Apple's Focus on iPhone OS 4 Diverting Resources From Mac OS X 10.7?

[MacRumors]

As part of a lengthy post discussing Apple's nearly singular focus on iPhone OS 4 over the past few months, Daring Fireball's John Gruber reports that he is hearing that resources have been diverted from the Mac OS X team to the iPhone OS team. Consequently, Gruber offers an "educated guess" that Mac OS X 10.7 may not be introduced to developers until mid-2011.

A few months ago, I heard suggestions that Apple had tentative plans to release a developer beta of Mac OS X 10.7 at WWDC this June. That is no longer the case. Mac OS X 10.7 development continues, but with a reduced team and an unknown schedule. It's my educated guess that there will be no 10.7 news at WWDC this year, and probably none until WWDC 2011.

Evidence of Apple's work on Mac OS X 10.7 surfaced last November. By January when Gruber reported that he was hearing of a possible developer release for Mac OS X 10.7 at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference 2010, usage of the next-generation operating system already seemed to be on the rise within Apple's campus.

The time between major Mac OS X releases has been increasing as the operating system matures, with a nearly 30-month gap between Tiger and Leopard being followed by a 22-month wait for Snow Leopard, which Apple positioned primarily as a refinement of Leopard. With Mac OS X Snow Leopard having been released less than eight months ago, it would not be surprising to see Mac OS X 10.7 not make its public debut until late 2011 or beyond, even without iPhone OS 4 putting pressure on development.

Article Link: Apple's Focus on iPhone OS 4 Diverting Resources From Mac OS X 10.7?

 

[PandaOnslaught]

meh id rather have iphone OS 4, this isn't really that big of a deal, unless 10.7 had like mind reading capabilities .... otherwise im pretty sure i can wait till 2011

 

[TheSlush]

Hire more people!

 

[E.Lizardo]

I guess they need more people.But I'd rather they grow carefully and deliberately and do it right,even if I have to wait a few extra months.

 

[NebulaClash]

Cue the moaners that want to claim Apple is no longer a computer company.

As MacRumors notes, a May 2011 timeframe would be fairly typical. Nothing unusual here, and Snow Leopard is a great OS.

 

[Mastershredder]

Keep making Snow Leopard more and more stable and I'll be fine with a delay to 10.7.

 

[splashnader]

Looks like they are rushing to finish up OS4. Maybe a new feature or two that has yet to be announced.

 

[uaecasher]

iPhone OS helps mac os x not hurts it.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

If the OS isn't released to developers until mid 2011, it's possible that Apple releases it at the same time - I wouldn't put it past Apple to do that to developers.

At the same time, if Apple delays it too much, it will allow Microsoft to get Windows 8 out of the door before Apple can get 10.7 out, potentially letting MS once again out-shine* Apple in their OS release.

*I simply mean that the work that MS did to Windows far more noticeable than any work that Apple did to Snow Leopard - This is not a comparison of OS's, but a comparison of which matured as compared to their respective prior release.

/Flamesuit

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I figured this might happen. Knowing what I know about Apple's development teams, they are incredibly flexible, and individual members can be switched from one product to another as needs arise. Also, there were, prior to the iPhone introduction, 3 development teams: One handling fixes to the current generation of Mac OS, one developing the next Mac OS, and one handling all the other things that run on Mac OS that Apple sells (Final Cut, iTunes, etc. - since all these products rarely get updated all at once, one team handles them all). With the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, 6 new teams were introduced: 2 per device. These 6 teams collaborate frequently to make sure a baseline feature set is maintained for each device-specific OS release.

Anyway, that said... Apple obviously wishes to focus on iPhone OS 4, and since their 9-team system is so flexible they can take developers away from other teams to help the iPhone teams out.

 

[Gasu E.]

Right now, making Snow Leopard more stable and faster is more important than adding new user-level features. I hope, though, that once OS 4 is released they will shift resources back to OS X.

 

[ralphdaily]

Ok to work on iPhone

I don't have any issues with OSX. Ok with me for more developers to work on iphone/iPad. Ralph

 

[Eidorian]

Hardware is a higher priority right now. Snow Leopard is still a mixed bag.

 

[Rocketman]

I would much rather see Apple take a new direction in the OS timeline now that iPhone OS is maturing and about to become a primary window on the world.

We already know Apple is aggressively moving toward the client server model with cloud services, offsite backup and pooling, and remote desktop.

I would like to see Apple treat "past versions" of the OS as a "hobby" simply to assure forward compatibility to current Apple devices and services, so those applications that actually rely on older hardware and software can stay alive as a "service" on the network.

Examples:

I would like to see a version of 10.4.11 and 10.5.x and 10.6.x, that keep hardware running these OS's aware of the cloud and iPad like devices Apple is releasing, and visa versa. That way older applications and services remain accessable.

Rocketman

10.6.11 here we come. The very definition of stable and capable.

 

[slackpacker]

Probably right on this - Ever since Apple changed the name from Apple Computers to Apple Inc. I suspected this was the path we were going down.

 

[Tailpike1153]

meh id rather have iphone OS 4, this isn't really that big of a deal, unless 10.7 had like mind reading capabilities .... otherwise im pretty sure i can wait till 2011

Agreed

 

[Oflife]

iPhone OS is the future of computing, NOT OS X...

As a human factors guy, and I know a number of people who echo this sentiment, I feel that while OS X may be built on some robust technology (Quartz, QuickTime etc etc), it is a usability nightmare. From accidentally launching docked apps, to constantly re-sizing windows to annoyingly small file select dialogs to a lack of creative 'Microsoft Notes / Courier' like next gen interface technology etc etc. (I know many who MUCH prefer the snappy spacious nature of OS 9 - myself included.) Stability is the only real benefit of OS X.

As I stated on my blog over a year ago, Apple should focus on turning 'iPhone' OS into their primary OS - with tight cloud based architecture and semantic file storage and sharing technology. Using creative apps on iPhone OS is, no matter their initial simplicity, an order of magnitude more intuitive and fun than any OS X equivalent.

I for one would pay big money for a multi-touch 27" 'iMac Touch' with an MS Courier like GUI for spontaneous accurate creativity and productivity.

No matter what Apple have invested in OS X, they have to consider the future. It is just not good enough from a usability angle.

So toast me!

 

[meltingice]

The time between major Mac OS X releases has been increasing as the operating system matures

Shouldn't that say "decreasing"?

 

[alexk82]

looking

i'm really looking for something revolutionary, so i'm in no hurry for an update

 

[CIA]

10.6.3 has worked fine for me, so a no complaints really. I'd rather have them spend more time on 10.7 and get it right internally before releasing developer builds. I prefer the lack of bugs to a rushed update schedule. There are a ton of cool features under the hood of 10.6 that developers are just starting to use. Rewriting the book before people have fully read it won't help anyone.

 

[pubwvj]

There is another possibility. The MacOS and the iPhoneOS may merge. That would be good. It is the data that matters.

 

[rwilliams]

From the column:

Shipping the iPad, of course, was a major priority, but like any new project at Apple, it was shipped by a team working in secret. Most of the company found out the details of the iPad when the rest of us did, and that’s why the iPad won’t get an iPhone OS 4 update until version 4.1 later this year — the plans for 4.0 were set and long in development before the iPad was revealed.


This is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. iPad owners have to wait for an OS update because of Jobs' paranoia. Brilliant.

 

[skellener]

Hardware is a higher priority right now. Snow Leopard is still a mixed bag.

Yes hardware!!!! 12 core baby! But Snow Leopard is really the best! Leopard was uncooked, buggy and slow. Snow Leopard is what they really wanted Leopard to be. Run Tiger or Snow Leopard, but ditch Leopard!!

 

[macduke]

My main issue with this is that there should be enough people working on both teams that they can exchange members when they need to without putting a lot of strain on the other side.

The problem is that iPhone OS updates happen at the same time every year. In addition, this is their most competitive space right now as all the innovation seems to be taking place in this industry, with companies trying to secure their hold in this rapidly growing smartphone and tablet industry.

My fear is that OS X will start to lag behind Windows, or that Apple will eventually move away from the full size computer space entirely. It is becoming harder to make a big profit margin in this area, and that's what Steve Jobs loves. He said that Apple is a mobile devices company. While most of us consider it impossible that the Mac would die off, it just might in another 5-10 years. Well, at least as we currently know it.

 

[kingtj]

People complain either way .....

If Apple updates OS X quickly, people start throwing fits about how developers can barely keep up with all the changes they're forced to make, and how users of older Macs get left in the dust, etc. etc.

Now, we have a situation where the company apparently feels pretty comfortable with what they've got, OS wise, for their machines, and they want to redirect focus on their other devices -- and people are complaining about that!

I think it's important to remember that Apple is much quicker than their competitors to throw out/obsolete old technologies in favor of whatever the latest thing is they're trying to offer. That's good, in the sense that it keeps the OS from becoming too bloated with code that's only there for "backwards compatibility", and it frees up the latest machines to showcase the latest tech without being bogged down. But it also means if Apple releases new OS's too quickly, they start outpacing many people's willingness to upgrade/change. They want to get their money's worth out of what they buy, before upgrading.

meh id rather have iphone OS 4, this isn't really that big of a deal, unless 10.7 had like mind reading capabilities .... otherwise im pretty sure i can wait till 2011