ML Influences

[afin]

I was looking back at apple's ML page and I thought it was interesting that rather than splaying the words "inspired by iOS" across their page, they chose instead to say "inspired by the iPad." While it's a moot point that apple is clearly moving OSX towards iOS, I'm wondering if their description of ML hints to their future approach to mac hardware. Food for thought.

 

[nuckinfutz]

Yup

I expect more Macs to be using NAND storage and offering instant on going forward.

 

[KnightWRX]

I expect more Macs to be using NAND storage and offering instant on going forward.

My old 2008 MacBook was as instant-on as my MBA.

 

[SRLMJ23]

I think what Apple is aiming at here is one unified OS for all products. Just my opinion.

 

[pdjudd]

I think what Apple is aiming at here is one unified OS for all products. Just my opinion.

They aren't. It just will not happen the two OS’s are just too different. You are thinking about Microsoft’s approach - something that Apple has consistently has said is not what they want.

 

[nostylluan]

i too believe apple wants one single OS. the only difference between iOS and OSX is touch vs mouse. but just like a laptop, its just an option... touchpad or mouse.

so i believe one day we'll see one single OS. what's the point of having two?

 

[MattInOz]

i too believe apple wants one single OS. the only difference between iOS and OSX is touch vs mouse. but just like a laptop, its just an option... touchpad or mouse.

so i believe one day we'll see one single OS. what's the point of having two?

The point of having two is that middle ground products never work well.
The trade off are too much for the product to bear and it just ends up unclear.

To me the question is why merge them?

OS X provides enough guidance to get out of your way and let you get on with stuff, plus has freedom to let you try almost anything you can think of.

iOS is tight and nibble so you can get in get stuff done then leave it to the device to deal with it. It shouldn't let anything get in your way.

Both get to take advantage of common ground which gives them all the advantage of a merged OS but they aren't tied to it if they need to push away and better serve the customer.

 

[pdjudd]

what's the point of having two?

Because A Jack of all trades is in reality a master of none. Tablets/mobile devices and desktop systems are inherently different and there are just too difference to approach them from the same perspective. Apple knows this which is why they approached the iPad by using iOS as a foundation instead of OSX like Microsoft has been doing for many, many years.

It just doesn’t work - the interfaces for one are just incompatible with each other fundamentally. OSX isn’t touch based like iOS is - at best OSX is mouse, keyboard and gesture based (via an external hardware like a trackpad on the desktop) and Apple would have to abandon a ton of programming interface that just doesn’t work on each device. The two systems share things at the lowest level - they diverge heavily at higher levels. Apple would have to abandon a ton of things - namely a ton of programs that just are not designed with iOS in mind.

No, Apple sees these as different systems that operate like a married couple - they share the best things about each other and adopt their best (and sometimes bad) traits. But they are and will remain separate entities.

 

[afin]

The point of having two is that middle ground products never work well.
The trade off are too much for the product to bear and it just ends up unclear.

To me the question is why merge them?

OS X provides enough guidance to get out of your way and let you get on with stuff, plus has freedom to let you try almost anything you can think of.

iOS is tight and nibble so you can get in get stuff done then leave it to the device to deal with it. It shouldn't let anything get in your way.

Both get to take advantage of common ground which gives them all the advantage of a merged OS but they aren't tied to it if they need to push away and better serve the customer.

I too have difficulty seeing the switch to just one operating system, at least with the current hardware diversity apple has on the market to date. I personally see what they are doing now as more of a blurring of the lines between OSX and iOS in order to encourage the overall growth of the apple ecosystem.

 

[miata]

iOS proved to Apple that a dumbed OS down = good OS

Apple has figured out that iOS is growing a lot faster than MacOS. It is easy to argue that the success of iOS is based on it's simplicity. In fact, iOS has compromised productivity for simplicity. So, why not make MacOS simpler?

The only people Apple will offend by simplifying MacOS are the small minority that have been using MacOS for productivity all along. I suppose I am one of those people and just about all the others I know have either refused to move to Lion or have moved to Lion and are now trying to figure out how to get back to Snow Leopard with as little hassle as possible.

The good news is that ML doesn't seem to be a whole lot worse than Lion. The bad news is that Snow Leopard is looking more and more like the last great MacOS.