After Apple introduced this week that each its new iMac and iPad Professional lineup had been getting its stellar M1 processor, lots of people speculated if that meant the corporate was on the point of put macOS on the iPad. And look, perhaps that will be an important factor—a touchscreen Mac in the end!—however Apple is certainly not going to merge the Mac with the iPad. At the very least not anytime quickly.

In an interview with The Impartial, Apple’s head of selling Greg Joswiak and {hardware} chief John Ternus mentioned in no unsure phrases that the iPad is the iPad and Apple plans to maintain it that method. The iPad will proceed to run iOS, and there won’t be a macOS model of the iPad.

“Folks say that [the Mac and iPad] are in battle with one another. That anyone has to resolve whether or not they need a Mac, or they need an iPad,” Joswiak instructed The Impartial. “Or folks say that we’re merging them into one. That there’s actually this grand conspiracy we now have to eradicate the 2 classes and make them one. And the truth is neither is true.”

As a substitute, Apple needs to make the Mac and the iPad the perfect of their respective classes. In line with each Joswiak and Ternus, Apple doesn’t wish to restrict what both machine can do exactly due to their type issue. Folks have workflows that span each, and other people favor utilizing one machine over the opposite for sure duties. That’s one thing we additionally famous lately when evaluating Apple’s method of placing the identical processor in all its gadgets to the Home windows PC philosophy of having plenty of totally different configuration choices to select from.

However as The Impartial notes, the iPad has extra energy than it actually wants and Apple hasn’t but launched a powerhouse app to point out off its efficiency. As an example, Apple’s Remaining Minimize Professional film-editing app solely runs on macOS (whereas Adobe Premiere Professional works on each Macs and iPads). We’re nonetheless ready to see software program that makes use of the unimaginable new iPad Professional show, M1 processor, and Thunderbolt help. Apple continues to swear up and down {that a} touchscreen Mac will not be taking place, and that the iPad is its personal separate class, and that’s true—not less than in the interim. However the iPad Professional is now probably the most spectacular pill ever from a {hardware} standpoint—so the place does it go from right here?

Joswiak has a solution for all that: It’s higher to make one thing too highly effective to begin, then carry the demanding packages to it, somewhat than attempt to run a demanding program on one thing that doesn’t have the facility to run it. It’s all about having sufficient headroom, he mentioned.

This isn’t an admission on Apple’s half that it plans to carry Remaining Minimize Professional or different software program not at the moment on the iPad Professional to the iPad Professional. Joswiak was tight-lipped about that within the interview, however his logic is smart: construct out the {hardware} after which carry the software program expertise. We’ll simply have to attend and see what different issues Apple has in retailer for the iPad that don’t contain macOS.