“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
Clueless article, although for many people who only do word-processing, spreadsheets and presentation along with maybe some custom software from their employer, the iPad might to some degree replace the laptop. People will still have desktops at home, but I know quite a few people who won’t be as dependent on a laptop once the iPad arrives. What do you think? “”Less dependent on” could mean waiting an extra year or two to replace a laptop. I’m not a journalist looking for hits so I won’t proclaim my opinion “the death of the laptop”.
Yet, another reviewer with no 1st hand knowledge of the items he’s writing about…. sigh.
“Segan writes, “‘…I’ll admit I’m fearful, uncertain, and doubtful.'”
FUDful?
@Predrag: “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!”
I agree completely. The Mobile OS of next month isn’t going to replace the Mac OS of today, but over a period of years the Mobile OS — and the new devices it will run on — will gradually grow into a replacement for most of what the Mac OS is used for today. What we now think of as the Mac OS will become a special-purpose, high-end version of the Mobile OS that will provide for a wider variety of inputs/outputs and probably won’t be completely touch-centric.
Microsoft is the poster child for the futility of trying to scale down from a lumbering general purpose OS (and apps) to mobile. With no legacy cash-cow software to protect, Apple has chosen the smarter path: to scale up.
That’s like saying hamburger sales will kill the steak. Not happening, it’s a different experience to meet a different need.
I have a G5 tower desktop a MacBook Pro an iPod touch and an iPhone in my household and need them all. There is no way I will give up the desktop and will most probably replace it with a new shiny iMac within the next 12 months. These guys write shit just for the sake of writing shit.
All I need now is an iPad and permission from my wife to buy it!
iPad is unlikely to damage any Mac. The Mac Mini for example now has a long lease of life if only as an inexpensive but fully capable Mac for switchers BUT also as the lowest cost entry level military grade OS server for SMEs. The iMac is an unrivalled desktop, even for many creatives. The laptops will survive because they have the full OS although the non-pro books may suffer. The Mac Pro line will continue for its limited markets even as a loss leader. It keeps Mac houses loyal and they buy in to many lesser models in non-spec-driven roles.
I think the real victims will be netbooks and PC products. Many PC makers only survive because of the high volumes of small change they make from netbooks. When you compete with so many others on such similar commodity specs, price is the only differentiator and PC prices cannot rise above their current level of minimal profit per unit. Also, even PC fanboys no longer get a hard-on when a new model is announced. They all know that Apple makes the best Wintel PC too.
As Apple expands its range of mobile computers, like the iPad, there will be very very little oxygen left for any PC maker to survive on. Imagine the mischief if Apple brought out a really low-cost desktop. All the PC guys would buy it to run Windows but play with OS X when they were alone.
What’s coming through in these responses is really interesting. People with simpler needs who had to buy a full-blown Mac or PC will switch to iPads or other new devices on the way from Apple. Macs are the minority market share owner. The real losers will be the PC makers because when their users with simpler needs come to upgrade or realise how fed up they are with Wintel, they will cross over to iPad. Mac buyers will tend to continue buying Macs and get iPads for doing the simpler stuff in a simpler way. It’s a win-win for Apple. Their market share across all devices is set to skyrocket. The more so when the ‘never could get the hang of computers’ billion+ get to hold and use an iPad. It is so inexpensive and so simple that any reservations about hidden complexity will vanish in 30 minutes or less.
Well, if it’s from PC world it must be true, NOT. The greatest ideas don’t come from journalist, however most of the screwed up ones do.
If you can run Final Cut Pro, Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, After Effects, PowerPoint or similar power-user apps on an iPad, why on earth would you need a laptop?
Give iPad one year; there will be thousands of desktop-class apps for it. There will be hundreds of hardware accessories (connecting to the dock) that will expand functionality in the same way you can expand a laptop.
There may be a few more cats down the Mac OS X line, but the road is a dead end. Mac hardware will go through yet another switch: from Intel to Apple’s own A4 (or A5, A6 or whatever the successor may be called). And the OS on those Mac desktops won’t be Mac OS X anymore. It will be fully multi-touch controlled iPhone OS 6.0 (further expanded to provide all the necessary functionality of a powerful desktop OS).
When the Macintosh took off and the Apple II line (ending with the IIgs) was no longer state-of-the-art, Apple discontinued the IIs and put it’s eggs in the Mac basket. Apple is a company that has to make money for it’s stockholders. They’ll market the products that meet their corporate ideals and make a profit. That’s just good business.
I think Predrag is spot on. I currently use a my Mac for graphics work so I understand why some people are raising a concern. That said, I personally would love to be able to do graphics work and other higher end stuff on an iPad like device.
I think the future is iPad. The Mac will morph into iPad type products and we will wonder how we ever lived without them.
I believe that Steve (or was it Time Cook) in addition to referring to the next iPhone as an A upgrade , also said that the next iMac would take Macs to the “next level”.
I look forward to that as well.
It’s another great Apple (AAPL) year. All aboard!
Well, I can’t say that that won’t happen, or that it isn’t already in Apple’s plan, but that would be a smart move on Apple’s part.
Creative professionals, like myself…(well, put it this way…someone pays me to be creative…so I’m batting at least 50%)
…we creative professionals CAN’T edit HD video on a iPad or any tablet for that matter and DON’T WANT TO edit video on a PC, or even an Avid running on a MAC.
So I think there will always be a market for Apple computers.
Final Cut Pro has made major in-roads into Hollywood. Final Cut is NOT QUITE as robust as the top of the line Avid, but FCP is changing the way Hollywood edits – Avid wants Hollywood’s editing workflow to fit within it’s media production methodology and they’re not as user friendly or even accommodating.
Remember who this is coming from – PC Magazine’ Segan
In response to user “KeepHopeAlive”‘s “Why do these guys just pull stuff out of their ass?”
That’s what you have to do when you’re full of S@#$
This guy probably thinks IBM stopped making personal computers too. Freakin’ igit
You can have my Macintosh workstation when you pry the magic mouse from my cold, dead fingers.
What limited thinking.
The iPod, iPhone and iPad are (primarily) content consumption devices for (primarily) consumers.
Macs are (primarily) a content creation devices.
Ok, I am confused about something. When you folks say the iPad won’t sync via the cloud, are you referring to MobileMe? Are you saying in order sync iCal etc, I’ll have to tether the iPad to a desktop or laptop computer? If that is the case, it is baffling since mail will obviously sync.
In some ways, Segan is more right than he may even realize.
The iPad *will* hurt Mac sales to some extent; not only does it largely replace a laptop (for what most non-geek people use one for, anyway), but with a few VERY simple tweaks it could, again for non-nerds, replace the desktop too.
I would imagine it’s hard for people who come to sites like this to “get it,” but think of your parents or grandparents perhaps. They money spent on computers is exactly as green as yours, and if a device came along that made it largely unnecessary for them to have to buy “computers” at all, millions of sales of what are now computers would become iPad sales.
But I don’t think this is going to hurt or affect “the Mac” as a platform in any way at all. Indeed, in the long term this will probably HELP the Mac, by freeing it to focus more on professional apps that small portable devices can’t do (or do very well).
This is nothing all that shocking: lots of companies have tried creating devices that can do the “basic services” (email, surfing) without the “tyranny” of an over-powered and expensive computer. This is just (IMO, time will tell) the best and most likely to succeed.
In the short term, the iPad’s success may hurt the lower-end of Mac sales (MacBooks, minis). In the long term, I think it will free the Mac to become considerably more awesome than it already is.