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Apple Patent Points To iMac Touch Running OS X and iOS

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the because-they-can dept.

siliconbits noted an interesting little tale of a recently surfaced Apple Patent covering an iMac Touch with a flex base that switches from iOS to OS X based on orientation. There's some interesting food for thought in there ... I can't decide if I like the idea or not.

18 of 239 comments (clear)

  1. Apple slowly replacing OS X with iOS by odies · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is what it has looked like for a long time. iOS is on their every other line of devices and the walled garden apps economy is a significant money maker for Apple. Combine that with the recent patent of remotely detecting and disabling jailbroken iPhones and I think Apple really wants to control the whole area, and obviously wants more and more money. Say goodbye to hobbyists or hackers, and just imagine if Microsoft did the same.

    1. Re:Apple slowly replacing OS X with iOS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Which sockpuppet will be used to troll this thread?

      Well, at least we got a quick answer to that question.

    2. Re:Apple slowly replacing OS X with iOS by cowscows · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Apple is not going to kill the desktop OS that is required to write applications for their mobile OS.. Steve Jobs isn't stupid, he knows that people aren't going to be coding 3D games or run photoshop or whatever on iOS. Killing OSX would kill iOS, and Apple knows that.

      --

      One time I threw a brick at a duck.

    3. Re:Apple slowly replacing OS X with iOS by cowscows · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Good point. We're talking about a guy who started Apple (and then later came back and basically saved it), turned Pixar from a small company into a movie powerhouse, and has been involved in basically reinventing the music industry, the cellphone industry, and maybe the tablet computer market. Sounds like a textbook case of stupidity.

      --

      One time I threw a brick at a duck.

    4. Re:Apple slowly replacing OS X with iOS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Pedantic note. He didn't revolutionalize anything. His company may have. He may have been the final say on the design and implementation decisions, but he didn't do it. The engineers did. The researchers did. The programmers did. Just because he's the one standing on the stage during a keynote doesn't mean that he really did anything (I'm not saying he didn't, but I'm saying that just because he takes credit doesn't mean he deserves to take credit)...

    5. Re:Apple slowly replacing OS X with iOS by orasio · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't know if the AC meant what I understood, but he has a point.
      Steve Jobs does not succeed by lack of stupidity. Some of the stuff he pulled seemed pretty stupid before he did it, and some of it was.
      A phone without keys seems pretty stupid to me. I think it's stupid, still. That doesn't stop him from making money from a phone without keys.
      Seeing how stupid others are is easy, it doesn't take talent. Making money in spite of intelligent people thinking you are stupid, it does take talent.

    6. Re:Apple slowly replacing OS X with iOS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Spoke like a true member of the Jobs Cult.

      Tables have been around for 20 years, smartphones around a long time before apple jumped on the bandwagon, portable music players have been around for a very long time, way before Apple would even acknowledge music existed. Pixar's success is nothing to do with Jobs, it's their movies. Are that deluded you think you gay leader sits down a writes movie scripts and story boards too?

    7. Re:Apple slowly replacing OS X with iOS by EastCoastSurfer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If there is any company that is driven from the CEO down it's Apple. So while you're right that the he of course didn't do it by himself, he is likely a huge driving force behind what the rest of the company accomplished.

    8. Re:Apple slowly replacing OS X with iOS by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Kill it? Of course not, nobody is claiming Apple would kill Mac OS X.

      On the other hand, they might try a tactic of only supporting Mac OS X on their most expensive workstations, and shipping lower end computers with only iOS.

      --
      Palm trees and 8
    9. Re:Apple slowly replacing OS X with iOS by alen · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Apple has been doing this before iOS

      few years ago you has OS X, Apple TV and Time Machine. only thing now is that Apple seems to be going to iOS which has more lock in and runs on ARM CPU's so that they can control the entire hardware and software experience. people have run OS X on non-apple hardware but not iOS

      since apple is a hardware company they are trying to sell you 20 devices each with the same OS but gimped software that is dumbed down for a few tasks. instead of general purpose software like OS X

    10. Re:Apple slowly replacing OS X with iOS by jbolden · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Leaders are generally given credit for accomplishments. Napoleon didn't personally conquer northern Italy.

    11. Re:Apple slowly replacing OS X with iOS by sootman · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, most of the thousands of employees at Apple who were there during 1997-2000 were also there 1994-1997. To what do you attribute Apple's astounding turnaround?

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  2. i guess apple hasn't learned from MS and IBM by alen · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Apple trying to dumb down the computer and to vertically integrate the entire experience to lock everyone in will probably fail. Right about at the peak of Microsoft's power is when the company saw they had to support other technologies. IBM's peak in the mainframe age vanished when PC's came along and freed people from the tyranny of the mainframe.

    i like my iphone and think it's the right experience for a mobile device, but not the computer.

    1. Re:i guess apple hasn't learned from MS and IBM by tomhudson · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That's because Apple is the new AOL. For people who think that anything more complicated than turning a computer on and off is for "those command-line gurus". Just look at their ads. It's a far cry from the days when Apple was a premium brand.

  3. Re:iMac running iOS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Nothing in this patent application says they're doing anything. It's a patent application, not a business plan.

  4. Re:Like it or not by cowscows · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think that the evolution of iOS will follow a similar path as the desktop MacOS did. More and more capabilities will be added, the interface designers will come up with satisfactory ways to accomplish more tasks, and consumers will build their touch-interface "skillset", allowing more more complicated interactions, and eventually more complicated applications.

    Despite all the talk about "intuitive" interfaces, that won't actually get you very far, everything is learned. What's important is some consistency and a gentler learning curve. I think that Apple is aware of this, and is very deliberate as to increase the capability of iOS without making it intimidating to a new user.

    --

    One time I threw a brick at a duck.

  5. iPad + Time Capsule by tepples · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I definitely thought Apple was going to make a combination touch screen iMac and Cisco router.

    I wouldn't put a touch screen router beyond Apple, seeing as how Apple did popularize 802.11b with AirPort. Imagine a Time Capsule with a built-in iPad.

  6. Re:Steve said... by mcvos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Exactly. I love my iMac at work. I particularly love the full power of my unix shell, sudo, the ability to install unix and linux libraries, and all while having a pretty slick UI that (practically) always works quite well. It's not perfect, but it works better than any linux or windows machine I've ever worked with.

    But the moment Apple starts closing stuff down, I'm out of here.