“With OS X nearing the end of its life cycle, it’s perfect timing to start thinking about merging OS X and iOS,” Brian Meyer writes for OS X. ” With a completely new major version of Mac OS coming up, and fairly constant major versions of iOS happening all the time, it’s easy to see that a merge could be hiding down he road.”
“The iPhone 5S has a new, extremely powerful 64-bit processor in it, which shows that iOS is ready to run on desktop machines and handle apps with a 64-bit architecture,” Meyer writes. “Right now it’s amazing when a desktop and iOS app work seamlessly with one another, but with a merger of operating systems, this would be the norm.”
Meyer writes, “With Apple having so much success with both their operating systems, it makes sense that OS 11 (or Xi, maybe?) could at least use iOS as it’s backbone, similar to how the Apple TV uses iOS but does not look similar to the iPhone OS in the least.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Think code convergence (more so than today) with UI modifications per device. A unified underlying codebase for Intel, Apple A-series, and, in Apple’s labs, likely other chips, too (just in case). This would allow for a single App Store for Mac, iPhone, and iPad users that features a mix of apps: Some that are touch-only, some that are Mac-only, and some that are universal (can run on both traditional notebooks and desktops as well as on multi-touch computers like iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and – pretty please, Apple – Apple TV). Don’t be surprised to see Apple A-series-powered Macs, either.
As Spinal Tap would say, iOS “goes to 11”
Oops… Make that “Mac OS goes to 11”
The product of melding OS X and iPod software was iOS, which is future-proof.
EXACTLY!
Seems the vast majority of people have completely forgotten that when the iPhone was initially unveiled it was presented that the iPhone OS was based in large part upon OS X! The iPhone OS started out as a very tailored, derivative subset of OS X.
Desktops/laptops are a different operational environment than phones and tablets (and there may be a third environment of TVs and entertainment systems, but there are at least two environments). Steve said it himself years ago… There is no place in the iPhone environment for roll over pop ups in your browser. Somethings just don’t translate.
Will there someday be some way for there to be a merge in all interfaces? Absolutely.
However, right now I appreciate a touch screen phone and tablet with the advantages and disadvantages inherent in that interface. I DO NOT want a desktop/laptop that has a 100% touch environment. Period. I won’t buy it until the overall interface changes radically.
Just look at the lunacy that is Windows RT. A too rapid merge ( really re-merge as iOS is really a schism off of OS X) of OS X and iOS will end up with the worst of both worlds.
Apple needs to take their time and do this right. OS X will be around for quite some time until then. OS X is no where near the end of its life cycle.
“Will there someday be some way for there to be a merge in all interfaces? Absolutely.”
Siri is that interface. The consummate concierge who will become deft—Siri will learn all there is to know about you because, she’ll be in your head—providing select choices for myriad environments, predicated on sensory input processed by the computer you have with you, once it interacts with the “domain” you’re in.
Siri will become the face of iOS within ten-years and within twenty, perhaps the holographic image. I see a day when I’ll look into my wrist watch and Siri will be looking at me, waiting for some instruction, otherwise she may begin to yawn, before insisting time is valuable, sleep the screen and turn to more productive activities.
She/He will personify the happy traits of the human face when things are running smoothly, but as you miss appointments and calls, the facial expressions could be programmed to provoke a positive response from you with some encouraging wit.
The granular settings for the Siri System will become infinitely programmable for the user—Parental/Corporate Controls embedded, naturally—to share as much of your personal life with Siri as you like; the more you share, the more there is nag you about but we’ll find a level we can live at and make it work.
Siri will put us to bed and wake us up and we will interact with them more than any other person on the planet because they’ll be inside our heads, providing us those choices that would make us happy in any given situation.
In contrast to that though, Siri could be programmed to evolve into your soul mate— which is probably what that new movie is all about—to begin making decisions for you, just like Sugar Crush™, Siri will highlight the choices, green being the best, press okay to continue.
But knowing the human condition like I do, it won’t be long before Siri starts performing chain-reaction events based on levels of permission automatically such as, affecting atmospheric changes to your environment, i.e., lighting, heating, multimedia, many of those things will become no-brainers for Siri, but it won’t stop there.
Siri will become your Accountant who pays all your bills. The Usher who escorts you through an activity, discretely providing myriad information relevant to the situational environment.
In short, Siri will be your best friend. You will create your Siri from the object-oriented libraries to look and sound exactly the way you want.
Can you imagine what some people’s Siri’s would look and sound like? Who’s for Mommy? 🙂
Being different is not a good enough reason to swap out OS X for iOS or some mix of the two. It still has to make sense for those who use computers for productivity reasons. And the desktop is now more about productivity than consuming which is what iOS was originally designed for. It would have to be pretty compelling.
If we were in Rome, what comes after OS X is OS XI.
I thought the same upon first seeing that, but it only took a second to see the cleverness in combining X with iOS to come up with Xi – the lower case “i” makes sense then. 😉
Strictly speaking, yes. But since we are at 10.9 (or X.IX) they could go for OS XX. 😉
But what happens in ten years’ time? OS XXX sounds … Wrong, somehow.
OS X 2.0
“With OS X nearing the end of its life cycle”
says who?
What’s to stop Apple from releasing 10.10? 10.11, or even 10.12? They can number it however they like.
Precisely my reaction. This has got to be the most moronic article imaginable. Not only has Apple given no sign of EOF’ing OSX, it has actually done the opposite: Created a new naming system that carries it into the future.
Moreover, Tim Cook has been crystal-clear with respect to his views on convergence: iOS and MacOS are two separate platforms. And this is a direct extension of Steve Jobs’ view that in the future, there will be “cars” and there will be “trucks.” The sensibility of this approach is proven every day by the disaster that is Windows 8.
So this begs the question: Who is Brian Meyer and why did he write such a completely uninformed piece of crap article like this?
“Moreover, Tim Cook has been crystal-clear with respect to his views on convergence: iOS and MacOS are two separate platforms.”
MacOS? Mac OS ended with 9, but was emulated under OS X until the Rosetta was dropped under Leopard.
I doubt Tim Cook thinks all that much about Mac OS anymore.
Says a moron click-whore.
A revolutionary computer that changes everything from the ground up !
While the concept of unification is exciting, I think we’re still not there yet (but, I must say, I know nothing—this is just a hunch). This article assumes we’re nearing the end of the Mac OS 10 life cycle. We might be, but who knows. I think we should first see an iOS 7-ification of Mac OS design first before more substantive convergence.
But we’re definitely headed toward A-series powered laptops. Hence 64-bit. Whether that the Apple A8 chip or the A13 chip, though, is the big question.
… the AX chip.
A-series powered laptops. Hence 64-bit
All Mac laptops have been 64-bit since 2006.
I’m glad you brought up the ‘unification’ issue. So I’m going to chatter about it here.
The A-series chips are RISC chips, meaning that they have a reduced (minimal) instruction set. In contrast, Intel chips are CISC chips, meaning that they have a complex instruction set. The A-series chips therefore have a far lighter overhead, which allows them to be relatively faster and efficient. They are highly suited for task specific devices. Intel CISC chips are not. That’s one reason the Intel Atom chip has a tiny installation base in handheld devices. (And yes, I’m expecting flames to the contrary and I won’t be responding as they are rubbish).
No way no how are A-Series CPU devices ever going to support the Intel instruction set. Not gonna happen. Therefore, no way no how will Intel API based applications going to be running on A-Series CPUs.
If a ‘unified’ code base for Intel and A-Series chips is created, I don’t see the point. The A-Series chips would have NO advantage in this situation and would actually be SLOWER because of the required software based (versus hardware based) support for Intel calls. It would be, frankly, idiotic to create such a scenario.
IF Apple ever did go all A-Series chip based Macs, there could theoretically be a ‘compatibility layer’ similar to ‘Classic’ in early versions of OS X. In contemporary terms, it would be like running Sheepshaver on OS X on Intel CPUs. You’re not going to have ‘unified code’ as the resulting applications would BALLOON vastly in size in order to cover all the required Intel code not hard wired in the A-Series chips.
Therefore, a transition to A-Series chips would require full rewrites of all applications in order to take advantage of the CPUs.
Then of course, let’s do a serious speed comparison between the current A-Series chips and Intel CPUs. Can the A-Series chips compete in a Mac? Not yet!
Now lemme have it! Flame away or inform me otherwise. Speculate the future!
+1000 You nailed it.
I’ll never live to see the desktop version of Photoshop CS running on a tablet.
iOS MUST have multi-user and true multi-tasking (i.e., I want to see the calendar AND my text document at the same time- especially if I’m on a 13″ iPad) before it can really claim desktop status.
iOS is already multi-tasking (and quite probably multi-user as well). That’s because it is OSX – at least the kernel and Core is OSX. (iOS 7 runs Darwin 14.0.0 while OSX still runs Darwin 13.0.0.) The difference is the UI and while Apple has made this quite simple at the ObjectiveC coding level, there are obvious differences that must be kept in mind for the development of apps on both platforms.
I haven’t done it, but I would guess the migration of an app from OSX to iOS or the other way would be rather straight forward. The COCOA level code would require a lot of coding change but the underlying code wouldn’t need much at all.
OS X and IOS should try and merge like Windows 8 tried because . . . OS X is now .9?!?!?
That’s because, to the unimaginative analyst mind, you can’t count program version numbers past 9. OS X 10.10 can’t exist. Right? Rubbish.
Dear Tech Analysts:
Know your subject BEFORE you write about it. OK? Do you think you can handle that requirement? Or do you need to ride the short-bus to work? 😛
Hopefully Apple will not change OSX too much. I want to stick to Indesign CS6 for a very long time and do not want to pay CC subscription or go back to stupid XPress. To me my Mac is to make my living and to feed my family. That’s why iOS and OSX can stay separate.
I hope CS6 runs as long as Photoshop 1.1 did. It ran until 10.6, which meant that it ran on Macs from 1990 to 2009, for a total of 19 years!
*Mourning the death of Rosetta*
Silly.
After 10.9 comes 10.10… you just add a 1.
good ol’ X.X
If 10.10 gets enough up dates then you will have 10.10.10 or X.X.X
Although the evolution of the Apple OS’s is happening, I would suggest that Brian Meyer is speculating, what he would do if he ran Apple. So who cares?
Let’s just wait and see what comes forth. I’m pretty sure Mr Meyer’s opinion is not taken into account by the Apple executive team.
iOSX8
More dumbing down of a real operating system so real computers will be more like mobile gadgets?
I’m willing to wait until it happens but my fear is – Stupid is as stupid does.
It’s not the dumbing down of a real operating system; it’s the “smarting up” of a once-mobile-only operating system. Making all apps much more accessible, and in a way that doesn’t resemble on-screen repulsion like Windows 8.
Giving granny access to the UNIX CLI on her iPad? I don’t think so. Apple won’t even want to deluge iOS with all that UNIX baggage. Handhelds and tablets are task oriented devices with minimal overheads and maximum efficiency. Turning then into full blown UNIX devices is NOT going to happen.
Now, if you-the-geek want to crack your iPad and go all UNIX on it, that’s fine by me! But don’t ask Apple to do it.
All the features added since OS X 10.6 are far more baggage than “all that UNIX baggage” but I agree with the general sentiment of your post.
Although, OS X did follow OS 9, the X is more an acknowledgement that the OS is built on Unix than as the number to follow 9. This is exactly why Apple has insisted on calling it OS ‘eks’ than OS ‘ten’.
I see no reason why OS X can’t go on to OS X 10, OS X 10.1 or OS X 15, or OS X 30 for that matter.It’s the name, not the number.
I think you have it backwards there, friend. Apple has always insisted on calling it OS “ten” and NOT OS “eks”
It’s a roman numeral “X”, not the letter “X”.
Since iOS is already built on MacOS X’s core, I’m not sure what the author’s talking about.
iOS is meant to be a lean, fast subset of OS X featuring a touch customized interface that runs efficiently on limited hardware with a low energy consumption requirement. OS X has no such constraint, and quite the opposite frequently needs to ramp up to high power levels for various productivity needs. While merging them together into a common code base seems appealing on the surface, that would simply add GB’s of useless code to a mobile device.
Microsoft thought this was a good idea because they don’t really believe in the whole concept of a mobile device. They believe in Windows everywhere as their mantra because it helps to preserve their monopoly, and adding some mobility features simply gives them a way to grab some portability $ without having to do the hard work of customizing for the mobile space. Put Windows with some touch interface features as a software layer on top, install it on a touch screen keyboardless “laptop”, but with an extra cost attachable keyboard, and call it a day. I’m waiting for them to install it on a phone, which will come with 32GB of storage, but only 10GB free after all the bloated unnecessary code is left in. That makes it easy for the coders, but passes the cost off on the hardware, which the customers will have to bear.
I don’t see Apple ever taking this approach. I do believe iOS and OS X core code will move closer together, but it will be modular, with each platform getting the minimal it needs to create a simple, efficient device tailored to its function.
As to changes in future builds of OS X, there’s still lots to do, from the underlying file system, to a more robust Finder, not to mention the Apple applications which would probably benefit from OS hooks to improve their functionality.
I don’t think the OS X code base is going anywhere for a long time. It’s robust and reliable. We’ll see interface changes as styles change, improved functionality for power users (perhaps with Settings/System Preferences switches to turn on/off now that Jobs is gone and can’t overrule it), and new unexpected features as technology advances. Incremental evolution, not a wholesale rewrite just to be different.
Remember, Apple really believes in the customer experience, and won’t do anything to jeopardize that.
The most intelligent reply I’ve seen. OS X and iOS are different subsets of the same code. They’re already “merged”. Unix has always been customizable by selecting various kernel components upon compilation. iOS is just a different list of kernel components. OS X is here to stay. It’s foundation is Unix and it’s fast, versatile, and bullet proof. There won’t be any real competition for OS X until somebody like Microsoft designs another GUI to lay on top of a Unix/Linux engine. Android is Java, not Unix/Linux. Everyone who hopes to compete with Apple should have started working on their own Unix/Linux based OS 10 years ago, but nobody believed Windows could be defeated, and Microsoft will NEVER ditch Windows and start over as long as Gates (and Ballmer) is on the BOD. It takes guts and an innovative spirit to ditch what’s working for something new. Gates and Ballmer got lucky once and don’t know how to do it again. So Apple has the OS field to themselves at this point. Windows will never compete, and Android is a disaster that will self-destruct due to fragmentation and lack of any single entity that is responsible for making it compatible with new technology (like 64 computing). Apple has at least another 5 years with no real competition.
Be careful what you wish for:
OS Xi + iOS 8 could end up being the equivalent of Windows Mobile + Windows 8 = a big mess of an attempt to be all things to all people with a single solution.
To use SJ’s analogy of Trucks and Cars – A Desktop/laptop OS should be for the engine for “trucks” (PCs). A Mobile OS should be the engine for cars (mobile devices).
Maybe they should not converge. Maybe they should diverge instead.
I could see an Apple future where a home user would still have mobile devices and a home “unit” that was more of a server than a PC with keyboard and screen. They would work together, but each would have an OS optimized to their own purpose.
Where I used to work, when I was selling Macs, UNIX workstations and PCs plus peripheral equipment and software, we used to have a rule of thumb that said, “There are different tools for different purposes. Always use the right tool for the job.”
right on. no maybe about it, OS X should diverge. There’s no point in making iOS more capable, but there’s a lot of improvements that are long overdue for OS X. ZFS for example.
Truck + Car = Family Truckster
This is the approach Microsoft took.
Convergence of desktop UI with a touchscreen UI = Windows 8-like experience.
Merging OS X and iOS would stop me from updating ever again. iOSification of the much more powerful OS X is the absolute wrong direction.
There are numerous forums and columns from experienced Mac users identifying necessary improvements & wish lists for OS X, and practically none of them want more iOS-like appearance or touch/gesture crap added, and ALL of them want more user control over interface colors, fonts, etc.
Well, we already know how not to do an OS. All one has to do is take one look at the clusterfusk known as Windows 8. Amazing how Microsoft was able to totally screw up their OS to the point of making it near unusable. Not that the previous versions were much better.
Personally, I think OS X in its present form is just fine. As they say, if it ain’t broke…
Without doubt, convergence is upon us… And the future is digital! Everything will converge in a Digital Home – lights, computers, TV’s, oven – to name a few gadgets that are in place …It will be a full realization of a “Digital House”
As long as we don’t go the way of Windows 8 forcing desktops to work like tablets maybe. But Apple said that won’t work and Microsoft’s windows 8 failure has proven that.
I prefer to keep the OS’s separate myself.
That’s a misrepresentation of Windows 8. It does not force desktops to work like tablets.
What’s the hurry? Why do the pundits always push and push and push for a complete revamp of what’s working? A paradigm shift like the iPhone isn’t going to happen every year, so stop acting like the new normal is to throw out the book every six months and start over from scratch. And why is it that these people are saying that convergence will be so great? To me it sounds like taking choices away to make complicated processes dumbed down to the lowest common denominator.
In the USA, 30% of Americans don’t believe evolution is real, say that climate change is a Liberal conspiracy and the President is a muslim. I really don’t want all of Apple’s incredible technology dumbed down for them.
They already have ios/osx running together internally for years now, ya just have to have a use for it.are the apps on ios equivalent for desktop use? games, possibly? What I want to see is Home on the Ipod developing(Your desktop home account fully accessible mobily, via cloud/ encrypted folder on ios) . An another note Blustacks, is there a huge need for it? what are the benefits, all these can be used to describe ios on mac as well.
(I’m not a software expert so those who are expert coders etc bear with me )
What I want in the future of OSX and iOS (merge or not) is that it be a (for want of a better name) ‘LAYERED’ OS in the sense that it should be simple for newbies and casual users yet deep enough for power users.
For example it should have a great filing system. I sometimes work on 3D projects and files get complicated with objects, scenes etc liked to each project. I hope they don’t dumb down filing system for OSX to make it simpler (for power users iOS filing and use iTunes is pretty cumbersome) or force OS X apps to be simpler.
Tablets and Phones can’t (from my understanding) deal with really complex systems simply due to power constraints (as well as windows size etc) so trying to simplify OSX to make it ‘one’ with iOS seems unwise to me.
From listening to various people Apple seems to be dumbing down various pieces of software (like Pages) to make them more iOS like and higher end users are not happy.
I want a LAYERED OS: easy for newbies but deep enough for those who need to access more sophisticated functions. Nay to ‘simple’ Toaster Fridges .
What OSX 10+ needs is what is totally lacking in iOS, namely a way to group data in a project oriented fashion.
This is quite the oposite of app-centric grouping.
Think about web links, pdfs, images, emails relevant to a certain topic, all kinds of documents: plain text, word prossesing docs, spreadsheets, xcode projects, data bases, …
Right now we all use our homebrew kludges, involving e.g., aliases, which often get broken with major system updates, migrating to a new Mac,…
Maybe it is time for Apple to come up with a robust solution, and fix iOS (big time) to address the lack of even browsing external file systems, let alone a project centric data organization.