“One of the features that I love most about iOS 5 is Automatic Downloads, which allows me to purchase an app, book, or song on my iPhone and have it installed on my iPad at almost exactly the same time,” Killian Bell reports for Cult of Mac.
“It’s great for users with multiple iOS devices, and it’s also coming to the Mac,” Bell reports. “One developer has discovered the ability to turn on Automatic Downloads for Mac App Store purchases under the latest OS X Mountain Lion release.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Another welcome iOS to OS X feature migration.
And eventually, Mac OS X will simply go away, Macs will shed the mouse, keyboard will become optional, and we’ll have multi-touch iOS computing across the entire Apple hardware universe. By then, iOS will develop all the necessary industrial-strength features needed for a professional-level computing. Or, if we were to use Steve’s car/truck metaphor, if iOS of today represents cars (and Mac OS X trucks and other heavy vehicles), iOS of tomorrow will expand to offer functionality of cars, pick-ups and moderate-sized trucks (those one can drive with a regular driver’s license), while Mac OS X will remain the nitche for the 18-wheeler semi-trailer trucks, bulldozers, backhoes, excavators and similar rarely used machinery (in computer world, those would be the ultra-high-end workstations and servers).
I’m afraid despite the most optimistic prognosis, the merger of iOS and OS X is a distant dream not likely to be realised in the next 5 years. iOS is designed to operate on a simplistic level, easy to use and most importantly hides the file system from being able to be manipulated by the user. Unless Apple makes the file system in iOS accessible to the user, the merger between iOS and OS X will remain an impossible dream.
BLN,
With Lion I see a change away from the old paradigm – finding a file, double clicking on it, launching it in the appropriate application; to a new paradigm – launching an application and then choosing the file to open. Think iPhoto. This will be one of Steve Jobs legacies. I think Mountain Lion will continue this “iOS” trend.
Ummmm…..no. Multitouch will never work on a desktop or laptop unless you are talking about a trackpad. Enter Siri…….
Multi-touch is a perfect user interface for large-screen iMacs. Unlike HP and their gorilla-arm-inducing multi-touch computer with an upright monitor, the future iOS Macs will lie flat on the desk. They will also have figured out how to tell the difference between an arm resting on the display and a finger touching it.
After six decades of interacting with computers with an awkward, unintuitive and illogical way (press a key on a device on your desk, a seemingly unrelated event happens on a display 2 feet away from it), we will finally begin directly interacting with our work, the way humans have been doing it for hundreds of centuries before, by actually touching it.
I have that shit turned off on iOS and expect to be able to disable it on the next version of Mac OS.
If there are enough rigid knuckleheads like you around, maybe there will be room for MS Windows as a niche product?
Troglodytes unite! You have to lose but, uh, um… You have nothing to lose!
Some of us might not want apps on our phones to automatically be installed on our iPads and vice versa.
1-I use my iPad differently than I use my iPhone and manage them separately. I doubt that I am alone in this.
2-I am not that trusting of “cloud computing”. I prefer to sync over a wire in a managed and locally backed up configuration.
That is fine. What is not fine is the obnoxious attitude and self-centeredness revealed in your characterization as “shit” of a feature that many of us use and value.
You obviously do not appreciate English grammar. That does not make English grammar “shit.” You obviously do not understand cloud computing. That does not make it “shit.”
I have been using, maintaining, coding and using computers in stand alone and networked systems since before the Macintosh. I use a variety of computers daily under some of the more stringent security sets in common usage. I have done this in academic, government and private sector settings in both Europe and the United States.
You say I do not understand cloud computing. I use it daily and have no desire or faith in it on a consumer platform for anything sensitive or valuable.
The cloud, as pimped by the media, is an unsustainable and insecure mess on current hardware, software and networks. The concept is fine until you look at the details.
Just as a fuel injection specialist understands race car driving.
It’s pretty much assumed that his reference to these features as ‘shit’ was his opinion, as no one really believes that the two are synonymous. I see little value for iCloud – it doesn’t fill a need of mine, though your mileage may vary. Dropbox – yes, iCloud – no. Nor do I anticipate using my desktop as though it were a huge iPad. Seems like a waste of space to require all actions to be fitted to the size of a fingertip or two. Too vague for me.
PAP,
I agree with you. I want to have my iPhone apps and my iPad apps separate. If I want one on both, I want the ability to choose that. That choice will be rare.
PAP, I’m with you. It’s up to me to decide what I want on each of my computers and devices, not Apple.
I didn’t notice this. Does iTunes have to be open? This would be nice as iTunes gets hung up if I’ve made purchases and it tries to downoad them all at the same time.
i Run a quad iMac and a Mac Pro with 8 cores and iTunes stutters and hangs as well. Its the app, too bloated for its own good. Great player and catalogue but I wish video playback, store features and more was in different apps. I think iTunes is too much of a Jack of all trades for its own good (Maybe still too much old carbon code in there as well)
Ever since iTunes version 10 was released, Apple has cleaned up the code. It’s 64 bit capable now natively in line with Lion 64 bit capability.
Any last vestiges of Carbon has been expunged. It’s entirely Cocoa based now. It runs excellently on my 2011 MBP on a 5400 RPM spinning disk which is where I keep my iTunes library. If you have an SSD enabled Mac, iTunes runs like the blazes.
Both my systems are SSD. A very fast one in the pro. I did already know about the rewrite for iTunes (although I didn’t know it was a full cocoa rewrite) but in my experience its nothing like the sleek app it started out as. Then again, my iTunes library is now over 2T in size so thats not helping I’m sure but in this modern day of digital delivery I would say it should be up to the task by now.
Don’t understand. MacBook Pro – almost 3 years old and iTunes runs like butta’ on it.
Unlike most of you, I think this will be a plus – especially for those persons who don’t (or don’t know how) to update to the latest version of a purchase – and I DO run into these kinds of users out in the field. It may also limit on customer service calls as well.
This article is about automatic downloads, not automatic updates. Not even iOS is has automatic updates. Automatic downloads means that if you purchase an app from the App Store on one Mac, it will automatically install on all of your registered Macs.
EXCELLENT POINT!
As ever, the problem with automatic updates is that many updates, even if they use data verification, key verification and encryption at both ends, are crap.
Apple has made a number of blundered updates over the years that I thankfully avoided by keeping an eye on MacFixIt, MacInTouch and related websites that collect user feedback. I wish it were not so, but such is the state of the contemporary code development process.
I always choose what I update. That’s not a Luddite disorder. It’s control and security.
… Then I noticed that @chrish1961 had pointed out:
This article is about automatic downloads, not automatic updates.
Never mind! 😉