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Tim Cook: Apple Won't Create 'Converged' MacBook and iPad (independent.ie)

LichtSpektren writes: In an interview with Independent.ie, Apple CEO Tim Cook has stated that Apple is currently not looking to create an iPad that runs Mac OS X. "We feel strongly that customers are not really looking for a converged Mac and iPad, because what that would wind up doing, or what we're worried would happen, is that neither experience would be as good as the customer wants. So we want to make the best tablet in the world and the best Mac in the world. And putting those two together would not achieve either. You'd begin to compromise in different ways." Cook also commented that he does not travel with a Mac anymore, only his iPad Pro and iPhone.

14 of 337 comments (clear)

  1. And Apple is wrong by vux984 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The three phases of Apple:

    1 - Tell us we don't want something at all.
    2 - Watch everyone ignore you and build versions of it anyway.
    3- Show up late to the party with an Apple version and say you invented it; rake in the money.

    We're moving from stage 1 to stage 2 now.

    So translation: Apple is working on it, but its not ready yet.

  2. And 3.5" is the perfect phone size by danbob999 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We will never make a larger phone.

  3. This seems familiar by Ayanami_R · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Cook sounds very Blackberrian with this. If he thinks they can fight the entire industry movement, good luck.

    --
    "Science is the power of man"
    1. Re:This seems familiar by macs4all · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Cook sounds very Blackberrian with this. If he thinks they can fight the entire industry movement, good luck.

      Funny. Apple's PC sales are UP year-over-year, while the "entire (rest) of the industry" sales are down.

      I think the "entire (rest) of the industry" needs to stop being such lemmings. It seems like Apple is the only company who has actually analyzed what the market wants. The rest are just trying to "out innovate" Apple. They couldn't come up with one single tablet that would unseat the iPad; so they said "I know, let's listen to what the Microsoft Rep that came in last quarter said about "The future of computing" " and build something based on MS' Reference Design."

      What else explains something like half a dozen mfgs coming out with virtually the same device within the same 6 months?

      Meanwhile, Apple chugs along, chuckling to itself, knowing that it had already experimented internally with exactly that type of device five years ago, and found out that none of their alpha-testers liked it.

  4. Money by Luthair · · Score: 3, Insightful

    From Apple's perspective why sell one device when you can sell two.

  5. Re:Tim Cook doesn't know why anyone would buy a PC by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Or, because he believes there will always be separate markets for Macs and portable devices, that they're not the same thing, and creating one combined device would probably result in a device which sucked as a PC and as a mobile device. I'm inclined to agree.

    I don't want my tablet or my phone to be running the same OS I'd run on my desktop or my laptop. They're different things, used differently, and don't even run the same programs.

    I keep looking at Microsoft trying to make all of the devices converge as full-spec x86 devices as lazy and self-serving because they don't have the ability to come up with a mobile OS which isn't just the same under the covers. It screams "we have no idea how to make a new mobile operating system, so instead we'll stick with the same architecture we've had for 20 years and do nothing".

    You don't need to think laptops and desktops are a dying technology. You just don't have to think that converging them to a single device actually results in a good product.

    Microsoft just wants to put out the exact same thing they already have and call it mobile. Not everyone agrees. In fact, we think it's just lazy, and pushing out a product and calling it "innovating", and will result in a product which sucks at both tasks. Increasingly, Microsoft looks like the old tech company who can't see past the world being about Office and Outlook -- which means they seem to be missing the point about what people actually want.

    I agree with Tim Cook, that's just a product which will suck as a desktop/laptop, and also suck as a mobile device.

    For the things most people are using their tablets for, there is no benefit in having it be an x86 platform. And from what I've seen of the new Microsoft interface, it's so horribly skewed towards being a bad interface for tablets ... it's an utterly useless interface for desktops.

    They should be separate operating systems because they're different devices, and used differently.

    Once again, those "I'm a PC/I'm a Mac" ads showing Microsoft stuck in the past and missing the point seem like sheer brilliance. Because slavishly trying to keep to x86 on the thinking it's better than solving the actual problem is just inertia and not wanting things to change.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  6. No Xcode for iPad by tepples · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There has also been a lot of convergence in OSX/iOS development tools over the last few xcode releases.

    I'll believe the convergence once Xcode runs on iPad Pro. In theory, I could run Visual Studio, MonoDevelop, Code::Blocks, or any other IDE for Windows on a Surface Pro or Surface Book. Even Android has AIDE, an app for apping apps.

    Apps!

  7. Re:Tim Cook doesn't know why anyone would buy a PC by Richard_at_work · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I take it you missed the entire Tim Cook comment of "Why would you buy a PC?" at the iPad Pro retail launch? Tim Cook doesn't think you should buy a PC when instead you could buy an iPad Pro.

    So I'm not "nuts" at all, I'm simply taking on board what Tim Cook has actually said.

    And I disagree with you on both the Surface Pro and Surface Book, as I own both and love both - but what that really means is any device I pick up at home, I can open a code editor on and hack away. Which I cannot do on the iPad Pro. I can also resort to full tablet mode with no issues. Which I cannot do on a Macbook, Macbook Air or Macbook Pro.

    People keep saying that the Surface Pro and Books are compromises - I haven't yet run into a compromise on either.

    Don't get me wrong - some people don't need the level of content creation that a full PC or Mac will give you, and in those circumstances a dedicated tablet will work fine for those people. But for me, the compromise is the hard delineation between a dedicated tablet OS and application set and a dedicated desktop OS and application set - I want both available to me on the one device.

  8. Re:Unfortunately, Microsoft will rake in the marke by Lanforod · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Pick any of the following that you like: Spying on their users, collaborating with the NSA, donating money to immoral causes, monopolistic tendencies, churning out shit products with terrible support.

    So all the things that Apple and Google are doing as well, eh?

  9. Re:I suspect it already does by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The real killer for productivity in iOS is the lack of user space accessible file system. Either they have to open the up to iOS users - and take the security hit, or they have to hide it from OS X users (over our dead 17 inch laptops).

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  10. Re:Odd choice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Given the track record at Apple, it means they are working feverishly on an iBook or MacPadPro device similar to the Surface Book. It is approximately 3 years from introduction based on previous product denials and subsequent releases. I cite the iPad Mini and iPad Pro as examples of this trend.

    Apple literally does this with most of it's new products which are simply imitations and following the leaders in a segment. They decry the necessity and utility until they can bring their own product to market. "You'd have to sand down your fingers" and such stupidity.

  11. Re:Odd choice by sexconker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Don't forget the larger iPhones.
    Apple's "we will never" means "we're working on it but it's not ready".

  12. Re:"We want to make the best Mac in the world" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    > You must be doing some weird things with your Mac.

    Such as using it out of the box?

    > Why don't you just disable the gestures you don't like?

    I did. I know how to do that, and you know how to do that, but the average user never ever go "WTF? Why did all my windows fly off the screen??"

  13. the actual quote by slashmydots · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "We feel strongly that nobody will sell us an efficient x86 CPU because we're such unfair, lying, backstabbing assholes to our hardware vendors."