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Could Apple Kill Off Mac OS X?
Barence writes "When Steve Jobs announced last night that he was 'going to demote the PC and the Mac to just be a device,' it was the clearest indication yet that Apple is phasing out Mac OS X, argues PC Pro's Barry Collins. 'Over the past couple of months, there have been continual rumours that Apple is testing the iPad's A5 processor in its MacBook range, suggesting Apple believes iOS could stretch further than smartphones and tablets,' Collins argues. Plus, Apple would take a 30% cut on all Mac software if it mandated downloads via the App Store only. 'The only part of Apple's portfolio where iOS doesn't make sense is in the high-end. Yet, Apple's already discontinued its Xserve range of servers and... it's almost exclusively fixated on the consumer market,' he argues."
I can't see an iOS based IDE working.
Personally, I think this would be a pretty stupid move for Apple. If something like this ever were to happen, count me out -- I would no longer buy any Apple laptops or desktops.
Jobs comes across as the greediest villain (black turtleneck sans fluffy white cat) since the early days of Bill Gates...
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Apple is not going to kill of Mac OS X. I have said it before, and I'll say it again: Mac OS X's future is on high end workstations, targeting the professional and power user markets. Apple's consumer strategy will be centered on iOS.
Palm trees and 8
Or, should I say "linkbait" instead.
Physicists get Hadrons!
In Bill Gates' book from 1995, "The Road Ahead", he discusses how computing switched from "mainframe"-type applications where the bulk of the storage and processing was done by a centralized system, and how that was falling out of favor for a more distributed desktop PC environment. He further predicted this model would eventually revert back to the "mainframe" (now known as "cloud").
Steve Jobs must have read this book.
Every time these "Future of the Mac" I predict that there will come a time when EVERYTHING from Apple will be just as locked down as the iPhone/iPad, and every time I get laughed at for saying it. Yet with every announcement, Apple moves closer and closer to phasing out their last open platform.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Yes!!!
No!!!
Maybe!!!
I figured this might be coming. Between Windows 8 trying to become a cell phone UI and Apple's brilliant idea to place an eject key on its keyboards instead of a forward delete key, it won't be long before a PC is completely gimped and useless to anyone that produces anything. Apple hit it big with its touch screen UI. So big that they're going to impale themselves on it.
The usual place I see Macs is when I head down to the graphics studio or Marketing departments at work- those guys use Macs as their all-purpose computers to make use of their (I'm told) top-quality or industry standard graphics and media editing software.
I can't really imagine those guys (or our procurement) switching to a form factor other than big-screen desktop machine or high-end laptop. That means the only way Mac could be "phased out" for them would be if iOS could work as a drop-in replacement, with no loss of features or software suite. Seeing as iOS is just Mac optimised for a different form factor and with a different software suite, I'm not sure I can really see the point in doing that. It would be an awful lot of leg-work just to end up where they already are.
On the other hand, Apple could only market Mac OS X to professional users, on their high end workstations. Consumers will get iOS everything -- iOS tablets, iOS PDAs, iOS laptops, maybe even some sort of iOS desktop (with a completely different form factor than current desktops?), and they will be cut out of the development process; only professionals with high end workstations will be able to write software for iOS.
Palm trees and 8
Simple logic: Lots of people would stop buying Macs if Apple killed MacOS X. Nobody would suddenly start buying Macs if Apple killed MacOS X. Some people would stop buying Macs if they thought that Apple would eventually kill MacOS X. For these three reasons, it is totally unreasonable to believe that MacOS X is going. Because this believe is totally unreasonable, the only people making that claim are either total idiots, or they are trolls. Or both.
(Those idiots who think Apple only cares about iPhones and iPads should realise that Apple is the worlds most profitable PC maker, making more profits from building desktop computers and laptops than anyone else, including HP, Dell, Acer, Toshiba and so on)
No, Microsoft killing Windows would be like Apple killing the iPhone. Apple killing the Mac is more like Microsoft killing Windows Mobile.
Apple just recently announced Final Cut Pro X, they've revamped XCode, and they're heavy into LLVM and clang. Doesn't seem like they're ditching the Mac any time soon. An iPad with iMovie is fine, just like Garageband is fine (and a lot of fun to use!), but for my next $100 million dollar blockbuster, I'm going to want more robust tools.
All the content consumed on an iphone, ipad,etc., has got to originate from somewhere, and I think apple would be happy to have both ends of the spectrum: the content producers and the content consumers.
"When Steve Jobs announced last night that he was 'going to demote the PC and the Mac to just be a device,' it was the clearest indication yet that Apple is phasing out Mac OS X, argues PC Pro's Barry Collins
In context, this was while hyping a cloud computing solution that at the moment is a little more than shared storage. To me this isn't a very clear indication of anything except increased interoperability with a cloud service, possibly for automatic synchronization of settings and access to the same documents and media. I'll take that to mean that there is no clear indication yet that Apple is phasing out Mac OS X.
This is total linkbait. Just like the one from pcworld asking whether OS X Lion could be Apples Vista. This article has no research behind it whatsoever, I do not understand how this trash can get on slashdot, it annoys me. A single quote: "iOS is mainstream: Mac OS X isn’t and likely never will be." Based on what research?!?! Just yesterday at the keynote, they announced that the OS X platform has risen to new heights and the PC market has shrunk. Android is gaining on the smartphone market. Why the hell would they bet everything on one horse if they have two that perform perfectly well?!
Of course they're not going to kill it off. The only people suggesting as much are paranoid Apple haters. If nothing else, Apple will need OS X to enable developers to build applications for iOS devices.
I knew as soon as I heard Steve Jobs say those words about demoting the PC that they would be taken entirely wrongly by some people. But all that he meant is that they're extracting a feature (the storage hub and interconnect of all iDevices) from the PC and moving it to iCloud. He only meant that iCloud sees the PC as "just another device" that isn't given special treatment above and beyond what iOS devices are given. But even then he went on to contradict that statement by revealing the particulars of the implementation. iOS devices will not store all information (songs, photos, etc) that OS X computers will.
In shortthere's nothing to see herejust a misinterpreted phrase from a 2-hour presentation that mistakenly confirms the paranoid beliefs of people who want to see Apple in a negative light. There's no logical reason to believe what the story claims. Apple knows that it needs OS X to maintain its developer community. They know that without the developer community, people would abandon iOS. So until developers can do everything they need to do to create apps for iOS on iOS itself, OS X isn't going away.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
What a piece of nonsense.
OS X is the backend of the entire Apple world. While you could theoretically run things like iTunes on an iOS device as an app, where do you think all those apps come from? Hint: They don't grow on trees.
There is no 30% cut if people don't have development machines. And that means Xcode, and engines and frameworks. And that means a general-purpose OS. Namely, OS X.
Really, how dumb do you have to be to think that a car company is going to sell its future models without engines just because they focus on the design of the body and the exquisite interior?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
You need to read up on the legal definition of a monopoly. What MS was dinged for was using its monopoly in OS and Office software to drive out competition in the web browser software market. Apple doesn't have a monopoly in mobile OS software (iOS is actually losing ground to android); Apple doesn't have a monopoly in desktop/laptop OS software (Windows still accounts for 90+%); Apple doesn't have a monopoly in anything (no, "monopoly in software that runs on macs" is not a legal monopoly, otherwise every single company would have a "monopoly" in some arbitrarily defined, meaningless, sliver "market").
A monopoly is the market power to price your offerings without regard to the price of competitors offerings. Apple doesn't have one, so they can't be accused of leveraging a monopoly they don't have.
Pretty sure that they're not going to kill off a segment that generates about $5Billion/quarter.
http://images.apple.com/pr/pdf/q211data_sum.pdf
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Maybe that year is getting closer to us if Apple and Microsoft jump over their respective cliffs. At least Microsoft is offering a classic desktop option in Windows 8, but who knows if that will still be available in Windows 9.
The beauty of Linux is that the GUI and the OS are separate so you can run any GUI you wish on top of the OS. You want tablet UI? Go with Unity or Gnome Shell. You want a more traditional GUI? Go with KDE, XFCE, LXDE, or Enlightenment.
I really hate this trend of writing off desktops and being so focused on mobile and tablet devices. I seriously think people are overestimating mobile devices and underestimating desktops.
Well, will designers still use Mac's when they can't get Photoshop? Probably not.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
I don't think they'll "kill off OS X", any time soon but I do think we're going to see fewer and fewer general purpose PCs/Macs for consumers and more specialized devices. Other than enthusiasts and people in the industry, most folks won't think of the particular OS a device runs as an entity distinct from the device itself.
I can't see an iOS based IDE working.
First off, start at the basics: iOS isn't going to "replace" OS X, because they share the same codebase. I know some people here will balk at this description, but iOS is nothing but OS X optimized for mobile touchscreen devices. They're basically the same operating system. This is why it's so easy to incorporate iPad software into Lion. This isn't a situation like Microsoft had, where their early mobile operating systems... Win CE... were from a completely different codebase than the NT-based PC systems. So a PC-type desktop OS isn't going to disappear from Apple's product line.
Second, while I see the corporate appeal to Apple in forcing customers to their own home-brewed "A" based CPU's (and the friction they've had with Intel lately), even if they do this, it doesn't necessarily mean a "PC" is really disappearing from their product line. If it's got a USB port and a video miniport, then you can essentially make it a PC. I don't see the A processors being powerful enough for real desktop use, but that could change in the near future. I could also see Apple abandoning the truly professional-grade workstation market if they're going to focus completely on consumer devices.
But to sum it up, even as radical as Steve Jobs can be at times (remember, he wanted the first edition of the iMac to ship without a keyboard until wiser heads talked him down from that ledge), I just don't see him completely eliminating all desktop options. Some form of real desktop computer from Apple will continue to be on the market. Reduce consumer choices in that regard, yes... he'll do that in a heartbeat and demand that you love him for it. But eliminate the option itself? No.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Actually, with every announcement you've been demonstrated to be wrong. Mac OS X isn't going anywhere. Apple has quite clearly been working very hard to bring some of the best ideas from iOS to the Mac OS X platform. They also introduced a nascent third platform, iCloud. If there was news of a platform's demise to be read between the lines at the WWDC 2011 keynote yesterday, it's more likely to be the demise of Windows as a consumer OS.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
"If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth - and get busy on the next big thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago."
Steve Jobs, Fortune Magazine, February 19, 1996
Which is exactly what he did with the iPod, and then the iPhone. But note there is nothing there about killing the Mac; He will continue milking it as long is it keeps giving milk. His comment was about not sitting on the success of the Mac, nor will he sit on the success of the iPhone; he will keep moving to the next big thing.
This is called a thin client, and nobody likes them. It is a great idea until the server is down for the day before your project is due, or until the server gets slow every day from 1 PM to 6 PM.
I know it's hip to be an Apple user now these days and all the cool kids are rocking their iDevices, but a good majority of graphic designers/artists use the platform and I while it's cool to watch netflix in bed on an iPad, it's irrelevant when you have to start using InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop, though I imagine Illustrator and Photoshop wouldn't be as big an issue to use on a tablet as InDesign would be.
Ave Molech Setting
Are you seriously that fucking stupid, or do you choose to suck dick?
I'm reminded of that scene in Star Trek 4:
Spock: They like you very much, but they are not the hell "your" whales.
Dr. Gillian Taylor: I suppose they told you that.
Spock: The *hell* they did.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
It's not an IOS issue as much as it is an ipad / ipod issue. They have very little fast ram and no high speed input channels, so that puts some serious limits on what you can do with them. They make rather fabulous control surfaces and beatbox-thingees, though. :^)
Most CPU-based signal processing that is of the [mixing / EQ / level shifting / routing / delay] class requires very little from the CPU if the code is written properly; so it's really a matter of getting the audio in and out of the hardware, but unfortunately, that's where the i-whatevers fall flat on their faces. CPU and display wise, they're all good; RAM wise, they really need more; IO wise... they're outright screwed.
Ol' Steve has decreed that we will not have general purpose USB, Firewire, nor any other high speed audio-capable connection to our iP[a|o]ds. Unless you're happy with the mono microphone it comes with. Though I should mention that there are a few proprietary interfaces out there that do indeed bring in one or two channels of decent audio. Mics, a guitar amp interface or two. Nothing to get a recording engineer excited, I'm afraid. Not like Logic on a Mac Pro, for instance, or the simple wealth of free AU plugins available for the Mac.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
IOS = Windows XP Home Why would people want to limit themselves for their desktop computer?
~ChibiSkuld~