What if Apple unleashed the Studio Display’s inner iPad?

The Studio Display has an iPad inside, just bursting to get out. What if Apple gave it a build of iPadOS and set it on its way?

Apple’s brand new Studio Display is the talk of the town for all kinds of reasons right now, not all of them good. But one of the things being discussed is the inclusion of an A13 Bionic chip that seems to do nothing more than handle image processing for the —currently poor — built-in camera and spatial audio for the included speakers. Isn’t that … a bit of a waste?

I’d argue that it is, and to know why you have to understand what else either previously came or still does come with an A13 Bionic inside. Namely, the ever-popular iPhone 11 and the still-popular 9th-gen iPad. The former was never accused of being slow and the latter is a mighty fine entry into the iPad ecosystem for anyone who wants it.

Oh, and the A13 Bionic powered the previous-generation iPhone SE, a device one of my boys still uses and seems to have no problem playing an untold number of Apple Arcade games on.

So here’s the question — if a Studio Display has an iPad, an iPhone 11, and an iPhone SE built-in, and packs 64GB of storage, couldn’t it be made to run iPadOS? Why yes, I think it could.

Now, I’m not the only one that thinks this, and I owe the idea to YouTube Matt Birchler — video embedded below! — for the initial idea. Birchler suggests that a future Studio Display could run a version of iPadOS and I think he’s right. Because Apple already did the groundwork by building proper curser support into iPadOS.

So here’s the question — if a Studio Display has an A13 Bionic built-in, and packs 64GB of storage, couldn’t it be made to run iPadOS?

Imagine, if you will, a Studio Display that can be connected to a nice new Mac Studio as normal. But you could also connect your mouse and keyboard straight into the display, flick a switch, and be using a full-screen iPadOS interface — and yes, complete with the App Store built-in. It sounds crazy. Right up until the part where it really doesn’t.

And what if I told you that Apple already took care of the keyboard and mouse problem with a little thing called Universal Control. You might not even need to swap any cables or do any Bluetooth jiggery-pokery to get everything to work. It … just works. We already know the A13 Bionic can handle iPad apps and whatnot because it’s already doing it. The only question I might have is whether the chip would be up to throwing that many pixels around the screen. But if we’re talking about a future model, put an A15 in instead. Apple chip chief Johny Srouji probably has a bucket load of them in a corner somewhere.

Now, I, like the rest of you, doubt this would happen but Apple is so close to it actually happening that it feels like a missed opportunity. Some have already called for the Studio Display to be able to act as a standalone Apple TV device, and they’re right. Now imagine if that device could also run your calendar. And your task manager. And Safari. And everything else in the App store.

Like I said earlier, it sounds crazy. And then all of a sudden, it really doesn’t anymore.