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380 points rezonant | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.599s | source
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DCKing ◴[] No.40208207[source]
The iPad App Store is perhaps an even more dysfunctional place than the iPhone in how much it holds hardware and use cases hostage to the manufacturer's vision. Just imagine how much more versatile the iPad Pro would be if only you could run Linux VMs on it in the moments you want to do anything remotely tinkery on an iPad.

Apple's hardware since the 2021 iPad Pro (with M1) has had the ability to do this. The iPads have the RAM (16gb on higher storage models), appropriate keyboard and trackpads, the works. Great hardware being held back by Apple's vision people weren't allowed to deviate from.

A straightforward reading of the DMA suggests that Apple is not allowed to restrict apps from using hardware features. Let's hope that means Parallels/VMware style VMs are possible without too much of a fight.

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1. grishka ◴[] No.40208717[source]
Not just VMs, you could technically also run things like PC emulators, with real PC operating systems, especially older ones, with acceptable performance. Just imagine using Windows 98 on an iPad!
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2. accrual ◴[] No.40210274[source]
Reminds me of running Windows 95 under Bochs on the Sony PSP. The the CPU turned up to max (333MHz) it was just barely fast enough to impress your friends. ;)