Wall Street Predicts Merge of OS X and iOS

gumbi west writes "One Wall Street analyst predicts what slashdot commenters have predicted for years, that iOS and OS X will merge into a single OS. However the analyst sees this happening because the iOS devices receive a substantial CPU boost from the quad core A6 which can power MBA and smaller devices while following 64-bit ARM processors can bring the remainder of the Apple lineup back to ARM under a single architecture."

Comments

Never going to happen.

[avihappy]

This is one of those moronic things that will never happen that are being continuously predicted by people who don't understand anything about usability. Apple knows you can't just shoehorn a "one size fits all" OS onto every device you make; that the ways people use different devices are fundamentally different. Keyboard and Mouse apps do not work well with a touchscreen, and vice versa. Just because Lion imported some of the UI features of iOS like hidden scrollbars and an application launcher does not mean they will merge; they are simply implementing ideas from one platform that have utility on another.

Here's my take:

[fyngyrz]

OSX doesn't need -- and never has needed, and likely never will need -- the simplifications and limits that presently show up all over IOS. The current glitch in thinking over at Apple that has informed Lion with IOS like features is, I am confident, in error. On the other hand, the reason IOS needs these limits is because as of this point in time, the hardware itself is extremely limited... fast memory to support real multitasking, video (and main) memory to cache windows, the power budget presently required for same, small space to stuff the OS in, consequent loss of support for things like USB devices and complete bluetooth profiles... these things create IOS's limits; they're not there because they're a better way to do things, they are there because they are one of the only ways to do things, given the present environmental limits.

But electronics, if nothing else, follow a fairly predictable path of increasing compute and display power in less space with a lower power budget. So IOS can -- and therefore should -- leave its limits and its modality behind, bring the capability to do more complex work with it. OSX, on the other hand should continue forward -- not backwards into ISO land.

Finally, since access to Apple's App Store software library isn't open to competing tablet manufacturers, they (the competitors) are likely to strongly differentiate their tablets with USB, broad bluetooth support, a real filesystem and related file management the user can get at if they like, memory cards, and so on... putting some pressure on Apple to do the same (and thereby bringing over already existing OSX capabilities.) And of course consumers like more features -- the more they can do on an iPad, the better they will like it, as long as it doesn't get in the way of the things they could already do. That's the design challenge, but I don't think it is a challenge that Apple will have any trouble at all meeting.

So yeah, we will almost certainly see a merge, eventually. But hopefully it won't be IOS into OSX; just the opposite.

Re:Duh.

[TheRaven64]

AppKit on OS X 10.7 already adopts a lot of the event model from UIKit. The reason that Apple keeps them separate is the screen size. Designing a UI for a small touchscreen is very different from designing one for a laptop or desktop with a large screen and a keyboard and mouse. You can share 90% of the code between a Mac and iOS app, but you have to rewrite the UI. This was a good decision - I own a Nokia 770, and it has a lot of ported Linux apps, 90% of which are horrible to use because they were never designed for such a small screen. Sure, you can use AbiWord on it, but 60% of the screen is filled with UI widgets, with only a small sliver for your document. Meanwhile, Android apps are all designed for the small device, even if they're ports of desktop apps.

lol

[smash]

The complaints about IOS-ification of lion make me laugh. Apple have taken 3 major features and implemented them in lion: extensive sandboxing of apps (a good security practice), launchpad (meh, its optional - don't like it, don't use it) and auto save (which is a good thing).

And people are crying like its the end of the world.

OS X and IOS are ALREADY mostly the same. The places they are different are for very good reasons (resource usage, small touch interface). If apple wanted IOS and OS X to be the same (which, quite frankly would be retarded), they would have made them that way from the start.

I've actually upgraded to Lion and have lost precisely ZERO features vs snow leopard (well, except for rosetta, but that wasn't related to the implementation of IOS-isms and was already on its way out).