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Could Apple Kill Off Mac OS X? 577

Barence writes "When Steve Jobs announced last night that he was 'going to demote the PC and the Mac to just be a device,' it was the clearest indication yet that Apple is phasing out Mac OS X, argues PC Pro's Barry Collins. 'Over the past couple of months, there have been continual rumours that Apple is testing the iPad's A5 processor in its MacBook range, suggesting Apple believes iOS could stretch further than smartphones and tablets,' Collins argues. Plus, Apple would take a 30% cut on all Mac software if it mandated downloads via the App Store only. 'The only part of Apple's portfolio where iOS doesn't make sense is in the high-end. Yet, Apple's already discontinued its Xserve range of servers and... it's almost exclusively fixated on the consumer market,' he argues."
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Could Apple Kill Off Mac OS X?

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  • by nigel_atkinson ( 158842 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:07AM (#36363250) Homepage

    I can't see an iOS based IDE working.

    • by dintech ( 998802 )

      Good point. On what platform are iOS applications going to be written? iOS is already very sandboxed.

      • by twidarkling ( 1537077 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:26AM (#36363556)

        Good point. On what platform are iOS applications going to be written?

        Windows.

        • Should you be modded insightful or funny? I can't tell..

          • Insightful.

            Jobs has always wanted Apple to be a media delivery company. iOS is the new one-size-fits-all media consumption OS. It's his wet dream. And he doesn't give a crap if he loses all of the business clients as long as he's got a lock on the entire market share of garden-variety media consumer users. Want to do work? Buy Android/Windows. Want to have fun? iPhone Bitch!
        • by pmontra ( 738736 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:48AM (#36363870) Homepage

          With a Mac-only XCode Apple locked in their developers into its ecosystem and is getting a nice fee from every single one (the margin on the sale of a Mac). Actually removing that lock in would be a wise move to expand further the developers base but IMHO it would be a very un-Applish one. The way to go would not be switching to a single competitor's OS but the Android one, that is a cross platform development system. Just imagine if a Windows update accidentally breaks XCode and there isn't any working development system for iOS for a couple of weeks.

          By the way, iOS 5 went the Android way by removing the dependency from a computer. You can use an Android phone without any supporting computer because you can buy and install apps directly from the store and use all the Google's cloud services. Apple still lacks some flexibility (I can attach USB pen drives to my Android phone) but it also went further in some other directions, with the backup and those synchronization little services like syncing ebook's page marks. Hopefully Google will catch up as Apple did. Competition is (often) good.

      • by hitmark ( 640295 )

        Apple could expand the OSX server "upgrade" that they are applying to OSX Lion (you turn a plain install of OSX into a server install by downloading a upgrade package from OSX store), to iPad. This then would turn the iPad into a dev version with relaxed sandboxing to testing and debugging.

    • by mini me ( 132455 )

      Why not? Third party developers might have trouble writing an IDE that is distributable via the App Store, but Apple themselves are under no such restrictions. iOS is basically OS X at its core, so there is no underlying technical limitations preventing development on the iPad. The form factor my be less comfortable, but the bluetooth keyboard resolves most of the problem.

    • OSX isn't going anywhere. It's an article from PC "Pro" for god's sake, you'd get better advice on OSX from a vagrant in the street. Look at the summary :

      "When Steve Jobs announced last night that he was 'going to demote the PC and the Mac to just be a device,' it was the clearest indication yet that Apple is phasing out Mac OS X, argues PC Pro's Barry Collins. 'Over the past couple of months, there have been continual rumours that Apple is testing the iPad's A5 processor in its MacBook range, suggesting Ap

    • by DesScorp ( 410532 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @12:02PM (#36364130) Journal

      I can't see an iOS based IDE working.

      First off, start at the basics: iOS isn't going to "replace" OS X, because they share the same codebase. I know some people here will balk at this description, but iOS is nothing but OS X optimized for mobile touchscreen devices. They're basically the same operating system. This is why it's so easy to incorporate iPad software into Lion. This isn't a situation like Microsoft had, where their early mobile operating systems... Win CE... were from a completely different codebase than the NT-based PC systems. So a PC-type desktop OS isn't going to disappear from Apple's product line.

      Second, while I see the corporate appeal to Apple in forcing customers to their own home-brewed "A" based CPU's (and the friction they've had with Intel lately), even if they do this, it doesn't necessarily mean a "PC" is really disappearing from their product line. If it's got a USB port and a video miniport, then you can essentially make it a PC. I don't see the A processors being powerful enough for real desktop use, but that could change in the near future. I could also see Apple abandoning the truly professional-grade workstation market if they're going to focus completely on consumer devices.

      But to sum it up, even as radical as Steve Jobs can be at times (remember, he wanted the first edition of the iMac to ship without a keyboard until wiser heads talked him down from that ledge), I just don't see him completely eliminating all desktop options. Some form of real desktop computer from Apple will continue to be on the market. Reduce consumer choices in that regard, yes... he'll do that in a heartbeat and demand that you love him for it. But eliminate the option itself? No.

      • by hitmark ( 640295 )

        Well the heavy number crunching is being pushed over to GPUs using CUDA and OpenCL. This then allows the CPU to be scaled back, much as seen in mainframes (where for instance storage is handled by its own "cpu", making the CPU more of a middle manager). I think a desktop "supercomputer" was demoed at Computex, containing 6-8 GPU cards.

        Also, i think that Nvidia and others where toying with cranking the ARM core to 11. This ignores power frugality, replacing it with maximum computing ability.

        And lets not forg

      • by Serious Callers Only ( 1022605 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @01:22PM (#36365374)

        First off, start at the basics: iOS isn't going to "replace" OS X, because they share the same codebase. I know some people here will balk at this description, but iOS is nothing but OS X optimized for mobile touchscreen devices. They're basically the same operating system.

        They're the same operating system down at the level of things like NSString and core frameworks, but above that they are different (UIWebView,UILabel, etc etc), and most mac apps would need a pretty complete rewrite to run on iOS. Vice versa isn't quite so hard with a shim but still takes a lot of work (see Chameleon). What's interesting is that Apple have rewritten a lot of view classes etc which didn't need to be rewritten for iOS - they could have used NSView etc quite easily, but they threw it all out and started again, which implies they're going to want to replace NSView with UIView et al at some point.

        To say that iOS is going to replace Mac OS (or that this is what Apple intends) would mean big changes. It'd mean dropping legacy Mac apps, and only allowing apps which conform to the new interface paradigm (iOS, UIViews etc) and file access APIs (sandboxed), and probably only apps which they approve to their store, as they have done with iOS. So you can take replacing Mac OS with iOS to mean:

        * No more visible file system
        * No more third party APIs
        * Full lockdown and sandboxing
        * No more scripting, java, etc etc (already banned from the app store)
        * No more selling stuff except through apple (already banned from the app store)
        * Probably similar gesture based interface, using a larger trackpad (already in progress)

        Quite possibly Apple will do this in a few years - it's an insane waste of time to maintain two similar sets of view hierarchies, two entirely different ui libraries etc. and they have shown a predilection for eliminating APIs like this where they can. It would also mean quite a few improvements for end-users in security and ease of use. Not sure if that's a world I'd want to live in though - it would mean massive changes to the way we use our computers for techy Mac users.

        Possibly end-users won't notice much of a change if the transition is gradual, particularly those who didn't like folders and files anyway and would rather not see a Library folder etc, but developers would see a huge change (like the one from Carbon to Cocoa in scale).

        • it's an insane waste of time to maintain two similar sets of view hierarchies, two entirely different ui libraries etc.

          That's the kind of thinking that has cost Microsoft their empire. Those two UI libraries are there because of the fundamental difference between interacting with a desktop and a tablet or phone. To think that there is redundancy there, is to no understand the fundamentals of UI design, don't you think?

  • Personally, I think this would be a pretty stupid move for Apple. If something like this ever were to happen, count me out -- I would no longer buy any Apple laptops or desktops.
    • Re:Stupid! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by SirGeek ( 120712 ) <[sirgeek-slashdot] [at] [mrsucko.org]> on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:12AM (#36363314) Homepage

      You sure about that ? From what I've seen, most people who have an Apple Product will forever purchase OTHER Mac products. They will purchase EVERY thing that Mac puts out (How many different Mac Laptop/Desktop have you owned/do you own, how many different version of iPad or their MP3 Players ?)

      Perhaps you're different, I don't know.

      • by mcvos ( 645701 )

        I've owned two iPods in the past (2nd and 5th gen), one iPhone (got stolen, replaced it with an Android phone), and at two companies I've had Macs. I loved the Macs, and for their time, the iPods were awesome music players (especially the first one!). The iPhone was pretty cool, but unnecessarily limited for a general purpose mobile computer.

        I certainly do not buy everything Mac puts out. I prefer Android over iOS. Macs are still cool, but they'll suck as soon as Apple decides to neuter them.

      • There is some halo effect with Apple products as Mac sales have continuously risen. For the last quarter, Mac sales have shown growth while the PC showed decline; however, the fact you can still use a PC and their iOS devices means the migration isn't as certain as you would think.
      • Re:Stupid! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Cinder6 ( 894572 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:55AM (#36364012)

        That's just the thing. I buy Apple computers because I like the Mac. Drop the Mac, and drop me as a customer.

        I will say, if Apple plans on dropping OS X, then why did they spend so much effort on Lion? IMO, it's a more impressive update than iOS 5, which is basically just a "quick, let's bring this thing up-to-date with Android" release.

        • Re:Stupid! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by bondsbw ( 888959 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @01:11PM (#36365206)

          Mac OS X gives us more than pretty... it gives us UNIX. I chose Mac OS X because I could get UNIX, and my wife could have pretty.

          Take away the UNIX shell and sudo, all that's left is a device that my wife uses. I might as well get her an iPad.

      • Re:Stupid! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by macs4all ( 973270 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @12:15PM (#36364328)

        You sure about that ? From what I've seen, most people who have an Apple Product will forever purchase OTHER Mac products. They will purchase EVERY thing that Mac puts out (How many different Mac Laptop/Desktop have you owned/do you own, how many different version of iPad or their MP3 Players ?)

        Perhaps you're different, I don't know.

        This is a paradigm shift too far; it won't happen.

        Why? Partially because Apple is now the industry leader in notebooks. And part of the reason for that is Windows compatibility. That is what is getting Apples to be accepted both in the boardroom as well as the livingroom, and they bloody well know it.

        Now, you can talk all you want about MS playing around with porting Windows to ARM; but rest assured, MS cannot abandon x86; they just can't. To do so would be to commit software suicide. Yes, at its core, NT is basically as processor-agnostic as OS X; but the applications, drivers, DLLs, etc, are NOT. And MS is not moving the world to a "managed code" world like they planned, that would have made a processor transition far less painful.

        And, although the A5 is a pretty sweet machine, especially considering its power consumption, it ain't no i7, and Apple knows it.

        Will there continue to be a subtle merging of some iOS features and capabilities into OS X (and vice versa)? Sure. But it doesn't mean the end of OS X. Not at all. Or of Apple's commitment to the Intel roadmap. Intel is serving them just fine right now, and the ARM architecture has a long way to go to catch up.

        What Jobs was saying is merely an extension of his remarks in March, 2011; where he pointed out that the majority of Apple's revenue comes from the sale of iOS devices, not Macs anymore.

        Apple looks pretty far out into the future; and, IMHO, what Jobs is saying is that, in the next 10 years, there will be much less computing done on traditional towers, and even lappies, and that things like tablets will continue to become more commonplace, as they become more powerful. It does not mean the death of OS X as we know it. Afterall, who will then write all these apps? Apple? Even SJ isn't THAT arrogant. It will be quite a while before we see XCode running on iOS. And no, Apple will not keep OS X alive simply on the Mac Pro. That would be financially unfeasible. For every Mac Pro Apple sells, they sell 10,000 MacBook Pros and iMacs (guessing, but still...)

        So, stand down from Red Alert. It simply ain't happenin' The article is nothing but slashdot linkbait. Don't feed the trolls.

    • by mcvos ( 645701 )

      Restricting downloads to their app store would kill the Mac as a development platform, which is exactly the market where it's gotten pretty popular, since it moved to being a full-blown unix.

      • For many reasons, including the announcements and implications made yesterday at WWDC, it would appear that MacOS is safe, and the point is moot. I think it's speculative at best to consider the demise of iOS at this point; it's not like Microsoft killing off Windows, but it's close in some ways.

    • Re:Stupid! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by beelsebob ( 529313 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:19AM (#36363426)

      It's just a dumb click-farming review specifically designed to generate controversy. Clearly if you wanted to phase something out, you would release a new version of it...

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        It's not even unique. Every time Apple releases ANYTHING, there's a spate of articles about OS X getting locked down, being replaced by iOS or disappearing entirely. Blah.

      • Re:Stupid! (Score:5, Informative)

        by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @12:19PM (#36364396) Journal

        It's worth remembering that iOS and Mac OS X are just brands. The software stacks are almost identical. iOS has UIKit and AVKit and a few other frameworks, OS X has AppKit and a few legacy frameworks, but aside from that they're basically the same. The kernel is the same. The GUI is the Quartz window server in both cases (just with different window management policies). The core frameworks (libSystem, CoreFoundation, Foundation, CoreGraphics, and so on) are the same on both.

        With this in mind, it's not totally unreasonable to consider that they may phase one or the other out at some point in the future. It would be trivial to do, just install whichever missing frameworks people care about on the one that they decide to keep.

        The minimal effort involved, however, rather argues against Apple doing it. The most important reason why iOS uses UIKit instead of AppKit is to force developers to redesign their user interfaces for small devices with touchscreens, rather than just ship bad ports of apps designed for keyboard and mouse. If you write an application for iOS or OS X, you can port it to the other reusing all of your model and controller classes, and 90% of any code in custom view classes. Merging the two platforms would mean that developers could easily ship one application for both systems without any modifications, which Apple doesn't want. Given the code sharing between iOS and OS X, there's no real incentive for Apple to kill either - it wouldn't save them very much development cost, because most of the development is already shared.

    • Re:Stupid! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by betterunixthanunix ( 980855 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:22AM (#36363494)
      What if Apple gave you the following choice:
      • iOS laptop or tablet starting at $600
      • Mac OS X laptop or workstation starting at $3500

      Would you shell out the $3500 to get Mac OS X? The way I see it, that is the choice you will have in the near future: iOS for a "consumer" level computer, and Mac OS X for high end "professional" level computers.

      • by DM9290 ( 797337 )

        What if Apple gave you the following choice:

        • iOS laptop or tablet starting at $600
        • Mac OS X laptop or workstation starting at $3500

        Would you shell out the $3500 to get Mac OS X? The way I see it, that is the choice you will have in the near future: iOS for a "consumer" level computer, and Mac OS X for high end "professional" level computers.

        And what if Apple gave you the following choice:

        iOS laptop or tablet starting at $600
        Mac OSX laptop or desktop for free, with every Itunes purchase of $9.99 or more.

        Wouldn't that be amazing! The way I see it, your prices are just as crazy as mine and just as improbable.

      • Re:Stupid! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Dahamma ( 304068 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @01:45PM (#36365692)

        Highly doubtful.

        The Macbook Pro is already a "professional" level computer - millions of developers use it for development. You can get a high end model for a bit over $2000. And take a look at their laptop product line, it's almost perfectly distributed with offerings between $1000 and $2500. iPads cover the range just below that, from $500 to $830; iPod Touches (and subsidized iPhones) right below that from $200 to $400. You can get an AppleTV for $100. None of this is by accident! The don't want consumers to choose one of these devices, they want them to buy all of them. And the iCloud announcement made this even clearer...

        Apple has become the 2nd largest company in the world (by market cap) by almost completely giving up the budget segment of the market to others and focusing on customer loyalty and a self-contained ecosystem. Why would they suddenly change that strategy?

      • What if Apple gave you the following choice:
        iOS laptop or tablet starting at $600
        Mac OS X laptop or workstation starting at $3500
        Would you shell out the $3500 to get Mac OS X? The way I see it, that is the choice you will have in the near future: iOS for a "consumer" level computer, and Mac OS X for high end "professional" level computers.

        Yah, and what if auto manufacturers offered a horse for $500, or a car for $1,000,000?

        What if I had a pony?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Brannoncyll ( 894648 )
      I don't think they'll miss you. Lets face it, people like yourself who make informed decisions about such things are not a major component of Apple's consumer base!
    • This is what everyone was saying 24 hours before Apple announced the switch from PPC to Intel.

  • Jobs comes across as the greediest villain (black turtleneck sans fluffy white cat) since the early days of Bill Gates...

    • Whatever you think of his vision, I don't see this as being motivated by personal greed. He probably won't be around long enough to spend any of the money that would theoretically result.

      • It's not about money, it's about his ego and his legacy. He has a giant ego, and he thinks his legacy will be as the person who brought America, or the world, into high technology. In that sense it's about greed, he sees himself as some sort of visionary/genius/hero out to save the world by apparently crapping on everyone's choices and forcing people to conform to his ideas about what computers should be.

      • I don't know. That dollar he makes a year doesn't go as far as it used to. ;)
    • I recommend a new face for the Borg... Jobs comes across as the greediest villain (black turtleneck sans fluffy white cat) since the early days of Bill Gates...

      He comes across that way because Slashdot is responding to your clickish desires. You realize you're responding to a work of speculative fiction, right?

  • Nonsense (Score:5, Interesting)

    by betterunixthanunix ( 980855 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:10AM (#36363278)
    Apple is not going to kill of Mac OS X. I have said it before, and I'll say it again: Mac OS X's future is on high end workstations, targeting the professional and power user markets. Apple's consumer strategy will be centered on iOS.
  • by Space cowboy ( 13680 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:10AM (#36363280) Journal
    Or, should I say "linkbait" instead.
    • I rarely actually click on the link in stories like this, the summary is sufficient (so it is really not very effective link bait in my case). Personally, I think there is something to this conjecture, although probably not to the level of an actual corporate strategy. I would think it would be more of a, "This looks like a successful direction to move over the next several years. Let's position the IOS portion of our business to do this, while continuing to maintain our current Macintosh strategy." I could
      • Content has to be created to be consumed. While iOS devices can create sone content, they can't handle professional authoring without massive advances in hardware and UI.
    • by Kjella ( 173770 )

      Linkbait clearly, but where do you think Jobs will take the iPad next? Don't think about it as a Mac, think about it as an iPad with an extensible/detachable keyboard. Suddenly you have something that does all the iPad does do, as well as being decent for typing up all sorts of basic email / im / documents / spreadsheets / presentations. It may not be a full laptop replacement, but it might be a *sufficient* laptop replacement that you keep using it instead of your real laptop. It doesn't have to win the wh

  • Nope. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by psergiu ( 67614 )

    The Apple cannot do this - they have too much to lose. All the "creatives" who use macs are their greatest evangelists and if Apple takes their "toys" away, they will turn to foes. There won't be a single Apple device appearing casually in movies & TV shows as the angry Final Cut editors will airbrush them out.

    • Re:Nope. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by betterunixthanunix ( 980855 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:18AM (#36363406)
      On the other hand, Apple could only market Mac OS X to professional users, on their high end workstations. Consumers will get iOS everything -- iOS tablets, iOS PDAs, iOS laptops, maybe even some sort of iOS desktop (with a completely different form factor than current desktops?), and they will be cut out of the development process; only professionals with high end workstations will be able to write software for iOS.
    • by elrous0 ( 869638 ) *

      I've been predicting this [slashdot.org] for some time. The days when you can just install anything on an Apple computer are numbered. Pretty soon, all software will have to go through the App Store on a Mac just like they already do on an iPhone/iPad. The writing on the wall was pretty obvious back when they first announced the App Store was coming to Mac. Rigth now it's just an option, but soon it will be mandatory.

  • by Radi-0-head ( 261712 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:14AM (#36363352)

    In Bill Gates' book from 1995, "The Road Ahead", he discusses how computing switched from "mainframe"-type applications where the bulk of the storage and processing was done by a centralized system, and how that was falling out of favor for a more distributed desktop PC environment. He further predicted this model would eventually revert back to the "mainframe" (now known as "cloud").

    Steve Jobs must have read this book.

    • by Tom ( 822 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @01:13PM (#36365248) Homepage Journal

      Err... not even close. What you're doing is a wide interpretation. What Bill meant was the "thin client" model, a big hype in the 90s. He was far, far away from predicting cloud computing or iDevices.

  • by elrous0 ( 869638 ) * on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:15AM (#36363358)

    Every time these "Future of the Mac" I predict that there will come a time when EVERYTHING from Apple will be just as locked down as the iPhone/iPad, and every time I get laughed at for saying it. Yet with every announcement, Apple moves closer and closer to phasing out their last open platform.

    • Actually, with every announcement you've been demonstrated to be wrong. Mac OS X isn't going anywhere. Apple has quite clearly been working very hard to bring some of the best ideas from iOS to the Mac OS X platform. They also introduced a nascent third platform, iCloud. If there was news of a platform's demise to be read between the lines at the WWDC 2011 keynote yesterday, it's more likely to be the demise of Windows as a consumer OS.
  • I think this conclusion is a bit hard to reach. the comment about "demoting" the mac is no indication whatsoever about the future of OSX. the comment was made entirely in the context of cloud computing and where the "truth" is stored. not saying that apple won't perhaps phase out OSX, just that this keynote was no evidence of it.

    I personally don't think they will remove it. I can see them bringing the two OS's closer together in look and feel, but I think they will remain distinct for sometime to come at le

  • The Answer (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lucabrasi999 ( 585141 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:16AM (#36363374) Journal
    Yes!!!

    No!!!

    Maybe!!!
  • by Fastball ( 91927 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:16AM (#36363380) Journal

    I figured this might be coming. Between Windows 8 trying to become a cell phone UI and Apple's brilliant idea to place an eject key on its keyboards instead of a forward delete key, it won't be long before a PC is completely gimped and useless to anyone that produces anything. Apple hit it big with its touch screen UI. So big that they're going to impale themselves on it.

  • by Patch86 ( 1465427 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:18AM (#36363402)

    The usual place I see Macs is when I head down to the graphics studio or Marketing departments at work- those guys use Macs as their all-purpose computers to make use of their (I'm told) top-quality or industry standard graphics and media editing software.

    I can't really imagine those guys (or our procurement) switching to a form factor other than big-screen desktop machine or high-end laptop. That means the only way Mac could be "phased out" for them would be if iOS could work as a drop-in replacement, with no loss of features or software suite. Seeing as iOS is just Mac optimised for a different form factor and with a different software suite, I'm not sure I can really see the point in doing that. It would be an awful lot of leg-work just to end up where they already are.

  • ... But I would bet that every bit of market reashearch they've done on it says it's a hands-down bad idea. If it will be somebody's primary computer, it needs to be more flexible than iOS. I could see it competing with chomebooks, though.
  • by gnasher719 ( 869701 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:18AM (#36363416)
    Simple logic: Lots of people would stop buying Macs if Apple killed MacOS X. Nobody would suddenly start buying Macs if Apple killed MacOS X. Some people would stop buying Macs if they thought that Apple would eventually kill MacOS X. For these three reasons, it is totally unreasonable to believe that MacOS X is going. Because this believe is totally unreasonable, the only people making that claim are either total idiots, or they are trolls. Or both.

    (Those idiots who think Apple only cares about iPhones and iPads should realise that Apple is the worlds most profitable PC maker, making more profits from building desktop computers and laptops than anyone else, including HP, Dell, Acer, Toshiba and so on)
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jedidiah ( 1196 )

      So what if people stop buying Macs?

      That's the real problem here. Apple lost the desktop wars a long LONG time ago. Jobs might be willing to concede that completely and try to displace Windows desktops with some form of their more successful platform rather than trying to fight a losing pointless battle with MacOS.

      The mundane desktop MacOS user probably won't even be bothered with the whole MacOS -> PhoneOS thing.

      H*ll, your average fanboy will probably declare that such a shift is actually a good thing an

      • According to the demo yesterday Mac OS X has 54 million installations out there, a huge growth from just 3 years ago (almost doubled) and over 200 million iOS devices out there. This is hardly insignificant loss for Apple, If they suddenly lost 50 million pissed off users that turned from platform advocates to haters.
      • Actually, you may want to look at the statistics. Apple seems to be winning the desktop war quarter by quarter - and already brings in more in dollar terms.

      • Re:Troll (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gnasher719 ( 869701 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @01:11PM (#36365218)

        That's the real problem here. Apple lost the desktop wars a long LONG time ago. Jobs might be willing to concede that completely and try to displace Windows desktops with some form of their more successful platform rather than trying to fight a losing pointless battle with MacOS.

        I don't know what you are looking at, but Apple gave up the desktop market share war and started the desktop and laptop profit war, without telling anyone, especially without telling Microsoft and you. And they are winning by a mile. Net income for the company six times that of Dell. Even if only one third were Macs, that would make "Apple Computers Inc. " twice as profitable as Dell.

      • Re:Troll (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Tom ( 822 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @01:26PM (#36365426) Homepage Journal

        That's the real problem here. Apple lost the desktop wars a long LONG time ago.

        That is why "war" is such a bad analogy for markets. What makes you think this "war" is over - or ever will be? Competition in a market place is continuous. Apple is still there, making more money in that market that you say they "lost" than you'll likely ever see in your life, and their market share has actually been growing for years.

        If anything, they've proven that they're in it for the whole nine yards. If they kept it alive when market share was shrinking, what insanity would have to befall them to kill it when market share is growing?

  • by wandazulu ( 265281 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:19AM (#36363422)

    Apple just recently announced Final Cut Pro X, they've revamped XCode, and they're heavy into LLVM and clang. Doesn't seem like they're ditching the Mac any time soon. An iPad with iMovie is fine, just like Garageband is fine (and a lot of fun to use!), but for my next $100 million dollar blockbuster, I'm going to want more robust tools.
    All the content consumed on an iphone, ipad,etc., has got to originate from somewhere, and I think apple would be happy to have both ends of the spectrum: the content producers and the content consumers.

  • by TheCycoONE ( 913189 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:19AM (#36363424)

    "When Steve Jobs announced last night that he was 'going to demote the PC and the Mac to just be a device,' it was the clearest indication yet that Apple is phasing out Mac OS X, argues PC Pro's Barry Collins

    In context, this was while hyping a cloud computing solution that at the moment is a little more than shared storage. To me this isn't a very clear indication of anything except increased interoperability with a cloud service, possibly for automatic synchronization of settings and access to the same documents and media. I'll take that to mean that there is no clear indication yet that Apple is phasing out Mac OS X.

  • Plus, Apple would take a 30% cut on all Mac software if it mandated downloads via the App Store only.

    How would that not be any more egregious then what MS was convicted for.

    • How is it not for the iPhone and iPad, and not just software now, but subscriptions as well?
    • Re:Where's the DOJ (Score:5, Informative)

      by Raffaello ( 230287 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:33AM (#36363658)

      You need to read up on the legal definition of a monopoly. What MS was dinged for was using its monopoly in OS and Office software to drive out competition in the web browser software market. Apple doesn't have a monopoly in mobile OS software (iOS is actually losing ground to android); Apple doesn't have a monopoly in desktop/laptop OS software (Windows still accounts for 90+%); Apple doesn't have a monopoly in anything (no, "monopoly in software that runs on macs" is not a legal monopoly, otherwise every single company would have a "monopoly" in some arbitrarily defined, meaningless, sliver "market").

      A monopoly is the market power to price your offerings without regard to the price of competitors offerings. Apple doesn't have one, so they can't be accused of leveraging a monopoly they don't have.

  • bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by andsens ( 1658865 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:19AM (#36363438)
    This is total linkbait. Just like the one from pcworld asking whether OS X Lion could be Apples Vista. This article has no research behind it whatsoever, I do not understand how this trash can get on slashdot, it annoys me. A single quote: "iOS is mainstream: Mac OS X isn’t and likely never will be." Based on what research?!?! Just yesterday at the keynote, they announced that the OS X platform has risen to new heights and the PC market has shrunk. Android is gaining on the smartphone market. Why the hell would they bet everything on one horse if they have two that perform perfectly well?!
    • by MSG ( 12810 )

      Android is gaining on the smartphone market.

      Android is not gaining on the smartphone market, it owns the smartphone market. Its market share is at least twice that of iOS, and is growing. iOS appears to have saturated its market, with most sales being upgrades from owners of older model iPhones.

  • Premature paranoia (Score:5, Interesting)

    by curunir ( 98273 ) * on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:19AM (#36363448) Homepage Journal

    Of course they're not going to kill it off. The only people suggesting as much are paranoid Apple haters. If nothing else, Apple will need OS X to enable developers to build applications for iOS devices.

    I knew as soon as I heard Steve Jobs say those words about demoting the PC that they would be taken entirely wrongly by some people. But all that he meant is that they're extracting a feature (the storage hub and interconnect of all iDevices) from the PC and moving it to iCloud. He only meant that iCloud sees the PC as "just another device" that isn't given special treatment above and beyond what iOS devices are given. But even then he went on to contradict that statement by revealing the particulars of the implementation. iOS devices will not store all information (songs, photos, etc) that OS X computers will.

    In shortthere's nothing to see herejust a misinterpreted phrase from a 2-hour presentation that mistakenly confirms the paranoid beliefs of people who want to see Apple in a negative light. There's no logical reason to believe what the story claims. Apple knows that it needs OS X to maintain its developer community. They know that without the developer community, people would abandon iOS. So until developers can do everything they need to do to create apps for iOS on iOS itself, OS X isn't going away.

  • by Tom ( 822 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:29AM (#36363596) Homepage Journal

    What a piece of nonsense.

    OS X is the backend of the entire Apple world. While you could theoretically run things like iTunes on an iOS device as an app, where do you think all those apps come from? Hint: They don't grow on trees.

    There is no 30% cut if people don't have development machines. And that means Xcode, and engines and frameworks. And that means a general-purpose OS. Namely, OS X.

    Really, how dumb do you have to be to think that a car company is going to sell its future models without engines just because they focus on the design of the body and the exquisite interior?

  • I don't know whether OS X will live forever, but I'm sure that the end of Xserve isn't a sign of it going away. I know a lot of Mac people, but I've heard very few of them admit to having an Xserve, and none of those people were glad that they had it. It seemed very much a solution looking for a problem and no one actually wanted one. Basically, if you were big enough to actually need one, you were big enough to order a Dell or HP and install Linux or Windows yourself to get the same features.

    Again, I have

  • At some level what Apple is doing does make a lot of sense. Does it really make sense to have two different APIs, one for mobile devices and one for traditional computers? At least for the general consumer apps, it probably doesn't make much sense in maintaining two separate Mail apps, Photo apps, etc. For the average non-technical user, having a consistent UI is probably a good thing. I haven't seen any indication that Apple is going to discontinue Mac OS, or lock it down to prevent users from installing t

  • by Bloodwine77 ( 913355 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @11:43AM (#36363826)

    Maybe that year is getting closer to us if Apple and Microsoft jump over their respective cliffs. At least Microsoft is offering a classic desktop option in Windows 8, but who knows if that will still be available in Windows 9.

    The beauty of Linux is that the GUI and the OS are separate so you can run any GUI you wish on top of the OS. You want tablet UI? Go with Unity or Gnome Shell. You want a more traditional GUI? Go with KDE, XFCE, LXDE, or Enlightenment.

    I really hate this trend of writing off desktops and being so focused on mobile and tablet devices. I seriously think people are overestimating mobile devices and underestimating desktops.

  • by greymond ( 539980 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @12:33PM (#36364578) Homepage Journal

    I know it's hip to be an Apple user now these days and all the cool kids are rocking their iDevices, but a good majority of graphic designers/artists use the platform and I while it's cool to watch netflix in bed on an iPad, it's irrelevant when you have to start using InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop, though I imagine Illustrator and Photoshop wouldn't be as big an issue to use on a tablet as InDesign would be.

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