Developers Expect iOS and MacOS To Merge 436
AHuxley noticed the frightening little Ars story talking about a certain expectation that
iOS and MacOS will merge, leading to a single DRM-locked OS on your MacBook and your iPad. Certainly Apple would love a piece of every app sold. Now I'm sure that this has been discussed over there, but I wouldn't expect it any time soon.
I welcome the (Score:5, Funny)
iMerge(TM)
Not like I havent been saying this for a while now (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple isn't going to kill the Imac and Macbook lines, they will simply replace the current NEXT based OS with the future versions of IOS and naturally more complex systems are more prone to unexpected issues. Moving the hardware to ARM is trivial as they've already got the HW expertise and OS to do it. The only thing they need to do is get SW makers to fall in line, MS will with their standard half-arsed attempt at Office:Mac and so will Adobe with CS (Adobe dont have the balls to tell Steve to stuff it). Realistically they just need to add more keyboard and mouse support to the Ipad.
Apple wants to do this for three reasons.
1. It just works(TM). Mac OSX can go wrong more then the Iphone. This is because, as fanboys point out OSX is a lot more complex then IOS. Apple does not want users to have to deal with their own problems so they seek to eliminate the chance of it happening. Apple's current strategy is to cut features out that don't work perfectly.
2. Homogeneity. Apple prides itself on the fact that everything works together, that choices are simple. Having two disparate OS lines is detrimental to the long term success of this goal.
3. Control. Fanboys may defend Apple's control for various reasons, mostly using cognitive dissonance (it's for your own good and other such excuses) but you cant deny that Apple wants control. They want to stop the hackintosh, they want to prevent more clones and they want to control what the end users experiences.
This wont happen overnight, not even the RDF turned to eleven could pull that one off. It will happen over time in baby steps and be hailed by the fanboys.
Re:Not like I havent been saying this for a while (Score:4, Insightful)
It might, but I would be curious to know whether there was any evidence for this beyond the reported opinion of a handful of third-party app developers. These guys are targeting their products towards Apple's little handheld media boxes (and good luck to them) but their opinion doesn't necessarily reflect reality.
Personally, I hope it doesn't. OS X is certainly not everything I would like it to be, but it is at least a unix-based platform that is useful for my purposes. I would be quite surprised if Apple were to actually dump OS X, given that maintenance and development of a "real" computer platform on established third-party chipsets must be a comparatively small drain on their resources by comparison with what they surely must devote to their phone and tablet devices.
Re:Not like I havent been saying this for a while (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think you are a troll just a bit unrealistic. There is a huge difference between what users expect from Cell phone OSes and what they expect from Computer OSes. In particular Computer OSes need to support custom applications easily.
Apple would lose their place in the IT market, the scientific market, the music market, the video market with a limited lockdown system. They would lose their margins with a high level of control and supervision for a highly capable system. Yes they would love to have the control and the homogeneity. So would Microsoft, so would Linux. Its just that the order on computers is:
a) features -- can do what I want
b) reliability -- does what I want consistently
c) price --
d) convenience -- does what I want easily.
For cell phones the order seems to be
a) basic features
b) form factor
c) other features
Re:Not like I havent been saying this for a while (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd say it was features first for Microsoft.
What Microsoft did for the office environment was offer the ability for departments within a company to roll their own software out. They didn't have to go to the mainframe people, and so departments switched from:
a) dumb terminals on the mainframe
b) Office computers using terminal emulation
Of course for small business and home personal computers offered some ability to get computers at all. All computers were unreliable in the 1980s. In the early 90s OS/2, Xenix and Unixes existed but generally didn't offer the application diversity (features).
Re:Not like I havent been saying this for a while (Score:5, Informative)
You mean the new Mac Minis they released last week?
Re:Not like I havent been saying this for a while (Score:5, Insightful)
How does the speculation of a few developers vindicate you?
Steve Jobs himself has already addressed this topic and said traditional PCs won't go away. They'll be like trucks; the people who need them will simply be fewer than those who just drive regular cars.
Re:Not like I havent been saying this for a while (Score:5, Interesting)
Believing any CEO's pronouncement is like believing a whore who tells you "you're the best".
You have to watch what Apple does, not what Jobs says.
Re:Not like I havent been saying this for a while (Score:4, Interesting)
Odd. There isn't a single mention of DRM in the entire article. The summary is just an alarmist piece. It's only natural that features from one end up in the other, just as features from Windows end up in Mobile, and I would expect features from Mobile will end up in Windows if they are useful in a desktop environment.
iOS4 received feature parity with OS X (some 23 features from OS X ported to iOS in addition to IPV6 and DNS functionality). The article fails to mention any of this. It only talks about iOS4 influence on the desktop while ignoring the return path.
As a Mac user. I'm not concerned in the slightest.
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Clearly.
Re:Not like I havent been saying this for a while (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not like I havent been saying this for a while (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple wants to kill the Mac OS desktop. Thus far I've been called a Troll, Naive and Insane. Now I am vindicated as developers have said the same thing.
Apple doesn't want to kill the desktop, the desktop will be around for quite some time, and they want to be there until the end.
Apple isn't going to kill the Imac and Macbook lines, they will simply replace the current NEXT based OS with the future versions of IOS and naturally more complex systems are more prone to unexpected issues.
iOS is Nextstep, just with (mainly) UIKit replacing AppKit (there are more differences between Mac OS X and iOS, but this is main difference in terms of its relation to Nextstep). As for replacing Mac OS X with iOS, this doesn't make any sense. iOS is designed for small multitouch screens. This notion of iOS on the desktop is just as misguided as the idea of an iPad running Mac OS X. It can be done, but it would make the product worse.
Having two disparate OS lines is detrimental to the long term success of this goal [homogeneity].
Perhaps, but the gain in homogeneity would not offset the loss in quality of the Mac platform.
Control. Fanboys may defend Apple's control for various reasons, mostly using cognitive dissonance
FYI, when you get called a troll, it's for bullshit like this. Calling those who disagree with you "fanboys" makes you a troll, de facto. You may not realize it, leaving you to wonder "what the hell did I say that makes me a troll?" leading you to a conclusion that it must be just a bunch of "fanboys" who just don't want to hear the truth (hence your claim of cognitive dissonance), reinforcing your notion that we're just "fanboys", and therefore our arguments are dismissed out of hand.
Anyway, my point being, if you don't want to be seen as a troll, drop that word from your vocabulary completely, even when you think that there's a situation where it incontrovertibly applies.
They want to stop the hackintosh, they want to prevent more clones and they want to control what the end users experiences.
And this is why you are wrong, whether you get called troll or not. The above, which is pretty much the extent of their "control" is fairly limited, and very weak grounds upon which to base any sort of grand notion that Apple wants to increase control over their users.
The "control" over the hackintosh is obviously very limited, and not the sort of control which leads to any sort of slippery slope issues. They want you to buy a Mac if you want to run Mac OS X. The Mac and their OS are a whole. You may not like that that's how they see it, and that that's how they go about it, but some sort of overarching "control" it is not.
As for "controlling what the end user experiences". That's overstating things quite much. They don't want to control what the user experiences, with the fundamental exception that they want to exclude a set of very rational things. Primarily, buggy software, spyware, and ports which fail to make good use of the platform. They don't want control over my experience other than to help see to it that I don't have to deal with such crap. And when us "fanboys" say (as you said in your post) "it's for your own good and other such excuses", what we're saying is that "it makes the product better". That's why we willingly choose Apple products, so we don't have to deal with a bunch of crap. It's also a huge part of why Apple products do so well even when surrounded by competition whose primary advantage is less "control".
This wont happen overnight, not even the RDF turned to eleven could pull that one off. It will happen over time in baby steps and be hailed by the fanboys.
It (although not the "it" you've been going on about) will be hailed because it will make our lives better. The "it" won't be locking down the Mac, or replacing M
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Too long didn't read, after your first paragraph pretty much defined what it was you were going to say.
Touched a nerve did he? Too close to the truth?
Flamebait in summary (Score:5, Insightful)
There is zero evidence that any such convergence (beyond the fact they already share the same Darwin core and Foundation classes) would be "DRM-locked." You threw the phrase in there as flamebait to ignite discussion. Don't be an alarmist site.
More like an option (Score:5, Interesting)
If I were Apple I'd make a desktop iOS a user option like the current Parental Controls. Locking specific users into a walled garden of uncomplicated settings and apps sure would be nice for grandparent support.
At Ease (Score:5, Informative)
If I were Apple I'd make a desktop iOS a user option like the current Parental Controls.
Apple tried this before; it was called At Ease [wikipedia.org].
Re:At Ease (Score:5, Informative)
If I were Apple I'd make a desktop iOS a user option like the current Parental Controls.
Apple tried this before; it was called At Ease [wikipedia.org].
And it genuinely kicked ass at the time.
I had a Macintosh Performa 6300 that was being used as a shared family computer back then. At Ease allowed me to set up a relatively safe and secure way to share that computer with our kids, without giving them access to absolutely everything.
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I could perhaps understand this if you had one computer at home that you use for ultra-important tasks, but I really can't think of anyone with this limitation.
At the time I had this Performa running At Ease, we owned exactly two computers. One was a Mac, and one was a PC. And the only reason we had the PC was because we'd found a working one at a garage sale. This was years ago, before everybody and their dog had a personal computer. At the time, it was unheard-of to have two computers in a household.
Anyone whose life or livelihood is that dependent on a working computer at home has one dedicated to this ultra-important task and one (or more) for the kids and others to screw around with - it isn't like kids that are likely to screw up your system are really going to need the latest and greatest hardware.
I'm not necessarily talking about IT professionals. Plenty of folks have just a single computer in the household. If that one computer gets hosed, they're all
I never understood this point of view. (Score:3, Informative)
Why wouldn't you want the system wide open and available for your kids to tinker with?
Because I, in the third person, only have one computer and I don't want it hosed. I, the real me, use my Mac for different things and have set up more than one user account so that working in one I will not hose the whole system. Among the things I use it for is development, financial planning, photography, and programming. Only one account has administrator privileges, and I only log into that one to install software,
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I remember that software on the school Macs (back when the school HAD Macs)
And I still remember being able to use some sort of "delete file" option in one of the Microsoft Office for Mac applications to delete the At Ease software file and defeat the software. No clue if they ever solved that loophole.
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There is already a Simple Finder option in the current OSX, which only provides the very basic functionality to the user. My mom is using - and loving - it. No chance to break stuff, and incredibly easy for her to use.
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Yeah, that's the "current Parental Controls". This would be an order of magnitude simpler. I know, because I setup my grandmother with a Mac and even Simple Finder was too much. Multitasking, settings, windows, etc. Ideally we'd be able to setup a iPad-like screen with big buttons that runs one application at a time with absolutely zero user configuration possible (email accounts and the like having been setup by the admin account).
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I'm not suggesting that Apple can force existing Mac owners to adopt iOS, but they amount of money they can make from a locked down user is so much more then for a regular free user that I would expect that eventually, all Apple products will come with iOS.
Actually, Apple doesn't make that much [allthingsd.com] from the App store.
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Oh Please (Score:5, Funny)
These are different markets and different products. I can't rule out an "Apple appliance" that will serve as a desktop type of computer with iOS running on it
Re:Oh Please (Score:4, Insightful)
I swear if I listened to all the fanboi rumblings I would have given up on Windows, moved to Linux and after a few years of frustration from their lagging behind I would now own a Mac.
I can only imagine what the ravings would have been like had Slashdork been around during the Amiga years.
Re:Oh Please (Score:5, Funny)
If you listened to all the fanboi rumblings, you'd have given up years ago and bought an abacus.
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I did but had to give it up when I could not get the new gaming graphics card I bought to work with it...
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I don't know if Apple would ever release a Windows version of the iOS runtime. On one hand it would expand the market to inc
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Why wouldn't they? It would be a potential new revenue stream for them, and one which they would have a lot of control over, so if it wound up being unprofitable they could just shut it down. They could even divide the market along "Apple products only" lines -- so that some apps would only be approved for Apple products, and some for Apple or Microsoft (I doubt that libre operating systems will get much support).
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If you need to relate to past stories then they should be about how Apple restricts developers/users and not the tenacious ramblings of Dvorak and his ilk. Your "and then Apple will die!!!" strawmen add nothing.
Is Apple showing any signs of dying? No.
Does Apple tend toward restricting developers in a way considered stifling by many developers? Yes.
Is TFA unlikely speculation? Possibly, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth thinking about.
Apple is dead, long live Apple! (Score:2)
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My point is that there is a valid business for people who don't give a fuck about these digital restrictions and it's a valid choice if you don't. I have no predisposition here, I care equally less for the choice of people choosing Apple as they care
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He's not. He's saying that you have a choice: to buy or not buy an iDevice. He, like me, is tired of hearing "it's all about choice" from people who then turn around and say, "of course if you chose Apple you are an evil mutant fanboi hypocrite that I shall never, ever shut up about." My *choice* to buy an iPhone was just that. At the moment I'm happy with the *choice*, if that changes I can *choose* to go buy and Android phone. Therefore no *choices* have been taken away from me at all.
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Re:Oh Please (Score:5, Insightful)
The "walled garden" won't be the death of Apple. The alternative of a similar garden without walls will.
Re:Oh Please (Score:4, Interesting)
The "walled garden" won't be the death of Apple. The alternative of a similar garden without walls will.
I doubt it.
Operating System Market Share [hitslink.com]
Windows 91%
Mac 5%
Linux 1.1%
iPhone 0.6%
iPod Touch 0.1%
iPad 0.1%
These are global stats, not US, remember.
Apple's "walled garden" - despite the price of admission - is well on its way to becoming a larger presence on the web than the Linux PC or mobile device.
Re:Oh Please (Score:4, Funny)
Please, this talk of walled gardens and apples is only going to fuel Jobs's God complex. Let's come up with some other metaphors.
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Let's see, they asked a bunch of IOS developers whether they thought their particular platform of choice was going to take over. Surprisingly, many said yes.
This has always been an idiotic conspiracy theory and completely forgets that IOS is a cut down version of OS X. Same language, same classes except for a few UI ones. Are the two SDKs going to merge? They already are. IOS is slowly gaining more and more functionality ported over from OS X.
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You sir, do not read the news, 2 million units sold in 59 days is not a failure, no matter how much you want it to be.
You obviously missed the point of my post. I was repeating all of the proclamations thrown about declaring the death and demise of Apple, even ones as recent as "The iPad's failure will kill Apple". I don't buy into them and I don't see an end to Apple's success as long as Steve Jobs is guiding the company. I even sent an iPad to my web designer's kids for 'half Christmas'.
The iPad sold 3 million units in 80 days. That's pretty impressive and certainly not the iFailure declared by many.
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Yup, that's how people sell things
Oh wait no, this is Slashdot "MOMMY THEY CHEATED WITH MARKETING AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
Adobe et al... (Score:2)
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Five years from now.... (Score:3, Insightful)
... they won't even be selling Macs anymore. Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin, the big bucks are coming in elsewhere.
Remember, the name of the company no longer even contains the word "Computer."
Re:Five years from now.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's somewhat expected. (Score:2, Insightful)
I believe Sasser sums it up rather nicely: "I could see a gradual, slow merger between iOS and Mac OS X styles and approaches," he said. "It doesn't make sense for them to be developing two of everything, one good, one not as good--two calendars, two address books--it's got to merge somehow."
Apple should learn from Microsoft's mistake of trying to have two rather diverse platforms (Windows and Windows mobile). Granted, Microsoft seems to be moving in a better direction these days with their mobile platform,
Re:It's somewhat expected. (Score:5, Insightful)
iOS and Mac OS X already do share a lot of code already, but that's just code reuse - proper programming practice. They've got two totally different user interfaces and paradigms, each working best for its target device. Trying to run one on the other would be unusable, and say what you want about Steve Jobs, but it will be a cold day in hell before a product comes out of his company that can be described as "unusable". Such a merger is a horrible idea, there's no evidence it is ever going to take place, and this article is just so much FUD to get the Slashdot crowd ranting and raving about Apple's walled garden.
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I guess it depends on which parts you're talking about - a certain OS kernel that runs everything from mobile phones to supercomputers seems to get a lot of praise around here. Presentation can be a rather thin layer compared to everything below you can share.
Re:It's somewhat expected. (Score:4, Informative)
You mean like the Mach kernel that both the iOS and OS X share? Or the BSD-based Darwin subsystem? Or some of the Cocoa frameworks?
Re:It's somewhat expected. (Score:5, Informative)
Virginia Tech's [apple.com] System X [vt.edu]
I mean it's not like they broke into the top 10 or anything:
Ranking seventh in the Top 500 list of the world's most powerful computer systems, System X was built at a fifth of the cost of the second-least expensive system in the top 10.
Not only that, but every computer that ships with OS X has the ability to become part of an XGrid. All you have to do is enable a checkbox in the Sharing control panel and that's it. XCode will seek out other XGrid computers and use it to compile.
Re:It's somewhat expected. (Score:4, Informative)
Did you not even read System X's history on their website?
1) Computer technology improves. I don't think any computer that was in the top 10 in 2006 was in the top 10 in 2010.
2) When it was "last ranked", in 2006 it was #47. When it was built, in 2003, it was ranked #3. When it was rebuilt in 2004 with the current G5s, it was ranked #7 (which is what the Apple article is about).
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Probably with the DoJ watchdogs on their tail (anemically, but there), Microsoft didn't dare start a Windows AppStore.
Ironically, it's the linux distributions that have had the 3rd-party software distribution infrastructure for ages. Is anybody selling commercial software running yum/apt repos with SSL client identification required?
Re:It's somewhat expected. (Score:5, Insightful)
"It doesn't make sense for them to be developing two of everything, one good, one not as good--two calendars, two address books--it's got to merge somehow."
It doesn't make sense for Ford to be making both cars and trucks. It means they have to have at least two separate lines for most of the components. They should just merge the two concepts.
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Except that's not the case. iOS and OS X already share a ton of code, with the exception of the highest-level UI stuff, which Jobs has repeatedly argued is necessary to do separately for each form factor. In order for MacOS and iOS to merge, Apple would have to do a 360 on this policy. Otherwise, they already are more or less the same OS (I'd even argue that they're already more closely related than KDE and GNOME are to each other).
The "walled garden" approach to the App Store may have had a time and pla
Re:It's somewhat expected. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Microsoft seems to be moving in a better direction these days with their mobile platform"
You haven't been following very closely then, have you? It's a jumbled mess of mutually incompatible systems, all with the label "Windows" on it. They almost seem to be trying to emulate the diversity of Linux systems. Microsoft's mistake, however, isn't with having multiple OSes, but having multiple OSes that are all UI clones of each other (without the common code base) regardless of the platform.
Jobs and his lieutenants have talked at length about what a mistake it was to try to put desktop Windows (with extensions) on tablets. This is why the TabletPC platform has been such a snoozefest in the market: it's the wrong UI for the hardware. Apple could have released a MacBook Touch (a laptop with a touch screen or a slate, either running OS X) five years ago, but they knew it wouldn't work, so they didn't. The same story applies to Windows Mobile: wrong UI for the hardware. Same outcome: dismal sales for something with the Microsoft brand on it.
Clearly Apple believes that "iOSX everywhere" is the wrong approach. Adobe CS would make no sense on a phone or slate, and neither would Tap Tap Revenge make sense on a desktop or server. They put a whole lot of effort into developing a new OS for slates and phones, using the parts of OS X that fit that platform, and engineering new parts for the rest. They'd be fools to throw out the parts of OS X that still make all kinds of sense for the desktop or traditional laptop just to merge it with iOS, and I see no evidence that they're fools of that sort.
FUD (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:FUD (Score:5, Funny)
If you're uncertain what FUD stands for, please re-read the summary. Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt.
Or Female Urination Device. [wikipedia.org].
Re:FUD (Score:4, Interesting)
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I was afraid that might be what it means...but I wasn't sure.
Probably not (Score:2)
I suspect the next few OSX and iOS revisions to start merging and sharing APIs, and maybe OSX will go away, but it won't be replaced by iOS.
Xcode without the certificate tax? (Score:4, Interesting)
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A boost, perhaps, but nothing that would even register on Apple's radar.
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Yes, this would be interesting. It might even be nice to be able to use certain iOS apps on OS X since many of them are very useful utilities.
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so will the usability and programability of Macintosh move to the one touch of a 32 in glossy screen.
Buy the needed app with the functionality you wanted or thought you wanted and rub the screen.
Relive the first Mac OS days but with many more apps and in full true retina color.
Buy, touch, type, touch, buy, touch, type
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They already share APIs - iOS is heavily based on OS X with a touch UI on top.
This article is just total FUD. It's the same sort of "analysis" as that story from a couple of months ago how Apple "will definitely" move to an App Store model for OS X. There's just no sense in it at all, given the direction that Apple are taking OS X.
They forked OS X, for want of a better term, and created iPhone OS (now iOS), and continued development on OS X itself. There is nothing to suggest they will merge the two again.
Consumers are dumb! (Score:2, Insightful)
Deus Ex Macintosh (Score:2, Funny)
Will this be like when IcarOS and DaedalOS merged into HeliOS?
Holy crap, it's real! (Score:2)
I was going to make a joke about the change to the name "iOS" meaning that iMacs will also run it on one of the last Apple articles... never thought it would come true. :|
Then again, I'm not a Mac user, so meh... :p
Misleading summary (Score:5, Interesting)
The article discusses how developers expect iOS and OS X to merge from an API perspective - cross pollination between the developments (mostly from iOS to OS X) will lead to a unified development environment. This is *not* the same as the DRM/App Store, which is just the distribution method chosen for the iPhone and iPad. There's nothing technical about this - it's a business choice to make this the sole channel, one that doesn't seem to make sense for desktop computing, and one that I doubt they'd pursue.
Whilst I expect an App Store on the Mac, I would be shocked if it were the only distribution method available. In truth, I suspect we'll see a situation similar to downloading apps via Safari now - the first run, you get a warning about possible unsafe code, you tell it you're fine with that, and then everything carries on as normal. The Mac still represents a vast chunk of their revenue - only marginally less than iPhone in terms of income, and probably more in terms of profit. They're not going to kill a fully functioning golden goose, though I do expect some experimentation with it.
This experimentation is long overdue. For most people, something much simpler than a full desktop would be ideal - my iPad passes my parental approval filter far more than their desktop computer, the complexity of which causes more trouble than benefit. Now, the iPad is *not* a suitable desktop replacement - using my parents as an example again, there's no really useful document processing, no ability to hook up their TomTom, no easy printing. However, I can certainly see some hybrid iMac/iPad (or Android setup, I don't care who makes it) being a *much* better proposition for them than buying another desktop of the current ilk - be it Windows, Mac or Linux.
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Well hang on...why wouldn't the walled garden work for desktop applications? Users do not seem to mind it for the iPad, which is really a tablet computer (I am sure someone will disagree with me, since it is not "marketed" as one), nor do users seem to mind it for video game consoles, nor for a certain large web community. We are already hearing people sa
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Because deep down, those users are telling themselves, "It's ok that this thing sucks, it's just a mobile, it's 'not a personal computer' and I still have my personal computer for whenever I need more power and flexibility."
Previously you could say the same thing for iPhone vs other stuff - "it's just a cellphone, it's not really a computer". But now iPad came out, and it's "just a slate, not really a computer" - but notice how the dividing line has crept up.
This kind of division is entirely subjective, and, furthermore, easily manipulated - and Apple is really, really good at marketing. If they release a locked-down desktop and call it, say, "entertainment hub", I bet you'll see the same "not a computer" arguments applied to
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Now, the iPad is *not* a suitable desktop replacement [...] there's no really useful document processing
There's Pages. That should be enough for all of the basic needs. You'll probably have to hook up a real keyboard though.
no ability to hook up their TomTom
TomTom offers a fully-featured iPhone app, so no need to hook anything up.
no easy printing
Sure there is one way. [wired.com] ;)
And if they do that (Score:5, Interesting)
what will we develop mac applications on? Windows boxes?
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Nothing to see here.. (Score:2, Informative)
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The summary or TFA?
Doesn't make sense to develop 2? (Score:5, Insightful)
"It doesn't make sense for them to be developing two of everything, one good, one not as good--two calendars, two address books--it's got to merge somehow."
I can't imagine how a calendar developed for a 2" touchscreen could have the same interface as a calendar developed for a 21" keyboard-and-mouse, and not have it be terrible. Similarly, a copy of Word on the iPhone and a copy of Word on a PC would necessarily need to have very different interfaces... You can't get hover tips on a touchscreen, people don't gesture with keyboards, mice aren't multitouch, and iPhone screens are tiny.
The idea that you can write one app and have it work on such disparate devices shows a fundamental lack of understanding of good design.
Palladium 2.0 (Score:2)
What, did you think because the actors changed the play would be different?
One part fact, one part FUD (Score:2)
a certain expectation that iOS and MacOS will merge, leading to a single DRM locked OS on your MacBook and your iPad.
Without a doubt, Apple will try to make them more similar to develop for. This is plain obvious and the same like for example the Qt toolkit has been adding multitouch support while still being a Win/Mac/Linux GUI toolkit. Or Microsoft making Windows and Xbox360 similar to develop for, if you want another example. This is clearly beneficial both for developer time, a consistent user experience, creating reusable code and more.
The other part, does the DRM lockdown come to OS X? Well, that's not really a rela
Apps will disappear (Score:3, Interesting)
There will probably be a market for high-end applications on your phone (navigation?, media player?) but honestly, how many of those are on your phone?
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Nearly all the apps on my iPod touch are games. And no, you cannot currently do what they do this with HTML5 and Javascript (or, at least, they would be very slow to write and have terrible performance).
Oh, come on! (Score:5, Insightful)
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You can't code on iOS you fucktwits (Score:5, Insightful)
The main difference between Mac OS and iOS is you can't code on iOS. It's partly a security feature and partly an anti-complexity feature. iOS is for a non-coding approach to all tasks. You may not know this, but a Photoshop pro writes a ton of code. The home user working with their photos doesn't need to.
Another feature of iOS is no custom drivers. The USB audio interfaces that work with iOS are the "class compliant" ones that work with the system's universal driver. This provides stability and ease of use, but it limits the quality to consumer-quality 16/44 stereo. Audio pros still need a system to hook on an 8 channel 24/192 interface. OS X has a pro audio subsystem the likes of which you can't find anywhere else. Are we going to just abandon that and tell music producers to use toy Windows? The iPod app on iOS is filled up by people using Mac OS.
The mouse is going away, no doubt. But you will still have a consumer OS and a pro OS. Web developers need Apache and Ruby and PHP to make websites for iOS users, movie makers and graphic artists need to code workflows, and app developers need to code apps and Apple needs to code OS X itself. The idea that Mac OS can go away is just so fucking stupid and ignorant and disrespectful when you consider how much of our fucking culture is made on Macs.
Anyone who thinks there is no longer a need for Mac OS is an iPad user. Get an iPad ASAP and enjoy! STFU about Mac OS otherwise. You probably don't know what the fuck you are talking about.
Re:You can't code on iOS you fucktwits (Score:4, Interesting)
Pardon my ignorance, but what is the point of a 192KHz sampling rate? The maximum frequency you can push through that is 96Khz, which is way above human hearing. In fact, the human hearing range is between 20Hz and 20KHz, so even 44KHz sampling rate should be more than enough. Or am I missing something important?
A lot of people don't really understand how to apply the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem [wikipedia.org] and so they look at the "jaggy" sampled waveform and think that it will sound horrible if it is output. It's true that if you output the samples directly then you are going to hear artifacts but if you apply the Whittaker-Shannon interpolation formula [wikipedia.org] then you get back the original waveforms and the output will sound nearly identical to the original.
Of course this is all best-case and since we live in the real world with imperfect low-pass filters and non-infinite past and future data we will still get artifacts if we sample at the minimum rate. That's (part of) the reason why we sample at 44.1 kHz instead of 40 kHz, to allow some overhead to account for these non-ideal factors. You absolutely do NOT need to sample at 192 kHz, if you do you are just wasting storage space on your digital media. I believe the default for a DAT is 48 kHz and that's pretty much the maximum you should ever use.
That is, unless you are doing recordings for bats and dogs to listen to...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The 2 octaves overhead allows for subsequent processing, re-sampling, and pitch-shifting/time-stretching. Pitch-shifting 2 octaves down, for example, effectively converts a 192 kHz recording to 48 kHz; the extra bandwidth offers a sound designer flexibility.
No, it does not unless you are starting with frequencies ABOVE 20 kHz which would normally be inaudible to human ears.
If we are talking about sounds that a human can hear then you do not need the additional samples to shift the pitch down. Signals that are at 20 kHz and were captured at a sample rate of 40 kHz can be shifted down 2 octaves to 5 kHz without losing any quality since a 5 kHz signal would only need a sample rate of 10 kHz. It doesn't matter that your signal is effectively 10 kHz, that downshift
monopoly and censorship are just some of things ap (Score:2)
monopoly and censorship are just some of things that apple will face if they try to do this even right now the FCC does not like the cell phone lock in / lock down.
But doing this to a laptop / desktop?? M$ was not able to pull this carp with IE and was forced to stop forcing OEM from loading it's os on all systems. and apple things they can force DEV's to pay $99 year just for free apps or $99 /year + 30% for payed apps?
Steve commented on this (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.macstories.net/news/steve-jobs-no-mac-app-store/ [macstories.net]
Both good and bad. (Score:2)
I don't think IOS will replace Mac OS/X but I am really shocked that there isn't an Mac App store.
Why and app store?
Because people would like and use it. Right now if I go to Best Buy or any place else that sells software there may be a small section of Mac software. Also it is expensive to produce retail software. You have to have a pretty box, Press CDs get the stores to carry it... And I will bet you the stores take at least as much as Apple does. Yes you can always put up a website and sell your softw
No, thank you... (Score:2)
Complete sense (Score:2)
This makes complete sense. You can use all your iPhone/iPod/iPad apps on your iMac. Your iMac has a multi-touch capacitive screen and accelerometers.
Oh, wait.
Apple takes pride in the right interface for the right device. This will never happen.
Stupid Flamebait Topic... (Score:2)
This is a stupid, flamebait, troll's topic. "iOS and OS X will merge, THEREFORE... all apps will be solely distributed by Apple in a walled garden."
Where's the logical connection there? How do you get from one to another? Why not conclude that since iOS and OS X will merge, the app distribution model will completely open up like on OS X? Mac OS X doesn't even have an activation key, for goodness sake. Apple is the patron of many an open source project, including WebKit which is the most prolific rendering e
Who writes these summaries? (Score:2)
After reading the article, it seems some developers interviewed by Ars Technicia is speculating that Apple might introduce more iOS interfaces into OS X. However any merger if at all will take a long time. The start of the article however immediately told it may be lacking technical details.
Though concrete answers are hard to predict, the truth is that the Cocoa APIs are built on the 20+ year-old NextStep and use Objective-C, a language that until recently lacked many features common to modern development environments, such as automatically managed memory.
You mean like C++ which is still used by many programmers. Yes, there are newer languages out there but many environments like Windows, PS3, etc use C++.
Same story. (Score:2)
iOs layer in OSX (Score:2, Interesting)
Even if this happens... (Score:2)
...this new OS would need to be much more than the current iOS. You'd need to be able to *develop* iOS apps on it, for starters.
Anyway, everybody who thinks that the future will just an extrapolation of the past should think again. Computers *will* change drastically. The traditional PC will sooner or later just be some office machine or developer machine, with most actual users on things that are more like appliances. There is no way around that and the time is ripe for that. Smartphones and tablets will b
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If you'd read the article, you'd know that they were talking about merging UIKit into AppKit, not the OS as a whole (bad summary there, though).
A lot of stuff in UIKit is done the way it'd be done in AppKit were it created today. For example, in UIKit every view is automatically OpenGL-backed (via Core Animation). In AppKit, you have to enable that on a per-view basis, because it can cause problems (for example, WebViews always stay blank that way). Further, the Obj-C 32bit runtime on Mac OS X is the old on