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JonHimself

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 3, 2004
1,553
5
Toronto, Ontario
I hate to add to the on-going speculation about this brand new product (and now rumours of 4.0 SDK) that no one knows anything about, but I've been struggling with my ideal home set-up for computers/gadgets/devices and started thinking about the tablet and the next iPhone and how they'll play into the way we use portable devices... of course this is all just my opinion and is based on what we've all been reading.
It's a safe bet that App Store apps will likely run, in some capacity on the new device and some apps will likely either be scalable to full-resolution or have separate versions. I've always assumed the device would be more like a big iPhone than it would be like a Macbook and in my mind, you could open apps in their native resolution (whatever the iPhone is) and have multiple apps open (like windows) on the much larger resolution screen. I think it will have to incorporate some kind of Finder-type app to manage our files and applications and in addition to some other "full" OSX features, would make it more like a Macbook than the iPhone.

Thinking about the tablet I then realized that puts Apple at essentially managing 3 different OS's. I started thinking about the next iPhone and the hardware will likely allow for more features like background apps, allowing the users to again, get closer to a "full" OS on the mobile device.

Thinking about all of that I started wondering if what if the current iPhone is the last we'll see in it's current state (home screens, app takes up full screen, no file management) and the new iPhone and Tablet (running SDK 4.0) will both run the exact same OS (obviously the bigger resolution would allow for multiple windows, etc) that allows for more of what we're used to on a laptop.

The current iPhones, running 3.0 will continue to be able to download all of the new apps (unless they allow tablet-specific apps) and just won't benefit from the advanced features in new mobile OS but because the apps are all scalable would still continue to have access to the App Store.

Sorry for rambling. Maybe someone could expand on the idea I have in my head and put it more eloquently.
 

thelatinist

macrumors 603
Aug 15, 2009
5,937
51
Connecticut, USA
GUI != OS. The whatever GUI and task management features the supposed iTablet has, I highly doubt it will have a completely new OS. Either it will run a Mach kernel with support for OSX apps, or it will run a Darwin kernel with mostly iPhone frameworks, support for scaled-up App store apps, and a tweaked UI with multitasking. In either case, they will still have only two OSes.

If you are asking if some of the new features of the 'iTablet' would be incorporated into the iPhone, it seems possible. But that's impossible to foresee.
 

scaredpoet

macrumors 604
Apr 6, 2007
6,628
360
The current iPhones, running 3.0


You're assuming that current iPhones will not be upgradeable to OS 4.0. Considering Apple itself puts these devices at a 2-year support life, At the very least the iPhone 3GS and probably 3G will be upgradeable to OS 4.0.

Apple hasn't deviated THAT much. At the very core, the OS that runs the iPhone shares lots of similarities with the iPhone and iPod Touch. They won't be managing 3 OSes, but two major variants (and two subvariants) of the same single platform.
 

t0mat0

macrumors 603
Aug 29, 2006
5,473
284
Home
OS X Core OS, with iPhone/TOuch flavour, Tablet flavour (which covers the ATV also in a non-touch event way? likely a hybrid flavour also, but updating to at least 10.6). and then Mac OS X.
Edit - BGR has it rumored as iPhone 4.0 kernel. So we see the Tablet in January, and likely once that's shown we can see the developer beta of 4.0 as they contain code that'll give hints about each other.
 
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