I'm sorry but I still find this hilarious. You can spend over 2k on an iPad that already has a cutting edge M2 CPU, the same CPU family that supports multiple users on every other non-iPad device, we are not waiting on anything here. Everything needed exists and has done so for decades.
Time is not required. A change to how Apple runs its iPad business is needed. This hasn't been a technical choice for a long time.
> yes, hardware is cheap.
You can buy an iPad in configurations up to 2500 dollars. For a single user computer. These are not cheap computers by any reasonable definition, given the amount of compute power you can buy for 1000 dollars elsewhere (including from Apple!).
> potentially - 1 TB home directories for each person.
> ask people with kids how big their photo libraries are and I think you'll be surprised how much the average person is carrying around with them.
Almost no kids have 1 TB iPads in my experience - they are far too expensive for children! Almost no adults have 1tb iPads given their cost as well really - it turns an iPad into a 4 figure device. But perhaps you think 1500 dollars + taxes is "cheap" for a single user computer with 1tb of storage too?
> There is nothing cheap about iPads, especially the models that have the same M1 processors and similar pricepoints as a MacBook. It's laughable they don't have multiple user support today, and is solely to protect sales of the devices.
Compared to the days when people had 1 machine (e.g, mainframes) and connected to it with comparatively dumb terminal devices, yes, hardware is cheap.
For a more recent example, I'll point out that the first computer I was reasonably involved with getting into our house was a Dell 4100 in the late 90's. At the time, it cost ~$1400, a not insignificant portion of that price attributable to a CD-RW.
In short, you probably couldn't really get anything below $1000 - given that baseline, I don't know how you could say things aren't cheap when we now have Chromebooks in Edu/Business which are at best $250-300.
At least publicly, Apple doesn't break out P&L for each product/division, although they do give sales numbers, so it's difficult to say if missing features which let them hit a price point have an impact.
> I'm genuinely surprised someone would defend this behaviour. Imagine you bought any other computer for north of 1000 dollars and you could only log one person in at a time - its unheard of, and was solved decades ago.
iOS/iPadOS still has UNIX underneath, so multiuser is definitely possible, even if it's not exposed in the GUI in all situations. Give it time.
> This is just being silly - people log families and many users into drives far smaller than this all the time.
My point about the size of home directories is colored by my own experience - for example, I don't use streaming music services and am a bit of a video hoarder - ask people with kids how big their photo libraries are and I think you'll be surprised how much the average person is carrying around with them.