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

[melendezest]

While it's good to hear that iOS and OS X will remain separate (for now), what worries me is that they'll probably start integrating the design of iOS 7 into OS X.

Prior to iOS 7, OS X and iOS pretty much looked the same. The "docks" were identical, icons between platforms looked pretty close, and the design aesthetic was very, very similar.

So now, we'll see the "flattening" of OS X, since, as they said, they don't want customers to think that the two were designed by different companies. As it stands now, they do look that way, despite some attempts at bridging the gap in Mavericks.

Ugh.

 

[ninjadex]

It's a no brainer that Apple has this position, for the simple fact that they want to sell you all three of these device types. So they're going to continue milk the Mac long-term, until it makes sense otherwise.

 

[thekeyring]

So what do you think OS X will be named after 10.9?

OS X 10.10 (mathematically this doesn't make sense, but in terms of software version numbers it's acceptable).

Biggest piece of evidence for this is that web traffic for OS X 10.10 is increasing where as there's been no reported web traffic for OS 11.

Also, as OS 9 > OS X was a huge leap, it would presumably take another huge leap to go from OS X > OS 11.

 

[iLondoner]

“Every company that made computers when we started the Mac, they’re all gone,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, in an interview on Apple's Cupertino campus Thursday. “We’re the only one left."

Bit of rewriting of history going on here. Hewlett-Packard had a line of Z80-powered microcomputers called the HP125 in 1981, and then introduced the revolutionary HP150 touchscreen computer that had an optional thermal printer at the top of the monitor, and was the first to use 3.5-in microfloppies.

See http://www.hpmuseum.net/exhibit.php?class=2&cat=15

And of course that's only the 'PC type' machines, HP had many other ranges including the HP1000, HP2000, HP3000, HP300, the technical workstations....

The first Apple machines were based on the architecture of the HP2640 terminals introduced in 1975, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_2640

Journalists, bah!

.

 

[melendezest]

It will be named OS Y 11.0

They might just lose the number, like the iPad did.

Mac OS, mOS, etc. Mac OS 10.9 Mavericks is ridiculous.

A single name would work: Mavericks (or whatever else they wanna use). You'd get the 10.x thing in Get Info or something.

 

[phillipduran]

Post this on the door of every person everywhere that has anything to do with the Widows development for Microsoft.

 

[smulji]

so what do you think os x will be named after 10.9?

osx 10.10

 

[MattInOz]

They'll end up backtracking on the whole convergence thing, for sure.

Doesn't sound like it.
They'll just improve iOS until it naturally evolves to be the better tool for more of the Mac's tasks, then retire the Mac. Sounds like they are still thinking 10year life span for mac before that.

 

[Sky Blue]

So what do you think OS X will be named after 10.9?

We already know:

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13...10-growing-as-apple-preps-mavericks-follow-up

 

[Lesser Evets]

... while iOS and OS X do share some cross-pollination of features and design, they will not become one operating platform without good reason.

So they WILL merge if there is a GOOD reason.

Noted and expected.

 

[mdelvecchio]

it's something we needed to hear (that there are no grand plans to merge OSX and iOS).

not really -- most of their customers dont know or care about the differences. the apple brand is managed w/ techies on a rumors sites in mind.

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They'll end up backtracking on the whole convergence thing, for sure.

yes, because you said so.

 

[osx11]

They might not merge the two operating systems, but they might offer a device that boots into both iOS and OSX depending on your current needs.

 

[kobalap]

exactly. touch screen laptops now have real momentum and apple will eventually have to jump in. "Who says apple cant innovate"

We've done tons of user testing on this, and it turns out it doesn't work. Touch surfaces don't want to be vertical.

It gives great demo but after a short period of time, you start to fatigue and after an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off. it doesn't work, it's ergonomically terrible.

Touch surfaces want to be horizontal, hence pads.

For a notebook, that's why we're perfected our multitouch trackpads over the years, because that's the best way we've found to get multitouch into a notebook.

We've also, in essence, put a trackpad -- a multitouch track pad on the mouse with our magic mouse. And we've recently come out with a pure play trackpad as well for our desktop users.

So this is how were going to use multitouch on our Mac products because this (he points at someone touch laptop screen) doesn't work.

There is a difference between something being a common in the market vs. something being a good idea. I for one am not willing to pay extra/give up anything to get display-touch functionality in a laptop. In my opinion, touch enabling displays is one of the dumbest ideas that Microsoft and Wintel hardware vendors have come up with and is purely a knee-jerk reaction to the success of tablets.

 

[Xe89]

They might just lose the number, like the iPad did.

Mac OS, mOS, etc. Mac OS 10.9 Mavericks is ridiculous.

A single name would work: Mavericks (or whatever else they wanna use). You'd get the 10.x thing in Get Info or something.

They are already doing this, sort of. They have dropped the "Mac" from the name of the operating system. "Mac" now only refers to the hardware.

They never seem to use the version number (10.9) on the same line as "OS X Mavericks". Look at the About this Mac window, it says OS X on top and version 10.9.1 beneath that. The OS X page on Apple.com only use the name "OS Mavericks". On Mac App Store, "OS X Mavericks" is used and the version number 10.9.1 is only seen in the sidebar and in release notes, and not in combination with OS X.

 

[osx11]

not really -- most of their customers dont know or care about the differences. the apple brand is managed w/ techies on a rumors sites in mind.

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yes, because you said so.

No, because apple always does this.

Examples:
- USB 3.0
- larger iPhone
- smaller iPad

And I'm sure there are even more examples. It's all part of Apple's perfect marketing machine. They tell you that a current product is perfect and Apple can't admit that a product will soon undergo drastic changes, because it would devalue the perfectness of the current product. A perfect example is the 4" phone marketing. In 2012, Apple told the world that four inch phone is perfect and any larger sized phone would sacrifice usability. Well if the WSJ is correct, we'll see larger devices. Apple will again claim that this new size is perfect and any other size doesn't make sense. Wake up people! I love Apple products but this is still all part of clever marketing.

 

[ctrlshft]

Disagree entirely, further integration is great for a lot of reason, including the ability to support applications that only run on OSX or iOS respectively. Why not merge them and have a "simple" iOS mode that can left on by default to enhance the tablet experience? I don't care if it takes a little while to get right, this is where the desires are users are going (towards being able to use mobile/tablet/phablet designs for more serious work), it's only a matter of time until developers cater to that.

 

[kobalap]

So they WILL merge if there is a GOOD reason.

Noted and expected.

It sounds to me that they have not found a problem worth solving that can be best solved by merging OS X and iOS.

 

[iBug2]

The good and old "not gonna happen" like they did with USB 3 or the upcoming big-screen iPhone.

What are you talking about? They never said "not gonna happen" for USB 3.0. They also never said not gonna happen for a bigger screen iPhone. Whenever Cook was asked the question he always gave vague answers like "we need to consider the trade offs" etc. Not to mention iPhone 5 has a bigger screen than 4S.

 

[HurtinMinorKey]

Why? The people backtracking here are Microsoft. Metro failed as a unified desktop/tablet dream interface as the "way forward" and now they're busy updating Windows 8.1 to be able to launch Metro apps from the desktop interface. I take this as a first step to divergence. It may seem like a further unification at the first sight, but think about it...

And why do you think Microsoft seems so desperate (almost kamakazi) to get this convergence going? It's not because they love pissing off Windows users, it's because they know that convergence is inevitable, and that to lose the mobile space in the long run means losing everything else too.

 

[iBug2]

All the iOS stuff you might want to do can be done on your phone.

Can? Yes. Does it make sense to do photo editing on an iPhone? No.

 

[HurtinMinorKey]

Way to go with the glass 1/3 empty. He didn't say it's forever, maybe in time (10-20 years) anything can happen. Be happy where you are.

Fair enough.

 

[firedept]

This is good news. I always wondered if Apple was considering this. Glad they have made their opinion on it clear for the time being.

 

[iBug2]

They might not merge the two operating systems, but they might offer a device that boots into both iOS and OSX depending on your current needs.

What kind of device would that be?

 

[dysamoria]

HAD a common sense of aesthetics, until they ruined iOS with the disaster that is version 7. i walked away from an iPad Air purchase over that ugly, awkward, hard to look at/read, buggy crashing OS.

 

[attila]

I'm glad Jony Ive wasn't in the discussion.