“I get suspicious over seemingly minor little changes. A recent ‘little change’ got me thinking that Apple might spin it off its computer division into something I’m calling the Macintosh Computer Company: the renaming of OS X back to MacOS,” John C. Dvorak writes for PC Magazine. “Because what’s the point… unless something is up?”
“The reasons to do this are obvious and simple. PC sales are flagging. While the market for desktop computers and laptops is still enormous, it’s seen as dead. You can see it in all the worldwide tech reporting. It’s become a boring replacement market as people keep their systems longer and longer,” Dvorak writes. “This means the computer division of Apple will eventually become a genuine albatross around the company’s neck. So it’s better off as a standalone company focused on computers, pretty much like it was pre-2001 when the iPod showed up.”
“Apple, Inc. benefits in all ways, but mostly it gets out of the moribund computer business insofar as its shareholders are concerned. Mac end-users and its community would not know the difference for years to come,” Dvorak writes. “It also allows the Mac to break free from the Apple walled garden, which seems to be centered on the phone, giving the computing platform more versatility outside of the Apple enclave.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The reason for the change from the always-inelegant “OS X” back to the Mac with “macOS” was to make it fit with the rest of the company’s operating systems (iOS, tvOS, and watchOS). You don’t make something fit and work with everything else in your company’s portfolio (Continuity) as a precursor for spinning it off.