What comes after OSX/macOS?

[MisterK]

I remember when Steve Jobs introduced OSX, and its NEXTSTEP and UNIX underpinnings, and I seem to recall him saying this was laying the foundation for the next 20 years of the Mac operating system. And here we are 20 years later.

macOS has changed a LOT since the aqua design language but it's been mostly aesthetic. The dock is still the dock. The Finder is still the Finder. We've had additions like Exposé and Spaces, so I'm not sure what requirement there might be to introduce such a huge risk to the OS... but as a futurist, I am curious. To anyone who might have a more technical background (vs. my UI/UX one)

My interest in Apple and Macs is as a user and enthusiast (vs. being an OS developer) so I'm curious if anything in the longer term would (conceivably) again require the kind of transition that Apple made from OS9 to OSX. Or is this it? MacOS with feature and aesthetic tweaks as far out as we can see.

I understand that iOS devices and future AR and cars will have entirely new requirements, but I'd imagine there will always(?) be traditional "computers" for doing work.

 

[allan.nyholm]

Could be renamed all to AppleOS and be more or less the same experience;

• Single app usage and the like.
• Completely locked down and no possible way to disable anything. Not even with

  csrutil disable

  and

  csrutil authenticated-root disable

  If it's possible at all your Mac wouldn't be able to function normally like it is now.

I think macOS as it is now - is the absolute end of the Mac experience with the things you mention; Finder, Dock, Folders.

I am of course wrong, because I thought this about the most modern macOS in that I thought nothing would be the way it's been for 20 years .

 

[chown33]

As an operating system, MacOS X already made the transition onto iPhones, albeit with a very different UI and UX. From day one, the iPhone OS was basically a modified version of the core OS and structure of Mac OS X. iOS and iPadOS are still there, too, underneath everything, quietly doing their multitasking, permissions enforcement, communication, and file-system tasks.

As a technical person, I don't think the "unix underpinnings" are likely to change. Even the restrictions in the latest macOS versions are managed by the unix underpinnings.

The face presented to users may well change, and that may include additions as well as deletions. At this point, I think the UI and UX will be driven more by the device's intended purpose (phone vs headset), and physical constraints like how big the device is.