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Could Lion Mean New iPad OS?

D

doberman211

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 10, 2010
148
7
Canada
With all the iOS integrations into OS X Lion, could that mean a potential 12" tablet with OS X installed? Maybe for the iPad 4? Just a hunch but this could be a very interesting concept if you think about it.

I am well aware on Apple's position with full operating systems being bad for tablets, but a larger tablet with say a core i3 and 2GB RAM could handle a dumbed down version of this Lion operating system. Maybe OS X Lioness?

I just never thought iOS looked nice on the iPad to begin with. It works nicely for the iPhone/touch but for a tablet iOS is really lame looking. It works...if you're 5.

Just my thoughts on the subject. I would appreciate your input. I know it is very doubtful and making predictions for Apple is basically impossible, but on a 12" tablet it could be very useful. Some might say it's a little too big, but when you think about it, its only 2 inches bigger than the current iPad. It seems feasible to me but I'm no tech expert. Though this tablet would have to be the thickness of the first iPad and could be a little heavier, it would be a true post-pc device. Have the price range starting at $100 more than the current iPad. There could be ways of making it lighter but I don't know them. Just let Apple surprise us with that one.

For inputs, this would not be an iOS device so it would probably need a little more than the dock jack. I was thinking one thunderbolt port and an SD card slot (doubtful but maybe a microSD), no USB because it might be obsolete by that time as more and more things are going thunderbolt and more people are using cloud services, maybe stereo speakers for once, and maybe get rid of the dock jack completely and just rely on a thunderbolt connector instead. I still don't know if it would be able to sync to iTunes. I doubt it and it wouldn't be useful for the uses I can see this thing being used for but you could transfer music to it from say a MacBook Pro at really high speeds with its solid state. Perhaps an actual mini hdmi connector because lets face it Apple's solution to that just seems silly.

Get rid of the home button completely as it would be pretty useless in this situation. Could this be an iPad Pro? this idea doesn't seem really like an iPad but the iPad might change it's use after this.

Any other input recommendations? comments? anything? Just a cool idea I had a while back but it just seems a little more possible now. If you're just going to bash the idea with useless trolling why bother? It's just an idea I had and would like to share. Forgive any typos I'm using my PC and the buttons don't work too well.

Peace, Doberman211
 
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doberman211 said:
EDIT: You can post negative comments on why it would work just nothing useless that is general knowledge for example the fact that Apple doesn't like the idea of full OS on a tablet as i have explained above. have a decent reason plz. something factual and thought over.

Peace, Doberman211
Click to expand...

I didn't realize that we could moderate our own threads and decide what others posted in reply, good to know for future post.
 
No. Steve Jobs has already dismissed that when he debuted the new MBAs. However, I do believe at some point OS X and iOS will merge into a single OS.
 
Even if the operating system is optimized for touch input, many OSX programs still are not. Also, the portability factor of the tablet would be completely removed if they put full PC innards inside. Your guess that it would only be as thick and heavy as iPad 1 is way off, it would have to be more. Battery life would also be much worse. Remember that Microsoft has tried to put a PC in a tablet form for years, and it's never gotten mainstream acceptance.

Your statement that iOS is good for iPhones but not iPads goes against Apple's basic design principles. They are constantly striving for an OS that is more simple and just says out of the way. OSX would actually be a step back from that, in SJ's mind. Remember, grandparents and kids that don't know their way around a full desktop OS can understand and can use iOS. That is valuable to Apple.
 
Cool post bro! I think everything you said is incorrect. Your edit of the rules was sad at best.
 
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Ok, I have an idea.

Let's start with OSX.

Put together a new UI experience layer for touch screens with all the needed software to handle that touch input, gestures etc.

Create an SDK based on that to let developers create apps for this new OS.

Optimize everything for battery life and peformance on mobile hardware so it can be thin and light and doesn't need an i7 processor and gets more than 2 hours of battery life.

Now we have a great tablet version of OSX! The great thing is that this already exists. It's called iOS.

If you want to imagine great things in Apple's tablet future, imagine what they might do with iOS 5 and iOS 6. Apple has been steadily adding in more and more capabilities to their OS as the hardware allows it, while also working to protect both battery life and security.

I know that this isn't the answer you wanted to hear, but it's the truth. Since iOS and OSX share a lot of their codebase (and I believe are getting closer all the time), why would Apple work down from the desktop version of OSX instead of working up from iOS which already has so much work done to it for mobile computing? Why duplicate all of that hard work rather than just adding more power and features to iOS and bringing it closer to OSX over time?
 
Apple has already stated that osx on a tablet is not a good idea, the ui is designed for the keyboard and mouse not the touch screen

Plus a 12 inch iPad would be unwieldy at best. Just look at other tBlet makes. Some of them are producing smaller units because people don't want the large size of. Full tablet

Going to a larger one isn't going to make it better and throwing a full OS on the tablet isn't going to work
 
I think another different OS to deal with would be too much for most consumers. Currently, I think the distinction between iOS is fine and the iPad handles it as it should. Perhaps more care must be taken on the side of application developers?

The hardware you mention also doesn't really fit for an iPad like device. Core i3 would be too power hungry to get comparable battery life and Thunderboilt doesn't seem to be pushing itself for lightweight applications.

In my opinion to get the target you seem to be aiming for would require a merging of the two OS's, which is what I forsee happening for the release after Lion.
 
mikethebigo said:
Also, the portability factor of the tablet would be completely removed if they put full PC innards inside. Your guess that it would only be as thick and heavy as iPad 1 is way off, it would have to be more. Battery life would also be much worse.
Click to expand...

Taken a look at the Mac Book Air 11 recently?

Same thickness as the ipad1, battery life almost as good, full OSx build. Yeah, I know, not core i3, but it is speedy anyway.

Apple could easily build a full OSX tablet. With great battery life.

But your comment on software useability is spot-on. Apple is all about user experience, and I doubt they will duplicate Microsoft's UMPC fiasco. I had one of those and loved it, but it was very difficult o find software that was apprpriate and useful for that form factor.

Call it the ipad pro. I would buy one anyways.
 
mikethebigo said:
Even if the operating system is optimized for touch input, many OSX programs still are not.
Click to expand...
Spot on.
mikethebigo said:
Your statement that iOS is good for iPhones but not iPads goes against Apple's basic design principles. They are constantly striving for an OS that is more simple and just says out of the way. OSX would actually be a step back from that...
Click to expand...
Again spot on. Prior to the iPad the prevailing design philosophy for tablets was to strip down a desktop OS and hack in the touch functionality. In the ten years or so of the pre-iOS tablets no one got it right. Apple knew that for the iPad to be successful it would need to redefine the prevailing definition of what a tablet should be. The iPad got it right by adding to the iPhone OS rather then stripping down OSX.

Edit: Not a good idea to tell us don't post here if we disagree with what you said. Telling us you only want to hear from those that agree with you is an invitation to a smack down.

Edit 2:
I don't really care anymore, iPad sucks
Click to expand...
In other words "screw you guys I'm going home"
 
hey pretty much. i made that comment at 4AM where i am so yeah i was pretty tired.

iPad pro... hm... i like it. also if the i3 wouldn't be feasible then maybe an A6 chip would be better?

I know already that Apple dislikes the idea of putting an OS other than iOS on a tablet. But I and so many others dislike iOS for the simple reason that its purely...well its basically buttons! My friend got the xoom just for that very reason. We all call it a jumboPod touch because i have the wifi 1st gen. and that's basically what it is. The tablet experience has to bridge away from the smartphone experience at some point and his could be an opportunity to do just that.

A 12" iPad pro could be feasible. the larger size means more room for a slightly bigger battery but in reality i wouldn't expect more than 6-7 hours out of it for the 1st gen.

the graphics processors on the iPad 2 are already very good so not much upgrading required there, but a 1GHz core is too slow for this. try a 1.6-2.2GHz on par with the macbook air. it wouldn't be too heavy. they could theoretically make it 1.6 pounds just .1 pounds heavier than the iPad 1.

I don't know if they want to release another product line, but i could see this working. and for god sakes apple just put flash on the damn thing...

There happy now? the edit is gone. its like reverse physchology with you all. pretty anoying considering i'm not really taking your comments in too seriously if all you included was: SJ doesn't want to. yeah. i know that and i stated that i knew that so you're just putting a useless comment that could be repeated 5000 times that i wanted to avoid cluttering this up. when random ppl come to read they dont want to read: "SJ already said OS X on a tablet won't work" 5000 times. it's boring.
 
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maflynn said:
Apple has already stated that osx on a tablet is not a good idea, the ui is designed for the keyboard and mouse not the touch screen

Plus a 12 inch iPad would be unwieldy at best. Just look at other tBlet makes. Some of them are producing smaller units because people don't want the large size of. Full tablet

Going to a larger one isn't going to make it better and throwing a full OS on the tablet isn't going to work
Click to expand...

A full OS can work, but it can't be just shoehorning a desktop OS designed around keyboard and mouse onto a tablet as companies have done (and failed) in the past.

It would require making a new Tablet OS designed totally around touch only usage, but offered more features we're used to in a full OS vs. a smartphone OS. Things like USB drive support, an accessible file system with drag and drop (and ability to attach files into e-mails from the e-mail app etc.), more power to run software that's the same as the desktop version (other than being touch optimized) and so on.

Regarding size, I'd like a screen a tad bigger as a 9.7" screen is a bit small for some documents (i.e. 8.5x11" documents with 2 or 3 columns of text) but 12 inches is probably too much. Maybe add an inch and cut the bezel size in half to minimize overall size increase.
 
tmarks11 said:
Taken a look at the Mac Book Air 11 recently?

Same thickness as the ipad1, battery life almost as good, full OSx build. Yeah, I know, not core i3, but it is speedy anyway.
Click to expand...

Okay, I have seen this posted enough times that it's time to just disassemble the idea.

The original iPad was 13 mm thick and 1.5 lbs. The current MacBook Air is 17 mm thick and 2.3 lbs. That weight and width is without considering a capitative digitizer and full length glass sheet across the screen, both which would be necessary additions. The iPad has a 10 hour battery, and the MBA has a 5 hour battery.

And that is just in comparison to iPad 1, iPad 2 is 33% thinner (8.6 mm thick) and .2 lbs lighter. People have said that that .2 lb reduction is noticeable and very welcome, so just imagine a .8 lb addition.

Basically, the 11 inch MBA is thicker, heavier, has half the battery life, and has no touch-optimized apps.

Yeah, try proposing that idea to Steve Jobs and see how long you get to hang on to your job. Like someone said though, I bet Dell would be receptive!
 
doberman211 said:
There happy now? the edit is gone. its like reverse physchology with you all. pretty anoying considering i'm not really taking your comments in too seriously if all you included was: SJ doesn't want to. yeah. i know that and i stated that i knew that so you're just putting a useless comment that could be repeated 5000 times that i wanted to avoid cluttering this up. when random ppl come to read they dont want to read: "SJ already said OS X on a tablet won't work" 5000 times. it's boring.
Click to expand...

On this I agree with you. Simply stating "this sucks", or "SJ said so" does not lend much to the argument. That being said threads such as this one are essentially just a wish-list where the OP tries to convince everyone they understand the business better than Apple, so you should expect a fair amount of criticism of your idea. The common failing of these types of threads is that they adopt a PC mentality of features over user experience when it is clear that Apple places user experience well ahead of features.

The majority of the responses have not been as simplistic as "SJ already said OS X on a tablet won't work", an have in fact brought up valid flaws in your concept. You've attempted, unsuccessfully in my opinion, to counter the hardware arguments against your idea, but have failed to address the software arguments against your idea. Apple has already created an environment in which developers need to choose between two platforms, OSX and iOS, why would the fraction the development path even more by adding a third development path (a OSX/iOS hybrid). While we may see a day when these two paths merge back into a single path there are still a few hurdles to jump before we reach that point. Designing an interface that works equally well as in a keyboard/mouse environment as it does in a touch environment is not a trivial task, and we are probably at least 5 years from seeing a merger of OSX and iOS, if we ever see one at all.
 
Chupa Chupa said:
No. Steve Jobs has already dismissed that when he debuted the new MBAs. However, I do believe at some point OS X and iOS will merge into a single OS.
Click to expand...

OS X and iOS already share quite a bit in common from an OS perspective. The key difference is the UI layer and the APIs to write apps against that UI layer. Even then, some of the UI pieces are the same across the two platforms (CoreGraphics, for example).

iOS in any current incarnation will likely not be merged into OS X. It is already pretty close to a subset of OS X. The major difference is what is missing in iOS, and how UIKit is used in place of AppKit. I can write code that works on both platforms today by targeting a clear sub-set of the full OS X API.

The business models of the two markets are currently too different to really apply the desktop model to the phone or vice versa. Plus, to completely merge the two, you either add bloat to iOS when it has less RAM available... or you strip down OS X and remove AppKit and all the other things that make it a desktop and turn it into iOS. UIKit isn't well suited to the desktop, much like AppKit isn't well suited to the phone.
 
doberman211 said:
I know already that Apple dislikes the idea of putting an OS other than iOS on a tablet. But I and so many others dislike iOS for the simple reason that its purely...well its basically buttons! My friend got the xoom just for that very reason. We all call it a jumboPod touch because i have the wifi 1st gen. and that's basically what it is. The tablet experience has to bridge away from the smartphone experience at some point and his could be an opportunity to do just that.
Click to expand...

I think the problem is that you seem to assume that a more advanced tablet experience has to come by bringing desktop OSX to the iPad. Why not just add those advanced features to iOS?

By the time you got done reworking OSX's interface to be usable on a capacitive touchscreen, and then had all the developers rework their apps to also be usable on a touchscreen, how is that different than iOS on an iPad with some more features and functionality?

I think what you want is a more advanced and functional tablet. You're stuck on the point that that requires the same version of OSX that they release on Macbook Pros, but there's no reason not to just add features to iOS.
 
Yep. A more functional tablet doesn't need full OSX or Windows.

It just needs more features (file system, usb drive support etc.) and better apps that are more compatible with desktop apps (i.e. a tablet version of MS Office that's 100% compatible with the Mac/PC versions--doesn't screw up formatting when going back and forth etc.).

None of that requires having a full OS. It just requires having something more than a phone OS.
 
doberman211 said:
... a larger tablet with say a core i3 and 2GB RAM could handle a dumbed down version of this Lion operating system. Maybe OS X Lioness?
Click to expand...

TheWelshBoyo said:
Wow. What random sexism...
Click to expand...

I'm surprised that it took this long for someone to comment on this. It was one of the first things that I noticed.

Beyond that, I agree with everyone else who has made very cogent arguments regarding the failure that a full OS X based tablet would be, and, of course, the biggest reason for that would be not the OS but the software.
 
Maybe Apple is testing the waters in case Honeycomb continues catching on and in anticipation of Windows 8.
 
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