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Apple

Wall Street Predicts Merge of OS X and iOS 258

Posted by samzenpus from the two-in-one dept.
gumbi west writes "One Wall Street analyst predicts what slashdot commenters have predicted for years, that iOS and OS X will merge into a single OS. However the analyst sees this happening because the iOS devices receive a substantial CPU boost from the quad core A6 which can power MBA and smaller devices while following 64-bit ARM processors can bring the remainder of the Apple lineup back to ARM under a single architecture."
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Wall Street Predicts Merge of OS X and iOS More

Wall Street Predicts Merge of OS X and iOS

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  • He's a Wall Street Analyst (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Therefore, he's speaking out of his ass.

    • ...from a few years back

      They're growing too:
      http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=ARM.L#symbol=arm.l;range=1y;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source= [yahoo.com];

      Hence I share your sentiment, this article is here purely to increase share prices. Who do you think benefits from that? There are vested financial positions behind most articles they print. They do not print real analysis.

      Remember, the value of your investments can rise or fall.

      • Here's my take: (Score:5, Insightful)

        by fyngyrz ( 762201 ) on Wednesday August 03, 2011 @06:00PM (#36978850) Homepage Journal

        OSX doesn't need -- and never has needed, and likely never will need -- the simplifications and limits that presently show up all over IOS. The current glitch in thinking over at Apple that has informed Lion with IOS like features is, I am confident, in error. On the other hand, the reason IOS needs these limits is because as of this point in time, the hardware itself is extremely limited... fast memory to support real multitasking, video (and main) memory to cache windows, the power budget presently required for same, small space to stuff the OS in, consequent loss of support for things like USB devices and complete bluetooth profiles... these things create IOS's limits; they're not there because they're a better way to do things, they are there because they are one of the only ways to do things, given the present environmental limits.

        But electronics, if nothing else, follow a fairly predictable path of increasing compute and display power in less space with a lower power budget. So IOS can -- and therefore should -- leave its limits and its modality behind, bring the capability to do more complex work with it. OSX, on the other hand should continue forward -- not backwards into ISO land.

        Finally, since access to Apple's App Store software library isn't open to competing tablet manufacturers, they (the competitors) are likely to strongly differentiate their tablets with USB, broad bluetooth support, a real filesystem and related file management the user can get at if they like, memory cards, and so on... putting some pressure on Apple to do the same (and thereby bringing over already existing OSX capabilities.) And of course consumers like more features -- the more they can do on an iPad, the better they will like it, as long as it doesn't get in the way of the things they could already do. That's the design challenge, but I don't think it is a challenge that Apple will have any trouble at all meeting.

        So yeah, we will almost certainly see a merge, eventually. But hopefully it won't be IOS into OSX; just the opposite.

        • The current glitch in thinking over at Apple that has informed Lion with IOS like features is, I am confident, in error.

          We all believe it's in error, but some of us believe it will continue until the error prone management changes.

          • It's an error that is easily avoidable. You don't have to use Launchpad, and it is trivial to revert scrolling back (although I prefer the new way better, but it has nothing to do with iOS biases...just makes more sense to pull the information on the screen down by scrolling down, especially with the hidden menu bars).

            The effort to include iOS like features is most likely to lure new users into the computer division of Apple, not the other way around.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • It's a bit presumptuous to declare the pro video market "gone" after a month of a new release.

            • Re:Here's my take: (Score:4, Interesting)

              by Y-Crate ( 540566 ) on Wednesday August 03, 2011 @11:11PM (#36981614)

              It's a bit presumptuous to declare the pro video market "gone" after a month of a new release.

              FCPX is broken down to its foundation. No audio tracks? No EDLs? No ability to keep project files outside of the app itself? The list goes on. Every professional editor I know is deciding between going to Premiere or (back to) AVID. (Sorry Sony, Vegas isn't even on the radar)

              FCP is done. We've had the rug pulled out from underneath us, and we're not going to hang around and hope that the scraps of a good app left will ever be woven into something useful for actual production work.

              FCP7 was long in the tooth already. The last major update wasn't even a major update. The market's confidence in Apple to deliver pro-grade editing software is simply gone.

          • What? As far as I know, the people who resent the new version of FCP (that's what you're referring to when you say iMovie, right?) are just doing something very simple: not upgrading. Much like with Windows XP/Vista/7, as soon as the re-write of FCP matures to the same or better level of functionality you will see upgrades. No market gone. An entire generation of film and TV producers have been trained on FCP and will continue to use it.

            • Exactly, or even upgrading and not using, like I am. It does seem that FCPX is work in progress, but that is no reason to freak out.
            • Comment removed based on user account deletion

              • Apple clearly has screwed professional video editors with FCPX. This is just one more example of Apple moving aggressively towards the Money. It apparently feels that there is a larger market for iMovie + (which is what FCPX really is) than a true, professional video editing suite. Look at other Apple software - Aperture - not as powerful as Photoshop / Bridge and the rest of the Adobe Creative Suite. Not nearly as expensive. Good enough for some, but certainly not all professional photographers and no

        • at least windows phone has comment documents area for some apps, build in trial mode so you don't need a free demo app and a full app, more open to in app user maps, and other custom stuff.

          • at least windows phone has comment documents area for some apps, build in trial mode so you don't need a free demo app and a full app, more open to in app user maps, and other custom stuff.

            That's great.

            let us know when it has users.

        • I think you're wrong that Lion's iOS like slide in it's UI is a glitch, and that consumers are going to demand things like broad bluetooth support and filesystem access/management. So far, Android tablets haven't hit in the market, and wireless usage indicates most users aren't using their Android phones as smart phones, but rather as feature phones that happen to have Android. So I don't think there's much demand for Android in the tablet form factor.

          I think increased abstraction away from the bare metal

          • I don't think the pro-audio/pro-video market are really that big a market, at least not compared to the amount of consumers they could pick up if they dumbed down the OS. Especially given that for the most part, pro-audio people and pro-video people spend a heck of a lot more on everything but their computers, compared to their computers, and in growing number have specific needs for their specific workflows that probably add to Apple's support and development costs. It's likely much easier to sell Grandma

            • I think you've pretty much nailed it (in fact I repeated much of what you said a bit above). Apple is very focused on a specific part of the market that has been ignored by the Geeks that run the other computer companies: The enormous slice of people with credit cards and no ability or desire to understand the technical underpinnings of what they are using. The Appliance People.

              Hopefully, they won't drink too much of this heady Kool-Aid and will leave OS X fundamentally alone. Time will tell....

        • Just for reference, iOS itself *does* in fact support full blown multitasking (and your quite welcome to use it in your code via posix threads and the like), however apple has decided to only allow its wierd serialized version of it on the phone because the *processor* is just too damn slow. Ultimately the iphone is #1 a telephone and under no circumstances should a user loading up 50 apps in memory slow the thing down where that functionality stops working. Unfortunately its hard enough doing ADHD task man

  • When will I be able to get an ARM laptop?

    • Google "Chromebook"

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Henriok ( 6762 )
        I did, and two came up: Samsung Series 5 and Acer AC700. Both powered by an Intel Atom processor. Not ARM.
    • I've got two already. They came from here [genesi-usa.com].

    • The analyst is claiming Apple will release an A6 MBA in 2012.

    • You can already get an Asus EEE Tab with a keyboard dock, which is ARM in a laptop form factor. I wouldn't exactly call it a laptop, though, because it isn't powerful enough to do what I would expect from a laptop. So the answer is going to be pretty arbitrary: you tell me what you expect from a laptop, and I'll tell you where that is on the ARM roadmap.

  • Never going to happen. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by avihappy ( 1023761 ) on Wednesday August 03, 2011 @05:49PM (#36978728)
    This is one of those moronic things that will never happen that are being continuously predicted by people who don't understand anything about usability. Apple knows you can't just shoehorn a "one size fits all" OS onto every device you make; that the ways people use different devices are fundamentally different. Keyboard and Mouse apps do not work well with a touchscreen, and vice versa. Just because Lion imported some of the UI features of iOS like hidden scrollbars and an application launcher does not mean they will merge; they are simply implementing ideas from one platform that have utility on another.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      You're totally wrong, influential sources inside Apple have already said that OSX and iOS will be converging, and it's only a matter of time. There's no reason it can't have multiple interfaces; hell, Apple has done that BEFORE with Classic Mac OS and the alternate launcher interface with the big stupid icons. Didn't last long, but that interface is now back on mobiles, with more eye candy.

      What you are saying is contradicted by both Apple and reality.

      • You're totally wrong, influential sources inside Apple have already said that OSX and iOS will be converging, and it's only a matter of time. There's no reason it can't have multiple interfaces; hell, Apple has done that BEFORE with Classic Mac OS and the alternate launcher interface with the big stupid icons. Didn't last long, but that interface is now back on mobiles, with more eye candy.

        What you are saying is contradicted by both Apple and reality.

        It's called Simple Finder [extensions.in.th], and it never "left". It's part of the "Parental Controls" setting in OS X.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by smash ( 1351 )
        converging != becoming identical. features from one will be implemented in the other, where appropriate.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      I don't know if it is never going to happen, but it won't happen in the near term. iOS and OS X will converge, i.e. technologies will be used in both, but it will be a long while before iOS replaces Mac OS. For one thing iOS is essentially at the state the Mac OS was in the beginning. It only works well with certain printers, is relatively closed, has a small screen, and is underpowered. There is no multitasking, and the file system, such as it is, is a joke. No one is going to use this as a primary de

    • Well I agree that it is not wise, I think Apple with try to do it.

      As for the argument that you can shoehone a "one size fits all", you are missing the concepts; however, when applied to certain OS models is spot on.

      Regarding OS X as a whole, it is not designed to be, nor is it a modular OS, and this is why I agree with your base arguments.

      OS X has inherent issues that Apple mangled when it put OS X together from XNU, that is a massive spaghetti bowl, with a lot of duct tape and super glue to keep up with th

    • I'm a Mac fan, I don't own a Windows device at all, but seriously I think Apple might be staring down the barrel of a repeat of the 1980s and 1990s from next year -- when their market was commoditised by cheaper less crafted competition and Microsoft ate their lunch. PC + Windows was not nicer than Apple then either, but there were any number of manufacturers cranking them out in different configurations blitzing the market. Android has started trying to do this to iPhone, but Google's bet on Chromebooks

  • I could live with this if it means iOS+OSX = no more iOS DRM: allow users to gain root and allow users to install apps from arbitrary sources.

    You know, like OSX.

    If instead it means iOS+OSX means OSX gains the aforementioned DRM, I'm done with Apple forever.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rsborg ( 111459 )

      I could live with this if it means iOS+OSX = no more iOS DRM: allow users to gain root and allow users to install apps from arbitrary sources.

      You know, like OSX.

      If instead it means iOS+OSX means OSX gains the aforementioned DRM, I'm done with Apple forever.

      You're dreaming. Even freedom-loving Google has, in absentia, allowed DRM (see locked bootloaders on Droid2, G2, etc) on devices bearing their brand. However, I don't think it makes sense to have a hybrid iOSX yet (if ever). What is more likely, is that the ARM target code for iOS will be backported into OSX and OSX 10.8 will likely run on ARM (and also Intel).

      The ARM MacBook Air makes a shit-ton of sense... it will reduce costs, increase Apple's control over the hardware, lock more folks into the Mac Ap

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by am 2k ( 217885 )

      If instead it means iOS+OSX means OSX gains the aforementioned DRM, I'm done with Apple forever.

      Unfortunately, right now it looks like it's heading exactly in this direction.

      Right now, the Mac App Store is very dominant for Mac software, and it will become very restrictive in the near future (even more than the iOS store has ever been). As a Mac developer myself, I can speak from experience that having a product not in the Mac App Store is a death sentence for it, so I have to implement my apps in the way Apple allows me to, even when you could install it manually in theory.

      The next step would be to m

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by am 2k ( 217885 )

        Erm, I meant Launchpad instead of Dashboard. I always mix them up (and have disabled both).

    • And tomorrow, pig will fly. Sorry, but they love DRM and lock ins.

  • OSX and iOS share a common base, but it does not mean they will merge. Apple has stated repeatedly that touch screen devices are fundamentally different than desktops/laptops. While they may borrow UI features back and forth they are never going to merge into one unified device or GUI.

    • Apple has stated repeatedly that touch screen devices are fundamentally different than desktops/laptops. While they may borrow UI features back and forth they are never going to merge into one unified device or GUI.

      While they are 'fundamentally different', that doesn't mean that they're not poking at the foundations.

      You mention borrowing UI features, so you might be including the recent decision for the scrollbar direction reversal - defended (as usual, the shill that he is) by David Pogue as being far more

      • slide down to make the page slide down, who could argue with that logic - for it applies to the real world and whaddayaknow touch devices, too.

        Touch pads are touch devices. That's why that logic is applied ONLY when touch-based input is used.

        The difference between the systems is one is interacting with the screen directly, the other is removed (and mandates a keyboard).

        This despite the fundamental point of a scrollbar, vs scrolling a page, being that it tells you where you are in a document

        The scrollbar, w

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by chispito ( 1870390 )

      Apple has stated repeatedly that

      computer mice need only one button and no scroll wheel
      the Power PC is a faster and better platform than x86
      Apple is not going to release a netbook

      • Apple has stated repeatedly that

        computer mice need only one button and no scroll wheel

        Hey thanks for the argument that hasn't been valid for 10 years! Have you even used a Mac?

        And for the record, PowerPC was faster than the equivalent x86 (not sure how you can even argue otherwise) and Apple never released a netbook. What's your point?

        • The argument is valid right now because it's arguing against the idea that Apple saying something means that Apple will continue to believe the thing they said today, for all time.

          They really did make the one-button mouse long past the time when everybody else had decided that two was a minimum. They really did change their mind on that (and even afterward some people praised the one-button design for some time). Pretty clear-cut: sometimes Apple's decisions change.

          Apple didn't release a netbook, but it

    • OSX and iOS share a common base, but it does not mean they will merge. Apple has stated repeatedly that touch screen devices are fundamentally different than desktops/laptops. While they may borrow UI features back and forth they are never going to merge into one unified device or GUI.

      I'm afraid your subject line is a better description of your post than the original speculation.

      Apple has stated repeatedly all kinds of nonsense - for example originally HTML apps on iPhone were 'a really sweet solution' and the future of iOS, before iBooks was launched 'no-one reads any more', before the iPod Nano was launched 'no-one watches video on these tiny devices', Carbon was an equal partner and would always be supported, until it wasn't. etc, etc, etc. Most of their public statements are misdirec

    • The Apple cognoscenti were always quick to dismiss the need for multitasking on a phone, as something that was never needed. And then when iOS 4.0 it was of course 180 degrees opposite - that unless you had multitasking you didn't have a real smartphone. Apple's story will change as soon as they figure out that the market either wants the same UI, or that other competitors begin to succeed with those features. At which time Apple will proclaim they have it now, it is a must-have, and was part of the grand

  • I predict a merge too (Score:4)

    by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Wednesday August 03, 2011 @05:55PM (#36978792)
    of Wallstreet and Skidrow

  • iOS is just stripped down version of Mac OS X with a different interface isn't it? So the real story is that they are moving towards the iOS GUI if this proves correct.

    • iOS is just stripped down version of Mac OS X with a different interface isn't it? So the real story is that they are moving towards the iOS GUI if this proves correct.

      as a programmer, I think its very unlikely there is a lot of shared code between the two. definitely the base system and possibly a similar kernel, enough to run the same base libraries, but the GUI would be almost entirely different. And the GUI isn't just some thin layer on top of a complex system, no, the GUI IS the complex system on top of a thin base system layer.

      Rather than merge the code, its more likely they would merge the concepts. Some code may well be portable (its objective c in both cases),

  • Wall street people are fairly clueless about anything in the realm of technology, so who cares what THEY think?

  • Will be the end of what little corporate uses mac has left even the pure mac photo shop guy will look at windows then put up the limited file systems, app lock down and dumbed down apps and that is on top of paying $2,500 for a good system that LET'S use your own screen or pay about $800 + for a mini desktop + EXT DVDRW + EXT big HDD + Backup disk or for about $1000 or less get good PC + EXT backup disk.

    also the price of photo shop / CS and the lack of upgrade pricing on the app store make at price now for

  • Steve Jobs said this a year ago -- so a duh (Score:3)

    by GMGruman ( 1254692 ) on Wednesday August 03, 2011 @06:29PM (#36979240) Homepage
    Apple CEO Steve Jobs basically said this when he announced Lion a year ago, so the fact that this financial analysis firm is predicting it a year later strikes me as worse than a non-story -- it's a moldy story that anyone who's been following the industry already knows. And both Lion and iOS 5 show this slow but deliberate merger in action. The real news is that Microsoft has decided to follow suit with Windows 8: http://www.infoworld.com/t/microsoft-windows/the-end-both-the-desktop-os-and-mobile-os-upon-us-168915 [infoworld.com]
  • OS X and iOS merging, Apple branded television, Macs switching to ARMs, subscription based iTunes, iTunes steaming, etc., etc. These things have been predicted by members of the media constantly for years, with subscription based iTunes being rumored for nearly a decade now. Why is this news? When drivers for Macintosh hardware start showing up in prerelease builds of iOS, then you've got a story worth printing. Until then, your argument has about as much weight as me saying they're switching to BeOS on

    • None of those will come true, which makes me sad, because I really want subscription based iTunes (ala Spotify).

  • Normally I don't create new parent posts when there's already a lot of response, but I feel like just about everyone else who has posted has missed the mark. I'm a pretty hard-core Mac user. I'm certainly not an Apple fanboi - I'm quite unhappy with their new direction and I don't own an iPhone :P. Still, it has been pretty clear for at least a little while that iOS "computers" are Apple's goal. If you read the stories from the original Macintosh development team ( check out some here [folklore.org]), it's pretty clear tha

  • lol (Score:5, Insightful)

    by smash ( 1351 ) on Wednesday August 03, 2011 @07:46PM (#36980042) Homepage Journal

    The complaints about IOS-ification of lion make me laugh. Apple have taken 3 major features and implemented them in lion: extensive sandboxing of apps (a good security practice), launchpad (meh, its optional - don't like it, don't use it) and auto save (which is a good thing).

    And people are crying like its the end of the world.

    OS X and IOS are ALREADY mostly the same. The places they are different are for very good reasons (resource usage, small touch interface). If apple wanted IOS and OS X to be the same (which, quite frankly would be retarded), they would have made them that way from the start.

    I've actually upgraded to Lion and have lost precisely ZERO features vs snow leopard (well, except for rosetta, but that wasn't related to the implementation of IOS-isms and was already on its way out).

  • They are the same OS underneath, with custom front ends for each form factor. If Apple starts putting the desktop OS in a tablet, its a sign that all the talent has left, salesman have taken over the company *cough Ballmer cough*, and Steve Jobs has just rolled over in his grave.

  • Pretty sure when the iPhone came out we were told that the operating system WAS OSX.

    Hmm. First it's OSX with all the berries and security. Than it's re-named iOS when the iPad is added.

    Now we can increase share values just by claiming they're one and the same again.

    Amazing. Accounting/economics is truly a mysterious art. One in which you tell your shareholders you're making boku bucks and then tell the government you're losIng money.

    LOL

  • Is he predicting that performance won't matter? (Score:3)

    by Nelson ( 1275 ) on Wednesday August 03, 2011 @10:29PM (#36981310)

    Apple spent a couple decades on 2 other less popular platforms before they got to Intel and for years they took beatings about performance and fabricating benchmarks or tests to stack the performance the right way. Now they are more than capable of building their own chips, they have the money and the know how but why would they do that again unless the prediction is that there will be a world where they aren't compared to Windows on Intel machines?

    Now I could see Mac books and Mac Pros with an ARM chip in them for certain functions and for the custom silicon that Apple adds to them. That doesn't seem totally out of the realm of possibility. At the end of the day though, someone is going to rip a blu-ray or render some HD video or count the FPS with some game and compare that number to the one made on a Dell with an Intel Core x in it and that's going to be that.

  • If apple made eveything iOs, then what are developers going to code with?

    Apple releases an iOs SDK for windows?

    *shudder*

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