“On Feb. 15, Apple posted an ad on its Web site for an engineering manager ‘to lead a team focused on bring-up of iPhone OS [operating system] on new platforms.’ Days later, Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook called the company ‘a mobile device company,” echoing remarks by Chief Executive Steve Jobs, who in January said “Apple is the largest mobile device company in the world,'” Kharif reports.
“An adaptation of the operating system used in Macintosh computers, the iPhone OS runs the iPhone, iPod Touch music player, and the forthcoming iPad tablet computer,” Kharif reports. “In the future, analysts say, Apple may put the OS onto Web-connected TV machines and devices that help viewers watch 3D programming. The Cupertino (Calif.)-based company may also consider licensing the iPhone OS to outside cell-phone manufacturers. Apple has shipped more than 75 million devices based on the iPhone OS, which lets users download and run applications such as games and calendars sold at the Apple App Store.”
“Apple may embed the iPhone OS in a Web-connected TV, says Charlie Wolf, a senior analyst at Needham & Co. ‘Where Apple is noticeably almost absent is in the living room,’ Wolf says. ‘It represents the natural migration of the operating system. And it’s going to be a big market,'” Kharif reports. “Currently, Apple sells Apple TV, a set-top box that lets users buy and rent high-definition movies through its online iTunes Store. The $229 gadget, introduced in 2007, isn’t yet a big source of revenue for Apple, executives say. Cook and Jobs have both called Apple TV a ‘hobby.’ Still, Apple will invest in Apple TV ‘because our gut tells us there’s something there,’ Cook said at a Goldman Sachs conference on Feb. 23.”
Kharif reports, “Another place Apple could use the iPhone OS is in eyewear that lets users watch 3D movies on the go, says Richard Doherty, a director at consultant Envisioneering Group… A partner like Motorola could help Apple’s software broaden its reach without jeopardizing Apple’s brand, Doherty says. In 2005, the two companies collaborated on the Motorola Rokr phone, enabling it to access songs on iTunes.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Something tells us that Richard Doherty couldn’t analyze his way out of a wet paper bag, much less accurately predict where Apple’s going next.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Bill D.” for the heads up.]
iPhone OS still sounds – odd!
OS X Mobile 3.2 would be better maybe?
This is all a ruse. If anybody in their right mind hasn’t already figured out that Apple is playing opossum with the industry it couldn’t be more clear. You can’t for one minute tell me that Apple is just now realizing that they’d be at some advantage for putting the iPhone OS on other devices! This OS, a derivation of OSX is quite similar in it’s underpinnings to other OSes like Linux. Look at what the Linux nuts have been doing for years… Putting Linux on just about anything that’ll boot. So, for some pundit to just now discover, or for Tim Cook, Steve Jobs, Phil Schiller, etc. to sit back and tell us that they’re exploring the possibilities is just bating the competition. It’s already being done and probably on some pretty cool devices in pretty cool ways.
Well until that last bit with Motorola this was simply a stretch of the imagination but thereafter it was pure science fiction… though mostly without the science.
Everything that can be invented has been invented.
Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899 (attributed)
“May” … “could” … The usual baseless speculation with no hard evidence. Another waste of electrons!
@Gosh
The original idea was to call it OS X iPhone, but iPhone OS seems to have taken hold. You’re right, OS X Mobile would be more versatile.
” . . . the iPhone OS, which lets users download and run applications such as games and calendars sold at the Apple App Store.”
Obviously he has no clue. Calendars! OMG!
No way will Apple license the iphone OS to other cellphone maker. This guy just have no clue. Very ignorant.
@Steveeee
The only way it would happen is with rebadged iPhones, the way HP did with the iPod (though we all know how that ended…)
Mobile Software That Actually Works™
Apple Eyewear OS 3.3?
Good God… stop.. Doherty… you’re killing me
LMFAOOOOOO!!
I don’t doubt Apple is looking at other devices it could use the iPhone OS in. Don’t forget Apple recently won a patent for 3D interfaces.
However, licensing to another cell phone manufacturer will never happen. He also failed to mention that putting iTunes in the ROKR was a miserable failure because Motorola had such a crappy phone. Apple won’t go down that road again.
Just wish my TV, VCR, DVD, BlueRay and so on all had an OS X on screen interface, so that working the devices would be a whole lot easier.
I think Ford is a good car manufacture. They might be my next car.
But I can’t get over MS Sync being in my future Ford.
I want OX Mobile 3.2 in my car.
“OS X MultiTouch” – Rebranding of the OS will happen sometime around June.
It will also shut up the ignorant idiots who gripe that they’d only buy an iPad if it has OS X on it.
It does.
It will.
@Gosh
“iPhone OS still sounds – odd!
OS X Mobile 3.2 would be better maybe?”
Straight from the MS School of Product Nomenclature, don’t ya think?
OS X Mobile 3.2?
You know that when properly spoken that says “OS Ten Mobile 3.2”, right?
What an awful name.
Either go with the rumored iOS moniker, OS M, or frankly anything more phonetically pleasing than that suggestion…
@rageous
‘OS X Mobile’ would be the likely reference!
of course you can make a phone call on an iPod Touch or an iPad can’t ya!?!
Either Apple promote the underlying OS shared with the Mac or they might as well rename it something funky, “Copper”, “Brass” anyone? How about Darwin? Rhapsody?
Court JesterCheck, Its already here, The only “Mac based” whole house automation control system, built right over Mac OSX! Check out Savant, this is the Ultimate Mac home and business solution. They can even install in Marine applications as well. Kick A** stuff.
http://savantav.com Here’ the link to there site.
Everything that can be invented has been invented.
Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899 (attributed
This quotation is not really the words of Mr. Duell. There is a long-standing urban legend about a patent director making such a statement, and this particular version may have originated in “The Book of Facts and Fallacies” by Chris Morgan and David Langford (1981). There is no evidence that anyone in the patent office really said anything of the sort. [note by Michael Moncur, October 18, 2005]