Ipad Apps on Touch Screen Mac...Any Chance?

[mailman199]

do you think Aple will ever go touch screen Macs and allow iOS aps to,be run full screen?

 

[macduke]

They have patents on an OS that can transform on the fly from mouse-based to touch-based. But I think a few things need to happen first:

• They will slowly keep converging the look, feel, and features of OS X and iOS. They're taking their time to get it right.
  
• They need ARM chips that can compete with desktop chips. They're getting close—just look at the A9X. They also need a plan for backwards compatibility and APIs for developers to make apps that can easily transform back and forth
• There needs to be some way to easily dock it to a display. Perhaps the smart connector? It needs to be able to send video signals back and forth to the display. Apple has a patent on a display that you can slide a MacBook into. The display could have augmented features, such as a discrete graphics card, that the MacBook could tap into. I wonder if someday they'll release a keyboard/trackpad dock that, when attached, transforms the iPad into OS X mode and charges it with a larger battery and has a more powerful graphics card it can use over Thunderbolt through the Smart Connector pins

I don't think they would just emulate iOS apps without having a touch capability as the UX is not very good using a mouse with them. And I don't think they will add a touch capability to a traditional MacBook unless it can somehow convert into a tablet. They do, however, have a patent on an iMac that can slide down when you grab the sides, it detects your heartbeat to know you're a person and disengages the mechanism that holds it upright, so you can use it mostly flat at a low angle as a giant touch screen. I think it was a part of the patent I mentioned above about the transforming OS. This is a more comfortable way to work, and a neat idea, but ultimately many things they patent never see the light of day. I have my doubts they'll go that route any time soon.

 

[Eric5273]

I think what is going to happen is that iOS will become the future operating system and OS X will be phased out. With every new version of iOS, they continue to add more and more features from OS X. They take baby steps so as not to offend anyone and get too many people upset. But in a few more years, I suspect the difference between the two will be so close that they will be able to retire OS X and just offer iOS on notebooks and desktops, and then you will see a touch MacBook (if that is what it is even called).