“This jibes with something I’ve been thinking about Apple: if it could do the Mac all over again, it would use the iPhone OS,” Segan writes. “Don’t think of the iPad as a big iPod touch. Think of it, rather, as the new Mac—a new mode of home-based computing that Apple hopes will bubble up through its product line.”
“If that market explodes and Apple takes its focus away from the Mac, the Mac platform very well might wither in favor of this new, smooth, controlled experience,” Segan writes. “The MacBook and Mac Mini lines will succumb first, as they are lower-cost and appeal mostly to consumers. Mac Pros will last the longest, as professionals tend to require a wide range of peculiar hardware and accessories.”
“The biggest difference between a Mac and an iPad isn’t ARM vs. X86, or multitouch vs. mouse. Both devices are running modern *NIX-based operating systems… [and] the new iWork for the iPad is proof that Mac-like productivity apps and ARM-based platforms can go well together,” Segan writes. “But the Mac is an open platform, and the iPad is closed.”
Segan writes, “As someone who’s owned a Mac since 1986, and as someone who likes the vibrancy and innovation that open platforms bring to the marketplace, I’ll admit I’m fearful, uncertain, and doubtful. Apple has fallen in love with end-to-end experiences, and I don’t want anyone other than me to have the last word on what I can install on my own home computer.”
There’s a lot more explanation in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We were surprised that Segan’s article didn’t include this quote:
If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it’s worth — and get busy on the next great thing. – Steve Jobs, Fortune Magazine, February 19, 1996
FeeCee magazine – full of crap again.
@cptnkirk
…except that the automatic transmission has pretty much wiped out the manual transmission, and with the advent of hybrid cars, manuals are not long for this world, sadly.
The moment I saw the iPad, my first thought was “that thing would be a fine primary computer for 90% of the population.” It has a nice screen, is portable, does email and web browsing, can stream movies, play music, do light document editing, etc. For most of the computer-consuming public, that’s perfect. Who the hell really wants to know where to install an application, or navigate a file directory? nobody, that’s who.
I can see, in the next 10 years, OS X becoming a professional’s tool, and the iPad line becoming the consumer’s tool. It might make me a little sad, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
Consider the “Cloud”
Developers will still need Macs to create iPad applications. I think it is realistic for non-tech users to switch to devices like the iPad for general computing tasks like web browsing and word processing (with the optional keyboard). However, business and development users will still need a full fledged OS.
“Developers will still need Macs to create iPad applications.”
How else would you create one? On an iPad? How do you get one when it STILL ISN’T AVAILABLE???!!!
Everybody here is talking about TODAY. The article is talking about next year, next five years and next ten years.
Mac OS X is going away. It will be replaced by the OS currently known as iPhone OS. Its user interface will be touch-based. It will eventually provide for attaching peripherals (I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple develops a docking adapter for ordinary USB desktop printers, or an OS update for WiFi printing).
Folks, you seem to be permanently stuck in your thinking!
@KeepHopeAlive
Agreed.
Yea, Steve did “milk the Macintosh for all it’s worth” (with updates)
He then replace (years later) the Mac with OSX.
The iPhone and iPad are just extentions of OSX.
Right, Pedrag, example, patent pending for “tiered touch” (can’t say more), think FatBits;
Photoshop on future iPad.
Think Tomorrow!!!
(Jet Packs are so 1950s)
“”Segan writes. “The MacBook and Mac Mini lines will succumb first, as they are lower-cost and appeal mostly to consumers. Mac Pros will last the longest, as professionals tend to require a wide range of peculiar hardware and accessories.””
Segan talks as if the iPad will supplant other devices, when my acquaintances see it as another accessory to speed things up in the house or on the road. No one I know will give up their MBPro or Mac Pros or Mac Minis.
It will be Apple’s competitors who are hit, as they already are.
As I recall it, Apple owns the $1000+ laptop market with a 90% share in the U.S. HP, Dell, Toshiba are also-rans a gasp away from death.
Segan is wrong. The iPhone OS IS the Mac OS. It has been designed to be adaptable from a small iPod to a fast server, because…it was & is UNIX, probably one of the finest OSs in the world and amongst the longest lived.
They miss the idea. A touch interface is nice for small mobil devices where you most of the time receive information and MacOS with mouse and keyboard interface is better for large displays where you create information. Together they will built a nice ecosystem and Mac marketshare will grow in the wake of ipad/iphone success even if the absolute sales numbers are much smaller.
The iPad is a threat to some portion of all laptop sales, regardless of Windows or OSX since it syncs via iTunes.
However, there is a large portion of both the laptop and desktop market that the iPad cannot replace (at least for the next few years, with regard to the laptop).
No… iPad still needs to sync to a Mac or PC… So you always need two devices. basic iPad $600, Mac mini $600…. total investment $1200 for basic iPad.
I WAS going to buy a new MBP, no longer. I am buying an iMac and an iPad as another poster is doing. My son is going to do the same thing. Our sales group at work is holding off purchasing MacBooks or PCs until the iPad can be evaluated. There is no doubt that MacBook sales are eventually going to slump.
Calm down, the future will be great – there will be content creating apple machines and content consuming apple machines; I don’t think we have to fear the future – I still run sometimes OS9 on my old g4cube, and it’s terrible compared to os x… Back then I hated os x, the new finder etc. And now I am loving it. Time is going forward. Sometimes I bring my really old machines from the garage, nostalgy… But I am looking forward for OS 11 or what it’s name will be…
Only Apple has the balls to kill their own products with newer, better products.
That’s why they are still successful.
IBM or Microsoft would have created an iPhone without iPod (so it doesn’t cannibalize iPod sales), or some sort of “plug” where you can plug an iPod nano into an iPhone…
That’s why Apple leads and all others just follow.
Also, see that recent article where an ex-MSFT-manager recounts how competing division-managers at MSFT killed the MS-tablet by a mixture of mischief, incompetence and turf-wars.
That’s the reason why MSFT can’t come up with anything else but Windows and Office: it’s too successful and a sacred cow that nobody can touch.
Well, if Apple was to dump the Mac from its product line, I would jump ship in a heartbeat. I also do not want to be tethered to a limited (and somewhat) mobile device.
I’ll flee to Linux, Amiga or even Haiku in a flash!
“”If that market explodes and Apple takes its focus away from the Mac”
It didn’t happen with the ipod, didn’t happen with the iPhone and won’t happen with the iPad, it’s just that simple.
It’s more probable PCs are the losers in the battle, not the Mac.
the iPad at this point is an extension of the laptop/desktop computer, and not a replacement for heavy users, but is a replacement for casual computer users who much more heavily skew to PC and shop on pricepoint.
Someday the iPhone, not the iPad, will kill the mac when a mac pro fits in the iPod form factor or smaller. The closed computing paradigm (aka Kiosk Mode / aka simple finder) won’t necessarily follow the form factor, like the author of the article is suggesting. In iPhone OS4 I predict we will see a few new features that blur the line.
In the office I work at there are a bunch of Windows
users that are waiting for Arrandale i-7 based MacBooks
to replace their Windows laptops with MacBook Pros
with Parallels and Fusion to run their enterprise apps
because they are fed up with their current Windows
laptops. They are all waiting to buy iPads too. For
them it’s not MacBooks or iPads. It’s Sony, Dell or MacBooks
AND iPads (not OR iPads). I already use a MacBook Pro but
the day the Arrandale books come out I will be running to my
local Apple store to buy myself a new MacBook Pro AND an
iPad, AND a new iPhone as soon as the new iPhones come
out in the next few months. Everyone I know is waiting to
get new iPhones, new iPads, and new MacBooks as soon
as Apple is ready to sell them to us.
“iPads killing Macs”? Not in the universe I inhabit.
We may see Dell suffer. Palm suffer. Even Sony.
But Apple? I don’t think so. My wallet doesn’t think so either.
The iPod, iPhone and iPad are “Post-PC devices”. There will always be room for laptops and desktops, but not everyone needs one. The point is similar to the iPod mini being cannibalized by the nano. Apple will benefit, because the next devices will sell far more than the ones they are replacing.
The desktop systems are not going away.
The iPad is for the mobile segment.
I would not want my only possible desktop device to be an iPad setting in the keyboard dock. It is just not big enough. I want a big screen on the desk.
Now maybe if you had your very powerful 3rd or 4th generation iPad, that could handle really demanding tasks, and a large monitor on your desk that you could just slide the iPad into from the side…
I wonder if anybody has a patent on that idea?
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All you would need for the connection is Light Peak.
He completely contradicted his own argument. How can the iPad and its successors replace the Mac by simply being a closed platform? To replace it it would have to open up to offer similar functionality across the board. If he were simply saying that this type of device would be the focus in its place then I presume he wouldn’t go on about it finally replacing the pro machines for they would simply become irrelevant to the company as a product and wouldn’t transform at all.
He is correct however in saying that the aim is to replace the Mac OS but this would be a long term strategy and would gradually open more as it did so, certainly as it entered the professional sphere. It would have to, to succeed in doing what is its aim, that is create a whole new computing paradigm and create a dominant future market which Apple can actually win in numbers as well as profitability. That said it will only open up as, where, and when it is required to do so to enter the serious Mac marketplace. Until then the Mac will be protected and the closed nature of the iPhone OS is by its nature helping do just that in the shorter term.
Once it can bluetooth with 30 inch screens and other peripherals as well as it’s own keyboard, it will offer a true alternative. Only consumer demand will decide whether it totally replaces desktops.
Wouldn’t it be the same thing as a desktop then? I see the iPad as a mobile entertainment, casual use and maybe some light word processing device. Seems to me it will compete with netbooks, or perhaps the small, thin & light laptops.
Copypock! Sheer copypock!