Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iPhone, son of Newton?

I

iN8

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 29, 2002
151
1
The Bahamas
I was just thinking about the news that iPhone runs on ARM.

Mac OS X doesn't run on arm, but Jobs said iPhone runs "OS X". What he didn't say was Mac OS X. I really doubt they would port Mac OS X over to ARM, so what would be an option?

Didn't the Newton run on ARM? Could the "OS X" running on iPhone really be a updated version of the Newton OS?

The Newton OS was definitely powerful enough, even by todays standards, so an updated version could potentially power the iPhone.

What do you think?
 
Could the use of "OS X" rather than "Mac OS X" plus the dropping of "Computer" from "Apple Computer" mean that Apple is going to open OS X to run on any x86 hardware???
 
MacVault said:
Could the use of "OS X" rather than "Mac OS X" plus the dropping of "Computer" from "Apple Computer" mean that Apple is going to open OS X to run on any x86 hardware???
Click to expand...

I seriously doubt that. Apple is all about closed systems: Mac hardware and Mac OS X, iPod and iTMS and now iPhone and "OS X". Apple is Apple because of the ease of use and "just works" factor it can offer from the control over hardware and software.

About the rename to Apple Inc. It is more a marketing move because they are moving to consumer electronics and not just computers. However, most of their consumer electronics to date are really different forms of computers, but most people view computers as Personal Computers.
 
thejadedmonkey said:
No. There's an on-screen keyboard, not handwriting recognition.:mad:
Click to expand...

Th eNewton had an onscreen keyboard too.

Who's to say it doesn't/can't have handwriting recognition. It has a touch screen that recognizes gestures. It wouldn't take much to enable HR.

The potential for the iPhone is limitless. Just because a feature isn't there now, doesn't mean it isn't possible.
 
This Article says that the iPhone runs an optimised, but full version of OS X.

I guess once it is released, we can see for ourselves.
 
miniConvert said:
Whatever iPhone is running I'm almost certain that the biggest similarity to the Mac's OS X is the name...
Click to expand...
Agreed. This could be just marketing.

And besides, I wouldn't want OS X running on my phone anyway. There are too many things that OSX can do that you'd never need on an iPhone, and whether the code was "optimised" or not doesn't matter. It looks, feels, and basically functions entirely new. Even Safari on the iPhone is a new browser, essentially, whether they share the same name or not. Apple just wants you to feel as though you're getting real Apple software out of this phone rather than mini-apps that aren't any good.
 
iN8 said:
I seriously doubt that. Apple is all about closed systems: Mac hardware and Mac OS X, iPod and iTMS and now iPhone and "OS X". Apple is Apple because of the ease of use and "just works" factor it can offer from the control over hardware and software.

About the rename to Apple Inc. It is more a marketing move because they are moving to consumer electronics and not just computers. However, most of their consumer electronics to date are really different forms of computers, but most people view computers as Personal Computers.
Click to expand...

No, they won't do that. Part of the Mac philosophy is stability control. Which Apple would not have if they ported to x86
 
iN8 said:
I seriously doubt that. Apple is all about closed systems: Mac hardware and Mac OS X, iPod and iTMS and now iPhone and "OS X". Apple is Apple because of the ease of use and "just works" factor it can offer from the control over hardware and software.
Click to expand...

Well... they have made gasp-worthy surprise moves before (Intel anyone?)

Here's what I'm thinking. They have tried and tried and tried to claim a chunk of Microsoft's market share. They've tried Mac clones, the Switch campaign, migration software, Mac Mini (the 'plug-in' Mac), BootCamp, Windows heckling campaigns, iLife, price drops, riding the iPod wave... but it just won't budge, and now Vista has arrived, which means they can no longer even take advantage from the fact that XP was ancient. Argh! Closet Mac fans are sitting there making Aqua teams for Windows, but they're not even thinking of getting the real thing! At this point one MIGHT argue hey... what have we got to lose? Let's drop the big one. Let's challenge Microsoft on their own turf. Heck, we're already on Intel. We have plenty of loyal customers who will buy bona fide Macs, they're not gonna run out and buy some stupid plastic Dell machine just because they can. Hey, we may even see a surge in hardware sales after a few years - a lot of OSX users will covet the mythical "genuine Mac".

There are of course a myriad of arguments against this hypothesis. To name but one, Apple would have had to contact an infinite number of 3rd party hardware manufacturers in order to develop drivers for devices OSX needs to support. In a conspiracy that large, it's inevitable that someone somewhere will spill the beans.

Either way, I'm downgrading OSX for X86 from impossible to improbable.
 
Cassie said:
No, they won't do that. Part of the Mac philosophy is stability control. Which Apple would not have if they ported to x86
Click to expand...

Meh. My Macs crash as frequently, or should I say as infrequently, as my PCs. The PCs being a tad more informative when it happens, while the Macs seem so taken aback they just go 'pop' and flash me some cryptic error code. A spinning pizza may be prettier than a spinning hour glass, but I'm still screwed.

In other words, Apple doesn't even have stability control over the hardware they hand picked, so it's not like they have a reputation to lose if they go X86 and OSX crashes there too. C'mon Apple, put the money where the mouth is and show everyone you can conjure up an OS that runs on the same hardware as Windows, but with superior stability.
 
iN8 said:
Who's to say it doesn't/can't have handwriting recognition. It has a touch screen that recognizes gestures. It wouldn't take much to enable HR.
Click to expand...

Except most people write with a pen, not their fingers.

And Steve didn't seem to like the idea of a Stylus.
 
The iPhone does have HR in some form, if you understand (Simplified) Chinese, where you can draw(with a finger, obviously) your own characters.
 
elppa said:
Except most people write with a pen, not their fingers.

And Steve didn't seem to like the idea of a Stylus.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't read too much into what he said in the case of the iPhone.

Jobs is a salesman. Period. He has always dissed whatever Apple doesn't have or use, right up until the moment that they DO use it... in which case, it suddenly becomes the "most amazing thing ever".

:)
 
I just realised the post before my previous one was posted in January 2007... How did this get to the front page for me to reply to it, thinking it was a new thread? :confused:
 
iN8 said:
Didn't the Newton run on ARM? Could the "OS X" running on iPhone really be a updated version of the Newton OS?

The Newton OS was definitely powerful enough, even by todays standards, so an updated version could potentially power the iPhone.

What do you think?
Click to expand...

Newton WAS the OS. Apple Message Pads used Newton OS. I have one in my cupboard. The handwriting recognition is still amazing even for a HW/SW combination that old. Pity the rest of the device was so weird to use.
 
iN8 said:
Mac OS X doesn't run on arm, but Jobs said iPhone runs "OS X". What he didn't say was Mac OS X. I really doubt they would port Mac OS X over to ARM, so what would be an option?

Didn't the Newton run on ARM? Could the "OS X" running on iPhone really be a updated version of the Newton OS?
Click to expand...

Mac OS X does run on ARM. Even way back in 2007, the jailbreak community found out that they could SSH into a 1st gen iPhone, run OS X and Unix command-line apps, and also build apps that used many of the same Mac OS X framework APIs, except for the Finder/GUI stuff.

With Snow Leopard and iPhone OS 3.1, the similarities are probably even stronger.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back