Mark Gurman, reporting for Bloomberg:

Apple designers are developing something akin to a giant iPad that unfolds into the size of two iPad Pros side-by-side. The Cupertino, California-based company has been honing the product for a couple of years now and is aiming to bring something to market around 2028, I’m told…

It’s not yet clear what operating system the Apple computer will run, but my guess is that it will be iPadOS or a variant of it. I don’t believe it will be a true iPad-Mac hybrid, but the device will have elements of both. By the time 2028 rolls around, iPadOS should be advanced enough to run macOS apps, but it also makes sense to support iPad accessories like the Apple Pencil.

It is my impression that much of Apple’s current work on foldable screen technology is focused on this higher-end device, but it’s also been exploring the idea of a foldable iPhone. In that area, Apple is the only major smartphone provider without a foldable option: Samsung, Alphabet Inc.’s Google, and Chinese brands like Huawei Technologies Co. all have their own versions. But I wouldn’t anticipate a foldable iPhone before 2026 at the earliest.

Two 11-inch iPad Pro side-by-side would amount to a 22-inch display, diagonally measured, and Gurman says the device will be closer to 20 inches in size. Either way, a 20-inch device is almost unfathomably massive: just ask anyone with a 16-inch laptop. Even Apple’s large MacBook Pros are too unwieldy to my taste, but 20 inches is too large for any productive use. Here’s my line of thought: Try to think of something that can’t be done with a 13-inch iPad Pro but that can be on one 7 inches larger — it’s impossible. The only real use case I can think of is drawing and other art, but drawing pads larger than 20 inches are usually laid out on large art tables or easels. A 20-inch iPad wouldn’t even be able to fully expand on an airplane tray table, where people are more likely to want a small, foldable, probable device.

Rumors of a large foldable iPad have been floating around for years now, but the expectation was always that it would work as a Mac laptop, with the bottom portion of the tablet functioning as a keyboard when positioned like a laptop. That also didn’t make much sense to me, but Gurman’s idea that the device would only run iPadOS is perhaps even more perplexing. Even if we (remarkably) assume iPadOS becomes the productivity operating system of champions in a few years, a 20-inch iPad seems over-engineered. iPad apps can only occupy so much space because, ultimately, they’re sized-up iPhone apps with desktop-class interface elements — to some extent. Again, there’s nothing someone can’t do with a 13-inch iPad Pro that suddenly would become possible with a larger model.

So that brings the conversation to a head: What apps will this folding iPad run? Gurman writes that the answer is Mac apps, and the first time I read his passage, I audibly let out a giggle. That’s nonsense. I’m supposed to believe Apple’s operating system teams are working on a way to run AppKit code on the iPad without optimizing the Mac’s user interface idioms for a touchscreen? How does that even remotely make any sense? I’m cautious about discounting Gurman’s reporting, as when I have, I’ve been wrong repeatedly. In Gurman we trust. But the way Gurman writes this sentence — specifically his usage of the word “should” — leads me to believe this is some speculation on his part.

Apple knows Mac apps can’t run on iPadOS — it knows this so well that it disables touchscreen support in Sidecar, the Mac mirroring feature on the iPad introduced a few years ago. The only way to interact with a Mac from an iPad in Sidecar is via the Apple Pencil because that’s a precise tool akin to a mouse cursor. Conversely, iPad apps can run on the Mac because it’s only a minor inconvenience to move the mouse cursor a few more pixels than usual to hit iPad-sized touch targets. On the iPad, running Mac apps is an impossibility; on the Mac, running iPad apps is a mere inconvenience. Apple can build a way to run Universal-compiled Mac apps on the iPad — it successfully jury-rigged a way to run UIKit, Arm-based apps on Intel Macs with Project Marzipan Mac Catalyst — but it cannot automatically resize UI touch targets to fit a 20-inch iPad. The problem doesn’t lie in iPadOS’ lack of technological advancement.

Alternatively, Gurman is wrong about what OS this product runs. This could mean one of two things: it runs an entirely new OS, or it runs macOS. I think neither of these options is likely; Gurman is probably right that it’ll run iPadOS, knowing Apple. I don’t have evidence to support that conclusion, but from years of studying Cupertinoese, it’s just the Apple thing to do. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I just don’t think this new flavor of iPadOS will run Mac apps or be enticing at all to customers. Mull over that thought for a bit: When has iPadOS’ limitations ever stemmed from hardware? Since the 2018 iPad Pro redux, never. Twenty inches, 30 inches, however many inches — it doesn’t solve the problem, and it won’t sell more iPads. Even if Apple added full-blown AppKit Mac app support to the iPad — which will never happen, mark my words — the best way to experience Mac apps at close to 20 inches is a 16-inch MacBook Pro or, to sacrifice portability for size, a Studio Display.

So all we’re left asking is if this really is a folding Mac laptop, and I call that entire thought-chain nonsense. It’s time to put that rumor to rest. Apple makes the best laptops in the world, with tactile premium trackpads, great keyboards, and beautiful, large screens. Why would it trade all of that for a touchscreen? Pause the thought train: I’m not pompously proclaiming Apple won’t make a 20-inch foldable. I think it will and I think it’ll be a 20-inch iPad running the same boring, useless flavor of iPadOS we have today. But it’s not going to run macOS, a hybrid between macOS and iPadOS, or even Mac apps on iPad software. This is the larger iPad “Studio” that’s been rumored intermittently for years, and frankly, it has no purpose.

The good news is, there’s a new Magic Mouse in the works. I’m told that Apple’s design team has been prototyping versions of the accessory in recent months, aiming to devise something that better fits the modern era… Apple is looking to create something that’s more relevant, while also fixing longstanding complaints — yes, including the charging port issue.

Innovation.