M1 iPad (question)

[WereCat]

I have never owned any Apple device and I don't follow Apple news so I need some answers from you guys (if possible). 

 

I'm looking for a drawing tablet. Mainly for sculpting in Blender. 

I'm in no rush to buy any and I was looking at Huion Kamvas Pro 20". 

 

Now considering how well the new M1 Apple devices perform for the price, I was wondering if there will be an M1 based iPad and if it would be possible to run Blender on it. 

Is Apple going to merge their mobile OS with their desktop one? 

If so, I would rather take a stand alone device for that task rather than being restricted to tablet I can only use at my PC desk. 

 

Honestly, that would be the perfect use case for me but I have no clue if what I'm talking about is even possible to have in the near future. It kinda makes sense though. 

[SupaKomputa]

Ipad is using Ax chips, not M1.

I don't think apple would like to merge everything together, in software maybe, but they like to keep everything nicely separated.

[Bl4ze_buoy]

Just buy a wacom, trust me. They will never release a m1 ipad. their new A14x chip (in ipad 2021) is rumored to be based on m1 which means, more hyper-expensive products YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[SorryBella]

6 minutes ago, Bl4ze_buoy said:

Just buy a wacom, trust me. They will never release a m1 ipad. their new A14x chip (in ipad 2021) is rumored to be based on m1 which means, more hyper-expensive products YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

This is portable offering of Wacom.

 

And this is portable offering of Apple.

 

Mind a research first. But for what OP needs, if theyre fine with tethered, i would still go for a wacom cintiq or intuos instead of this 2. But for portable, Ipad is head to toe better in value for standard consumer.

[Bl4ze_buoy]

WHOAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! last time I checked a wacom it was around 1500$(USD) I didn't knew wacoms are ultra expensive. Though wait a few months for an a14x(m1 based chip) iPad pro 2021.

[WereCat]

7 hours ago, SupaKomputa said:

Ipad is using Ax chips, not M1.

I don't think apple would like to merge everything together, in software maybe, but they like to keep everything nicely separated.

I'm aware that currently iPads don't have M1. I was expecting the next ones to have it though. I've read some short article mentioning that a while ago and that's why I'm asking because I have no idea if it was correct.

 

7 hours ago, Bl4ze_buoy said:

Just buy a wacom, trust me. They will never release a m1 ipad. their new A14x chip (in ipad 2021) is rumored to be based on m1 which means, more hyper-expensive products YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If it's meant to be based on M1 then that may explain what I meant. Anyways, Blender is supposedly going to add an official support for the new M1 devices in v2.93 so in theory, if iPad is also ARM it should work, right?

Wacom is way too expensive. The reason why I decided for the Huion is that after reading and watching multiple reviews I see nothing wrong with it compared to a Wacom device that costs way more and does the same. (I am talking about a 20" drawing tabled with the pen that does not need a battery and is still under 500 euro, Wacom has nothing even close in that range. I am willing to spend up to about 800euro if the device can be a fully standalone one but from looking at some Surface laptops, I'm not convinced they are worth the value).

 

@SorryClaire

Yep, that's my exact train of thoughts as well.

[WereCat]

5 hours ago, huilun02 said:

I found this from random searching, but I've never had an iPad and I doubt anyone can or will double down on any iPad as a guaranteed solution

If you want assurance, the only way is to get a product that is specifically designed for the task

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1N9OnqHyuo

Yeah, I've seen that.

 

Maybe I formulated my question wrong though but what I meant is that if Apple is going for ARM on the Macs and the apps are getting backported for ARM now and they also have Rosetta to make the x86_64 apps run on ARM (which seems to work really well) and the new iPads are supposedly going to have a chip similar to M1, if it's safe to assume that new iPad could use Rosetta to run the same x86_64 apps (if Apple allows it)... because if both of their product stacks are going to be on ARM it makes sense to me that they are probably going to merge the OS? I mean, they are trying to make iPad into a laptop... at the same time they are making Macs into an ARM mobile device.

 

Considering how well the Blender runs on the new M1 Macbooks via Rosetta, if it could be run in such a way on iPad it would be awesome. Also Blender is supposedly going to officially support the new MacOS on M1 from v2.93 so if it does, it should also run on iPad? Both are ARM, no?

 

And I have absolutely no clue how the apps on Apple devices work, I've never used one. I don't know if I can take a 3rd party installer and just install any app that's not on the official app store or not if that will be the case.

 

(Assuming that Apple is actually going to release a new iPad any time soon, I've read some articles mentioning April announcement or something like that... not sure what is true).

[Commodus]

10 hours ago, WereCat said:

Yeah, I've seen that.

 

Maybe I formulated my question wrong though but what I meant is that if Apple is going for ARM on the Macs and the apps are getting backported for ARM now and they also have Rosetta to make the x86_64 apps run on ARM (which seems to work really well) and the new iPads are supposedly going to have a chip similar to M1, if it's safe to assume that new iPad could use Rosetta to run the same x86_64 apps (if Apple allows it)... because if both of their product stacks are going to be on ARM it makes sense to me that they are probably going to merge the OS? I mean, they are trying to make iPad into a laptop... at the same time they are making Macs into an ARM mobile device.

 

Considering how well the Blender runs on the new M1 Macbooks via Rosetta, if it could be run in such a way on iPad it would be awesome. Also Blender is supposedly going to officially support the new MacOS on M1 from v2.93 so if it does, it should also run on iPad? Both are ARM, no?

 

And I have absolutely no clue how the apps on Apple devices work, I've never used one. I don't know if I can take a 3rd party installer and just install any app that's not on the official app store or not if that will be the case.

 

(Assuming that Apple is actually going to release a new iPad any time soon, I've read some articles mentioning April announcement or something like that... not sure what is true).

Apple emphatically said there were no plans to merge macOS and iPadOS... now, never say never, but I wouldn't count on it in the near future. Part of the problem is that both platforms have some very different interface concepts. While Apple has been blurring a couple of lines, it would need more work than that.

 

You can't officially sideload apps on iOS outside of beta tests and enterprise deployments. Sucks for choice, but it's also one reason why malware is less of an issue on iOS than Android. And while you can more or less run iPad apps on an M1 Mac, there's no way to do the reverse. You'd need a mouse and keyboard, for starters!

 

There's nothing official about an iPad update yet. However, the current iPad Pro is over a year old... it's due for a replacement. I would expect something sooner rather than later, no matter how accurate the rumours are.

[ivycomb]

11 hours ago, WereCat said:

Yeah, I've seen that.

 

Maybe I formulated my question wrong though but what I meant is that if Apple is going for ARM on the Macs and the apps are getting backported for ARM now and they also have Rosetta to make the x86_64 apps run on ARM (which seems to work really well) and the new iPads are supposedly going to have a chip similar to M1, if it's safe to assume that new iPad could use Rosetta to run the same x86_64 apps (if Apple allows it)... because if both of their product stacks are going to be on ARM it makes sense to me that they are probably going to merge the OS? I mean, they are trying to make iPad into a laptop... at the same time they are making Macs into an ARM mobile device.

 

Considering how well the Blender runs on the new M1 Macbooks via Rosetta, if it could be run in such a way on iPad it would be awesome. Also Blender is supposedly going to officially support the new MacOS on M1 from v2.93 so if it does, it should also run on iPad? Both are ARM, no?

 

And I have absolutely no clue how the apps on Apple devices work, I've never used one. I don't know if I can take a 3rd party installer and just install any app that's not on the official app store or not if that will be the case.

 

(Assuming that Apple is actually going to release a new iPad any time soon, I've read some articles mentioning April announcement or something like that... not sure what is true).

The M series chips are similar to the A series chips in that they both contain arm cores and act as SoC's, but are otherwise not really comparable and it wouldn't make sense for Apple to merge the two technologies on a hardware level.

 

The M1 (and future M series chips) is a laptop chip designed for mid-high power (relatively speaking) devices that will see professional applications and be involved in a wide variety of different workflows. It's truly for general use computing up to a professional level, will be in a device that has a large battery with more cooling, and will often be plugged in to the wall. The M1 also (currently) has hardware acceleration for x86 applications to aid in the transition from x86 to ARM, but this won't stick around forever.

 

The A14 (iPhone 12) and A12Z (most recent iPad Pro, just as two examples) are low power mobile chips. They have smaller, less powerful energy sources driving them and significantly less cooling headroom. If you put an M1 into an iPad, it would run considerably slower and find itself running toasty quite often.

 

It just doesn't make sense for apple to outright merge iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS in any meaningful way beyond some app sharing. The iPad might be more like a laptop then it used to be, but it's still very much an iPad. The ease of picking up an iPad and loading up Procreate for a quick sketch would go away with a unibody, larger Macbook. Sure the devices have similarities, but they're still distinctly different.

[ivycomb]

On 4/2/2021 at 4:20 PM, JBee said:

The M series chips are similar to the A series chips in that they both contain arm cores and act as SoC's, but are otherwise not really comparable and it wouldn't make sense for Apple to merge the two technologies on a hardware level.

 

The M1 (and future M series chips) is a laptop chip designed for mid-high power (relatively speaking) devices that will see professional applications and be involved in a wide variety of different workflows. It's truly for general use computing up to a professional level, will be in a device that has a large battery with more cooling, and will often be plugged in to the wall. The M1 also (currently) has hardware acceleration for x86 applications to aid in the transition from x86 to ARM, but this won't stick around forever.

 

The A14 (iPhone 12) and A12Z (most recent iPad Pro, just as two examples) are low power mobile chips. They have smaller, less powerful energy sources driving them and significantly less cooling headroom. If you put an M1 into an iPad, it would run considerably slower and find itself running toasty quite often.

 

It just doesn't make sense for apple to outright merge iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS in any meaningful way beyond some app sharing. The iPad might be more like a laptop then it used to be, but it's still very much an iPad. The ease of picking up an iPad and loading up Procreate for a quick sketch would go away with a unibody, larger Macbook. Sure the devices have similarities, but they're still distinctly different.

Welp, I stand corrected.

[WereCat]

21 minutes ago, JBee said:

Welp, I stand corrected.

I just watched the event. Seems like they are definitely not merging the OS experience together but this definitely opens the door for developers to easily port apps from MacOS to iPad since the main HW is literally the same.

[ivycomb]

10 minutes ago, WereCat said:

I just watched the event. Seems like they are definitely not merging the OS experience together but this definitely opens the door for developers to easily port apps from MacOS to iPad since the main HW is literally the same.

Yeah for sure, I'm mostly just referring to them using the same SOC in the iPad and the Mac lineup now. Absolutely bonkers

[TheInvisible_Dude]

Just personally speaking here. Not an expert in the topic.

 

 

I got the iPad Air 4 last year because I really wanted to draw digital, and so far I still don’t regret it. I also think the apple pencil design has improved a lot since the first model. The first gen’s charging feature always made me feel like it was going to break if you weren’t careful lol

[WereCat]

10 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

So are you still considering dropping $ on an iPad on the hope and assumption that it may eventually be able to do the 1 thing you need it to do?

No. I've already bought the Wacom Intuos for my PC.

If I have to be tied to my desktop I may as well just save a ton of money and use a pen tablet and my monitors instead for a lot cheaper. If the iPad will run Blender in the future, I will get it then.

[appleache]

ipad os is always going to be ipad os, the mac os would merge to it not the other way around. ios eco is much more easy to control and monetize for apple. rn there is noting close to blender. and since you never used apple stuff, the file system is going to be a nightmare for you to export stuff to blender pc, unless you have a nas or network share folder setup.

you should really go try with stuff like ipad air with apple pencil, before you go for m1 ipad.