Tim Cook Explains Why a Mac/iPad Merger Won’t Happen (Soon)

While many notebook manufacturers have taken to merging the laptop-tablet ecosystems, Apple has always been resistant to the idea.

For Apple, the iPad and Mac are two separate platforms — and they’re likely to remain that way. Just last month, at Apple’s Chicago education event, CEO Tim Cook reiterated that the firm doesn’t think it can merge macOS and iOS without cutting corners for both platforms.

After the education event, The Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Wells asked Cook about Microsoft’s Windows 10 strategy — which involved making the Windows platform operate more like a tablet — and how it compared to Apple’s philosophy on the matter.

“We don’t believe in sort of watering down one for the other,” Cook told the Herald in response. “One of the reasons that both of them are incredible is because we pushed them to do what they do well. And if you begin to merge the two … you begin to make tradeoffs and compromises.”

Cook added that, while Apple itself may be able to squeeze more overall efficiency out of that platform merge, “that’s not what it’s about.”

“It’s about giving people things that they can then use to help them change the world or express their passion or express their creativity,” the Apple chief executive said. “So this merger thing that some folks are fixated on, I don’t think that’s what users want.”

Offering his own personal experience on the matter, Cook said that he typically uses a Mac at work and an iPad when traveling or relaxing at home. “I use everything and I love everything,” he added.

Apple has, historically, expressed little interest in making its Mac function more like a tablet. Even back in 2015, Cook told the Irish Independent that users would not be interested in a “converged Mac and iPad,” adding that doing so would result in an experience that “isn’t as good” as customers want.

In that 2015 interview, he maintained that Apple’s goal was to simply “make the best tablet in the world and the best Mac in the world.”

Still, even if the Mac and iPad remain two distinct entities, Apple reportedly has plans to allow the platforms to work better together. In addition to Continuity features that allow seamless workflows across Mac, iOS devices and Apple Watch, the company may have something else in store.

According to Bloomberg, the Cupertino tech firm is developing a platform, codenamed Project Marzipan, that will allow third-party apps to function across Apple’s various operating systems. The system is slated to launch in iOS 12 and macOS 10.14 later this year.

In other words, rather than create different versions of an app for different operating systems, Marzipan will allow developers to create a single app that works with a touchscreen, mouse and trackpad, or other user interface schemes.