A Multi-Touch iPhone OS Layer On Top of Mac OS X?

[Arnia]

I am not sure I am happy about the idea of adding a multitouch layer to Mac OS X. This isn't because I think multitouch (or other direct manipulation UI) is a bad idea, but because I think we need a rethink about the way we construct software systems in the first place.

For many years, I have operated under the technical philosophy of 'technology should work for people, not people work for technology.' For me, the ideal technology is one that allows people to apply their brains and bodies to 'higher-level' concerns without adding a new lower level concern. We are finite creatures, and we only have so much time in this world to spend. Why spend substantial portions of that time learning how to operate a machine, when it is possible to reduce that and free up the time for other pursuits?

That said, I believe other changes are necessary before we'll reach that stage. Yes, the UI is vitally important but there are important reorientations necessary at the controller (currently, application) and model (currently, file system) levels too (there is a wealth of research into these ideas in the literature that is worth understanding if you want to know what options are on the horizon).

We'll see what happens over the next few years, but I for one won't mourn WIMP UIs if they fade from common use.

 

[dongmin]

I think some of us are forgetting that "the computer" is a tool. Except for all those who are in the business of making computers (hardware and software), it's a means to an end, the end being to communicate with the world, listen to music, store and display photos, write essays, etc.

It's an amazing tool in the sense that depending on the software you put on it, it can adapt to fit the user's needs. But at the end of the day, it's something I use to get things done. The easier and efficiently this can be done, the better.

 

[baryon]

If you look inside the iPhone SDK you will find an "iPhone Simulator" this allows a developer, or anyone else who wants to, to run iPhone OS and iPhone apps inside a little simulated iPhone.

So what's new?

Just because you download the iPhone simulator, your computer screen isn't magically going to gain multi touch

And the iPhone simulator won't make your computing experience better. The point isn't to do multitouch, the point is to make your everyday computing better. The iPhone simulator has nothing to do with this. And the simulator doesn't allow real multi touch input, by the way.

 

[ranReloaded]

Sounds like the opposite of having a Full-fledged OSX on the iPad. Let's get over it, Apple think this is the future...

 

[ynk1121]

Geez, what happened to the days where Apple catered to professionals? It seems all they want now-a-days is to invent the ultimate Fisher-price My first Computer.

 

[Streethawk]

I dont really see this as a replacement for a full operating system, its just an alternative GUI. I think the iPad will give us an good indication of how useful it will be for advanced users. I'd like to think there'll be a way to access adavnced user settings in a more complete iPhone/Pad OS for people like us. We are in the minority, but i think we're valued by any software company as we provide the drive for new features and technologies. People who know little about computers always seem to ask friends who know a lot. There people pass ont heir recommendations so they need to keep advanced users happy too.

The thing that annoys me is that everyone seems to be searching for a way to replace the mouse. If its not broke dont fix it? just because its been around a long time doesnt mean there's something better. I remember trying to replace my mouse with a trackball in the 80's and it was a horrible device, never anywhere near as quick or precise even once i'd gotten used to it.

Take a look at gaming input devices, say for the ubiquitous first person shooter genre. Various types of gamepads, light guns, motion sensors, and none have come close to being as good as a mouse. Microsofts Project Natal will probably fail here too, in my opinion.

As a photographer i find plenty of things a mouse isnt good at, but generally it does the job. I'd rather get by with it's practicality than move to tablet and pen system just so i can do smooth curves.

Perhaps we'll see a multi-touch screen alongside a mouse, so long as it sits there and doesnt interfere when i dont need it, i'll be happy.

 

[FrankieTDouglas]

I think some of us are forgetting that "the computer" is a tool. Except for all those who are in the business of making computers (hardware and software), it's a means to an end, the end being to communicate with the world, listen to music, store and display photos, write essays, etc.

It's an amazing tool in the sense that depending on the software you put on it, it can adapt to fit the user's needs. But at the end of the day, it's something I use to get things done. The easier and efficiently this can be done, the better.

Yes, it is a tool. One that can be complex, if the user dives in and needs it to be. And on the surface, it is also one that can be easily figured out. As someone mentioned above, even learning how to use a book is a just that, a learning process.

With the iPhone OS styled OSX, not only will you get multitouch, you'd get the whole package.

Look at where we are right now with Apple and their mobile OS. It's completely locked down. Apple gets to dictate how you will browse the web. You can't install anything on it not approved by Apple (and then sometimes not even after they've approved it). It's reduced down to singular tasks. They're constantly trying to block people from hacking their devices to better fit themselves as a user. Apple has complete control over the hardware, the OS, and even what we can put on the device.

I could go on, but think of the whole package if Apple morphs their entire line this way. The computer ceases to be a tool and becomes a self-imposed hindrance.

The beauty of OSX is how it disappears. With iphone OS, its restrictions won't get out of my face. I'd care not to have that as my OS for the computer I use to "actually get things done."

 

[skate71290]

No!

oh god Apple please don't make OS X touch screen... i want to cry at the thought.... just make Snow Leopard better... your current line up... iPhone, iPad (with iWork), MacBook/Pros, iMacs and Mac Pro.... is fine just freaking improve it... i can't believe not one of your laptops has a 1GB Graphics card, nor can i believe the iPad has the same graphics card as the iPhone.... the iPad has the great potential to be a good competitor against the PSP and DSi... plus with the keyboard capabilities, give developers the opportunity too use keyboard controls

 

[mrklaw]

form factor is an issue right now, thats true. But how about something like an iMac G4? Imagine something like that, allowing you to pull the screen towards you when you want to interact directly with it, even allowing you to rotate it into a portrait view, laid down on the desk in front of you?

 

[niuniu]

I'd love a touch Macbook Pro screen. I think a lot of people misread this article or something, seems to be a lot of comments about iPhone touch OS replacing OS X

 

[yyy]

form factor is an issue right now, thats true. But how about something like an iMac G4? Imagine something like that, allowing you to pull the screen towards you when you want to interact directly with it, even allowing you to rotate it into a portrait view, laid down on the desk in front of you?

Not a good idea since it requires too much interaction with the screen rather than with what shown on it and you still have to use a keyboard and a mouse.

I think the laptop form-factor is the best as it simulates a 3d environment and our body is designed just for that.

 

[Erwin-Br]

If most peoples computing experience can be improved by simplifying certain aspects of the interaction with them, what is so horrible about that? No one is talking about banning you from using a more complex interface, or streamlining ALL computers. You can still get quite complex audio equipment if you really want it, but for a lot of people, theater in a box systems are perfect. They get the surround sound they want, in a package they can understand. They don't NEED more complexity.

Same with computers. Most people don't NEED the complexity that is currently the norm, so why should they have to put up with it? Why get in their way just because some of us enjoy that level of complexity? Especially when its not an either or proposition?!?

I think many professional Mac users feel threatened at the moment. I'm one of them. This news post is yet another sign of where things seem to be heading. And that is Apple leaving the professional or prosumer market altogether, and focus on the consumer who only needs to play a game, read an e-mail and surf the web.

I don't think anyone is saying people who don't know how to use a computer are dumb. I do wonder though if computers still need to be made easier, because kids today learn how to use them already in kindergarten. The first time I used a computer was at the age of 14. My father was 40 when he had to learn how to use a computer at work, and 20 years later he's indeed still struggling sometimes. But times change.

Where am I going with this? The point I'm trying to make is that there are a lot of people afraid Apple will abandon everyone who wants to do a little bit more than surfing the web or playing a game.

 

[giosaccone]

I'd love a touch Macbook Pro screen. I think a lot of people misread this article or something, seems to be a lot of comments about iPhone touch OS replacing OS X

I too have noticed this............

 

[yeknommonkey]

Gimmicks and whizbangery are not a good way to change the world.

There are two major trends that will dominate "computing" (for lack of a better term than that increasingly antiquated one) for the next couple decades: transparent computing and ubiquitous computing.

Transparent computing is the idea that when you're doing a computery-task-thing, the computer should vanish. This is what inspired multi-touch, in large part: You're no longer interacting with a computer which interacts with digital representations of things. You're directly interacting with things. The Jeff Han demo at Ted captured this idea perfectly: You reach out and touch a photograph, and it responds like a thing. There's a powerful computer behind all of that, of course, but the goal is for the person to be unaware of the machine. More and more, we're seeing these principles put into action. We've got it down for photos and scrolling through lists or documents; we haven't figured out how it should work for other types of interactions yet, but things like accelerometers and AGPS give hints of possible future developments.

Ubiquitous computing is the simple idea that where you are is more important than where the machine is. There are several ways to tackle this problem. "Everybody should have a laptop" is one; an iPhone-like device in your pocket is another. But we're still a long way from the ideal there. If I want to move a document from my laptop to my phone, I have to go through an abstract, mediated process like syncing or mounting a shared filesystem over a network. I should be able to put the phone next to the laptop screen and simply drag the document to the phone with my finger. We're not there yet.

The shortsighted person — and I mean no offense here, but what else would you call it? — looks at a technology like multitouch and shouts "Bolt this onto the side of my existing computer immediately!" Except that's nonsense, because multitouch is one aspect of a different vision for human-machine interaction. Multitouch by itself is useless; it only has value to the extent that it lets us get closer to transparent computing.

I've got a year-old Macbook Pro. It has multitouch. I can use multitouch gestures on the trackpad to do things like zooming in to a PDF or tell my browser to go back a page. I NEVER use these features. Why? Because they don't do anything for me. They don't make the computer disappear. I'm still interacting with a machine, and the machine interacts with whatever I'm looking at on the screen. It's like those plexi boxes that you see in science labs in movies, the kind with two joysticks and a pair of robot arms. You move the joysticks to control the arms which lift the lid off the barrel of atomic waste, or whatever the heck. It sucks, and we only put up with it because there's no alternative that doesn't involve a slow, agonizing death from radiation poisoning.

Okay, so maybe my simile broke down a little at the end there, but you get my point. Multitouch isn't a feature that should be stuck on to existing clumsy, abstracted, in-ten-years-we'll-laugh interaction paradigms. It should be used as one of many features to create new, better interaction paradigms. Anything else is just painting the brontosaur's toenails as the comet streaks across the sky.

Excellent!
you should write a book!

 

[yeknommonkey]

They spent 5 years doing it to prep us for the switch to Intel.

that whole "just incase" story of having developed it for intel from the start was bunkum i reckon, they just hashed it together when they reaslied they'd headed the wrong way sticking with the PPC chips. the initial keynote was all, about how they'ed always written it to run on both, but the whole process is two separate things from what they follow up to say, and the need for 'universal' binaries a.k.a two different binaries stuck inside a hidden folder is backing that up.

all based on my limited understanding of the technical aspects but it didn't seem very honest at the time, i'm sure they just wanted to put a positive spin time and money wasted in failure to deliver a G5 powerbook and other such problems with the PPC route.

 

[jouster]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

I love Apple products but really hate the direction they are taking lately. OS X just like Windows Platform should be able to accommodate for tablet style OS, but Apple is being lazy here. A pen like device + Multitouch features on top of OS X would be really nice. Think of the ModBook, I'm really tempted to buy one because I really need a simple handheld solution where I can input data and notes while I walk with clients, just like a paper notepad. Why is it so hard for Apple to innovate lately?

I'm guessing it's because you're using "innovate" to mean "make the precise product I require, whether or not the market needs it. "

Wouldn't an iPad with a spreadsheet or custom app do what you need?

 

[zarusoba]

I'd love a touch Macbook Pro screen. I think a lot of people misread this article or something, seems to be a lot of comments about iPhone touch OS replacing OS X

I think a lot of people didn't read the article. It's a couple of former Apple employees speculating.

Anyway, I can still remember people resisting the demise of the command line interfaces in favour of GUI's. Same resistance to change again.

 

[jouster]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

Geez, what happened to the days where Apple catered to professionals? It seems all they want now-a-days is to invent the ultimate Fisher-price My first Computer.

They nearly went broke is what happened.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Interesting how some fans here of the computer brought to life "for the rest of us," and asked consumers to "think differently," are completely unable to think forward. It's like they are fear moving from their parent's basement even as all their friends have moved on to buy their own homes. Or maybe that is the wrong analogy. Maybe the correct one would be closer to CPAs complaining about a simpler tax code and reporting method.

As for the concept of iPhone OS on top of OS X

1) It's kind of redundant to even say it since iPhone OS is a subset of OS X.

2) Most people hate computers, even Macs, because they are too complex. Even Macs. It's in Apple's interest to make computers easier to use and support. It's what the average consumer wants. To those of you who think Apple should be loyal to you, sorry. Apple is a business. It's loyalty is only to its shareholders. Long time Mac users mean squat to Apple. Accept it or go over to Linux or Windows.

3) Mice made computing easier, but they are still clumsy input devices. They can't compete with one's own fingers.

4) Making many common tasks simpler with an iPhone layer does not negate support for more sophisticated computer uses such as video and photo editing.

5) Macs are 50% of Apple's revenue. It can't afford to make radical changes like gutting half of its functionality. An iPhone layer would simply complement OS X to make basic tasks quicker and easier.

 

[yeknommonkey]

one more thing....

as much as i too keep thinking, "ooh what if apple just decide to make iPhone 'terminal' computing with cloud based apps" thats gonna be a real pain in the bum. someone has to write all these 'app's and make all the content, none of which can be done currently in these 'mini' OS environments, so hopefully the content generation that Apple are doing themselves will constantly remind them that there are professional needs that are vastly different from consumer needs.

 

[Takeo]

I love it when people say "I don't want to hold my arms up in the air all day poking at my monitor!". What the hell?! Do you honestly think that's where things are going? Do you honestly think that Apple would take today's point and click hardware and just bolt a touch interface onto it without any thought? Don't you think the smart people at Apple have already thought about all this?! What the hell?! Touch is a new paradigm and as such it demands a complete re-think of everything. Absolutely everything. The file system. The user interface. The OS. The applications most of all. And the hardware too. They're not just gonna stick iPhone OS on a 2009 iMac. That's what the iPad is all about! It's a total rethink of the OS, Applications and hardware. And yet people STILL don't get it!!! The first thing they say is "but... but... where is my /usr/local/etc/ directory?! How can I program a mySQL backup script in BASH and attach it to a cron job?! What a pile of junk!" Sheesh. It's mind boggling how blinded people are and how little vision they posess.

 

[*LTD*]

I love it when people say "I don't want to hold my arms up in the air all day poking at my monitor!". What the hell?! Do you honestly think that's where things are going?

It's where MS went and the box-assemblers went. Hope it doesn't spread.

 

[sanPietro98]

What exactly is this "easier computing paradigm?" As it is, I can control my computer with 4-5 inches of mouse movement of from the 3 inch touchpad. I'm trying to grasp how touching all over a 13-27 inch surface is "easier." Big buttons doesn't mean easier.

For --some-- applications, the iPhone-style interface is easier for --some-- end-users. The views, widgets, and paradigms that Apple put into the SDK ensure that you are only focused on more atomic tasks and views. The animated navigation transitions make it easier for a user to intuitively follow app flow.

I've often thought that making a GUI for the iPhone OS is much easier than making a full-fledged desktop app GUI. The smaller screen and navigation controls force you to make the app more focused and intuitive.

 

[Mcgargle]

I think many professional Mac users feel threatened at the moment. I'm one of them.

No offense, but if you really think of yourself as a "professional Mac user," you're doing it wrong. You're not a professional computer user, any more than a bus driver is a professional steering-wheel-and-pedal user. You're a professional something else, and a computer is one of the tools you use in the course of that profession.

Let's say it's the early 1930s, and you're a draftsman for the Douglas Aircraft Company. Would you describe yourself as a professional pencil-and-ruler user? Or a professional slide-rule user? Or a professional user of logarithm tables? Of course not. You're a professional draftsman. Flash-forward fifty years, and … well, you're actually still using pencils and rulers. But flash-forward another twenty years and you're using a mouse and a screen. But you're still a professional draftsman; your job hasn't changed. Only your tools have.

If it's 1970 and you're a professional film editor, you use a Moviola or a Steenbeck. If you're a professional film editor in 2010, you use an Avid. But the job hasn't changed. Only the tools have.

Apple is not a company that makes computers; they haven't been a company that makes computers since the late 1990s. They're a company that makes devices, some of which are tools and some of which are toys. The Mac Pro is a device. It's a tool; it does absolutely nothing useful by itself. It requires software and a trained operator to be useful.

People who fall in love with their tools, rather than their jobs, are playing Russian roulette with fate. If they work in an industry that's relatively stable —*a carpenter's tools haven't changed all that much in years — then that's okay. But if the industry they're in evolves to adopt new, better tools, then they're out of luck.

Don't think of yourself as a professional Mac user. That's ridiculous. Think of yourself as a professional whatever you are, and remember that the computer you use is just one of many tools in your toolbox. In ten or twenty years, you could be using an entirely different set of tools, if such tools become available that make your job easier or your finished work better, or whatever.

Don't love your tools. They won't love you back.

 

[dernhelm]

Really? I have pixel by pixel accuracy with my mouse. I can use my mouse for 10 hours non-stop very comfortably. Try doing that with your finger?

We invented pens and pencils (tools) because finger painting was a little too basic for our needs.

Touch makes sense on small form factor machines on which you are performing basic tasks.

It's also perfect for Kiosk-like machines. There are also a few multi-touch gestures that are simply easier than anything you could do with a mouse (click-hold-drag type stuff). Additionally, there are people for whom the small motor control required for a mouse is very difficult, but for whom the gross motor control required to operate multi-touch would be less of a problem.

It has its place, not as a primary interface technology, but as something secondary - in addition to everything else OS/X already provides.