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To celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the unveiling of the original Macintosh -- tomorrow, January 24, 2014 -- Macworld has published a lengthy interview with three Apple executives to discuss where the Mac has been, and where it is going. Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi, and Vice President of Software Technology Bud Tribble -- who was a member of the original Mac development team -- all shared their thoughts and the full article is well worth a read.

Among the more interesting tidbits from the interviews is one particular statement from Federighi, where he notes that while iOS and OS X do share some cross-pollination of features and design, they will not become one operating platform without good reason. He says that the Mac has "been honed for over 30 years to be optimal" for keyboards and mice, while attaching a touchscreen to a PC -- or a keyboard to a tablet -- without a good reason to do so makes for a bad experience.

30thanniversary.jpg
"We don't waste time thinking, 'But it should be one [interface!]' 'How do you make these [operating systems] merge together?' What a waste of energy that would be," Schiller said. But he added that the company definitely tries to smooth out bumps in the road that make it difficult for its customers to switch between a Mac and an iOS device. For example, making sure its messaging and calendaring apps have the same name on both OS X and iOS.

"To say [OS X and iOS] should be the same, independent of their purpose? Let's just converge, for the sake of convergence? [It's] absolutely a non-goal," Federighi said. "You don't want to say the Mac became less good at being a Mac because someone tried to turn it into iOS. At the same time, you don't want to feel like iOS was designed by [one] company and Mac was designed by [a different] company, and they're different for reasons of lack of common vision. We have a common sense of aesthetics, a common set of principles that drive us, and we're building the best products we can for their unique purposes. So you'll see them be the same where that makes sense, and you'll see them be different in those things that are critical to their essence."
Macworld editor Jason Snell mentions that though he brought an iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air to the interview at Apple's Cupertino campus, he ultimately chose to take notes on the MacBook -- something not lost on the Apple execs.
"You had a bunch of tools," Federighi said, pointing at my bag. And you pulled out the one that felt right for the job that you were doing. It wasn't because it had more computing power ... you pulled it out because it was the most natural device to accomplish a task."
Schiller said Apple believed that the Mac "keeps going forever" because its differences make it really valuable. The current Mac lineup looks very different from what Steve Jobs introduced thirty years ago, but Apple clearly considers it crucial to the future of the company.

Images courtesy Shrine of Apple

Article Link: Apple Executives Consider Thirty Years of Macintosh, Say iOS and OS X Convergence 'A Non-Goal'
 

kerrikins

macrumors 65816
Sep 22, 2012
1,242
530
This is good, I don't think we really need them to merge at the moment. Maybe in the future, but for now I prefer having the laptop form factor at home - vastly preferable to the tablet keyboard, for one. I think tablets work well for viewing media, not so much for creating it or even writing things, etc.
 

taptic

macrumors 65816
Dec 5, 2012
1,341
437
California
Phew.

That was scary for a little while there.... thought we were in for a Windows 8 move with all that talk of a 12 inch iPad and everyone wanting a more advanced OS on it.
 
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flash84x

macrumors regular
Aug 5, 2011
189
132
You don’t want to say the Mac became less good at being a Mac because someone tried to turn it into iOS.

Hi-hip-hooray! So glad to hear they aren't following in Microsoft's footsteps on this. Keep doing what you do :apple:.
 

jrswizzle

macrumors 603
Aug 23, 2012
6,107
129
McKinney, TX
As long as they still seamlessly work together, I'm 10000% behind this line of thinking!

Next "goal" - making iOS AirDrop and OSX AirDrop the same thing :D
 

firewood

macrumors G3
Jul 29, 2003
8,106
1,343
Silicon Valley
The evening after the 30th anniversary, there's an special event of some sort at Flint Center in Cupertino (where the Mac was originally introduced 30 years ago):

http://www.mac30th.com/

Also some sort of unconference.

These events don't seem to have any sort of official Apple, Inc. sponsorship.

Anyone here going?
 

Xiph0s

macrumors regular
Jun 15, 2008
226
25
New York, NY
I think it's definitely a good thing to keep macbooks and tables/phones disjointed but not so much iOS and OSX. I definitely see some value in the rumored ipad pro having more OSX elements.
 

keysofanxiety

macrumors G3
Nov 23, 2011
9,539
25,302
I never really understood the people who claimed that OS X was getting 'iOSified' anyway. The Launchpad is incredibly useful; not only is it the quickest way to access all your applications, but it just displays the application within folders.

To anybody who uses loads of third-party music plugins, or even Adobe software as a good example, you'll see they're buried in folders in the Applications folder.

Thank goodness they confirmed it though, it's always a fear that they'll take unified experiences to an extreme. :apple:
 

Rogifan

macrumors Penryn
Nov 14, 2011
24,069
30,944
And yet tech sites will keep reporting rumors that Apple is making a convertible device.
 

Northgrove

macrumors 65816
Aug 3, 2010
1,149
437
Good to hear. I think the decision was even easier to make when they saw what went down with Windows 8 among consumer opinions. Or maybe they were just smart enough to not go there in the first place, realizing what would happen. I sure don't know why Microsoft even went there. It's so easy to see how a tablet interface has a lot of metaphors which don't make sense on a desktop or laptop computer, and vice versa. They are different devices. It boggles my mind how little you need to know about HCI to follow that path through all the way to a release.
 

roadbloc

macrumors G3
Aug 24, 2009
8,784
215
UK
Well I guess that confirms the opinion of Windows 8 for Apple fans.

Well screw em. I like Windows 8. :p
 

Semester

macrumors regular
Oct 27, 2011
110
0
Surprisingly short article from an interview with three people. Compare it to the Bloomberg interview with Ive, Federighi and Cook.
 

Mac32

Suspended
Nov 20, 2010
1,263
454
After having tried a Windows 8 tablet (yuk), I'm very happy to hear this. OSX and iOS should stay seperate, anything else would greatly diminish both the iPad and the iMac/MacBook.
 

brdeveloper

macrumors 68030
Apr 21, 2010
2,626
313
Brasil
Non-goal until someone do it with Android or Windows Phone. Then it will be a goal. IF it was technically viable having a tablet capable of doing laptop-class processing, of course I'd want it!

Why I would want two devices occupying my briefcase if I can have only one? Of course an iPad-sized Macbook Air would be a nice thing to have! If it was as capable as a Retina Macbook, even better.

Convergence is the way to go. Of course it's not interesting for companies narrowing a product line into a single one, but for consumers of course it's a good thing.
 

aleksoctop

macrumors regular
May 8, 2011
126
53
I for one think that at least design wise they could speak the same, not just different accents of the same language.

How about a nice black menubar to start things off?

Oh, and, just cause Windows 8 failed to converge mobile and desktop the right way doesn't mean Apple couldn't do it. And it wouldn't take away from the other, unless it was made that way.
I'd like to see this 'convergence' being functional, like making it feel you're not connecting a device to your mac, but you have two devices that can talk to each other effortlessly. MILES to go.
 

macduke

macrumors G5
Jun 27, 2007
13,100
19,598
That is some really great insight from the guys at the top. Each design decision should have a meaningful reason behind it. Though I'd still love to see that patent come to life—the one of the iMac that you put your hands on the side, it detects your heartbeat to determine you're a human pulling down on purpose, and as you pull down it lowers the angle of the screen and transforms into an iOS-like interface.

I would love to buy a 30th anniversary Mac, even if it's pricey. Something like a maxed out retina iMac in space gray or black.
 

maknik

macrumors regular
May 17, 2006
173
53
I don't care about merging the software, but I'd really like to merge the hardware. It's crazy to have an iPad Air and a MacBook Air instead of just one device with a removable top, but as they say, right now those are two devices with very different utilities. I need the iPad for the touch screen and iOS goodies, and the Air for my serious work and writing. I can of course buy a shell and keyboard for the Air, but that doesn't allow me to interact with all the OSX software I need. But I guess there's no incentive for Apple to unify these similar devices as long as they can keep us buying both. It would just be so much nicer to have an Air that functions as a MacBook Air with a removable iPad top, which runs both OSX apps and iOS apps as appropriate. I don't need some miraculous software convergence, just one device that runs both.
 
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