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.

Comments

"We want to make the best Mac in the world"

[mattventura]

Well I don't think making the best Mac in the world is very hard for Apple, there isn't exactly a lot of competition there.

Re:"We want to make the best Mac in the world"

[Anonymous Coward]

What's amusing to me is, in the '80s and '90s, people raved about the Mac user experience and begged for a more stable & modern OS under the hood.

Now, Apple has a stable and mature OS under the hood and they've thrown out user experience. All that clutter, easy-to-mistrigger interface gestures and confusing features like file versioning. Still no easy way to manage groups, security and keychains.

The first day I started using Mac OS X and a program popped to the foreground while I was typing (my eyes off the screen), interrupting my workflow, I knew that Apple had lost their way.

Re:"We want to make the best Mac in the world"

[ColdWetDog]

You were staring at it wrong.

Re:"We want to make the best Mac in the world"

[azav]

It's been straight downhill with regards to usability for every release after 10.6.8.

Too much animation that you can't turn off.

Terrible colors (glaring painful blue against all white).

This terrible "flat" design means you can't tell what a button is.

Removal of button backgrounds from buttons also means that you can't tell what a button is.

Did I mention too much useless animation that you can't turn off? Because there's too much distracting and useless animation that you can't turn off.

Apple needs to get back to their basics.

Re:"We want to make the best Mac in the world"

[azav]

I develop for Apple for a living, son.

The default blue is eye burning and is everywhere in the Mac OS and iOS.

Nothing's animated? Everything is. Click on a disclosure triangle in the Finder. The entire contents of the folder slide down or slide up. Download a file in Safari. A little cockroach sized badge darts across the screen. Open a panel in Xcode, it slides across the screen instead of opening instantly. Open a new Safari window. It pops open in your face, growing to full size. Send an email in the Mail app. It flies up off the screen. Click in a search bar. The little magnifying glass darts to the left. Click out of it. It darts back to the center. Every alert pops open. Pressing command control D with the mouse over some text results in a VH-1 Pop Up Video style wobbling bubble and then all the content animates in.

Even clicking on a radio button animates the filling in of the button. So much of the UI is now a visual distraction and you can't turn them all off.

I don't know how you don't see this.

Odd choice

[tomknight]

As a (surprisedly) happy Surface user, it seems strange that Apple aren't trying to regain initiative here. The Surface is really a good beast, it works well as a tablet and a desktop replacement (for standard light Office apps, some games and some more demading programs). It gives me a good touch keyboard for sshing into my systems, and has a USB interface for storage, keyboard, mouse. These are all things that the iPad failed to do.

Re:Odd choice

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Odd choice

[sexconker]

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

And Apple is wrong

[vux984]

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.

Re:Tim Cook doesn't know why anyone would buy a PC

[Richard_at_work]

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.

Re:I suspect it already does

[ColdWetDog]

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).