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Users Don't Want iOS To Merge With MacOS, Apple Chief Tim Cook Says (smh.com.au)

Rebutting a widespread speculation, Apple chief executive Tim Cook said the company is not working toward building an operating system that both Macs and iPhones could share. From his interview on Sydney Morning Herald: Later, when I ask about the divide between the Mac and iOS, which seems almost conservative when compared to Microsoft's convertible Windows 10 strategy, Cook gives an interesting response. "We don't believe in sort of watering down one for the other. Both [The Mac and iPad] are incredible. One of the reasons that both of them are incredible is because we pushed them to do what they do well. And if you begin to merge the two ... you begin to make trade offs and compromises. "So maybe the company would be more efficient at the end of the day. But that's not what it's about. You know it's about giving people things that they can then use to help them change the world or express their passion or express their creativity. So this merger thing that some folks are fixated on, I don't think that's what users want." A surprising comment, considering rumours from well-connected reporter Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, who wrote the company is working on a project called "Marzipan", which involves merging the codebase of macOS and iOS apps.

156 comments

  1. Well duh.... by Kenja · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We saw what it did to Windows 10. It's.... not gud.

    --

    "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    1. Re:Well duh.... by bondsbw · · Score: 1

      Microsoft's implementation didn't meet all our hopes and dreams. But I'm not convinced it can't be better.

      I am convinced that Apple wouldn't do much better. Apple is generally much more restrictive.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    2. Re:Well duh.... by bjdevil66 · · Score: 2

      I thought it was Windows 8, where they tried to go with app-like icons on their desktop and broke their most recognizable UI feature by killing the "Start" button, where they tried to merge the desktop and mobile device OS? All while they broke backwards compatibility with older Windows OSes?

      It's the reason so many people stayed on Windows 7 for so long. (Not that Windows 10 and its own issues have helped. Many individual users will be staying with Win7 until the bitter end in 2020).

    3. Re:Well duh.... by Joce640k · · Score: 0

      I was waiting for the part where he says, "...but we're going to do it anyway".

      --
      No sig today...
    4. Re:Well duh.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What it did to Windows 10 was not good.
      What it did to Windows 8 was a horrible disaster.
      Cook seems to understand the issue... an issue that got Microsoft utterly confused.

    5. Re:Well duh.... by nmb3000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But I'm not convinced it can't be better.

      I am. The desktop and mobile form factors are fundamentally incompatible. They have different display sizes, different input devices, different levels of accuracy, are used in different environments, and are used for different purposes. And that's only a few of the many, many differences between them.

      Trying to make a desktop work like a phone, or a phone like a desktop, just leads to a really shitty desktop or a really shitty phone. Developers and OS designers need to simply accept and embrace this and instead focus on making both the best they can be.

      I don't always agree with Tim Cook, but:

      "So maybe the company would be more efficient at the end of the day. But that's not what it's about. You know it's about giving people things that they can then use to help them change the world or express their passion or express their creativity. So this merger thing that some folks are fixated on, I don't think that's what users want."

      is damned spot-on. Ultimately, Microsoft is really just pinching pennies and trying to lock people into a Windows ecosystem by merging their desktop and mobile systems. Nothing about the attempt to merge these systems is good for consumers.

      --
      "What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
      /)
    6. Re:Well duh.... by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 1

      Better? Maybe. Good? I doubt it. A computer is a fundamentally different device from a phone, with a much larger screen and fundamentally different input devices. It has different UI needs, and any attempt to shoehorn a common UI on phones and computers is doomed.

    7. Re: Well duh.... by bondsbw · · Score: 1

      One interface is doomed to be best on at most one form factor. But why does it need to be one interface? Put the app on the devices it makes sense to run on. Optimize it for each of those interfaces individually.

      This isn't very different from traditional cross-platform development. But better than that, you only have one code base in one language with one set of common frameworks and libraries, and one thread of versioning and updates instead of multiple to manage. The best, most maintainable cross-platform apps are already taking this approach at some level.

      Responsive design just makes this easier and more consistent. But nothing about it means you stop designing once the first platform is complete. That's just lazy and you deserve the bad reviews you will ultimately receive.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    8. Re:Well duh.... by antdude · · Score: 1

      God? :P

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    9. Re: Well duh.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think itâ(TM)s really about do what make sense. You can merge certain backend sub systems for efficiency without trading stuff off.

      Donâ(TM)t go full retard.

    10. Re: Well duh.... by iampiti · · Score: 1

      Yep. These days smartphones are really powerful so I believe everything but the UI can be shared. It shouldn't be THAT hard. Instead of that Microsoft seems to be set on forcing deskop users use touch optimized UIs.
      Anyway, I'm wary of the "responsive" label. It's commonly used to define UIs that auto resize but usually make a poor use of whitespace on desktops

    11. Re: Well duh.... by bondsbw · · Score: 1

      Agreed, I love the idea of proper responsive UIs given the plethora of screen sizes and interaction patterns. But too many implementations look more like sample apps than a truly rich experience.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    12. Re:Well duh.... by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 1

      The moment I have to use my mouse I lose speed. Windows 10 requires a mouse to create a folder, unless you want to try tabbing in a nearly random pattern around a hopelessly cluttered UI.

      Alt f w f has always worked. But they removed it because it depends on your security rights. But its right there in the top with a picture of a folder permanently taking up space. And yes I create many folders as a way to organize files being worked on immediately.

      If the explanations made sense maybe I'd give them a chance. But it isn't remotely sensible. And this is just one of a great many examples of being slower due to making it touch screen friendly.

      Set your computer to sync with a time server. Now change the date because the digital signature on your installer has expired. You can't. Oh but bring up the old school control panel instead of Settings and it works. Two different methods to control time. The calculator sucks, Edge sucks, the whole idea sucks.

    13. Re: Well duh.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only someone that hasnâ(TM)t thought about something for more than a second says, âoeit canâ(TM)t be that hardâ.

      Because you are stupid and there are another 50,000 idiots just like you, I will be helpful.

      Try to merge a car and an airplane. In your simple mind, they both have seats, so it canâ(TM)t be that hard. Right? Right? Dumbass. Retard. Go back to the starbucks where work can pick on nig ge rs.

    14. Re: Well duh.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. This is why it is important to have UIColor on iOS and NSColor on OSX. Colors are so obviously different between the platforms... /s

      Utter bullshit.

  2. See, told you so by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Insightful

    People on Slashdot keep claiming merging the two is what Apple is working towards. Perhaps this explicit statement from the CEO that users do not want it and Apple has no plans to do so are enough to quiet the minds of such people, for at least a little while.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:See, told you so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He didn't explicitly say they are not working on it, he said that the users don't want it.

      So that means they will introduce it as "the next big thing", and then all their user will suddenly want it.

    2. Re:See, told you so by Powys · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Users didn't want Apple to remove the headphone jack. Since when has apple ever listened to users?

    3. Re:See, told you so by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

      People on Slashdot keep claiming merging the two is what Apple is working towards. Perhaps this explicit statement from the CEO that users do not want it and Apple has no plans to do so are enough to quiet the minds of such people, for at least a little while.

      I was really glad to hear Cook say this, because frankly what I've been seeing with iOS and macOS led me to believe Apple was indeed working towards merging the two OSes - and, for me personally, that would deleteriously affect my ability to work effectively.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    4. Re:See, told you so by quantaman · · Score: 1

      People on Slashdot keep claiming merging the two is what Apple is working towards. Perhaps this explicit statement from the CEO that users do not want it and Apple has no plans to do so are enough to quiet the minds of such people, for at least a little while.

      Ahh I get it.

      It's a conspiracy! Tim Cook is lulling us into a false sense of security and SuperKendall is in on it!!!

      --
      I stole this Sig
    5. Re:See, told you so by TheFakeTimCook · · Score: 1

      People on Slashdot keep claiming merging the two is what Apple is working towards. Perhaps this explicit statement from the CEO that users do not want it and Apple has no plans to do so are enough to quiet the minds of such people, for at least a little while.

      Hahaha!

      You forget: This is Slashdot; where people still make Single-Button-Mouse jokes about Macs!

    6. Re:See, told you so by TheFakeTimCook · · Score: 0

      Users didn't want Apple to remove the headphone jack. Since when has apple ever listened to users?

      Proof?

    7. Re:See, told you so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Naw apple replaced that piece of crap with new piece of crap with the charging port on the bottom.

    8. Re:See, told you so by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      Yes, I find that design utterly fascinating. There has to be a reason...

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    9. Re:See, told you so by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 1

      The main "merge" is the Mac App Store becoming the exclusive source of apps, locking down the MacOS in the same way that iOS can only gain apps from the official App Store.

      This cuts small developers and unofficial tools out of the market, but it has the advantage of nobody being able to make a Trojan horse or virus. It's one step backwards in freedom, but one step forward in protection of the Internet.

    10. Re:See, told you so by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 1

      I haven't used the headphone jack in years... good Bluetooth has replaced the wired equipment.

    11. Re:See, told you so by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      that would deleteriously affect my ability to work effectively.

      What are you, a cat video reviewer or a gridr mystery shopper?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    12. Re:See, told you so by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 1

      Uhm, let me right-click on this Mac... pop-up menu comes up in Firefox.

    13. Re:See, told you so by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      I downloaded one single application from the macStore, Baldurs Gate. Oh, and an update for XCode, I believe.
      All other applications/software I download from the vendors site.

      I wonder why people claim such nonsense.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    14. Re:See, told you so by SeaFox · · Score: 1

      I haven't used the headphone jack in years... good Bluetooth has replaced the wired equipment.

      Whatever. That doesn't explain why Apple needs to remove the headphone jack. You can continue to use the Bluetooth equipment you enjoy even if the older technology is present. Why must it be a choice between one or the other? In the words of a certain little girl on a television commercial, "Why not both?"

    15. Re:See, told you so by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 1

      You have unchecked a checkbox in System Preferences in order to do this... eventually, that box will be automatically checked and disappear.

    16. Re:See, told you so by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 0

      The headphone jack is a way into the inside of the phone for water, dirt, and dust. If it's unused it shouldn't be there.

    17. Re:See, told you so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Users didn't want Apple to remove the headphone jack. Since when has apple ever listened to users?

      Citation needed

    18. Re:See, told you so by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      Maybe they're working on merging the underlying architecture...?? Cook speaks merely of interfaces.

    19. Re: See, told you so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How would anybody prove Apple has ever listened to their users?

    20. Re:See, told you so by SeaFox · · Score: 1

      The headphone jack is a way into the inside of the phone for water, dirt, and dust. If it's unused it shouldn't be there.

      How do other manufacturers manage to make IP68 phones that still have headphone jacks then?

    21. Re: See, told you so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ignore him; he is an apple worshipping idiot. Demands proof for any negative apple comment but then pulls pro apple "facts" out of this ass.

    22. Re:See, told you so by Mattcelt · · Score: 1

      That you are not using it is not evidence that no one uses it.

      Other peoples' phones not having headphone jacks has cost me considerably in terms of sales, not to mention frustration. I will never willingly purchase a phone that doesn't have one.

      Apple could have and should have left it alone. To try to drive sales of Beats wireless headphones by unnecessarily removing useful, functional, and reliable technology from their product was a dickish thing to do.

    23. Re:See, told you so by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Ha ha ha ha ...
      50%, probably more, Mac users are software developers.
      If we can not install the software we want, we switch to linux ... why would Apple ever do that?

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    24. Re:See, told you so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They actually make waterproof jacks. Care to try and come up with something else.. Courage maybe?

    25. Re:See, told you so by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 0

      The press didn't like it, and do you have any proof that people WANTED Apple to remove the number one means of connecting headphones to cell phones?

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    26. Re:See, told you so by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 1

      Too bad good Bluetooth and iOS are mutually exclusive; AptX, AptX HD, and LDAC (all near-lossless or lossless Bluetooth CODECs) do not run on iOS. Interestingly, the first two (AptX and AptX HD) do run on OSX. So it's not that Apple is not supportive of good Bluetooth; they just don't support it for portable devices.

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    27. Re:See, told you so by TheFakeTimCook · · Score: 1

      Uhm, let me right-click on this Mac... pop-up menu comes up in Firefox.

      Not sure what you are getting at; since we don't know the CONTEXT, dumbass...

    28. Re:See, told you so by TheFakeTimCook · · Score: 1

      The press didn't like it, and do you have any proof that people WANTED Apple to remove the number one means of connecting headphones to cell phones?

      It's not MY postulate to prove nor disprove, genius.

    29. Re:See, told you so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Enjoy your lossy Bluetooth audio. I like being able to plug a good pair of headphones or a stereo system into my phone to listen to music in high quality lossless.

    30. Re:See, told you so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is no such thing as lossless Bluetooth audio. Terms like "near lossless" are just marketing speak for "still lossy". The problem is compounded when someone is using a lossy source, such as MP3 or Ogg Vorbis and then having that recompressed into another lossy stream over Bluetooth. It's like saving a JPEG image as another JPEG, it's going to look (or in this case, sound) like shit.

      If someone is using FLAC or other lossless source, then all benefit gets negated when streaming over Bluetooth.

    31. Re: See, told you so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OSX is lame and less secure than iOS. If Apple did this, I'd ditch them.

    32. Re:See, told you so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, you can leave it checked, just right click the downloaded program and choose "Open" and it will open after you acknowledge a warning about it being downloaded from the internet, and then it'll run just fine.

      Not a Mac user yourself I guess?

    33. Re:See, told you so by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      There are some places I'd like to see a merge. AppKit is showing its age and adding support for things like windows, drag and drop, and so on to UIKit and making the desktop a new UIKit mode (just as it already has separate tablet and phone personalities) would make it possible to share a lot more code between the two. Being able to have almost identical code bases for iOS and macOS, with just a few tweaks to the UI to make them more appropriate for the different UI models (rather than a load of code duplication for UIKit and AppKit versions of common UI elements) would be an improvement.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    34. Re:See, told you so by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 0
      Here's more proof: iOS continues to lose market share and even in the US, all iOS devices now number about the same as just Samsung, one of multiple Android players. Was that from the headphone jack, or the general slide in iOS quality overall? I tend to think it's both, given the headphone market is continuing to explode and Apple basically locked themselves out of a vast majority of it.

      So where's your proof?

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    35. Re:See, told you so by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 1

      CSR/Qualcomm's AptX HD and Sony's LDAC both have the capability to transmit nearly 1 Mbps over Bluetooth. FLAC compression on a 24 bit/48k kHz stream can be supported in that bandwidth; FLAC compressed CD quality (16/44.1) can easily fit within the bandwidth. So yes, there is lossless Bluetooth audio, it's just lossless up to a certain point.

      In fact, that's why so many audiophiles are excited about LDAC and AptX HD - you can now listen to lossless streaming audio from Tidal.com and HDTracks.

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    36. Re:See, told you so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      50%, probably more, Mac users are software developers.

      [citation needed]

    37. Re:See, told you so by TheFakeTimCook · · Score: 1

      Here's more proof: iOS continues to lose market share and even in the US, all iOS devices now number about the same as just Samsung, one of multiple Android players. Was that from the headphone jack, or the general slide in iOS quality overall? I tend to think it's both, given the headphone market is continuing to explode and Apple basically locked themselves out of a vast majority of it.

      So where's your proof?

      The problem with that figure is that includes ALL Samsung phones; not just those that compete head-to-head against Apple's models. When you start breaking it out by model, an entirely different picture emerges, with Apple holding the first AND second place, in terms of units sold, with a low-end Samsung phone in third place (and no other Samsung models in the top 5) :

      https://www.bbva.com/en/top-se...

      In fact, it is really hard to figure out exactly what Samsung is selling significant numbers of, with THIRTY ONE NEW models of Samsung phones INTRODUCED in 2016 alone! But I bet my bottom dollar that the vast majority of 2017's UNIT sales figures for Samsung are actually cheap-shit "giveaway" phones. :

      http://www.businessinsider.com...

      Samsung is still selling phones with a 5 MP back camera and 4 GB of storage, FFS!

      https://www.gsmarena.com/samsu...

      Or how about this beauty? Released in 2014 (!!!) and Still available! 2 MP main camera, 4 GB. Looks like it came straight from 1999:

      https://www.gsmarena.com/samsu...

      You may laugh: But every one of those phones counts as Samsung's UNIT Sales:

      https://www.gsmarena.com/samsu...

      And, although Apple's unit sales were down 1.3% year-over-year in 2017, Samsung's unit sales were down a whopping 4% in the same time period. Plus, despite the somewhat lower-than-expected sales of the iPhone X, Apple bested Samsung in unit sales in Q4 of 2017.

      https://www.idc.com/promo/smar...

      But we can go back and forth with statistics all night long. Both companies are doing quite well, and neither has any real signs of drying up and blowing away any time soon. Can we just agree that's the REAL answer to all this?

    38. Re:See, told you so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Users barely even noticed or cared. Those that did either bought an Android or griped about it on the Internet for a week or so.

    39. Re:See, told you so by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 1

      Linux distros are all over the map... there's several with such limitations.

  3. Users would also like... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A headphone jack on their phones and laptops... just in case.
    A laptop that has more than one kind of port.
    Pretty sure this means that both "macOS" and iOS will be subsumed into a new unified OS - because Apple knows better than its users what they should want.

    1. Re:Users would also like... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Power users wouldn't mind having a laptop that handles 32GB or more of RAM.
      Or an expandable desktop.
      Apple's going to find that eGPU isn't really want users are looking for.

    2. Re:Users would also like... by ctilsie242 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      What makes sense would be the old Mac Pro back. Not something that looks like an art sculpture, but a plain old tower. Yes, it will cost a bunch, but for what true workstation users want/need, there isn't anything else that beats true PCIe. Thunderbolt is OK, but 4 PCIe lanes pale in comparison to the latest motherboards that have 64+ PCIe lanes for GPUs, RAID storage, and other things that are required for high end work. This isn't cheap, and most users don't need it, but for users who do, it is worth having.

    3. Re: Users would also like... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Iâ(TM)d really like a floppy drive in my laptop as well, you know, just in case. Please Apple?

    4. Re:Users would also like... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Multiplexing works well for PCIe i.e. an Intel chipset takes 4 lanes from its custom link with the CPU and turns it into 20 odd lanes (plus various things like legacy COM/LPT and PS/2, sound, etc.)
      I think an enclosure with two M.2 SSD slots, that plugs on Thunderbolt wouldn't be a bad thing even though you "only" get a full 4 GB/s shared between both SSDs.
      For GPUs yes you might get crippled or not crippled depending on the work.
      Dual 10GbE on T-bolt : should be good.

      The weakness though, esp. for my dual (or quad) M.2 SSD example : who makes Thunderbolt dual SSD enclosure? If nobody does, you're kinda stuck. If someone does, maybe this is a small company doing low volume hardware at 10x the cost i.e. an internal adapter board for dual M.2 SSDs will cost $20 for a desktop (may likely be a PCIe 8x board. or go on a desktop's 16x@4x slot) and the T-bolt enclosure is, well, at least 10x that.

      I hadn't checked beforehand : there's one such thing for $300
      https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/netstor-na611tb3-thunderbolt-3-nvme-portable-ssd,5359.html
      I envisioned the "thing" to have a PCIe bridge chip so that you get up to full 4x bandwith to each drive. But no, it just splits : 2x to each drive.
      I don't think I fault the company : how much does cost a frigging T-bolt controller on the device's end in the first place? what's the cost of the board engineering etc., licenses, and who are you going to sell this thing to? probably not many millions people.

      So I think the issue is commercial and political.. $300 enclosure shit competes with $20 USB3 500MB/s enclosures for single drive which is most people will want to get instead. If you do want super performance and dual drive? it'll cost $20 as an internal board for your mini-ITX, micro-ATX or full-ATX desktop.
      So, Apple should just release a desktop computer where you can add the $20 board that came out some years ago already. That won't help the very limited T-bolt market at all though and they'll never want to admit a mistake and go back.

    5. Re: Users would also like... by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 1

      Floppy has been sucessfully replaced by SD cards. Stronger device, smaller, and gigabytes have replaced 1.44 megabytes.

    6. Re: Users would also like... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So instead of a losing a $1 floppy, you can lose a $30 mass storage drive. And if you want to hand it to your boss/teacher/mom/friend you have to delete and back up your porn, bad music and communist/nazi/jihad propaganda first.
      This is not to diss SD cards but to point out floppies have some qualities we may miss :)
      (also your floppy won't act as a rogue keyboard, network adapter, or charge a capacitor and pump lots of amps into your computer)

    7. Re: Users would also like... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can get an 8 GB SD card--over 5000 floppies worth of storage--for $6.

      Buy several, keep your questionable files on separate cards, and make sure you don't hand the wrong one to your boss/teacher/mom.

    8. Re: Users would also like... by Agripa · · Score: 1

      Floppy has been successfully replaced by SD cards. Stronger device, smaller, and gigabytes have replaced 1.44 megabytes.

      Except on Apple systems where there is no SD card slot and one damn USB-C port which is needed for other things, but only one thing at a time without a dongle. So Apple replaced the floppy with nothing.

    9. Re: Users would also like... by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 1

      Uhm, let me check my Mac Mini... yep there's still an SD Slot there.

  4. Apple Pencil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I rest my case.

    1. Re: Apple Pencil by Chewbacon · · Score: 1

      Apple Pencil is actually a really nice stylus albeit expensive. My company bought me one and the iPad Pro to go with it. Much more comfortable to write with than the rubber tipped styluses out there.

      --
      Chewbacon
      The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
  5. Of course you should merge the guts if you can by iamacat · · Score: 3, Insightful

    UI and capabilities can be as different as users want them to be, but there is no need to force internal and external developers to do duplicate work. Few of iOS games are ported to OSX, the difference should only be in control scheme (and iOS/Apple TVs should trivially support paired Bluetooth input devices). The only reason to not do this now is if engineering effort is too high.

    1. Re:Of course you should merge the guts if you can by Kjella · · Score: 1

      UI and capabilities can be as different as users want them to be, but there is no need to force internal and external developers to do duplicate work. Few of iOS games are ported to OSX, the difference should only be in control scheme (and iOS/Apple TVs should trivially support paired Bluetooth input devices). The only reason to not do this now is if engineering effort is too high.

      Well and what's fun wasting a bit of time riding the bus is different from a marathon session in Civilization. I hope they implement it like a flip switch, here's your mobile/touch-focused UI and here's your desktop/keyboard+mouse-focused UI not mangle them to oblivion.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    2. Re:Of course you should merge the guts if you can by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They already do share the Darwin kernel. In essence you already have a single OS that can run two different UI.

    3. Re: Of course you should merge the guts if you can by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not as similar or as easy as you claim.

    4. Re:Of course you should merge the guts if you can by nine-times · · Score: 2

      Yeah, and also, I think he might largely be talking about the GUI. For what he's talking about, you could literally merge the two operating systems, because users don't know or care about that. We nerds know what an operating system is, but "users" only know the GUI.

      Tim Cook has been talking for a while about not wanting to merge iOS and MacOS, and his reasons are always GUI related. He's basically saying, "A good touch interface will suck for desktop users. A good keyboard/mouse interface will suck on a tablet or phone. Rather than trying to make a combo tablet/desktop GUI that isn't very good at either, we'd rather maintain two different GUIs."

    5. Re:Of course you should merge the guts if you can by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

      Then keep 2 different GUIs but use a single technology to implement it.

      HTML5 doesn't care if it's running on a smartphone or a 50" TV. Nor does Qt, which Nokia transplanted from the desktop to a touch environment. However, different form factors require different skins, e.g. mobile CSS.

      Where UWP failed was companies writing apps for Lumia and then publishing that same app to the Windows store without tailoring the user interface - a big screen abomination. And since WP10 was a distant third place behind iOS and Android, apps were unlikely to receive the same love in the first place.

      But neither should Apple run up the white flag saying its an impossible task to create Cocoa Revisited, Marzipan?, a toolkit that is a first class citizen on both GUIs.

    6. Re: Of course you should merge the guts if you can by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      The OSes actually are merged, unless that's changed recently. They both use the same kernel. Of course, as you move up the stack the frameworks are more and more different until you get to the GUI. But even the GUI api's are similar in a lot of ways.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    7. Re:Of course you should merge the guts if you can by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      Really? OSX is *nix and open and iOS is locked down. Which are you going to change?

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    8. Re:Of course you should merge the guts if you can by santiago · · Score: 1

      macOS and iOS effectively are merged already. iOS was born a fork of macOS. Non-UI code is basically portable between the two without any changes, modulo a few frameworks that only exist on one or the other for hardware reasons, and the UI code is similar, but slightly different because one is a windowed system for big screens with pointers and one is a full-screen system for small touch screens. Source: I've been an iOS developer for seven years, and had Mac OS X experience prior.

    9. Re: Of course you should merge the guts if you can by nine-times · · Score: 1

      It's true that iOS is based off of MacOS, but I was under the impression that it was stripped down quite a bit. Also, I don't know if there are different optimizations to run on ARM instead of Intel chips. I don't think it's as simple as being the same OS with a modified UI.

      I could be wrong. And of course, it depends on what you mean by "operating system". Is everything running on a Linux kernel the same OS? Arguably, I suppose, but I think most people would say that Chrome OS is a different operating system than Debian.

    10. Re: Of course you should merge the guts if you can by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      I don't think it's as simple as being the same OS with a modified UI.

      A lot of the core system is open source, and you can look through it as I have. Even up to the UI layer (Cocoa/OpenStep) things are very similar, with obvious differences because the UI components need to be different, and other less obvious differences (probably because some developer thought it would be better to 'fix' some things, and also because they were working very, very quickly to get iOS out and sometimes the work feels hasty).

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    11. Re:Of course you should merge the guts if you can by nine-times · · Score: 1

      I believe both MacOS and iOS are Unix, large portions of which are open source. iOS isn't open in the sense that you can only install apps from their app store, but otherwise it's not that different.

      If you're asking whether I'd support removing the ability to install non-AppStore apps on MacOS, then the answer is no. If I had the choice, I'd like the ability to install non-AppStore apps on iOS devices. However, that question has pretty much nothing to do with merging the code.

  6. Merge the other way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A iPad that runs desktop MacOS, not a Mac that runs iOS. Call it the iPad for actual pros.

    1. Re:Merge the other way by myid · · Score: 1

      A iPad that runs desktop MacOS, not a Mac that runs iOS. Call it the iPad for actual pros.

      Yes. I don't like to use iOS, because I don't like its restrictions.

      Sometimes I need a touch screen, but Apple doesn't currently make a Mac with a touch screen.

      I wish Apple would make a transparent pane or something, that I can put in front of my iMac, that can be used as a touch screen.

      Or create a Mac (running macOS) with a touch screen built-in.

      Last choice - an iPad Pro that runs macOS. (But I prefer the size of my 27" iMac to the size of an iPad Pro.)

      I really hope Apple doesn't replace macOS with iOS (with iOS's restrictions). That would force me away from the Mac.

  7. Of COURSE we don't want them merged. by ZorinLynx · · Score: 1

    Any attempt to merge the two would hurt both platforms.

    Making iOS more like MacOS would result in an overly bloated mobile operating system. iOS needs to be simple, mostly stateless, and perform well on mobile hardware.

    Making MacOS more like iOS would be crippling the operating system. MacOS is VASTLY more capable in every way than iOS and works great for beginners and power users alike. Taking away features or putting it in a walled garden to make it more like iOS would be a HUGE disservice to its users.

    Pretty much the ONLY thing I could agree with that would be a good idea to make MacOS more like iOS would be to add touch screen capability to Macs. It would be a useful and OPTIONAL feature that many would appreciate. But that's about it.

    1. Re:Of COURSE we don't want them merged. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A functional "merge" is one or more iOS subsystems on MacOS, plus touch APIs on macOS.

      Anyone who has used a touch laptop knows how nice it is to be able to reach out and scroll the screen or tap things on it instead of fiddling with the touch pad or mouse.

      One or more iOS subsystems would permit content to be written for both. A subsystem that implements a subset of iOS functionality gives you the ability to have a common "core" for both a macOS and iOS program. A full or nearly full iOS subsystem permits you to use iOS programs on macOS with next to zero port effort.

      I could see Apple being against the second, as they don't want cheap ports. They want to force developers to spend a bunch of time polishing their applications to increase baseline visual quality.

      The first is already underway -- when you release a common graphics API for both, you are merging the two.

    2. Re:Of COURSE we don't want them merged. by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      iOS and macOS are both unixes.
      Only the UI is different.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    3. Re:Of COURSE we don't want them merged. by tsqr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Anyone who has used a touch laptop knows how nice it is to be able to reach out and scroll the screen or tap things on it instead of fiddling with the touch pad or mouse.

      I am a member of the set of people you are trying to speak for, and I'm here to tell you you're wrong in saying I know how nice it is. I have a touchscreen Win10 laptop; aside from playing around with touch the day I got it, the only thing I've ever used touch for is to swipe to get to the login screen, and that only a handful of times. Touch is inaccurate, inconvenient compared to the touchpad, and results in a smudged screen. If you like it, fine; use it. But don't kid yourself that everyone feels that way.

    4. Re:Of COURSE we don't want them merged. by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      The most interesting idea that would come from any of this would be to equip a Mac with a touchscreen, but not make it's use anywhere near mandatory for those (like me) that have serious ergonomic concerns with vertical touchscreens; and then grow the existing iOS simulator that resides in Xcode into a full blown virtual iOS residing on your Mac that allows app store downloads and usage.

      When I need / want the full Mac experience, it's always there. If I need / want an iOS app that doesn't exist on the Mac, it's there. And, your iOS developers gain a world class debug environment.

      Yes, implementing it would be vastly more difficult than what I've outlined, but Apple's done far more difficult than that many times in the past. Most of the pieces already exist - and we wouldn't even have a stupid notch in the top of the screen to work around! Oh, and there's still a headphone jack! And other Slashdot gripes!

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    5. Re:Of COURSE we don't want them merged. by MachineShedFred · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Anyone who has used a touch laptop knows how nice it is to be able to reach out and scroll the screen or tap things on it instead of fiddling with the touch pad or mouse.

      False. I have one - Dell XPS 9560. I literally never use the touch screen. Kind of wish I didn't have to pay for the extra hardware there in order to get the improved display. Two-finger scrolling on the track pad is easier and more ergonomic, because my hands are already on the keyboard or palm rest. And that's even with Dell's terrible trackpad.

      I guess your statement becomes true if you don't include me (and many others) in "Anyone".

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    6. Re:Of COURSE we don't want them merged. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think I would use it if you can register touch as a middle click. That would be a workaround but I'll finally be able to close old browser tabs

    7. Re: Of COURSE we don't want them merged. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only in the same sensse that my Tivo is a unix.

    8. Re:Of COURSE we don't want them merged. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then there is the issue with the people coming to your computer and touching the screen to point things to you...

      and activating links or closing windows...

      Not fun.

    9. Re:Of COURSE we don't want them merged. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      [...] Pretty much the ONLY thing I could agree with that would be a good idea to make MacOS more like iOS would be to add touch screen capability to Macs. It would be a useful and OPTIONAL feature that many would appreciate. But that's about it.

      How a about an official Apple sling attached to the ceiling so I can suspend my arms in front of my desktop monitor?

    10. Re:Of COURSE we don't want them merged. by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

      A laptop with a fixed hinge? Agreed that a touchscreen doesn't add much if you're using it primarily as a desktop.

      But I could definitely see myself using a Surface or equivalent, with a removable keyboard cover. i.e. doing what I'd do most on an iPad - sitting on the couch or on the train surfing the web or as a PDF viewer. apps? I have a phone for that.

    11. Re:Of COURSE we don't want them merged. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Had touch screen laptop for 18 months. Used it occasionally in the first month, then hardly at all, then never again after the first time trying to use my grease-stricken screen in direct sunlight.

      The touchscreen started randomly touching things on it's own 1 month out of warranty so I just turned off the touchscreen. When the 360 hinge-o-matic thing broke a few months later I just turned off the laptop, slid it into a draw and went out and bought a real laptop.

    12. Re:Of COURSE we don't want them merged. by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Why not merge the underlying hardware architecture i.e. make them both based on the A series CPUs? Then one can choose whether to use iOS or OS X on either device

  8. Users Hate Buying Duplicate Tech by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2

    Yes, the use cases for both are different, but there's no reason an upcoming iPhone can't power a wireless KVM with ease. Having one device to carry is what people want, and the non-private iCloud sync isn't a replacement for integration. Of course "Mac Mode" should run with KVM semantics and not with mobile semantics. So Tim is right.

    And so are the people saying a merger is on the horizon.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    1. Re: Users Hate Buying Duplicate Tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Merging the codebases" doesn't necessarily mean "merging the products". It could just mean that there is some code that could, in fact, be common, without affecting anything but development.

  9. Agree with Cook on this one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    Absolutely agree with Cook, Mac OS and IOS are operating systems serving very different devices and therefore need separate types of operating systems. Obviously Apple saw the disaster of what Windows 8 was and realized one size OS doesn't work and is full of compromises. Microsoft is still trying to make something work for all devices with Windows 10 without a lot of real success. Give Cook credit for realizing the tablet and notebooks are used in different ways and developing operating systems that complement them.

    1. Re:Agree with Cook on this one by portal2 · · Score: 1

      I also agree with Cook. While Win10 may be solid under the hood, the user interface sucks. Like being designed by a three year old. Above all an awful waste of space. The Ok button does not need to be that large on my desktop. For using touch I can understand that, but not for a pc with a mouse. That's also why the borders of a window are now 1 pixel thick. Try that for resizing a window. I estimate a 30% less time efficiency using an application while (trying to) resizing windows. Again on a tablet, windows don't need to be resized. So merging the two systems into 1 only makes sense when the OS can determine the hardware it runs on and give you the right UI. I think it's time we - as users - should unite ourselves and make these companies understand that we are fed up with these forced changes and that we want to have a real say in how we want our system to be.

    2. Re:Agree with Cook on this one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Something I just noticed.. the windows have thick ass shadows, on four sides.
      Also I can't collapse the task bar to a thin line when unlocked (like when your relatives did it by accident in the old windows days)
      There's the auto-hide setting, but it doesn't work (on my machine). Wow.
      I use enough RAM to get the PC to swap when browsing. So opening the "start menu" takes four seconds (recent laptop with extremely fast 15-watt CPU, and 4GB RAM)
      It also may take a few seconds to load the calculator.
      I can't remove the language switcher next to the clock.
      I've remembered you can maximize/minimize windows with win+up and win+down, so there's that. Although move and resize are still done the same ways as in Windows 3.1/95/XP.

  10. users want headphone jacks and batteries by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    since when does apple care what users want?

  11. Of course he says that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ChromeOS all ready did it with Android apps.

    But Im sure a few year from now apple will do it and the sheep will bleat about how magical and innovative apple is.

    It will be a magical combination of a toaster and a fridge.

    1. Re:Of course he says that by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

      Yeah the Chrome tablets are an interesting development - a platform that merges a WIMP environment with an app platform.

      'Users' have convinced themselves they don't want a touchscreen laptop, even when I point out that an iPad Pro is a touchscreen laptop.

  12. "What's a computer?" by Comboman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So what he's really saying is that OSX will continue to die from neglect until everyone gets on-board with using a tablet for everything.

    --
    Support Right To Repair Legislation.
    1. Re:"What's a computer?" by Hadlock · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Besides the fact that they use GNU tools from ~2005 due to BSD reasons what do you feel is neglected, I use it for work and it mostly boots up and gets out of the way, I'm curious what must-have features you want that it doesn't provide?

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    2. Re:"What's a computer?" by Hadlock · · Score: 1

      Someone will come looking for how to fix GNU core utils, it is
       

      brew install coreutils --with-default-names

      Which also fixes some goofy find/replace behavior with sed

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    3. Re:"What's a computer?" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly this. Someone finally gets it.

      https://9to5mac.com/2018/04/20/apple-7th-place-laptop-review/

      apple puts profits ahead of innovation

    4. Re:"What's a computer?" by MeNeXT · · Score: 1

      Can you specify the neglect in OSX. I would agree that there is neglect on the hardware side but what OS function is missing? I find more features missing on Win10 that OSX.

      --
      DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
    5. Re:"What's a computer?" by MeNeXT · · Score: 1

      You point to hardware when the topic is Operating Systems.

      But even then there are few laptops which last as long as Macs and they are at the same price level and they are at the same performance level.

      Innovation? The only laptops that I can go a check out that have a Tunderbolt connection because speed matters are Macs. There is no supplier who has any other laptop with thunderbolt on display. So where is this innovation that this article talks about? 5400RPM drives? USB2? USB3? Windows telemetry? Is that the innovation? What is innovative, that is a must have in a computer that is not available on Macs?

      --
      DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
    6. Re:"What's a computer?" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, I had a look at a 2008 Apple laptop.
      OS version : 10.5
      Last OS version supported : 10.6
      OS version you can install by messing with some files : 10.7
      EOL of 10.7 : some years ago

      Courage!

  13. Your lack of courage... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...is disturbing.

  14. When is apple... by unique_parrot · · Score: 1

    ...finally fixing the remote desktop. That would be supercool, connecting to your mac over the internet. Right now, everything I tried is too slow.

    1. Re:When is apple... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      LogMeIn and Bomgar work great for this.

  15. They won't merge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Of course Apple won't merge iOS and MacOS.
    They'll just kill the Mac. That's why they are moving Mac to their own chips - so that it evolves into a cheap, low powered laptop, souring the milk so that users convert to iOS based systems instead. It's possible that Apple leverages some cloud computing and make MacOS an app/service as they sunset actual computers.
    This announcement was just to confuse people who are holding off on buying one of their recently released Mac products and those in the pipeline.
    The handwriting has been on the wall for a long time.

    1. Re:They won't merge by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      The iPad Pro is essentially already a "smallish" laptop(and largish tablet). The hybridization is where the two form factors meet. I'm sure Tim knows this already.

      Keyboards are becoming less relevant in the spaces where ultra laptops and tablets live.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    2. Re:They won't merge by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 2

      Keyboards are only "less relevant" until you need to do some real work. Touch-screen keyboards suck, voice/text recognition is less reliable than pressing keys to type.

    3. Re:They won't merge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Contrarian idea here : maybe sitting at an actual desk, with a largeish high spec tablet and a real external keyboard would be better than lying and half-lying in a bed or couch with a laptop and its laptop keyboard.

      The keyboard would better be a wired one though. If it worked like USB power delivery, daisy chaining, it'd go : cable from the ipad connector to the keyboard. Cable from the keyboard to a power source. So you get what is actually needed : keyboard data and power.
      Relying on batteries and microwaves for everything is sweeping issues under the rug..
      Might easily be doable with a Windows tablet and USB-C (if someone will make a keyboard/USB-C hub combo)

    4. Re:They won't merge by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

      The iPad Pro already has a hardware keyboard.

    5. Re:They won't merge by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

      With a shit interface if you use it as a "laptop." Having to lift your hands off the KB to point and click is beyond irritating.

    6. Re:They won't merge by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

      Complain to Tim Cook! :-)

      Hey Tim, "user" wonders why there's no touchpad on the iPad keyboard. Android supports mouse input.

    7. Re:They won't merge by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

      Nipple-mouse please, touch pads are for pikers :)

  16. LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ios and osmac are such bug ridden cesspools can you imagine the mess that would come out of the merging of the two?

    apple; its ok just to not write software; you are not that good at it.

    1. Re:LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      iOs AnD oSmAc aRe sUch BuG rIdDeN cEsSpOoLs

      https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAmiYhhWsAAfGnm.jpg

    2. Re:LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You might want to take your mac in for servicing. Looks like there are some tiny pieces of dust in your keyboard.

  17. Finder for ios is needed and sideloading by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    Finder for ios is needed and side loading.

    If the IOS lock down comes to mac os apple is dead. Right now there lack of good pro hardware is killing then in that market.

    1. Re:Finder for ios is needed and sideloading by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      side loading.

      Since iOS9 side loading apps is a supported feature. As long as they're open source. Yes, that is important because binary-only releases go against the spirit of the function.

      There's a spread of utilities and games that are not typically allowed (like emulators) in the app store you can compile and send to your iOS devices.

  18. What they want by ArhcAngel · · Score: 1

    What they want is an iPad Pro that runs MacOS.

    --
    "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
    1. Re:What they want by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

      As an Apple 'hater', I could certainly live with that.

      Compare a Macbook and an iPad Pro side by side - the iPad wins easily on 'sexiness'. But I need to buy the fugly Macbook to get "real work" done?

  19. MacOS is dead when XCode runs on iOS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When XCode runs on iOS, macOS will be deprecated and die off.

  20. Allowing a terse response by Provocateur · · Score: 1

    We made a smart phone. For smart users. And those are the ones that do not ask stupid questions. Next.

    If a merging of both was the wet dream of our consumers, they should buy the alternative from Redmond. Next.

    You people are not asking for the impossible. You can join that line over there, behind those people waiting for the return of the headphone jack on the phone.

    --
    WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
  21. Phone as a Desktop PC why not? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't see any problem in possibility to use regular phone as a desktop PC as well.
    Just connect Keyboard, mouse couple of 24 inch displays and go!

  22. What Users Want? by tsqr · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I don't think that's what users want.

    Right. Just like a headphone jack on the iPhone, or Thunderbolt-2 and MagSafe ports on the MacBook Pro, which absolutely no users want at all.

  23. for me that was duh by bobmajdakjr · · Score: 1

    not a mac fan anymore but back in the day when this was the first it became a worry, the problem is nobody wanted their pc os to get dumber, which is exactly what would happen, rather than the phone os becoming something that can do actual work.

  24. CAR ANALOG INCOMING! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's much the same as when some car manufacturer puts out a "track" version of a road car - it's still a road car that will never be as fast around a race track as a purpose built race car (sometimes the manufacturer sells full-blown versions of the same car meant for only tracks), and now it's also terrible on most regular roads because of the stiff suspension and almost-no-sidewall tires that allow you to feel every single bump in the road compressing your spine; let alone the privilege of paying extra to have them not install bits in the name of "weight reduction". I just love the concept of paying several thousand dollars extra to have someone in the factory leave the door handles and stereo on a shelf instead of actually screwing them into the car.

    You've taken a car that was good at what it was - a comfortable machine for driving through the countryside and around town, and made it worse at that in order to still not be good on a racetrack, for all the zero times that most owners take these cars to a real race for fear of shredding it along a wall.

    Microsoft did the same with Windows 8, only worse.

    1. Re:CAR ANALOG INCOMING! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft did the same with Windows 8, but they also screwed an upside down bicycle on the roof of the car. You're supposed to go to Microsoft bicycle tracks and tip the car over. And what they removed from the car wasn't very heavy, they removed the ash tray and ability to drive without the seat belt.

  25. Why not asking the users? by aglider · · Score: 1

    Instead of saying what you think they'd answer?

    --
    Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
    1. Re:Why not asking the users? by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      What makes you think the users know which one will be better?

      Also, why ask them when Win 8/Win 10 are excellent user surveys on the concept already?

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    2. Re: Why not asking the users? by aglider · · Score: 1

      ... because Cook says that's what users want!

      --
      Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
  26. If IOS and McOS love each other very much... by nospam007 · · Score: 1

    ..Then little imacOS will be brought in by the stork.

    I wish the new family all the best, but really, we don't care.

  27. .64 megabytes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...ought to be enough for anybody.

  28. Lets see what was watered down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Pages,
    Numbers,
    Final Cut Pro
    iPhotos
    Aperture

  29. It's Apple that does not want to by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Merging iOS and MacOS would mean opening iOS to make it usable as a development platform. The alternative would be recommending development on Linux or Windows.

    Believe me, Apple is very happy with how things stand right now.

  30. Or why I'm not an Apple user by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

    Slashdot should really stop post clickbait articles on what Apple *aren't* doing, although I'm sure it's a major coup for the journalist at the Green Guide to interview one of the world's most influential CEOs from the other side of the planet.

    If he's not interested in marketing products we basement dwelling nerds would be interested in, that's okay. We have differing tastes and companies that pursue our ideas of innovation will gladly take our money.

  31. Separate, but some additions. by porky_pig_jr · · Score: 1

    I don't see any reason why Apple doesn't add the touch screen display to its line of laptops with MacOS. It will simply give a user more flexibility. Every once in a while touch screen is natural to use.

    Likewise, there is no reason why Apple doesn't add a mouse/touchpad support for IOS. Primarily for use with add-on keyboard. When you use a detachable keyboard with Ipad, it is more natural to use a mouse pad rather than moving your fingers from the keyboard to display. Yeah, I know, they are keyboard shortcuts to navigate the display, that's not as intuitive as using the mousepad for that purpose.

  32. MacOS is Dead, Long Live iOS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The only reason MacOS exists is because you can't write iOS apps on iOS.

    When this limitation is gone, MacOS is truly dead.

  33. The Windows 8+ experience by unixisc · · Score: 1

    We saw what it did to Windows 10. It's.... not gud.

    Actually, the Windows 10 UI was fine, what was wrong in Windows 10 was the migration away from being a software centric company to a company that tries to make the user base its beta testers, forced upgrades, as well as breaking a good amount of compatibility b/w Windows 7 and 10 applications. Oh, and moving to the Windows Store as a primary way of getting new software: the better software is still software that one has to either get a DVD for, or download from a website. Notice that Office does not get distributed via the Windows store.

    On Apple, they have actually made OS X too similar to iOS. One thing I wish they did - use the A series CPUs for the Macs as well, instead of basing the iOS devices on those but Macs on the x64.

    1. Re:The Windows 8+ experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry but the UI is still an unmitigated disaster of metro-ness (or "modern", or "UWP", or "Fluent" -- whatever they call it this week). Don't worry, their Progressive Web Apps idea which will eventually replace Fluent will fail just as hard, because a phone interface on a workstation is the stupidest thing ever (at least Tim Cook gets it). We'll see in a decade (after all these dumb ideas failed hard) if they can still deliver something better than Windows 7 -- something without a phone/touch-first UI made for a 4" screen. I don't think they're capable anymore, much like they've been making Office worse with every new release. It's starting to look like the beginning of the end...

    2. Re:The Windows 8+ experience by iampiti · · Score: 1

      While it's certainly much better than Windows 8, 10's start menu is IMO worse than the one on 7.
      Also, they've changed some parts of the UI (of the OS itself and many default apps) to be touch optimized which makes poor use of real estate when using mice.

  34. The Windows 8+ experience by unixisc · · Score: 1

    Precisely! Giving Windows 8 an UI similar to Windows Phone 8 was pretty inane. When I got my first Windows 8 laptop, the experience was so bad that I wiped it out for PC-BSD. (Of course, it's another thing that PC-BSD has stagnated ever since becoming TrueOS)

    Windows 10 had the right idea of giving the user the option to choose b/w a Windows 7 like 'Desktop mode' vs a Windows 8 like 'Tablet mode'. While there are several things about Windows 10 that I don't like, the UI ain't one of them.

  35. Cook Lacks Imagination by pubwvj · · Score: 2

    If Tim Cook thinks merging iOS and MacOS would result in compromises then he lacks imagination and should not be leading Apple.

    Done properly the software could make the best use of what ever hardware it finds itself running on so the user gets to pick and choose how and where they want to use it. I'm a user and a programmer, for 40 years, so I speak from a bit of experience and I apparently have a lot more imagination than Tim Cook. If he can't imagine better things then he needs to get out of the way of people who can.

  36. Cook's vision is dedicated lowend facebook machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He doesn't understand that some people must do real work. I'm sure killing mac os is on the roadmap. He just doesn't have the balls to do it yet.

    The next step is to make macs as slow as iPads by using the same ARM chips in them. He already cut speeds on the mac mini by 50% when the 2014 model was released. He then hasn't refreshed it. Same thing with the mac pro. The imac pro was only because people were so pissed about the macbook pro that they needed something to develop on.

  37. iOS, no no much, A10x in my next mac? hell yeah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The one thing that still not yet up to par is (ironically for Apple) the GPU performance, especially with games. My kids play FORTNiTE on the 299$ PS4 and on the ipads at a better frame rate than on the latest iMac 27 we have around. I would refresh a bunch of machines if they'd come with an A10 co-processor on the pcie bus. But I would drop the mac altogether if they drop IA64 and go ARM-only tho.

  38. Good. Now can we have our apps back? by hackertourist · · Score: 1

    Over the past few years, Apple has replaced several OSX apps that worked well with new ones that are less functional, to get feature parity between OSX and iOS. Replacing iPhoto with Photos, for example.
    Now that the penny has dropped, it's time to stop limiting OSX apps to the level of their iOS counterparts.

  39. Disappointing by XSportSeeker · · Score: 1

    I'm not an Apple user anyways, but I was expecting Apple to at least try to go after this.
    I mean, I do understand how hard it is to come up with a perfect mix on this, but I'm expecting that at some point we'd have devices flexible enough to work both in tablet or laptop/desktop mode without any compromises.

    This is probably something that'd have to be lead by Apple, like it or not. Microsoft is absolutely clueless on what to do with Windows these days, what with scaring away people with telemetry, trying to force stupid old ideas like Windows 10S, and just running out of stock for it's last Windows phone units.
    Android and Chromecast just won't do.
    Linux has all but killed it's first and last attempts on adapting to smartphones and tablets, there are no big active developments, and it just seems that the OS will never work well with those.

    I haven't gave up on my dream of having a single device/hardware for all though. But with Windows laptops using mobile CPUs showing up, smartphones becoming more powerful by the day, and the need for a more streamlined computing experience... I'm not sure why Cook would outright deny the whole thing like that. Obviously, it plays against the company. They'd be selling one less device per costumer there. This is the point I hate corporations going for anti cannibalization stuff instead of what's best for costumers.

    But eventually, the market figures it out.

  40. Merger by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Being able to run iOS apps on my Mac would be awesome.

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