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

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:

Launchpad also feels natural to navigate with a trackpad as well. Windows 8 sucks at this. Navigating to the applications folder in older OS X releases to launch apps feels so archaic and inefficient.
 
I don't think that anyone here is going to believe you. Especially since your Special Opps. The masses are convinced you work for Samsung. :eek:

Let them. Apple doesn't care what they think, and neither do I.
arms.gif
 
Your're just trying to throw people off your trail since your cover was blown. Now Samsung is paying you to pretend that you work for Apple. You're not fooling us. We all know how Samsung operates. :D

OH GEEZ! THANKS, SCRUFF! WAY TO DEFLECT ANY UNWANTED ATTENTION THERE, GUY!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, you are the worst spec ops agent I've ever had to work with. Subtlety? Keeping a low profile? OLOL WAZZAT?
 
It is really amazing how far technology has come between the two systems in that picture.

As for convergence. I am worried that the next OSX will take an iOS 7 redesign, which won't look right on a desktop system, in my opinion. However, I have agreed with Apple's move toward integrating iOS and OSX without actually uniting them...

Curious how a hybrid would work...
 
It is really amazing how far technology has come between the two systems in that picture.

As for convergence. I am worried that the next OSX will take an iOS 7 redesign, which won't look right on a desktop system, in my opinion. However, I have agreed with Apple's move toward integrating iOS and OSX without actually uniting them...

Curious how a hybrid would work...

There won't be an convergence in the Windows sense, where one OS serves multiple purposes. It'll be through software, much like what we're seeing with the iWork suite on OSX and iPad. Functionally the same, though designed with different interfaces in mind.

Honestly, I'm starting to think this is the best way to do things. One OS for touch, one OS for mouse and keyboards.
 
There won't be an convergence in the Windows sense, where one OS serves multiple purposes. It'll be through software, much like what we're seeing with the iWork suite on OSX and iPad. Functionally the same, though designed with different interfaces in mind.

Honestly, I'm starting to think this is the best way to do things. One OS for touch, one OS for mouse and keyboards.

Perhaps we have just begun the post mouse and keyboard era?
 
You seem to think 'convergence' is ... about making an interface that responds equally well, under all usage scenarios and conditions, to both a pointing device and your finger via a touchscreen. Since there are fundamental differences (pros and cons) to each of these input methods, any attempt to cater to both in a single interface is doomed ...

This is strength of Windows 8--it is a hybrid, not an attempted convergence. It works great with touch and any pointer interface. But an ios/osx hybrid would be a much better product--if only because ios and its infrastructure is so much more developed, and osx has not yet become truly awful
 
This is strength of Windows 8--it is a hybrid, not an attempted convergence. It works great with touch and any pointer interface. But an ios/osx hybrid would be a much better product--if only because ios and its infrastructure is so much more developed, and osx has not yet become truly awful

So, let me clarify—you're actually agreeing with me that 'convergence' of iOS and OS X wouldn't work? What you really want is a Mac/iPad all-in-one device that converts from iOS to OS X and back as you switch from one task to the next? Okay, you're entitled to that opinion of course. As for me, I think there is far more value in improving the way the two separate devices work together (share data), and I'm glad Apple agrees.

BTW, it would be really cool if, when you quote someone's comment, you don't chop it up in such a way as to convey a different meaning or emphasis. You didn't save much space by chopping words out of my quote but you did alter its meaning. That's not in the spirit of these forums. Here's my full quote:

You seem to think 'convergence' is a simple matter of giving a tablet more processing power, or making a MacBook smaller! Those things are incidental. It's about making an interface that responds equally well, under all usage scenarios and conditions, to both a pointing device and your finger via a touchscreen. Since there are fundamental differences (pros and cons) to each of these input methods, any attempt to cater to both in a single interface is doomed to mediocrity. It might be okay for both, but it won't be great at either.
 
Peripheral human input devices (HIDs) for iPad

"Convergence" is the wrong word. "Intersection" is a bit more along the lines of what I am envisioning. For example, I think it would be awesome if you could attach a mouse and keyboard to the "iPad Pro" and have it run an OS that has more of the features …

If I get an iPad, it'll probably be used sometimes with something like these:
… or a projection keyboard, though I never tried one (and I haven't sought recent information on what's available).

Would I touch a mouse instead of the screen? Maybe sometimes – if, for example, the keyboard is distant from the iPad.

A gestures-capable projection touchpad might be nice.
 
They also said on 9 to 5 mac that they don't plan to do a touch screen Mac. ;)

They won't do one just like they said all the other things they won't do.

The customer wants will ultimately drive Apple in which ever direction.

Apple goes where the money is these days, not the other way around.

I predict a Mac air touch screen in a year or so.

As far as touch goes on IOS I can't believe how many touch based gestures are missing from IOS. For example Safari try going forward or back a page on IOS. Can't do the nice one finger sweep to the right or left like OSX. No easy top sites either.

I think apple need to set up a camera and watch how people interact with there devices at best buy. I can't count how many times people are trying to touch the screen and nothing happens.
 
And why would that change in the future? Are people about to evolve fingers capable of the same precision as a pointing device, or arms which are capable of extending out to a vertical screen for hours without fatiguing?

Who knows what we'll come up with in the future. *shrugs* Anyway, I keep reading articles talking about how ~tablets are the future~, so that's where I was coming from in my comment.
 
A cheap low-end UI has been a "Non-Goal" for Apple from 1983 to 2013.

Once upon a time, many users couldn't believe that it is meaningful to build a "consumer" OS on a Unix-like or NT foundation.

I wouldn't be TERRIBLY surprised to see an "iOS X" hybrid, and I guess it will be somewhat less hotchpotch than Windows 8.
 
Tim Cook never said we're doubling down on secrecy, Steve Jobs never said they wouldn't make a smaller iPad and he never said the original iPhone was the ideal size. Whatever you say. :rolleyes:



Jobs talked about 7-inch tablets when he said that Apple wouldn't make one. Yes he did generalise and said that Apple believes 10-inch is the minimum to get great tablet apps. But he only used the word "never" for a 7-inch tablet. And to this date, Apple hasn't.

About bigger iPhones, Jobs said in 2010 "nobody is going to buy them", about DroidX. He never said "we will never make one". He certainly implied that they are not thinking about making a bigger iPhone in the near future since he thought bigger phones wouldn't sell.

He was wrong. DroidX sold great.

Now, let's come to the elephant in the room. Jobs died. And it's obvious that Apple is not walking on his footsteps 100%. So even if Apple does/did something Jobs was against, I wouldn't call that backtracking. It's a different CEO, different VP's. Obviously different people have different opinions and different business strategies.

But I will give you one thing. Cook said they are going to double down on secrecy, but I am almost sure they didn't. (This part is what I didn't object, I should have been more clear about this).
 
I agree. A tablet is fundamentally a handheld touch device. You put a desktop operating system on it, and you have a hot mess. You merge desktop and touch UI, and you have a hot mess. You make the tablet larger (say 12inches) to handle the desktop OS, and you have an awkward handheld device and another hot mess.

I am not saying that it can never be done, but so far, the attempts to merge touch and desktop OS have not appealed to me. Furthermore, there is really no advantage to owning a single hybrid device. With cloud syncing, I can move almost seamlessly between my iPad and my desktop. I don't think the cost of buying two devices is a big difference, since I can buy a Mac Mini plus iPad for the same price as a Macbook.......I assume an Apple laptop-tablet hybrid with touch screen and retina would cost at least as much as a retina MacBook Pro.

Absolutely agree. The idea of a converged device basically means a tablet that is impractically large for most purposes, which also negates the portable qualities of a tablet. Or, a screen that is pitifully small for laptop purposes, but fine as a tablet. An 11.6" MBA is realistically as small as you can go with a laptop screen to maintain a decent level of productivity. That iPad Air screen might feel reasonably large in a tablet context, but it'd be hard work as a laptop screen.

Similarly, I'm yet to see the attraction of a touch screen laptop. The mere existence of a much more accurate interface below it, mouse and trackpad, and the not small matter of ergonomics - touching a laptop screen for any length of time with zombie arms is a terrible idea - means it's largely useless outside of a presentation setting.

Flexible/foldable screens etc could change all this, but with current technology such convergent devices are too full of compromise.
 
Last edited:
I see everyone rambling about Windows 8... I think you guys have the wrong type of convergence in mind.

Convergence will be like what Canonical is working on with Ubuntu Touch. And of course Apple doesn't want this, it will destroy their greedy business model as it would cannibalize all their products. But the industry is heading to that type of convergence and Apple will have to come out with their own converged device (most likely an iphone).

Of course, everyone here will be flapping their dicks in the air in a few years time and expressing their joy at how innovative Apple is, when they've simple copied Canonical's idea (Canonical could fail at their attempt to converge while Apple could pull it off, but Apple will still be copying).
 
Yes, a touch based Mac is a bad experience...

Just look at all the hybrid PC's out there. People want to choose between somethings, and "all-in-one" is not always a good idea, particularly when there is a better reason to have two separate devices, without inconveniencing anything.

Has it really been THAT long ??
 
Why do you think so? because this is something that people are clamoring for because it "makes sense"? If the former, please point me to this clamor, other than MS and Windows 8. if the latter, please explain why...

Yes Apple with Backtrack just like with the iPhone and bigger screens. HAHAHHAHAH!
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Back
Top