“If you became a frequent computer user starting anytime between, say, 1990 and 2007, there’s a good chance that your idea of a PC is a desktop or laptop running a mouse and keyboard-driven graphical user interface,” Walt Mossberg writes for The Verge. But if you got attached to computing in the last 10 years, you very likely find it more natural and comfortable to do your digital tasks on a multi-touch device lacking a keyboard or mouse and running a new, simpler, and cleaner kind of operating system.”
MacDailyNews Take: You can thank Apple for both.
“These devices have become by far the most commonly, frequently, and extensively used personal computers,” Mossberg writes. “They are the new PCs.”
“The tablet — or perhaps more aptly, the large-screen mobile device — is showing new signs of interest. First, some laptops are getting ARM processors,” Mossberg writes. “While Apple has been silent on this matter, I believe there’s a good chance it will introduce ARM-based Macs. This is partly because it has an entire silicon design arm that creates wicked fast, efficient, proprietary ARM chips that get produced in large quantities for iOS devices and run rings around the lowest, most battery-sipping Intel processor Apple uses in its smallest MacBook… This is an exciting idea, for sure. But, I believe it won’t matter much until Apple builds an ARM-based laptop running iOS.”
Mossberg writes, “I am taking about a laptop that only runs iPad apps, including the many productivity and creativity apps that have been built for that tablet.”
Read more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Only Apple is capable of doing what Mossberg describes. Only Apple controls all of the parts of the widget, from hardware to software to services.
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. — MacDailyNews Take, January 9, 2014
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Anyone in the market for a 12.9-inch device that’s an OS X-powered MacBook when docked with its keyboard base and an iOS-powered iPad when undocked? — MacDailyNews, October 7, 2014
Illustration from Apple’s hybrid Mac-iPad patent application
