Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

OS 11: The Future

B1gMac

B1gMac

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 2, 2008
150
0
I have recently been reading up on the latest news about Snow Leopard, and I was thinking to myself, what is there possibly left to do that will give us the huge jump from OSX to OS11 that we got from OS9 to OSX?

Do you have any thoughts?

What is the future of computing improvements in general?
 
OS XI will be a trans-spacial 3D fully multitouch OS that does not use a physical keyboard or mouse at all.

And it's WAY too early to talk about it at all. Steve said that OS X will be around for 20 years, so wait until 2020 to talk about OS XI.
 
There's absolutely no guarantee that the next generation OS is going to be called OS XI. That being said, the switch from PowerPC to Intel processors is arguably as large of a transition as OS 9 to OS X. It was just mostly transparent to the end user.

The original OS (versions 1-9) lasted about 15 years. The OS X platform is less than 10. I have seen no evidence to suggest that the OS X platform is going away or has become out of date.
 
Perhaps we just don't have the vision..

If there is an "OS 11", my guess is that it will be based on the move to multi-core and a network-centric model. A seamless hybrid of the desktop & the cloud/Internet.

Other than that, it is probably more likely that things like iPhone OS or a speech interface to the network computer are the next OS milestones. Not the desktop as we know it.
 
Amdahl said:
Perhaps we just don't have the vision..

If there is an "OS 11", my guess is that it will be based on the move to multi-core and a network-centric model. A seamless hybrid of the desktop & the cloud/Internet.

Other than that, it is probably more likely that things like iPhone OS or a speech interface to the network computer are the next OS milestones. Not the desktop as we know it.
Click to expand...

I would say that the next major leap would be a completely speech based. something that allows us to interact with our computers and not have to touch anything.
 
prostuff1 said:
I would say that the next major leap would be a completely speech based. something that allows us to interact with our computers and not have to touch anything.
Click to expand...

That kind of thing sounds good on paper but in actual use would be highly annoying. Imagine it in an office situation. Or when you need to use the computer when everyone else is in bed.
 
Cromulent said:
That kind of thing sounds good on paper but in actual use would be highly annoying. Imagine it in an office situation. Or when you need to use the computer when everyone else is in bed.
Click to expand...

besides, speech already works for disability as i remember.

"move mouse ten pixels X axle and ten pixels Y axle"
computer: confirmed.
"click"
computer: confirmed.
"s?"?T not DICK, turn that porn site off!"
HAL: "It can only be attributable to human error." ;)
 
What about mind-reading computers? I don't mean this in a sci-fi way. But i'm imagining that it can't be too far off before the computer can figure out what you are looking at. And then it could eventually interpret more advanced things (such as thought ----> typing, etc...)
 
B1gMac said:
What about mind-reading computers? I don't mean this in a sci-fi way. But i'm imagining that it can't be too far off before the computer can figure out what you are looking at. And then it could eventually interpret more advanced things (such as thought ----> typing, etc...)
Click to expand...

That kind of thing has already been done. They just do it by hooking up electrodes to your head and having some kind of sensor and say an infra-red beam shinning out of a head set roughly where your eyes are so it can track your head movements.

Problem is who wants to stick electrodes on their head and wear a big headset everytime they want to use the computer?
 
None of this having anything to do with an Operating System, but the user interface (which ain't the OS).

Unless/until Apple dumps the current iteration of BSD/NextStep and moves to a new underlying architecture, likely with a new filesystem, memory management, etc., it'll still fundamentally all be OS X, just with new eye candy.

Creating a truly new OS is an overwhelming task, and beyond the ken and resources of most corporations. Most "new" OS's in the last twenty or thirty years have just been offshoots or derivations of existing ones.


But if Apple did it, they could call it: A/UX! :p And once that's done, prepare to replace all your applications…
 
JNB said:
...

But if Apple did it, they could call it: A/UX! :p And once that's done, prepare to replace all your applications…
Click to expand...
I assume that you know that A/UX was Apple's System V-based port of AT&T UNIX. It dates back to the days of System 6 and System 7. Apple switched from AT&T UNIX to IBM's AIX as part of the AIM partnership agreement.
 
Interesting thoughts.

I'm personally just having trouble figuring out what Apple might do even for the next release after Snow Leopard. I feel like all that is left to add to computers is really superficial stuff. I can't personally think of anything I would want my computer to do that it can't do now.

I could maybe see the possibility of all new underlying architecture if it made multi-core processing easier all the way down to it's core.

In general though, it's getting near impossible now that we're in the 'internet age' for a complete restructure to happen. There are just way to many programs that we use which aren't made by Apple/ other major software companies (Adobe, Firefox).

It's difficult to make such a change (moreso now than ever), but if it doesn't happen soon, I don't see how it will ever happen. (The number of 3rd party applications are just growing exponentially.)
 
Screenshot showing the "Macintosh HD" of OS XI:

Lcars1.JPG
 
The future of OS11 is going to be in embedded multi-touch "devices".

If engineers can perfect holographic imaging that would be a part of it.

But as an earlier poster said. We're in the *nix environment for a few years. However it needs to refine and evolve. Graphics are a stumbling block for most Unix based O/S's.
 
dunno, native support for themes? or at least colors damn it. ?!
i know eventually everybody goes back to original but its fun to do.
 
I was reading the San Jose Mercury News (CA based) and they have been featuring Macs in the past few weeks. First Apple's stocks falling, 25 year anniversary, Jobs' illness, Unibody Macs vs. Plastic PCs, etc. Today they had this article about how the next mac won't be a "mac" at all. I didn't read the article, but I'm guessing the perspective that we view computers today will change with OS XI and Microsoft will be hard at work copying and failing OS XI.
 
I don't think "touch" is in the future of control. Using a mouse/trackpad, (something within the gesture of a hand), to me seems more effortless; (right now anyway). Control using thought is getting to be more advanced; using your line of sight to direct objects... 11 is a long ways away.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back