“With OS X nearing the end of its life cycle, it’s perfect timing to start thinking about merging OS X and iOS,” Brian Meyer writes for OS X. ” With a completely new major version of Mac OS coming up, and fairly constant major versions of iOS happening all the time, it’s easy to see that a merge could be hiding down he road.”
“The iPhone 5S has a new, extremely powerful 64-bit processor in it, which shows that iOS is ready to run on desktop machines and handle apps with a 64-bit architecture,” Meyer writes. “Right now it’s amazing when a desktop and iOS app work seamlessly with one another, but with a merger of operating systems, this would be the norm.”
Meyer writes, “With Apple having so much success with both their operating systems, it makes sense that OS 11 (or Xi, maybe?) could at least use iOS as it’s backbone, similar to how the Apple TV uses iOS but does not look similar to the iPhone OS in the least.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Think code convergence (more so than today) with UI modifications per device. A unified underlying codebase for Intel, Apple A-series, and, in Apple’s labs, likely other chips, too (just in case). This would allow for a single App Store for Mac, iPhone, and iPad users that features a mix of apps: Some that are touch-only, some that are Mac-only, and some that are universal (can run on both traditional notebooks and desktops as well as on multi-touch computers like iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and – pretty please, Apple – Apple TV). Don’t be surprised to see Apple A-series-powered Macs, either.
My Macbook Air does not need to be touch based. You see what happened to Microslut when they went down this path with Winblows 8? Utter failure, train wreck. No way, keep OSX and iOS separate, they both serve their purpose quite well, at least at this point in time.
Assuming keeping the visual interfaces separate is a good thing, iOS and OS X are already well merged. What’s left to do in merging is subtle stuff: like making native apps function more seamlessly between the two OS’s, better iCloud syncing, making it even easier for developers to reuse code for both OS’s, and weening OS X off things like Java and Flash and Carbon. Apple has already been doing this merge incrementally, and will keep doing it that way. There’s no big drastic changes left to make in this merge that warrant new operating system – no smart changes anyway.
There’s a lot more innovations left to be done in making the operating systems unique – like making OS X work more like personal server, able to offload work and data from mobile devices to save there limited space and battery life, and making iOS work more like a remote control, allowing convenient control of other web connected gadgets in your life.
OS X is a product name.
Cook et. al. already said that the next version is OS X 10.10 (with a mionicker to refer to the version (aka Mavericks)
This article has stirred up quite a dialog. My unscientific poll result is people don’t want this.
Well it all started with Lion.
Fortunately I missed that version and waited for Mountain Lion. But when I started up ML I got the scrolling whammy. After so many years scrolling was reversed so that it would be like the iPad. That is straight from the Genius Bar.
By the time I unchecked all of mouse gestures and removed the Launch Pad icon from the dock I realized the scrolling issue was a done deal so I buckled under and retrained myself. Now the older issue is when I get on a pre Lion machine I have to retrain again.
Don’t you see that the merge has already started? If we don’t voice our opinion now it just might come to be.
I love the Apple tailored version of Free BSD/Darwin and the GUI that runs over the top of it. But if I wanted an iPad I would have bought one by now. (I’m still upset that the 17″ MBP was killed.) Hell the fact that OS X is Unix based is the reason I switched to a Mac.
I am retired now and just a consumer and more of a hardware guy. But I still know what I like. It does’t matter what CPU Apple puts into the upcoming versions of their hardware as long as they stop trying to make OS X look and function like IOS.
I’ll step down from my soapbox now that I have registered my opinon as a consumer of Apple products. (;- >
An UNIMAGINATIVE tech analyst at work, ho hum:
With OS X nearing the end of its life cycle… <–NO IT'S NOT!
…it’s perfect timing to start thinking about merging OS X and iOS <–NO IT'S NOT! Lord forbid.
Folks, OS X is UNIX. You don't get any better than UNIX, not so far. So stuff any ideas of de-UNIX-ifying OS X! Give me UNIX or give me Linux! 😉
What is iOS? It's Minimalized, granny-proof OS X optimized for touch devices. And it's going to STAY THAT WAY (I emphatically insist)!!!
What's actually coming after OS X is a 3D interactive revision of OS X. I have no idea what Apple's going to call it. OS XI is fine with me.
Of course, I've been pushing for 3D elements in OS X for at least a decade now. OpenGL and Scene Kit are integral to OS X and fully enable 3D GUI element programming. Every current Mac has excellent GPU hardware. Why Apple hasn't already jumped off the 2D wagon isn't clear to me.
But what is clear is that Apple innovated touch GUI interaction out of the doldrums of past two decades and made it integral to Apple gear. They've also been patenting the hell out of gesture technologies, clearly in preparation for aerial 3D GUI manipulation.
Now's the time Apple. 3D the GUI already!
(To be fair, Apple has occasionally tossed in some fun 3D effects. Examples: The Fast User Switching cube; 3D flyover views in Maps…).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opengl
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/3DDrawing/Conceptual/SceneKit_PG/Introduction/Introduction.html
Other links of interest:
Apple is paving the Way for a new 3D GUI for iOS Devices
http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2012/01/apple-is-paving-the-way-for-a-new-3d-gui-for-ios-devices.html
3D User Interfaces
http://nooface.net/3dui.shtml
I’ve had a hunch that this is what would happen – Apple unifies iOS and Mac OS in OS XI. I’m guessing we’ve got 3 more versions of Mac OS and iOS, then a convergence on iOS 11, which will be renamed OS XI.
As the media has previously noted:
I have previously panned convergence attempts by Microsoft, and have said such attempts are “not pleasing to the user.” I compared hybrid tablet-notebook devices to that of selling a refrigerator with toaster functions tacked on the side.
I have also noted that “Anything can be forced to converge” and that, “The problem is that the products are about tradeoffs. You begin to make tradeoffs to the point where what you have left at the end of the day doesn’t please anyone.”
Just look at Pages 5! I really don’t know what I was thinking with that one!
This is an abysmal idea. While Apple has more taste than Microsoft will ever know what to do with, Windows 8 was an attempt at this melding and it’s failing horribly.
With Windows tablet, Microsoft tried a melding but ended up with a gelding.
Windows 8 isn’t really a melding because all desktop applications still work perfectly.
I give Apple two years to turn Macs into giant, expensive iPads with all-white UIs.
I would like to see an A-series chip added to a Mac in addition to the Intel CPU. Talk about the best of both and tremendous power that no other computer maker would easily emulate. And OS X and iOS apps running seamlessly together.
But I don’t believe that merging OS X and iOS is a good idea. They are still targeted to very different uses, as already explained by many others. I am extremely productive in OS X, and my iOS devices are sidekicks to that. It’s a good combination that works very well. Yes, there’s room for more unification, but not a completely merge.
iOS and OS X are two different UI using two different chipsets for two different purposes = 2 VERY SEPARATE OS.
The further Apple keeps OS X away from iOS in performance and user customization, the better. Stop dumbing down OS X and stop pretending that iOS is a fully capable computer system. iOS is a walled garden behind a very tightly locked gate, and it should remain the lower-cost media consumer platform as it is.
If people think that it would be better for iOS to become more capable and “merge” the OS, please tell us why. There is little that can be done on iOS that can’t already be done on a Mac EXCEPT touchscreen functions. If you want Apple to merge the two, Windows 8 RT would be the result — as Apple itself has claimed.
What a crock of shit. Who says there won’t be 10.10 or even some other completely unrelated numbering system for the next re-write of the Mac OS?
The Mac OS (currently X as in 10) is stable and other than unifying code for common tasks, I don’t think we’ll see any dramatic changes in the short term. But then again, I’m just speculating and know jack about what Apple has planned.
What comes after X?
I hope something that looks and performs more like Snow Leopard and less like Mavericks and iOS!!!