iPad sporting Mac OSX in the future?

[Apple@Parker]

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I was having a lengthy talk to a workmate the other day, talking tech and one topic that we browsed at was would it ever be possible to get iPad to run OSX...

As OSX gets lighter in its hard drive footprint, iPad I believe could one day sport a full operating system. 'Lion' was created essentially to integrate the ideas generated by the iOS back into desktop and laptop computing. With the multi-touch gestures deeply integrated into OSX, maybe this is the iPad's next step with an A6 processor and a pixel rich screen...

I'm sure people have there views on why or why not to have a full operating system run on the iPad, I just feel if you have a laptop already then there is no need to have an iPad as it is a laptop with a limited operating system...

Cheers ben

 

[Derkatwork]

The hardware specs of an iPad (or any tablet for that matter) is drastically less than the lowest specs for computers. Possible? Yes. When? It will be a long time before tablets can run a full fledged operating system.

 

[seong]

Not happening in next couple of years, at least.
The on why iPads are selling well is because of its simplicity of iOS. If apple were to make OS X work on the iPad, not only do they has to make things bigger, it would require more ram, less battery life, etc.
If you are thinking I'm making this stuff up, go ahead, purchase an app called Splashtop, run it, and VNC ur MacBook pro, iMac, which ever. Clicking on the menubar, opening files, etc, it's just waaaaay too hard

It would be a different story if Apple made decided to make major changes to OS X and include Bluetooth keyboard/mouse to everyone who buys an iPad.

 

[mrsir2009]

Way too complex for the weak hardware and small touch-screens of tablets.

 

[BaldiMac]

iOS is OS X for devices that support direct multitouch input on lower powered devices. If you are going to run Mac OS X is on an iPad, you'd have to adapt it to work with direct multitouch input on a lower powered device. Which would result in... iOS!

 

[paulrbeers]

People always think they want a full blown OS on a tablet, if this worked so well then all of the Windows based tablet PC's would have taken off years ago. A "normal" OS just doesn't work well on a touch based inferface.

 

[spinedoc77]

You don't really need it with solutions like splash top. I use my ipad as a sort of thin client which connects to my Mac, it works beautifully and the great part if you don't need the horsepower on the ipad itself, the Mac still does all the heavy lifting. The only caveat is any mouse intensive activities like maybe editing in photoshop, that's not to mean it can't be done, but it's not the most productive way to do it.

I've long since given up taking my laptop for business conferences or events, with a remote connection I can access every single one of my features or data on my ipad. It seems this is the way we are going, having a single centralized server which may be just your Mac laptop and then using your ipad as a thin client.

 

[steviem]

The hardware specs of an iPad (or any tablet for that matter) is drastically less than the lowest specs for computers. Possible? Yes. When? It will be a long time before tablets can run a full fledged operating system.

Really?

My old 1.25GHz (single core, remember) iBook with 256MB RAM begs to differ.

It won't run Lion, but ran OSX all the same.

Despite this, I don't see the point of using an old metaphor OS for a tablet and if anything, iOS will become more and more useful until one day Macs are gone and nobody really notices it or cares.

Kind of like cooking a frog, put in cold water and slowly heated up, it will cook nicely. Put it in boiling water and it'll jump out and make a mess everywhere. We're currently in luke warm water.

 

[Cheebo]

OSX is the past, iOS is the future. Apple is far far far more likely to put a advanced form of iOS on desktops than OSX on iPads.

iOS will likely completely replace OSX down the line.

 

[BaldiMac]

OSX is the past, iOS is the future. Apple is far far far more likely to put a advanced form of iOS on desktops than OSX on iPads.

iOS will likely completely replace OSX down the line.

Again, why would one replace the other? They are designed for different uses. What's more likely is that breakthroughs that we haven't imagined yet will end the need for either.

 

[jabingla2810]

OSX was designed with a mouse and keyboard in mind.

The iPad was designed with touch in mind, hence it required a different operating system.

Could you imagine using OSX on a 10" display using your finger?
It wouldn't work.

No amount of GHz, cores or RAM will change that.

iOS will continue to evolve and gain the features it is missing, but it won't look anything like OSX.

If anything, the reverse may happen over the coming years, with the Mac OS taking more features from iOS, but not the other way round.

 

[*LTD*]

As OSX gets lighter in its hard drive footprint, iPad I believe could one day sport a full operating system.

It's already got one.

 

[Carouser]

iOS and OS X could undoubtedly merge. Arguing over whether it's iOS becoming more like OS X or vice-versa is stupid.

Posters who want to be above it all will say OS X is being dumbed-down or that iOS is being hauled up fighting and screaming into a 'real' OS. It's all a bunch of nonsense.

 

[BaldiMac]

iOS and OS X could undoubtedly merge. Arguing over whether it's iOS becoming more like OS X or vice-versa is stupid.

Merge in what way? They are different for specific reasons. Which of those reasons are going to change any time soon? They already share a foundation. They will obviously pass features back and forth.

 

[knucles]

Windows 8

I hear windows 8 will be the same versions across the line.

Might become weird having that interface design in the desktop but i like the simplicity of having the exact same OS across all different devices

 

[Carouser]

Merge in what way? They are different for specific reasons. Which of those reasons are going to change any time soon? They already share a foundation. They will obviously pass features back and forth.

Merge in what way? As you say, they will obviously pass features back and forth. As those features increasingly overlap, the differences will become increasingly invisible or irrelevant to the user. Will this happen 'any time soon'? No, but I never said it would.

EDIT: The idea that there will always remain fundamental differences also presumes that hardware will remain binary (tablet OR laptop). That isn't a given.

 

[BaldiMac]

I hear windows 8 will be the same versions across the line.

Might become weird having that interface design in the desktop but i like the simplicity of having the exact same OS across all different devices

Oh, it will be much more confusing than that! Two different interfaces. Metro and Aero (or whatever). Some feature only available in Metro. Some only in Aero. Some programs will run on some devices, but not others.

Simple is not what I would call it.

 

[Mac2012]

OSX is the past, iOS is the future. Apple is far far far more likely to put a advanced form of iOS on desktops than OSX on iPads.

iOS will likely completely replace OSX down the line.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha... okay, what rock did you crawl out from under?

 

[knucles]

Windows 8

Oh, it will be much more confusing than that! Two different interfaces. Metro and Aero (or whatever). Some feature only available in Metro. Some only in Aero. Some programs will run on some devices, but not others.

Simple is not what I would call it.

Based on the presentations i've seen it's the exact same OS, their theory is something like

" if a netbook can run windows 7, everything ( even tablets) will run windows 8 - but i agree that it will be a pain trying to run photoshop on those things( as it is for netbooks today) - and that never stopped microsoft before so i do believe they 'll try

Not suggesting the same, just pointing that a Full OS will run on tablets

 

[BaldiMac]

Based on the presentations i've seen it's the exact same OS, their theory is something like

" if a netbook can run windows 7, everything ( even tablets) will run windows 8 - but i agree that it will be a pain trying to run photoshop on those things( as it is for netbooks today) - and that never stopped microsoft before so i do believe they 'll try

Not suggesting the same, just pointing that a Full OS will run on tablets

I'm not sure if that was meant to contradict anything I said, but that's the theory as I understand it.

 

[BaldiMac]

Merge in what way? As you say, they will obviously pass features back and forth. As those features increasingly overlap, the differences will become increasingly invisible or irrelevant to the user. Will this happen 'any time soon'? No, but I never said it would.

Mouse/Trackpad input requires a different interface than direct multitouch input. It's pretty simple and fundamental to the differences in iOS and Mac OS X.

EDIT: The idea that there will always remain fundamental differences also presumes that hardware will remain binary (tablet OR laptop). That isn't a given.

Of course I assume that. That's the whole point. You might have a single piece of hardware that switches between iOS and Mac OS X, but the differences are still the interface.

The only way that I could see them "merge" is if a new input method is developed that is more efficient than the mouse/trackpad AND direct multitouch. But, to me, that would be a third OS, not a merger.

 

[Carouser]

Mouse/Trackpad input requires a different interface than direct multitouch input. It's pretty simple and fundamental to the differences in iOS and Mac OS X.

One operating system can be designed to handle both forms of input - unless you think it is a priori impossible, or something. But this is all secondary to my original and substantive point, which is that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between iOS becoming 'more like' OS X and vice-versa. It is more meaningful and less loaded to just talk about specific changes to an OS from its previous iteration. The rest is posturing (e.g. 'See! This change to iOS shows that it needed to be just like a real desktop OS'). Somehow you've interpreted my comments in a way which assumes I am in opposition to something you've written.

The only way that I could see them "merge" is if a new input method is developed that is more efficient than the mouse/trackpad AND direct multitouch. But, to me, that would be a third OS, not a merger.

And that distinction is rarely useful, which is my original point. 'Merger' vs. 'new OS' is not an essential, objective feature of an OS, it's an evaluative claim.

 

[Stetrain]

I think if you were to bet on either OSX on an iPad or iOS on a Macbook/laptop at some point in the future, the latter would be the safer bet.

iOS is OSX reimagined for devices with constrained resources and touch interfaces. If Apple were to start over and try to turn Lion into a decent OS for an iPad, they would end up probably very close to where iOS is today.

 

[Night Spring]

If Apple were to start over and try to turn Lion into a decent OS for an iPad, they would end up probably very close to where iOS is today.

But that is exactly what they did! They started with Tiger or Lepard or whatever version of OS X they had when they started working on the iPhone, and tinkered it with to turn it into a decent OS for the iPhone, and that is how we ended up with iOS.

If you have a jailbroken iDevice and look at the sytem files, they are exactly like the system files on a Mac. The only difference is that they locked down iDevices so the end user doesn't have access to those system files.

 

[anthonymoody]

I think the OP's question can be better phrased as....

Are OSX and iOS going to continue to converge such that they will (literally) be a single operating system capable of running on everything from phones, to iPads, to laptops and desktops?

The answer, as I see it, is undoubtedly YES. I mean look, I've been a believer from the beginning (see my signature...) but the reality is that thanks to Moore's law, continued evolution of great productivity apps (see this morning's Avid coverage), continued development of innovative hardware attachments for iOS devices in general and iPads specifically (did you see those new audio mixing consoles apt that were recently announces?) and the writing is on the wall.

Lines are blurring, and the distinctions (and, yes, limitations) of today are slowly but surely going the way of the dodo. It's happening in windows, it's happening in apple land. It's happening.