice that you're running Windows ARM and not "normal" Windows.
> Emulating x86 on ARM (= running "normal" Windows on macOS M-processors) may be possible (I'm not sure), but practically not usable as it will be painfully slow.
I tried the UTM qemu based solution for x86 windows. It's there and it ... starts. But yes, it's way way too slow for daily use. If you just have an occasional task like document conversion once in a while, i guess you could.
That's the issue - you can not run Big Sur on macOS 14 on an ARM Mac - from what I know, this is only possible on an Intel machine. Perhaps also on the very first M1 Macs, though I'm not sure about that one. Or am I wrong?
I’m even less, what’s nested virtualisation?
Nested virtualization is running virtual machines inside other virtual machines. Like the movie inception
For a practical example: running WSL in Windows in macOS.
thank you, I am a noob. This sound like an amazing addition. Would this mean I could run a linux distro on an ipad which has M3 chip?
No, iPadOS doesn’t have virtualization support, only macOS does.
Still no USB Passthrough it seems. It's a pity.
That is something that Parallels traditionally had for x86, isn't it also the case for Parallels with Windows on ARM?
That's up to the virtualization solution you're using.
The link is specifically about Virtualization.Framework.