“And while some of the graphic figures of today’s patent did slip out in Europe, we were never able to verify whether they were legitimate or not,” Purcher reports. “Well, today we finally get to post the Mother Lode of all information concerning the iMac Touch and it’s absolutely brilliant!”
Purcher reports, “The naysayers will have to eat crow on this one, because Apple’s method of transitioning from OS X to iOS is clearly outlined for both the iMac and MacBook – and it’s a grand slam home run. Imagine having an iMac on your desktop one minute and a gigantic iPad the next. Imagine playing iGames on this dream machine – Wow! Apple takes the mystery out of how OS X could finally co-exist with iOS on a Mac.
“Apple’s patent describes the transition process this way. When the iMac’s display is oriented upright and relatively far from you – the keyboard/mouse input mode could be selected and basically you’re operating in OS X mode,” Purcher reports. “Then to switch to a touch-based input, you’ll change the orientation of the iMac’s display so as to make touching the screen easier and more natural. For example, to enter touch input, you’ll want to pull the iMac’s screen closer to you while pushing the display screen down flat as if you were going to read a book, states the patent. In this orientation you’ll be able to select a corresponding UI which should translate to using iOS. In fact, the transition is really an automatic process.”
Purcher reports “Apple’s patent figure 11 is obviously a representation of a MacBook that could transition into a tablet and in doing so takes on the transition process as described pertaining to the iMac Touch. Meaning, as the display of the MacBook is turned into tablet mode – OS X will instantly transition into iOS mode.”
There’s much more, including multiple patent application illustrations, in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Uh, we’d kind of filed this one away in the “Discounted Rumors” folder, but now we wonder if it wasn’t just a bit early: “Get ready for Newton 2.0 MacBook touch?! So says our source — the same one who tipped us to wireless iTunes Store sales direct to iPod, iPhone a week before Apple debuted it — in staccato fashion: Think MacBook screen, possibly a bit smaller, in glass with iPhone-like, but fuller-featured Multi-Touch. Gesture library. Full Mac OS X. This is why they bought P.A. Semi. Possibly with Immersion’s haptic tech. Slot-loading SuperDrive. Accelerometer. GPS. Pretty expensive to produce initially, but sold at ‘low’ price that will reduce margins. Apple wants to move these babies. And move they will. This is some sick shit. App Store-compatible, able to run Mac apps, too. By October at the latest.” – MacDailyNews, July 22, 2008 (In later rumormongering, our same source indicated that there would no SuperDrive; it was only present on prototypes and not meant for any shipping product.)
Of course the above rumor may have been about iPad, but the name “Macbook touch” and the ability to run “full Mac OS X” along with being “App Store compatible” sure matches up better to this newly published patent application.
Been waiting for this shoe to drop.
There it is!!!!!
This is beginning to look like the System 9 to OS X transition. At first, primary OS was System 9, with dual boot, and the ‘Classic’ sandbox mode. Then it was OS X boot only, but still with the ‘Classic’ mode. Then the ‘Classic’ mode simply went away. The process took about five years (until Intel Macs eliminated Classic altogether), but it gave Adobe, Microsoft and all other major application developers enough time to transition to the new development tools and the new UI.
If the previous timeline is any indication, in two years, iMacs and MacBooks(Pro)s will have iOS as the primary boot OS, and few more years down the road, and OS X will be in legacy support mode. The precise timeline will only depend on how quickly the major Mac software houses port their OS X apps over to the new multi-touch UI.
In five years, hopefully, we’ll all look back with befuddlement on mice and wonder how on earth we got anything done using those clunky devices.
iOS Apps will run in their own environment. Think Dashboard, press F11 and your iOS Apps float onto the screen…
Ahhhhh!!! Ahhhhhhh!!!! The best of both worlds on the iMac. Ahhhh!! I LOVE IT!
If you read the patent and use your imagination, the transition animation is clearly a hybrid of Exposé “Show Desktop” and Dashboard’s closing animation.
Awesome.
MW: “Times”, as in “The times, they are a’ changin” (or whatever)
@ Jamie
Beat me to it
Apple. Let’s have it ready and selling for Christmas ’10. Macbook Touch, Ipad with front facing camera for facetime and white IPhone 4, thank you very much. I’m waiting. ( foot is a tapping.)
The only problem that I see with the MacBook is how to get the screen to rotate in a manner that doesn’t resemble some POS PC laptop.
Okay, I hate to be a party pooper, but I want to see it before I get happy about it. There are just too many pro-level apps that I’m used to in the current interface (DAWs, software synths) for me to see them working in iOS. If the emphasis is going to be on the touch screen, then what about user interfaces like keyboards, MIDI keyboards, fader units, etc?
Maybe I’ll like being eased into it, I don’t know, but I don’t like the idea that I’m going to be “forced” into it.
@cubert
Automobiles share many of the same characteristics and we call them all cars. So just because the MacBook’s screen wiil pivot, doesn’t put it in the same class as a POS PC laptop.
Just sayin’…
@ elarue
First off you jumped the gun without reading the patent. In upright mode the iMac touch is primarily OS X. Only when you tilt it to a given angle that you set, say 65 degrees, the OS changes automatically to iOS. So your apps wouldn’t be affected, at all. Read before you leap, my man.
Finally, maybe some good news for the iMac. Something refreshing. If only the Taiwan rumor of it being ths Christmas were true. Pleeeease.
This is great, but I do need some precision input.
As they transition away, they need to start actively considering Styli or something.
Cubert:
Remember Radius swivel portrait monitors…?
@elarue
What makes you think these so called “pro level” apps will be ported to iOS?
These are two distinctly different environments here and each will serve its own unique purposes. As developers embrace multi-touch, they will begin to see the possibilities as they apply to both their prospects and their software.
No one is forcing you to do anything. If you buy one of these Macs, you won’t be required to use iOS, as long as your favorite software is still available on OS X.
<i>By October [2008] at the latest.<\i>
That’s fishy. It’s two years later and it still seems a year away at least. The idea that they almost did this two years ago seems… Unlikely.
@nathan
Again, if and when Autodesk decides to port AutoCad to iOS, they had better come up with a way to provide the same level of control to the multi-touch version that current OS X users are now enjoying.
Now, having said that, it’s not gonna happen. Nor are we going to Adobe’s Illustrator or Photoshop for iOS. Those two bloated programs, like Microsoft Office will never make the cut.
Is that the mysterious Unnamed Hardware mentioned in the latest iOS build?
Sorry, I guess I was jumping the gun a little bit – it just seemed like a lot of the comments were claiming this would be like OS X replacing OS 9, which led me to react, “No, I don’t want OS X to go away – I like OS X!”
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Many people were pissed when the iPad came out because they wanted an OS X slate computer. But technology (chips & battery life) didn’t allow Apple to make an OS X slate-like computer when the iPad was released.
However, technology marches on and everyone had to know an iPad-like device running OS X was coming down the road when the time was right.
The iMac with a touch screen seems a little far-fetched however. First you don’t want to reach toward an upright screen to do touch gestures. Second, an iMac with a screen that is movable from vertical to horizontal sounds like a pretty inelegant piece of hardware and we all know Apple doesn’t do inelegant.
I think what everyone is missing is that new little gizmo that Apple released recently called the Magic TrackPad. Imagine an iMac with a Magic TrackPad running something that might look like iOS but is really OS X. As you touch the trackpad, shadows of your fingers appear on the iMac screen, just as if you were touching it. You then move charts and pics around in your Pages documents or rearrange pics in iPhoto. The possibilities are endless.
These kind of ideas will probably be incorporated in OS X 10.7. That is why we haven’t heard much about 10.7. Apple is keeping it under very tight wraps because it will be so revolutionary (again). It will completely change how we interact with our computers.
So boys and girls. OS X isn’t going away anytime soon. Remember iOS is just a slimmed down OS X that is necessary to run on slower processors with far less power. iOS also introduced the world to some new interface concepts that users would not accept if they suddenly just appeared on a PC or Mac. If anything, OS X and iOS will be drawn closer in the future with similar interfaces. One operating system for computers with big boy processors that are plugged into the wall and one for cordless computers with small, very efficient processors.
Remember you heard it here first.
What a joy it will be to read a magazine in all its glory on such a beast. I wouldn’t use touch much, but it sure would be nice to have it when I wanted it. Another great idea from Apple.
What a strategy. iPod, iPhone, iPad, iMac Touch MacBook Tablet. All playing off each other, all adding some new dimension to our digital life. Just when the mac was getting a little boring and bam! News to shake things up. Nice news coming into the fall. I hope it’s this year, but it might take a little while longer. Apple could easily make this happen. All of the parts are there.
OS X IS DOOMED!!!
Mac user choice and control is doomed
Switch to Windows 7
Switch to Ubuntu
That’s what “Bootcamp” is for.
If Apple wanted App Store apps on OS X they would have used DASHBOARD!!!
I think most posters hare, including 84 Mac Guy, are short-sighted.
Mac OS X is going away. Steve Jobs said as much (more-or-less) almost fifteen years ago, when he was asked what would he do if he ran Apple: “I would milk the Macintosh for all it’s worth — and get busy on the next great thing.”
We have seen iOS on a small screen. We are now seeing iOS on a tablet (i.e. laptop-size) screen. And this patent indicates that we’ll be seeing iOS soon on full-size screen.
There is absolutely no point in having Two distinct operating systems available on any platform. Mac OS X will continue to exist just as long as necessary for the transition to iOS to be complete and smooth.
Current iOS is essentially identical to OS X, except for the top surface layer of UI. Everything underneath is identical. 84 Mac Guy got it backwards; it is not OS X that’s coming to an iPad-like device (hardware-wise, the 1GHz A4 processor would have absolutely no problem running full OSX; my friend’s 450MHz G4 Cube is running Leopard without performance issues). It’s the other way round.
Apple is successfully training vast masses of people on usage of a multi-touch interface. During the past three years, we have witnessed rapid development of iOS and its feature set. From the original version, we have seen introduction of SDK and app development environment, then SDK support for external hardware (via dock connector), then SDK support for built-in hardware (camera, microphone), then SDK support for multi-tasking… If the pace of development continues, very soon, we will get some level of file storage and access, needed for various apps to freely share information. All the pieces are falling into place for a full desktop-grade OS without mouse and keyboard.
Whew!
Took a look at those funky drawings, Apple won’t do that, it’s just to dam much work switching between modes. Not only that, switching from a comfort of a mouse and keyboard to heavy arm and wrist movement? Not.
On the other hand, prepare for a onslaught of DUAL CORE NETBOOKS!!!
Slow no more!! Take that cheap single core iPad JUNK!!
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20014400-64.html
Welcome to Macintosh OS XI.
Mac OS X doomed? Ha. Where do you people live – Under a rock? Apple just ran an ad to hire programmers to work on a “revolutionary OS X” feature. Oh, I see, you’re a Linux Whore. Ha. What was I thinking. Dell just dropped you didn’t they from their line-up? Yes. Give up. You’re battle has long since died.
anonymous coward:
You are mistaken, likely because your mind is stuck in the ways of last century.
Throughout the history, from beginning of time, humans have been directly interacting with the object(s) of their work. Whether cutting, grinding, flipping, squeezing, buffing, writing, drawing, chiseling or whatever, we did it directly on that object. Then, some 50 years ago, someone came up with a computing device that would completely separate two seemingly inseparable tasks in a most unintuitive way. We had keyboards with buttons to transmit a command to the device, and on a completely disconnected display, the computing device’s response would show. Despite this unintuitive and awkward concept, we all have learned to use it. It is still completely unintuitive, since we need to teach our children how to use it (while we don’t have to teach them to finger-paint or draw).
iOS is the first computing operating system that finally properly re-unites the input and output components of a computing device. While Newton, Palm OS and WinMob tried before, this one finally does it in a truly intuitive way. That is exactly why the future of Apple computing is in iOS, and Mac OS X will be history in few short years. By then, the features and power of iOS will mature to provide everything needed for powerful desktop computing, without the unintuitive, complex layer of hardware UI.
@Predrag
Good argument. However, when you say: “Current iOS is essentially identical to OS X, except for the top surface layer of UI” I don’t agree with you. They are similar to be sure and I believe iOS is a derivative of OS X with a lot left out. Kinda like OS X Lite – Tastes Great but Less Filling.
Unless Apple abandons the business market, I think something like OS X will always be needed whether they call it OS X or iOS Supreme. Numbers works nice on an iPad, but I would not want to do heavy duty financial analysis on it. Similarly, I prefer Pages on the iPad to Pages on the Mac or Word, but when I do some heavy duty writing, I need something more powerful, with a keyboard, a numeric pad, and more capabilities then a touch-screen type iOS interface offers.
In any case, good discussion to be sure. The next couple years are definitely going to be interesting.
elarue:
If you take a moment to think about it, you may realise that iOS and its multi-touch user interface is just perfect for applications such as DAW and software synths and samplers. As soon as large-screen iOS becomes mainstream, I’m sure big players will be there, and we’ll see DigiDesign port their ProTools (or Steinberg port Cubase, or MOTU port Digital Performer…), and I’m also sure Apple will port their Logic Pro/Express. We already have MIDI interfaces and keyboards for iPod/iPad:
http://line6.com/midimobilizer/
http://www.akaipro.com/synthstation25
New changes to the iOS SDK now allow third-party software developers to support hardware made by others (as long as it is in compliance with “Made for iPod/iPad” programme).
Very soon, we’ll see professional multi-channel audio interfaces, weighted 88-key master keyboards, control surfaces, motorized-fader mixing boards, etc. If the rate of adoption and proliferation of USB2 was any indicator, it will be less than a year before hardware solutions for professional musicians appear, once a full-screen iMac running full iOS becomes available.
84 Mac Guy,
I don’t know about Apple and the business market. They have always deliberately ignored it before, so I’m not so sure they’d really bother making any effort here. As for Pages, I certainly expect the next iOS version to be very close, if not identical, to the Mac version, especially if this comes after the iOS-capable iMac becomes available. For stuff such as Numbers, Pages, Keynote, as well as InDesign, QuarkXpress, etc., the dockable (or bluetooth) keyboard will help with text input. However, manipulating interface elements, as well as blocks of content, be it text, images, frames, shapes, etc., should be easily doable via multi-touch; certainly more intuitive and precise than with a mouse.
@AC
Even for a troll, that’s ridiculous. You just grab the screen and PULL IT. Done.
I think I’ve figured it out.
Steve Jobs thinks we are all getting fat and lazy sitting around our desks eating twinkies.
He’s going to make a dual iOS/OS X iMac and slowly force more and essential features to iOS only so we all have to use both hands and arms constantly.
Then he’s going to ever so slowly raise the height of the new iMac so we all have to stand to use them.
I see his dastardly plan, it’s cunning and totally evil.
Seriously, some people…
iOS is a derivative of OSX, made for the mobile devices. It plays well with OSX because they come from the same root. Apple made the UNIX jump with OSX because they were dead-ended with OS9. They carried OS9 as long as was reasonable. With the move to Intel they created a new transition that briefly carried the PowerPC chips (but no more). There is nothing in the near future that will replace OSX, because there is no reason to do so. And they wouldn’t want to sacrifice all their Windows-using clients (via Boot Camp or virtualization).
If they’re smart OSX will be made to handle whatever iOS does (under virtualization, if it has to). Dual booting to be able to use touch interfacing is way too kludgy, and the touch side would be too limited, without access to the other features of OSX. Touch screens are pointless (haha) anywhere but on the desk surface, especially now that we finally have appropriate input devices (by which i mean stylus and touch surface, ala Wacom – the Magic Trackpad is only for gross manipulation, not for fine image creation or editing). After all, a finger will never be an effective drawing tool (after kindergarten, anyways).
The one caveat: If iOS is truly a future replacement for OSX, because they secretly moved OSX forward to that level so that no OSX functionality is lost. In which case iOS is still OSX (unless they want to call it something new – OSXI – see, this OS goes to 11).
This talk of OS X dying is too much. Ye of little faith. Apple is planning a 3D version of OS X for 8 core Sandy Bridge or Bulldozer from AMD (maybe quad cores too). This is a MASSIVE undertaking and it’ll get done despite your whining
Apple’s iMac Touch is show Dell, HP, Sony, Acer, Gateway and every other wannabe how’s it’s to be done. Sticking a touch screen on a PC is no biggie. Doing it right takes reengineering of iLife and other factors. Way to go Apple.
Just because Apple applies to patent something, it does not mean Apple is using the idea on a real product. Just look at all the past articles about Apple patents; how many of those ideas (that were not already in use) have actually been used in an Apple product? And in this case, it certainly does NOT mean the Mac OS X GUI is going to be replaced by the iOS GUI. Don’t be ridiculous.
The iOS GUI is optimized for mobile devices with smaller screens. These are devices where the screen “moves with the user” (held in hand or hands) and hand and finger “multi-touch” movement is efficient (because the overall size of the screen is small).
The Mac OS GUI is optimized for computer with larger screens. The keyboard and mouse/trackpad have ruled as input devices, because they are efficient at precise manipulation of what’s on a large screen with minimal user energy and maximum user comfort.
If there is an new “iTV,” it will have a another distinct GUI that is optimized for a very large screen that is placed five or more feet away from the user, who is leaning back on a couch. That means the screen is way beyond “touching” distance, and there is no flat surface in front of the user to place a keyboard or mouse/trackpad.
Usability is very important to Apple. It is what distinguishes Apple from the competition. Apple will design and use the GUI that is optimal for each type of product. Each GUI will continue to change, evolve over time. But it does NOT mean there will be Macs where the user is required to wave their hands and arms around all day (and lean forward) to touch a 27-inch screen, block line-of-sight to portions of the screen during use with those hands and arms, or constantly wipe fingerprints and smudges off a huge glossy screen. That would be usability design at its worst.
@ Ken1w – you obviously like to yak and sound like you’re all knowing. Shit. Who said anything about a 27″ iMac doing this? The rumor is for a 22″ unit and that’s exactly the size for a 2-page magazine layout which is a market that Apple is interested in advancing along with books. This isn’t a stretch for Apple in the least and your whining and all knowing bullshit about patents is a joke. People like you crapped on 200 iPhone patents and … you lost asshole. So shut the f-up and stick to the topic. You like it, you don’t, move on already.
@ Joe
I’m allow to state an opinion. Oh, so 27-inch is an absurd example, but 22-inch is not.
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> So shut the f-up and stick to the topic. You like it, you don’t, move on already.
Sounds like you are the one who is intolerant of a different opinion.
And for even more of my “opinion”… Even 22 inches is way to big for the iOS interface. Here are the usability issues.
Too heavy to hold, bring the screen to you, and carry around. It might as well be a MacBook, in terms of weight, but less mobile because of size.
Because it is too heavy and large, it needs to be on some type of stand on a table (as shown in the drawing). That means you need to have a table – Microsoft has one of those; why don’t you check it out?
If the screen is angled as shown in the picture, that means leaning forward to touch the far edge of the screen, or having the near edge of the screen uncomfortably close. It also means sitting upright in a chair.
When you a manipulating something on the screen, your hands, fingers, and arms are actually blocking a significant part of the screen from your view. You have to therefore move them out of the way after each action. This is not a problem on a small screen, because the movement needed is small.
Because you need to bring your hands, fingers, and arms to the screen to do something, you are wasting a huge amount of energy. The bigger the screen, the worse the waste. That is why a keyboard and mouse/trackpad have remained dominant, because you can have a huge screen in front of you, and “touch” everything on it without moving your hands and fingers more than about six inches. Again, not a problem with the entire screen is small.
I could go on…
@ Ken1, Thank you for not going on with your grade 7 thinking.
You couldn’t even understand what I said about the 22″ which makes you, what 12? Too heavy to hold? Who the fk said anything about holding it. You’re a Redmond idiot and exhaustingly stupid but thanks for the laughs. You guys are so funny.
@ Joe
> You’re a Redmond idiot
That is a REALLY funny, because what you are suggesting with wanting a 22-inch display to show a complete two-page magazine layout, that is too heavy to hold in your hands… That is EXACTLY what “Redmond” would think is a good idea.
ken whatever, you’re useless and I’m moving on to other things. But really, you’re lonely or something because you’re stretching this out stupidly. The new unit will slant at a comfortable angle and you’ll be able to read a great magazine the way it was meant to electronically in full gorgeous color and clarity that Apple will supply and macites will love. Good luck in life, Ken, you’ll need it.
Oh, Joe… Two of the best “features” of a paper magazine is that it is light (usually lighter than even the current iPad) and thin (usually thinner than even the current iPad). And it uses zero electricity. You can put that paper magazine into your briefcase to read a work, or take it with you do the restroom, or lounge on the sofa with it. Of all the arguments I’ve head from people who think a large-screen Mac with iOS is a good idea, your point is the silliest.
> The new unit will slant at a comfortable angle
On a table top. Heh heh heh… I was joking before, but you really should check out Microsoft’s Big Ass Table.
MDN says a hot new product could be coming in October. That’s the iMac Touch, of course. The digitimes rumor + this patent = a sure thing. It’s time.