Only one tablet has survived the rise and fall of the tablet craze — mostly unscathed, that is— and that’s the Apple iPad. First launched in 2010, the original iPad mostly served as a larger iPhone, but without calling capabilities. And with no front-facing camera, you couldn’t even place video calls. Fast forward almost a decade and Apple’s tablet lineup are bonafide laptop replacements for some. Apple has adapted the iPad in form, function, and overall cost in such a way that it’s become the no-brainer tablet purchase.
Users of the iPad-exclusive illustration app (and its sister animation software Dreams) have been asking for a desktop version for years, and it seems Procreate has been listening.
PC support hasn’t been ruled out, but a Mac port will likely arrive first according to Procreate CEO and co-founder James Cuda. “The unified chip architecture between iPad and Mac makes the development & ongoing support, *very* feasible.”
Product designer Scott Yu-Jan had the idea to marry an iPad Mini to a Mac Studio inside a 3D-printed approximation of an original Macintosh. It’s not just a fun gimmick — this thing looks delightfully practical, too.
Small point updates were released this afternoon for iPhones and iPads running three different operating systems (9.9, 16.7, and 17.4), as well as the Vision Pro headset (visionOS 1.1.1), but there’s very little information on what’s changed.
Apple hasn’t added the details of security fixes in the new software, and the only other note we’ve seen is this support page saying 17.4.1 fixes a QR code scanning bug on iPads.
Apple’s updated tablets should arrive after “a variant of iPadOS 17.4” is finished around the end of this month or “sometime in April,” Mark Gurman writes in the subscriber version of Power On for Bloomberg today.
He also writes that the new USB-C AirPods — the entry-level model and a mid-tier version with noise-canceling — are expected “around September or October.”
Apple didn’t hold a Spring event, after all. But hey, we got dual external display support* on the M3 MacBook Air!
As for the embiggened iPad Air and OLED iPad Pros, Mark Gurman writes in his Power On newsletter for Bloomberg today that they’re launching “around the end of March or in April,” along with iPadOS 17.4.
*If the lid is closed.
Leave it to Federico Viticci and MacStories to go super, super deep on what it takes to smash together an iPad and a Mac into “The MacPad,” a beautiful mess of a touchscreen laptop. Building — and using — this setup is not for the faint of heart, and it looks totally ridiculous. But I can’t help myself. I want one.
Apple is preparing to release iOS 17.4 soon with many changes, including those meant to comply, to some degree at least, with Europe’s Digital Markets Act.
According to Bloomberg today, the company has told support staff not to engage with customers about whether or not the iPhone will get changes like third-party app stores outside of the EU.
So says Mark Gurman in the latest Power On newsletter for Bloomberg. That’s not all — in addition to two iPad Air models (one a 12.9-inch!) and OLED iPad Pro tablets, he writes that 13- and- 15-inch MacBook Air models will be updated with M3 chips at the same time.
That would be the first refresh of each iPad and the 13-inch MacBook Air since 2022.
Developer Finn Voorhees tested the Castaway: Spatial HDMI Monitor beta by playing Super Mario Bros. Wonder within visionOS using a USB capture card hooked up to an iPad. However, the developers of Halide/Orion have said the APIs necessary to connect their app to Vision Pro aren’t available yet.
Voorhees writes, “Going back and forth with app store review” in hopes of having it in the App Store in time for the Vision Pro launch February 2nd.
Take a look at Federico Viticci’s modded iPad Pro with an iPhone holder and stereo speakers, which he wrote about on MacStories.
This would be overkill for me, but I’m a boring single-monitor person on my computer. I respect Viticci’s effort.
If you’re spending $3,499 to be one of the first 70,000 or so people with Apple’s Vision Pro, we can probably assume you own a recent iPhone. But just in case, 9to5Mac points out details from an Apple email explaining the online ordering process.
Despite rumors of required in-store appointments for face scanning, it looks like Apple will let you use FaceID on another device to judge the fit requirements and provide a current prescription if you need the $149 vision-correcting lenses.
Lenovo’s new 2-in-1 is a Windows laptop with a detachable Android tablet. They run on separate hardware. This is the least awkward way Lenovo could have done this.
Apple, on the other hand, uses the exact same chips for iPads and MacBooks and could simply make an iPad Pro that runs MacOS when the keyboard is attached. And yet!
Rockstar’s attempt at launching Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — Definitive Edition in 2021 went so poorly that the PC version was removed from sale for a while. Now, the bundle (GTA III, GTA: Vice City, and GTA: San Andreas) is available on mobile devices and for no extra cost if you have Netflix.
So how does it run? Digital Foundry’s iOS analysis is here, finding that despite an uneven framerate and iffy gamepad support, it “probably offers the best portable experience at the moment.”
