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Developers Expect iOS and MacOS To Merge

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i'm-sure-its-been-discussed dept.

AHuxley noticed the frightening little Ars story talking about a certain expectation that iOS and MacOS will merge, leading to a single DRM-locked OS on your MacBook and your iPad. Certainly Apple would love a piece of every app sold. Now I'm sure that this has been discussed over there, but I wouldn't expect it any time soon.

8 of 436 comments (clear)

  1. At Ease by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    If I were Apple I'd make a desktop iOS a user option like the current Parental Controls.

    Apple tried this before; it was called At Ease.

    1. Re:At Ease by Ephemeriis · · Score: 5, Informative

      If I were Apple I'd make a desktop iOS a user option like the current Parental Controls.

      Apple tried this before; it was called At Ease.

      And it genuinely kicked ass at the time.

      I had a Macintosh Performa 6300 that was being used as a shared family computer back then. At Ease allowed me to set up a relatively safe and secure way to share that computer with our kids, without giving them access to absolutely everything.

      --
      "Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
  2. Steve commented on this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.macstories.net/news/steve-jobs-no-mac-app-store/

  3. Re:It's somewhat expected. by ahankinson · · Score: 3, Informative

    You mean like the Mach kernel that both the iOS and OS X share? Or the BSD-based Darwin subsystem? Or some of the Cocoa frameworks?

  4. Re:It's somewhat expected. by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Virginia Tech's System X

    I mean it's not like they broke into the top 10 or anything:
    Ranking seventh in the Top 500 list of the world's most powerful computer systems, System X was built at a fifth of the cost of the second-least expensive system in the top 10.

    Not only that, but every computer that ships with OS X has the ability to become part of an XGrid. All you have to do is enable a checkbox in the Sharing control panel and that's it. XCode will seek out other XGrid computers and use it to compile.

  5. Re:Not like I havent been saying this for a while by e4g4 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'd recommend watching the interview with Jobs at D8 (by Mossberg and some other WSJ journalist), it's available (free) on iTunes. He made an excellent car analogy, equating the PC (as in personal computer, not PC/Mac) to trucks in the early days of the automobile market. Basically - the analogy was that back when automobiles were new, the vast majority of cars were trucks, designed for getting work done. As that technology trickled down into the popular market, the car became more user friendly (automatic transmissions, air conditioning, radio, etc.) and less like trucks. Jobs essentially equated MacOS and iOS with trucks and sedans. Ultimately, his point was that there are still trucks now (implying that Apple has no intention of killing their entry in the PC market). As I see it - Apple would love for MacOS marketshare to stay exactly where it is for the foreseeable future (5%) and replace the other 93ish% with iOS. Jobs is not a fool - he knows that we need trucks; I do not believe that Apple has any intention of killing MacOS.

    --
    The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
  6. Re:Not like I havent been saying this for a while by jacksonj04 · · Score: 4, Informative

    You mean the new Mac Minis they released last week?

    --
    How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
  7. Re:It's somewhat expected. by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Did you not even read System X's history on their website?

    1) Computer technology improves. I don't think any computer that was in the top 10 in 2006 was in the top 10 in 2010.
    2) When it was "last ranked", in 2006 it was #47. When it was built, in 2003, it was ranked #3. When it was rebuilt in 2004 with the current G5s, it was ranked #7 (which is what the Apple article is about).