Apple to Begin Merging iOS and OS X With Quad-Core A6 Chip Next Year?

[Amazing Iceman]

Hm, the average 720p movie is more like 4-5GBs.

Oops, there goes my 5GB iCloud limit.

Really, I have seen 720P movies at around 1 - 2 GB in size using the right compression. Of course, if you don't like compression and want the best quality, then forget about streaming. Just watch the movie from a BluRay disc.

 

[mazz0]

Hooray! Back to the days of limited software selection and overpriced, under-performing ports. The transition from PPC to Intel was the best thing to happen to Macs. The ARM processors are getting much better, but so are Intels. They will never be as capable or compatible, and a move like this would make the Mac suffer and fade into the background again. But 2016 is a lifetime away in tech terms, so I'm not going to worry for quite some time.

But Windows 8 will be running on ARM, so it's possible ARM will be the architecture of the future, with Windows, OS X and Linux all running on it on desktop and mobile.

What about the other way around, maybe Apple will switch iOS devices over to intel chips? Perhaps chips can get small and efficient enough to run in the small iOS devices within that timeframe.

Or that.

Seriously, this was obviously going to happen even before MS announced Windows 8.

 

[mazz0]

Hm, the average 720p movie is more like 4-5GBs.

Oops, there goes my 5GB iCloud limit.

Films bought from Apple will already be on their servers, they won't be stored again in your iCloud.

 

[LarryC]

Apple to Begin Merging iOS and OS X

As far as the first part of the headline: "Apple to Begin Merging iOS and OS X." Isn't apple already doing that with 10.7?

 

[elysio]

If everything were in cloud storage, like say WYSE but for home users, lots of people wouldn't be able to access it due to bandwidth limitations. My max bandwidth if 50gb of downloads and uploads, and I work with lots of HD video. I would bust it in less than 5 days!

But back to the whole merge thing. iOS is clearly the future of mass market, iOS 5 proves that. But why merge? The media and game development don't want little iOS things, and the regular Joe probably wants it simpler, like an iPad. Trying to please both is impossible, so the only relation in visible terms should be iCloud (yay wireless future). Apple almost hit the sweet spot, until Lion. I've heard comments and until it's absolutely necessary, I'm staying with snow leo.

 

[Juan007]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A5274d Safari/7534.48.3)

This is about the only thing that could ever cause me to switch back to using a PC. I'm not interested in an underperforming Mac, I want the best tech on the market. Nobody can match Intel on performance, it's not even close.

 

[powers74]

Wow

Did you come up with that all by your self buddy?

I've been saying this for years now. Of course everyone thinks I'm crazy, but it seems pretty obvious to me.

 

[mrchinchilla]

I've said this before (at the time of the launch of the iPhone), that the iPhone and iOS would kill Macs and the MacOS as we know it. And that as soon as that happens, I'm jumping ship.

 

[42streetsdown]

I'd rather see highly efficient intel chips in a phone than see ARM chips in my mac

 

[benthewraith]

If everything were in cloud storage, like say WYSE but for home users, lots of people wouldn't be able to access it due to bandwidth limitations. My max bandwidth if 50gb of downloads and uploads, and I work with lots of HD video. I would bust it in less than 5 days!

But back to the whole merge thing. iOS is clearly the future of mass market, iOS 5 proves that. But why merge? The media and game development don't want little iOS things, and the regular Joe probably wants it simpler, like an iPad. Trying to please both is impossible, so the only relation in visible terms should be iCloud (yay wireless future). Apple almost hit the sweet spot, until Lion. I've heard comments and until it's absolutely necessary, I'm staying with snow leo.

The only reason I'm using Lion is the OpenGL update. If it weren't for that, I would go back to SL.

I may switch completely to Debian after OS X.

 

[johnhw]

If this is really going to happen, I'm going back to Windows!

 

[FrankHahn]

As the memory and storage are getting larger and cheaper, putting the base of OSX on all iDevices (including iPods, iPhones, iPads, iMac, MacBooks, Mac Minis, Mac Pros, iTV, ...) has become feasible. Since the OSX is modularized, Apple just needs to put different additional modules on different iDevices. As regards chips, Apple can use any chips on their iDevices as seen fit.

 

[holmesf]

I'd rather see highly efficient intel chips in a phone than see ARM chips in my mac

x86 is not a good architecture for low power systems. Perhaps eventually we'll arrive at a process technology small enough for Intel to make up for this disadvantage (remember the 90's anyone? Intel vs RISC?) but that day is not today. You've got to realize that Intel is only able to achieve high performance by decoding instructions into an internal instruction set that is totally different from the set used by the application, a process that wastes power and transistors. Intel can make up for this disadvantage only through superior process technology, vast amounts of R&D, and marketing. In performance per watt ARM beats out Intel easily. All other things being equal, I'll take the ARM CPU.

 

[StephenCampbell]

Wait a second. The Intel switch has JUST been finalized, with Lion. Now they're switching again!?

 

[villicodelirant]

To be honest, it's not a matter of IF, but WHEN.

That's where the market is going.
That's why iOS is a BSD-*nix at the core.

Windows 8 will allow portability between PCs and phones/PDAs without recompiling, as well as a new "appliance"-like interface, and will run on ARM.

I'm ready to bet my ass and my left ball that Apple will be there, and will do it right. As usual.

...Well, the .0 release will suck.


BTW, I think the ARM folks are and have been almost certainly pitching their stuff aggressively behind the scenes during the last 5 years or so.


Yes, that's where we're going.
And I like it a lot.

 

[villicodelirant]

I'd rather see highly efficient intel chips in a phone than see ARM chips in my mac

Here we go... again. And again. And again.

 

[villicodelirant]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A5274d Safari/7534.48.3)

This is about the only thing that could ever cause me to switch back to using a PC. I'm not interested in an underperforming Mac, I want the best tech on the market. Nobody can match Intel on performance, it's not even close.

Wrong, especially when multiple cores and intelligent coding are involved.

ARM is a very, very clever architecture and the era of the one core, high power, high frequency CPU has come and gone.

Remember: Moore's law is not a law. You can only shrink stuff so much.

We are now gonna focus more and more on multicores and multiprogramming, and a simple, bare, low-power architecture (read: same power, more cores) sounds promising.

(Except when developers stuck in 1976 come into play).

 

[villicodelirant]

This analyst has no idea about processor technologies.
There is not even the slightest indication that ARM can close the massive performance gap to Intel CPUs other than ARM's "we want". In fact, Intel is making progress in terms of power efficiency, which is ARM's only real strength, much faster.

Ask yourself, do you want a computer that has only a fraction of performance as the similarly priced competitor as your most powerful computing device?

For the time being, ARM will stay limited to devices for which performance is secondary like iPads and iPhones. These devices will sure take more of the market than they do now in the form of tablets and maybe low end notebooks. But these devices have a growth limit, and they are most commonly only used as a supplement to an existing, "real" computer.

Also, the software barrier should be mentioned. Nearly all Windows and Mac software needs to be recompiled and probably modified for use on ARM CPUs, and the more powerful and demanding a software is, the more complex is that process usually. Also you will need a new set of drivers for everything. This isn't impossible, but it will take years and slow down any form of major transition far beyond 2016.
And when you think about the business world, which comprises about half the computer market, there's simply no chance that any such transition will take place in less than 10 years. Trillions have been invested into x86 software, and businesses will need a bit more than just a little better power efficiency and smaller form factor to justify a switch.

Due to their closed nature and the hardware/software integration it might be relatively easy for Macs to move to another platform, but the game has changed since Apple linked itself to Intel. They gained A LOT of advantages by their move to the 95% monopoly that x86 is ,and to Intel in specific, which they'd have to give up by moving on to some newcomer in the computer market. Intel has by far the most powerful CPUs, a very strong roadmap, a good reputation to actually deliver that roadmap, the best manufacturing capabilities and an ecosystem of hardware and software that is so huge that it's also very cheap to be part of it.

Makes sense, but I still see ARM growing fast in the future.

Also, I think that we're gradually shifting away from "Desktop" applications in the traditional sense, which means, we will definitely be less dependent on an architecture.

IOW: if you can compile an HTML5 browser on top of it, 75% of the users won't even notice that instead of a chip there's an army of squirrels tucked away in a box.

 

[217833]

no need to be an Wall Street analyst to see it coming!

It's funny how people are seeing iOS as it is today and not how it could/will be 5 years from now. And it will also be absolutely no problem at all to have only one OS for both mobile and desktop devices, as well as living room and car devices if you really want to speculate about it.

Who said iOS can't be used with keyboard, mouse, trackpad? And who said OS X couldn't be used with touchscreen? It's not about "how you're using it today", but "how it could be done to be use it tomorrow".

If you add the ability to customize some UI aspect (such the lately scrolling, sidebar size, etc...) you easily be sure than OS X could be used with touchscreen... and that's exactly what they did with Lion.

Now, if you add more involved Safari, Mail, iCal, iPhoto, Address Book, etc... you make sure iOS could be similar to your current Desktop OS. And that's exactly what they're doing with iOS 5.

Ok, now project that 5 years from now of merging step by step tiny things to be sure main of the features of one OS will be available in the other one... in the end, both OS will just be similar.

And regarding the power, look where we're going with the iPad 2 in 2 years only. It's already faster to use than some old MacBook. So, just add another 5 years on that, the power of Apple CPU will be enough to run your current system and all applications like a charm... even faster. 5 years from now, we'll get more power in our phone that we can currently have in our macbook and iMacs...

You will be able to run Final Cut Pro and edit in realtime 4k video... with your pocket device! That's where we're going and Apple knows it.

No need to be an analyst to know it too...

 

[rcp27]

It seems to me that most people when they hear "OS X and iOS will merge" seem to interpret that as "OS X will gain all of the limitations of iOS". That is simply absurd. Let's consider the basic nature of an OS:

Under the skin, and OS is built in a number of layers. At the bottom most layer is the basic "talk to the hardware" core, on top of which are built the middle portion, which is mainly a set of functionality and supporting features for things like graphics, sound, network management and so on. At the very top is the user interface (and this is, in the grand scheme of things, a relatively portion of the whole).

At the moment, Apple make basically 3 types of device:

Ultra portable handheld devices (iPhone, iPod, iPad) designed to run on <11" screens with a touch-finger interface, ultra-low power and very compact design

Powerful desktop PCs (Mac Pro, iMac) designed to run on >20" screens with a keyboard/mouse interface (with touchpad-based gesture support), running on high power CPUs with basically zero portability

Portable PCs (MacBooks of various sorts) designed to run on 11"-17" screens with a full keyboard, touchpad-based pointer, running on reduced power "full PC" hardware, with portability and battery power at an intermediate level between the other two.

Apple designed OS X 10 years ago to run on the second of these three, namely the high power desktop PC with keyboard and mouse interface and a large screen. It's "bottom layer" is built around a powerful multi-core or multi-processor hardware, it's "top layer" is designed for a large screen keyboard and mouse interface.

Apple designed iOS 4 years ago to run on the first of these, namely the iDevices. It's "bottom layer" is built around ultra low power ARM hardware and it's "top layer" is designed for finger-on-screen very small screen interface.

Both of these operating systems use the same "middle layers", they always have and almost certainly always will.

But where does that leave the third class of device, the "portable PC"? in the pre-iDevice days, there was no question but that it should be a "scaled down full PC", but with the success of the iPad, the question presents itself as to whether it might be equally well as a "scaled up ultra-portable".

The key to understanding the so-called "merger" of iOS and OS X lies in this intermediate class of device. What we have seen with the MacBook Air is that some of the hardware concepts of the ultra-portables have moved across to the intermediate class of machines (non-user servicable hardware, solid state storage, small screen size), and what we have seen with Lion is the bringing across of certain UI features developed for the ultra portable to this class to suit the more touch-friendly and small screen device (gestures, full screen apps, launch pad and mission control). These features don't really add much to the desktop PC with its >20" screen and keyboard/mouse interface, but they add a lot to the 11" and 13" notebooks.

So where do we go from here? The obvious next step is to bring more of the hardware concepts of the "ultra portable" class of machine into the intermediate class: low power processors to allow extra long battery life. This means changes to the "bottom layer" of the OS.

Ultimately what this would give us is a single OS concept to run on three classes of machine. At the bottom, it supports two architectures: a high power machine designed to be used predominantly plugged into the mains, and a low power machine designed to maximise battery life. At the top it support three UI concepts: large monitors (up to two or three 27"+ screens) with a keyboard/mouse interface, at the bottom, very small touch screens, and at the middle, compact (11"-17") screens with a keyboard/touchpad interface.

In all of these cases, the "middle layer" of the OS is not touched. In theory, this would allow a multi-large-screen keyboard/mouse UI to run on an ultra low power CPU, or a hand-held touch screen UI to be run on a multi-processor desktop class hardware, but in reality nobody would own such a device.

To all those who think "I don't want my desktop to look like an iPhone", consider the following: Lion has a lot of UI features that are drawn from the iPad that work well on a 13" screen, but it also maintains the full 27" desktop experience too. Also, iOS, while being a "single OS" looks very different on a 3.5" screen and a 10" screen. iOS 5 will bring even more differences, with split keyboards and things like that. Consider another point. if you use an iPad with an external keyboard, is the user experience really that different from an 11" air?

Finally, there is the issue of the "walled garden". Apple have said many times that they have no plans to wall in the big desktop computers. They have no plans to close off the file system. The fact that Lion retains a fully functional Unix terminal access application shows that they are still holding to this. The full file system and full OS is still there in iOS, and as jailbreakers know, the ability exists to install 3rd party apps, the only place it's closed off is in the UI (ie there is no way for the user to actually access this functionality). With a "merged" OS (or perhaps better to call it modular), the UI (including access to the file system and non-app-store apps) will be tailored to suit the characteristics of the type of device and the typical user profile.

 

[gnasher729]

by 2016 everyone will probably be using tablets and other mobile devices as primary machines anyways. who knows what can happen in the next 5 years. look how far technology has come in the last 5 years.

I am sure I will - as long as there is a tablet with mouse, keyboard, two 27" monitors, terabyte hard drive, and eight Intel cores running at 3 GHz.

 

[gnasher729]

Most ISPs currently set the monthly transfer limit at 250GB.
I would imagine this limit will eventually be increased as the demand for transfer volume and bandwidth continues to grow.

More likely that it will go down as demand goes up. Easy to have a 250 GB limit if most people use less than 10 GB. If the average goes up to 20 GB and available bandwidth isn't enough, they'll have to cap something.

See what happened with mobile data?

 

[Sjhonny]

One word: No

Intel gave them half a year head start with TB, they were allowed to release the z-68 architecture before anyone else - even before it was launched - , so there will be some multi-year agreements going on between those two ...

Before Apple would even consider starting a (publicly transition), we'd see a stop in all those little benefits.

And performance wise. A dual core cortex A9 cpu is not even close to as fast as a dual core sandy-bridge ULV. Cortex A15 will support higher clocks and more cores but so will ivy bridge.

 

[217833]

The beginning of the end of OS X... It has already begun with Lion... What's next? Removal of multitasking altogether I bet! Let's waste all that CPU power on something more important than multitasking.

BTW, it's already done in a certain way in Lion with the resume stuff and the memory management. But why the heck waste cpu power when you can just put on hold some application and keep some important process in background such audio, video feeds, rendering, downloading, etc...

The iOS multitasking ain't perfect but it could be a good start... Just to compare, if I do have Mail, Safari with several tabs, iTunes playing music, Skype open, I can easily use more than 3Gb of RAM on my Lion Macbook. Just add some iPhoto, iMovie and iWork stuff and my system start to slow down (mainly Safari) since I'm only having 4Gb of RAM and a Dual Core CPU.

Now I can do the same stuff on the iPad and it won't slow down... Safari will stay fast all the way, for a similar usage.

I do believe the next phase to improve iOS might be to add the "File Management". Maybe not Finder, but at least an easy way to centralized your Documents, Manage them with your other devices (including iCloud), easily send or open it by another app, etc...

And the next OS X step will be to get rid of current "File Management", by reducing features to the strict minimum to your Documents only. They already start by removing the /Library folder, changing the Places and Drives categories in the sidebar, and even the need for different files for different versions. Who need to rename a file anymore for -old, -new, -version 2, etc...


@rcp27: Completely agree with you! To add on your two last paragraphs, don't forget now the gestures on the MacBook Air Lion, will be very similar of the gestures on the iPad iOS 5 too.

I'm kind of pissed off I can't have my 4 fingers swipe down for Mission Control, but only 4 fingers Up. But when you see that the 4 fingers Up on iOS 5 on the iPad will just reveal all opened Apps, it would make sense then...

Regarding the file system. Who said we couldn't get Terminal on iOS in future? The same way a lot of things weren't there in iOS 1.0, doesn't mean it can't be available in future. Same with "Finder" or even Xcode. If and when Apple will need to get more professional and evolved features for iOS, they could do it.

By being "PC Free", they did remove the need of a computer to use the iOS devices. So it would make even more sense in future that we could even program iOS apps, directly from the device by itself. And by the time they release iCode (which will be the new Xcode version for iOS), it will be so simple and easy to use than everyone will want the OS X version of Xcode to look similar... Just like they did with Mail, iCal, Address Book and pretty soon with iTunes.


And finally, regarding the CPU power, you are just thinking on a tiny scale guys. A 75 billions dollars company who already design CPU can easily have a complete line of future CPU, from mobile Axx low power, low energy consumption to a desktop Axx for high power and higher energy consumption...

Nobody says the Mac Pro will ever get the iPhone CPU or even the current iOS. Think outside the box on a large scale. By designing their own CPU, they will also avoid "again" people to run OS X on other hardware.

And for the user experience, as long you can do everything you want, do it fast, having great graphics... you don't care if it's an ARM, an Intel, or even an Alien Technology CPU inside the box. People just want the box to work...

 

[dexthageek]

...iOS outsells OS X tenfold; the customers have decided what they want and it isn't our beloved Mac. Apple will follow the money, it's their job as a company...

You can't look at it that way. It is not a fair comparison, there are major differences between an iDevice and a Desktop\Laptop. Just because Apple has sold more iDevices (iOS) then Desktop\Laptops (OSX) does not mean customers do not like OSX.