Continuum
I continue to be amazed that Apple hasn't done anything like this yet. When they surprised everyone with the first 64 bit ARM SoC four years ago, I figured this was coming soon. All they'd have to do is add an app to the iPhone that has the OS X GUI, make the missing API features (iOS is basically a cut down OS X) available to those programs, and have the OS X build tools generate a fat binary with 64 bit x86 and 64 bit ARMv8.
Connect a monitor via Lighting/HDMI adapter, and a keyboard/mouse via bluetooth or a USB breakout that goes with that Lightning/HDMI adapter and you're good to go. Access to thousands of professional programs before long, as I'm sure developers would quickly fall in line to develop fat binaries to gain access to a huge new customer base.
Are they worried it would hurt Mac sales? Personally I think it would make the platform more attractive and might actually increase them, but either way there would be a lot more OS X users. They might need to introduce an iPhone 'Pro' model with more RAM for people who are going to want to run stuff that needs a lot of RAM, but this wouldn't be something for power users more for the occasional user like students and road warriors that don't want to lug a laptop with them. Any of the recent models with 2-3 GB would be fine for them, and the SoC is fast enough and has built in compression support they could use compressed memory pages and double its effective size.
Like I said, I've been expecting it for four years now, and have been wrong for four years. I guess Apple knows something i don't, or they are waiting on something else to fall in place before they release it?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
