Jefferies & Co. analyst Peter Misek in a note to clients today writes that iOS and OS X “would lead to ‘synergies,’ including better gross margins and an ease in licensing of content,” Tiernan Ray reports for Barron’s.
“In particular, Apple customers would be able to then experience TV shows and movies and such, stored in the company’s ‘iCloud,’ across phone, tablet, or, eventually, Apple television, and get the same licensed content,” Ray reports. “‘Users want to be able to pick up any iPhone, iPad, or Mac (or turn on their iTV [sic]) and have content move seamlessly between them and be optimized for the user and the device currently being used,’ writes Pisek [sic]. ‘We believe this will be difficult to implement if iOS and OS X are kept separate.'”
Advertisement: Limited Time: Students, Parents and Faculty save up to $200 on a new Mac.
Ray reports, “Hence, ‘We believe Apple is looking to merge iOS (iPhones/iPads) with OS X (Macs) into a single platform for apps and cloud services starting in 2012-13.’ Specifically, Misek sees the Macbook Air gaining Apple’s next processor, the ‘A6,’ as he calls it, in the second half of 2012, or some time in 2013…”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Misek’s reason for such an OS merger, to experience TV shows and movies and music via iCloud, is the stupidest thing we’ve heard all summer. Dude is FOS; an ass-talker. If you’re looking to him for investment advice, particularly involving Apple Inc., look elsewhere immediately.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “JES42” for the heads up.]
I’ve been saying this for the past few years since iOS was introduced… that iOS and Max OS X will merge. Lion is probably the last iteration of the desktop OS we will see. iOS is the future, and gives purpose to Apple integrating features and aspects of each system within each other.
My guess for the future. AppleTV is integrated into all tv sets, not Apple getting into TV business. iPads become the computer that you take everywhere with you. Your work or home offices are outfitted with large screen TV’s instead of monitors and the iPad connects to the TV and becomes your keyboard and trackpad while the TV displays your content. This will allow an individual to always have the same account/files/info/etc. everywhere they go.
I’m getting excited just waiting for all of this to come around.. 🙂
Max? Max OS X? what the heck.. MDN.. we need an edit button.. that’s what I get for typing too fast. sheesh..
I have absolutely no doubt that the two operating systems will continue converging until they merge. I also agree that the Lion may be the last cat.
As I had said (first time almost a year ago), in 2-4 years, iMacs will no longer be standing upright (they’ll be lying almost flat on your desk, slightly tilted up), keyboards will be optional, and mice will be discontinued. Apple will solve the issue of figuring out what is being touched with a finger, vs. what is touched by a hand that is just resting on the surface. As iOS continues to advance, the features that are needed for a robust desktop OS will slowly be implemented (some sort of file/document management for archiving, distribution and movement of work), and possibly multi-user functionality might be added.
Not since the invention of a mouse-navigable GUI has there been such a major change in usability of a computing device. Multi-touch concept, as delivered by Apple, seems to be bringing the concept of using computing device to its rightful goal, on the same level of simplicity as using a cable TV box, or a dishwasher. There is no reason a desktop OS shouldn’t take advantage of that.
As long as they stay away from Platypus.
OS X may become a superset that incorporates iOS on the desktop. But I do not foresee iOS disappearing as a separate entity anytime soon. I believe that iOS will continue to run all of the “appliance” Apple portable devices up through the iPad for some time to come. Of course, I may be wrong.
Can you say iPad & MacBook Air Hybrid? Daddy like!
Before merging anything how about building some freaking functionality into iOS first? Like having an easy way to make file attachments to email. Enough with hiding the file repository already. The iPad is supposed to be a functional productivity tool, not some toy.
Also make it easy to edit mail recipients auto-complete. I don’t want to send mail to obsolete addresses. Stop playing around and fix these issuses, Apple.
I absolutely agree with you. Why i cannot attach files in reply/forwards in my mail app on ipad and iphone? iOS is the best, most reliable so far mobile os, apple hardware is as solid as rock and so elegant, it is a pleasure to use it but this basic functionality present in Blackberry, Android and webOS is a must for ios users. To be honest i also tried webOS – the only rival I think for apple – also so elegant and implemented cloud concept far before apple and its very easy-to-use but its hardware is a peace of crap.
This guy who Wrote this article has no idea what is software And how it interacts with hardware.
In the current market these so called analyst are just making things up to ride the apple ascension .
Yes, clueless advisors and analysts. Do they not know that iOS is a subset of OS X? I believe that they do not understand that it is the kernel that does the translation of the instructions to the CPU. Different CPU different kernel.
Idiots.
Not going to happen. There will by overlap between the two where they both can play off each other but there are some distinct differences.
Just like a car can use a unibody frame and a truck requires a body on frame, there are certain infrastructure differences required by the devices.
This guy appears to think that you need different versions of each tv show for each device you watch it on.
Personally I would think a good move at this stage is to do a deal to bundle Apple TV’s with TV sets. Even without a cost saving, just getting it in front of people would increase sales and they wouldn’t have to really do anything.
what are you talking?
the MDN take is absolutely precise.
MDN is wrong this time around. This guy’s date is wrong…more like 2014. Apple doesn’t think small, and currently, iCloud is pretty average in what it will do, but
Apple didn’t spend a billion in N.C. to just improve “push”
They will integrate it across the board, do their own content
licensing like Dish, DirectTV, and the cable arm-twisters do.
It will also take out the Intel middleman and a TV/Cinema display as a monitor for all the devices and content streaming…makes perfect sense to me and 70 billion in cash can make this happen over time. Apple will be slow and careful, and eventually rule over TV and finally do what everyone else has tried to do…move into the living room.
Watch it happen over the next few years…they now have the leverage to pull it off all the while simplifying the format wars, the licensing costs, and their own costs all in the process. It may be the A7, but unlikely the A6. I am not talking about the pro-desktop power machines…I am talking about enough processing power for the living room. It will all line up when 4G is affordable and accessible.
So, you too think they need to have the same chip in order to move shows around and watch them on any device? Wow. How sad for you.
WTF Whats this ‘merge’ talk? IOS is a subset of OS X OS X is IOS, and IOS is already a part of OS X, we don’t need no stinkin’ merge, there is NO merge.
OTOH, lets get some better printing, filesharing, and useraccounts from OS X into IOS. That would be happy campersville for IOS devices in a multiuser education environment
Misek is paid to find tempests; this time he’s looking in a teapot. It says nothing about Misek; it says loads about the desperation he’s in to produce articles.
Everything started with an idea and eventually translated
Into tangible objects !!!
Thunderbolt. Apple has made Thunderbolt a prioratory in new Macs. Thunderbolt is a Intel product. Apple will be using Intel chips in Macs for a long time.
iOS and OSX can’t be “merged” because they are already the same operating system, plus or minus modules that one needs and the other doesn’t, and differences in the UI because of the device. There are two names because there are two development cycles. Microsoft is the one who’s putting the same OS and the same UI on everything but a Hamilton Beach toaster.
The only thing that will “merge” is that the UI on one will more closely fit the UI on the other. Since this is the only part of the OS that is visible to the user, it might look like a big deal. They are not changing the sofa into a chair. All they’re doing is reupholstering it to look like the chair.
You may stick to semantics here, but for all intents and purposes, Mac OS X and iOS are two separate operating systems; if they were the same, you’d be able to run iOS apps on Mac, and Mac apps on iOS. You’d also be able to install iOS on a Mac, and Mac OS X on an iPad (or iPhone).
The two have a lot of common code, but that’s not the point. Convergence is clearly happening on the UI level, and these two will in fact eventually merge into one. All applications will eventually become multi-touch enabled. Adobe, Microsoft and other big players will be compelled to port their stuff to the new multi-touch OS, and it will all run on all Apple platforms, from iPod touch, through iPad, AppleTV, MB, MBA, MBP, iMac all the way to Mac pros. One single massive unified platform scaled from 2″ screens, all the way to 30″ multi-touch surfaces.
I think a merger is inevitable, even if his rationale for it is wrong.
Any piece of analysis containing the work “synergy” may be immediately disregarded. Proposed synergy for Peter Misek: your face and my ass.
The shiteous (thank you MDN for adding to my personal lexicon) output of these firms was embarrassing 5 years ago; now it seems like a competition to see who can speak out of their ass the loudest.
Bullshit of the highest grade.
MacOS X on Intel has a specific and very obvious advantage: you can run Windows and you can run Linux. In fact you can run pretty much any OS that runs on a commoditised Intel platform through the joy of high-performance virtualisation that doesn’t behave like VirtualPC when PPC chips counted their bits in the opposite direction to Intel chips.
Also MacOS and iOS, whilst effectively related, are meant for different purposes: MacOS is still a file-oriented operating system designed to create documents and databases; whilst iOS is capable of creating documents, it is designed as an activity-based OS inasmuch as you use it to listen to music, watch movies, play games or – for some professionals – receive diagnostics or up-to-date business intelligence.
MDN’s take is blind. Apple will NOT continue wasting R&D cash developing two separate OSes. Steve Jobs said long ago, “I’d milk the Mac for all it’s worth and then get on with the next great thing”. He’s doing just that. The new products coming out are clearly a blend. Enjoy the broad freedoms of legacy OSX while you can because the future of the Mac and OSX has already been determined. They will be absorbed and phased out in favor of the more restrictive iOS platform (no user access to the underlying software or ports) to protect Apple’s new major profit machine; iTunes & AppStore sales.
Nowhere in their take does MDN say that OS X and iOS won’t someday be unified.
Learn how to read.
1
Also, the A5 CPU of the iPad (and likely the iPhone 5) is a 32-bit CPU. OS-X is a 64-bit operating system for Intel CPUs. The user interface of OS-X is far more complex than iOS, which I believe uses a subset of IS-X code. Their functions and I/O are radically different.
Misek is completely misleading his readers. Terrifying.
IT’S AUGUST!
You can always tell it’s August when phoned in garbage like this shows up from the TecTard journalists. Stooopid!
Why would Apple voluntarily give up the profitable high end laptop, high end desktop, and low end workstation (Mac Pro) business. It will be a long time (if ever) before ARM based processors such as the A6 will be found in such machines and while some of their market will be lost to mobile devices such as tablets it’s not going away entirely.
Apple computing devices that run both Mac and iOS applications seems inevitable to me. Intel and ARM binaries do require separate CPUs/cores but that doesn’t necessarily mean multiple chips.
Intel has publicly stated that they would be interested in doing a custom CPU for Apple. Apple has the in-house expertise to design a chip that contains both a number of Intel cores, a couple of ARM cores, and a GPU to boot. Such a chip would likely have the same power footprint or less than existing multi-core Intel mobile CPUs, trading a few Intel cores for a couple ARM cores and GPU.
Intel could fab it (allowing them to keep the “guts” of their own CPU design secret).
Is there any doubt that a MacBook Air that “just happens” to also allow you to run iPad apps would be an immense hit and practically impossible for the Wintel ultralight laptop vendors to compete with?
While I think that Apple’s long-term strategic vision is a much tighter OS coupling than that, the technology to deliver such a product is more or less here. The biggest question in my mind is whether Apple would want to partner with Intel at all to address the “x86 issue” or to address it via emulation, their own x86 design (unlikely), or the acquisition of AMD…