When does OS X end and OS XI begin?

[KnightWRX]

When Apple announced Mountain Lion, they said they'd start a new yearly cycle on OS X, the same yearly cycle that iOS sees.

Mountain Lion will be the last release under the alias "OS X". From then on, iOS will replace OS X as the name, and will be on the exact same cycle as iOS is now. iOS will run on your Mac, iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

However, just because OS X will be called iOS, doesn't mean it'll lose all of its OS X appearance.

iOS 6 won't be a significant upgrade this year, but iOS 7 will. iOS 7 will get rid of the application grid that is the current user interface and introduce likes of widgets and so on. iOS 7 will also be the first release for the Macintosh.

From then on, each iOS release will be yearly and will be released for the Mac, iPad, iPhone and iPod touch at the same time.

iOS 7 will be released summer 2013, and it'll be a huge merge of OS X and iOS in terms of user interface.

Bullcrap.

iOS on iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch will keep on using SpringBoard as a UI and UIKit as its UI widget framework. OS X, whatever it's called will keep on using Finder as a UI and AppKit as its widget set.

The systems are already merged people. They have always been merged. The differences are there for a reason and they'll stay there for a reason.

I don't know why I bother anymore. Bunch of "end of world" propagandists just want to piss the neophyte users that don't know any better.

While it's impressive that Apple has UNIX certification(till August at least) of their own Mash-up* of Mach Kernel and BSD services layer

How is that impressive ? What do you think UNIX is exactly ? It's always been a mash-up of Kernels and user-space utilities, applications and APIs. Some made by HP, some by IBM, some by Sun Microsystems some by the community before they were known as the open source community (mostly, universities like Carnegie Mellon, Berkeley, MIT, etc..), some made by other players.

Not all UNIX systems derive their code or still use much of the old Bell Labs (AT&T) code base that is known as SysV (and its predecessors).

The UNIX certification process is simply a compatibility test suite for a specification known as the SUS (Single Unix Specification) that tests adherence to this specification. You don't need any actual Ken Thompson code, you just need to be compatible to be called UNIX.

that is no guarantee that those Low levels of OS X will continue to serve well as a base for another few decades of modern OS. Maybe 20 years is an artificial time limit but there will be a time they need to make big significant changes at the low level.

But there have not been many advances at the low level. The thing is, it's mature, solid and proven. Just like car manufacturers aren't stepping over themselves to reinvent the wheel, why would someone reinvent OSes all over again ? Until there's a big paradigm shift in computing to something we haven't seen, there is just no incentive at all for Apple to rewrite the lower levels of the OS. Otherwise, microkernels, realtime schedulers, NUMA architecture, name it, it can all be done with UNIX if Apple wants to.

The move to NeXTStep as the basis for OS X was a genius move by Apple. The old system just didn't have the room to grow anymore. Same with Microsoft moving to NT. They are now set until the next big thing comes along and redefines computing like UNIX did in 1972 (yes, I know they started earlier on the project, following Bell Labs' withdrawal from the MULTICS project).

But hey, what do I know about this stuff ?

 

[KnightWRX]

double.

 

[kolax]

The systems are already merged people. They have always been merged. The differences are there for a reason and they'll stay there for a reason.

It'll purely be marketing. I never said OS X was going to die and suddenly we'd have a blown up iOS filling our screens. We'd have iOS for the Mac, iPad and iPhone, but the Mac version, like I said in my post, won't differ much from OS X right now, only with a few more "iOS like" enhancements (that we are seeing now with ML, such as notifications etc).

Maybe "huge merge of user interfaces" wasn't the best of words, but the two OSs will slowly become one soon enough, as we've seen, with both taking interface advancements from each other.

iOS 7 for the Mac will be more iOS like and less OS X like, but it'll really be for marketing more than anything. Same release cycle. I'm not saying that I think it would be a good thing either, I'm just saying my predictions, not my wishes.

You believe that in 1.5 years time when Apple supposedly releases iOS 7, they'll still be using the same springboard GUI, especially on the iPad?

 

[KnightWRX]

It'll purely be marketing. I never said OS X was going to die and suddenly we'd have a blown up iOS filling our screens. We'd have iOS for the Mac, iPad and iPhone, but the Mac version, like I said in my post, won't differ much from OS X right now, only with a few more "iOS like" enhancements (that we are seeing now with ML, such as notifications etc).

OS X is already iOS for the Mac. That is what I am saying. iOS is already OS X for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch. That is what I am saying.

The systems already don't differ much. Again : UIKit/Springboard vs AppKit/Finder.

Maybe "huge merge of user interfaces" wasn't the best of words, but the two OSs will slowly become one soon enough, as we've seen, with both taking interface advancements from each other.

iOS 7 for the Mac will be more iOS like and less OS X like, but it'll really be for marketing more than anything.

Again, how can it be so without either moving AppKit/Finder to iOS devices or moving Springboard/UIKit to OS X ?

The UIs are different because the input paradigms are different.

Again, don't know why I bother, you obviously don't know about how the systems are built, you're just talking about a "what I see is totally different!" perspective, completly ignoring the huge hulking mass of ice under the water.

 

[kolax]

OS X is already iOS for the Mac. That is what I am saying. iOS is already OS X for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch. That is what I am saying.

The systems already don't differ much. Again : UIKit/Springboard vs AppKit/Finder.

Again, how can it be so without either moving AppKit/Finder to iOS devices or moving Springboard/UIKit to OS X ?

The UIs are different because the input paradigms are different.

Again, don't know why I bother, you obviously don't know about how the systems are built, you're just talking about a "what I see is totally different!" perspective, completly ignoring the huge hulking mass of ice under the water.

MARKETING.

I know iOS is essentially just OS X, Jobs introduced it that way with the iPhone launch. I'm talking about marketing. OS X will become iOS as a name.

But they'll merge a few other user interface things too. Yes, one is touch based, one is keyboard/mouse based, but gestures for notifications on the ML show that Apple is taking a lot of cues from iOS and moving them to OS X.

Apple has said OS X is on a yearly cycle. iOS is also on a yearly cycle. With OS X dropping the Mac name, and getting more iOS features, from a marketing perspective, it would make more sense to just drop OS X and call it iOS instead.

Why have a different OS name for your laptop and tablets? It makes them appear fragmented. Remember, this is mainly just for marketing, before you start crying me a river about how I don't understand how systems are built.

 

[pdjudd]

Marketing two completley different things (visually) as the same thing rarely does well - often times it just leads to consumer confusion when it becomes how obviously different things are.

OSX and iOS share several similarities, but they diverge widely in very fundamental ways as KnighWRX points out. Right now marketing them under different names is the best thing since you can link them as a family of devices. Trying to combine names is only going to lead to headaches when people want to buy a certain device and worry about compatibility.

iOS and MacOS are too different to name similarly. That exists on a fundamental level that Apple is very likely not going to change.

 

[MisterMe]

While it's impressive that Apple has UNIX certification(till August at least) of their own Mash-up* of Mach Kernel and BSD services layer that is no guarantee that those Low levels of OS X will continue to serve well as a base for another few decades of modern OS. Maybe 20 years is an artificial time limit but there will be a time they need to make big significant changes at the low level.

OK. You carry-on as though UNIX is built on pilings--can't move and can't be moved. The UNIX of today is not the UNIX of the 1970s. In another 40 years or 60 years or whatever timeframe you like, UNIX will be the OS of its time.

For the time being, Apple will be one of the major forces moving UNIX to where it needs to go. Check Guarantees? That's a straw man argument. Neither did I say nor did I imply that there are guarantees. That said, Apple has actually doubled-down on UNIX since 2007. Gaining UNIX 03 Certification for Leopard and Snow Leopard were just the tips of icebergs. BTW, UNIX 03 certification is not a "mash-up."

 

[kolax]

iOS and MacOS are too different to name similarly. That exists on a fundamental level that Apple is very likely not going to change.

Right now they are. But summer 2013, I don't think they'll be too different. The main thing that separates them is Finder/file system.

Windows 8 unifies tablets and laptops. Some may argue the Metro interface isn't great for laptops, and I'm one of them. I think tablets and laptops need separate OSs.

I'm not wanting Apple to unify OS X and iOS, or rename them for marketing reasons, but I'd bet money on them doing just that come summer 2013.

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

MARKETING.

I know iOS is essentially just OS X, Jobs introduced it that way with the iPhone launch. I'm talking about marketing. OS X will become iOS as a name.

I'm speaking as an observer that has no real knowledge of the underpinnings of iOS and OS X and in what ways they are connected and in what ways they aren't.

But at this point in time, I'm inclined to side with Kilamite. I know that would be a hard reality for most die hard Mac fans. So many of them hate the iOSification of OS X. And from a marketing standpoint I agree that it doesn't make sense to call Lion iOS or to call ML iOS... but the 2013 release of OS X will draw even closer to iOS. iOS is Apple's success, their posterchild. OS X helped put Apple on the map, but in over a decade they have stayed under 7% worldwide marketshare. iOS has exploded in such a way that it surprised even Apple. Now they want to bring that success to the Mac however possible. So first they begin bringing design cues. Then they start bringing the apps and notification center. Next year I think they will add some major cross platform effort which allows iOS and OS X to communicate in such a way that it makes sense to market them both as iOS. They will release at the same time and the upgrades will always remain free

Obviously they will still have fundamental differences in how you interact with them and how it functions. But even these will begin to blend and blur throughout the years.

In fact I think iCloud will be a huge help to aid the unification of iOS and OS X.

 

[bjm2660]

"I don't always use a PC, but when I do, I prefer OSX"

Of course we could always add dos equis and make it OSXX.

 

[bjm2660]

Hey, these are the jokes people...

 

[pdjudd]

Right now they are. But summer 2013, I don't think they'll be too different. The main thing that separates them is Finder/file system.

I am talking about had fundamental changes though - so much so that you cannot change things in a year. We are talking about things down the basic things like input and file systems (and many other things) and even the application systems (which use different API's) I don't even think they can be entirely merged nor do I think that Apple wants to do that.

If we assume that your position is with basis (which we cannot really do) we are talking about massive changes in a short period of time just for the sake of marketing (of which I have no problem with accepting that Apple is good at). Sorry I just don't see that. That sort of change would take a loong time given many different factors.

At the core OSX and iOS are the same - but they branch off and differ a great deal - so much so that I don't think that they will ever be the same.

 

[kolax]

I am talking about had fundamental changes though - so much so that you cannot change things in a year. We are talking about things down the basic things like input and file systems (and many other things) and even the application systems (which use different API's) I don't even think they can be entirely merged nor do I think that Apple wants to do that.

If we assume that your position is with basis (which we cannot really do) we are talking about massive changes in a short period of time just for the sake of marketing (of which I have no problem with accepting that Apple is good at). Sorry I just don't see that. That sort of change would take a loong time given many different factors.

At the core OSX and iOS are the same - but they branch off and differ a great deal - so much so that I don't think that they will ever be the same.

Apple is bringing iOS like features to the Mac. I'm not talking about changing the file system, I'm talking about the user interface, and how Apple is bringing things like Notification Centre, Launch Pad, Full Screen apps to the Mac. These are iOS features.

What I mean is that at some point, user interface wise, things will look similar. The Mac will hopefully always have a Finder, though I can imagine it being disabled by default one day.

Renaming OS X to iOS will happen when the major features of iOS are on the Mac. We're getting there - Mac App Store, Full Screen apps, Notification Centre, Launch Pad, Multitouch Gestures. Sure, you might have to interact differently with a trackpad than you would with a touchscreen, but the fundamentals are there.

The Airport Utility app already looks identical to the iOS app. iCloud login page too.

Let me reiterate when I say merge - I mean merge in terms of user interface, like we're already seeing.

 

[pdjudd]

Let me reiterate when I say merge - I mean merge in terms of user interface, like we're already seeing.

And I don't see that happening due to the fact the UI is based on many factors - like input that are just too fundamentally different. I think the differences make any such branding not an ideal situation. I jsut don't see the advantage for Apple - not when they obviously view desktop computing platforms as "trucks".

 

[KnightWRX]

MARKETING.

Fine, but then stop it with the crap :

But they'll merge a few other user interface things too.

There will never be a merge between AppKit/UIKit and Finder/Springboard. Those distinctions will remain as long as the input paradigms remain segregated.

----------

I'm speaking as an observer that has no real knowledge of the underpinnings of iOS and OS X and in what ways they are connected and in what ways they aren't.

But at this point in time, I'm inclined to side with Kilamite.

Basically my point, the whole "They are merging!" panic comes from people with no real knowledge of the systems.

 

[kolax]

And I don't see that happening due to the fact the UI is based on many factors - like input that are just too fundamentally different. I think the differences make any such branding not an ideal situation. I jsut don't see the advantage for Apple - not when they obviously view desktop computing platforms as "trucks".

Input isn't fundamentally different. Your finger is the cursor on a touchscreen. You can do multitouch gestures with a trackpad.

Run iPhoto '11 in fullscreen mode, and you have an iOS user interface. Look at the AirPort Utility app, or the iCloud.com homepage.

iLife '12 will no doubt use the iOS interface completely.

The aqua era of the Mac interface is going, and iOS is coming in to replace it, and to make that even clearer, Apple will change OS X to iOS.

There will never be a merge between AppKit/UIKit and Finder/Springboard. Those distinctions will remain as long as the input paradigms remain segregated.

Look at how many applications use the iOS interface on the Mac. You can't ignore that Apple is clearly brining the iOS interface to the Mac. Stop with your mumble grumble about AppKit/UIKit and Finder/Springboard being merged. Launch Pad on the Mac is the springboard. Face it, iOS interfaces are already appearing in major Apple applications.

The file system on the Mac may be gone in a few years.

 

[KnightWRX]

And I don't see that happening due to the fact the UI is based on many factors - like input that are just too fundamentally different. I think the differences make any such branding not an ideal situation. I jsut don't see the advantage for Apple - not when they obviously view desktop computing platforms as "trucks".

At least someone here gets it.

----------

Input isn't fundamentally different. Your finger is the cursor on a touchscreen. You can do multitouch gestures with a trackpad.

A touch screen and a trackpad are quite different. With a touchscreen, you're directly interacting with objects on screen. On a trackpad, you cannot do the same, as you cannot properly map the object's position from the screen you're looking at to the trackpad you're touching. Thus you need a visual cue on the screen to tell you where you are touching.

That cue is the good old cursor. You don't need a cursor on iOS. You need a cursor on OS X. Different input paradigms require different UI widgets/controls. Hence, UIKit vs AppKit, Springboard vs Finder.

Now you get it ! (Tell me you do so we can stop with the "merge" crap that's already been explained to you ad nauseum).

----------

Look at how many applications use the iOS interface on the Mac. You can't ignore that Apple is clearly brining the iOS interface to the Mac. Stop with your mumble grumble about AppKit/UIKit and Finder/Springboard being merged. Launch Pad on the Mac is the springboard. Face it, iOS interfaces are already appearing in major Apple applications.

LaunchPad is LaunchPad, it's not Springboard at all. There are no iOS interfaces on the Mac, there's no way to compile UIKit applications for use on a Mac except through Apple's iOS simulator.

The file system on the Mac may be gone in a few years.

Why ? There's a filesystem on iOS too. Are you mistaking the filesystem for a File Manager now ? You seem to be quite confused.

 

[kolax]

A touch screen and a trackpad are quite different. With a touchscreen, you're directly interacting with objects on screen. On a trackpad, you cannot do the same, as you cannot properly map the object's position from the screen you're looking at to the trackpad you're touching. Thus you need a visual cue on the screen to tell you where you are touching.

That cue is the good old cursor. You don't need a cursor on iOS. You need a cursor on OS X. Different input paradigms require different UI widgets/controls. Hence, UIKit vs AppKit, Springboard vs Finder.

I'm guessing you've never used iPhoto '11 in fullscreen mode. The cursor is your finger. You can do exactly the same with a cursor on a trackpad as you can with a finger on a touchscreen.

Now you get it ! (Tell me you do so we can stop with the "merge" crap that's already been explained to you ad nauseum).

Stop with comments like that.

LaunchPad is LaunchPad, it's not Springboard at all. There are no iOS interfaces on the Mac, there's no way to compile UIKit applications for use on a Mac except through Apple's iOS simulator.

iPhoto 11 in fullscreen mode...

Why ? There's a filesystem on iOS too. Are you mistaking the filesystem for a File Manager now ? You seem to be quite confused.

File system viewable to the user, so yes, file manager, Finder.

 

[TwinMonkeys]

They're starting to run out of big cats to use, and I doubt they'll use Cougar, so I think we'll see OS X1 within the next several years....I don't think it would be a complete rewrite though...and that's fine because it doesn't have to be.

 

[MisterMe]

They're starting to run out of big cats to use, ....

Not true. Not even close to true.

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

On the merging topic.

First of all, it IS possible to merge the desktop and touch experience. Look at the Windows 8 metro experience.

Secondly, I don't believe, and I don't think Kilamite is arguing either, that they will be completely unified in the way that windows 8 does it, but I could easily see Apple wanting to use marketing to bring the success of iOS to the PC realm. They would still have some significant differences. Think of it more like iOS mobile and iOS desktop. I mean even right now the iPad's iOS and iPhone's iOS have some notable differences (less apps on iPad, iPhone has 2 widgets, multitouch gestures on iPad, quick access camera on iPhone, completely rewritten apps, keyboards are different, etc), in that same light I could see the desktop getting an iOS version which is much more unique than iPhone is to iPad, but still yields a similar enough experience so that the average consumer would be able to move easily between the two.

Now will the iPad and Mac run all the same executable code? I dunno, probably not. I don't know anything about the nuances of the OS's so it may be difficult to accomplish that, but I also believe that if Apple could devote one team to updating a single every year, it would be much easier than having 2 seperate teams updating 2 seperate OS's every year.

Not true. Not even close to true.

Well now hold on here. For big cat species I would say the only possible unused names left are cougar, bobcat and lynx. And cougar has conotations and lynx is like linux. I mean would you really expect Apple to use names like ocelot, margay, colocolo, sunda clouded leopard, fishing cat, and the like? Just seems a bit silly.

but in fact, regardless of if Apple begins to market OS X as iOS, I can honestly imagine ML being the last of the big cats. With yearly updates, updating only through the MAS, and (I'm predicting) free updates, there doesn't seem to be much reason to keep the naming scheme going. iOS doesn't need it. It could just be OS X 10.9 or "the new OS X!".

 

[KnightWRX]

I'm guessing you've never used iPhoto '11 in fullscreen mode. The cursor is your finger. You can do exactly the same with a cursor on a trackpad as you can with a finger on a touchscreen.

No, you can't. Because again, you're not directly manipulating objects, you're indirectly manipulating them. Your finger is moving the cursor. Not so on iOS.

That means there's plenty of things you can't do. You have to actually move the cursor for it to be able to send "touches" (activation events in common WIMP parlance). On a touchscreen, I can touch one object at one end of the screen, lift my finger and then touch another unrelated object at the other end. Or both at the same time.

Cursor based interfaces and touch based interfaces are functionally and fundamentally different. UIkit vs AppKit, Springboard vs Finder. Ad nauseum until you get it.

Stop with comments like that.

There's no stopping the truth.

iPhoto 11 in fullscreen mode...

Still uses a cursor, still doesn't let me manipulate objects directly as I have no idea where my "finger" or mouse is touching. In fact, what about iPhoto 11 in full screen makes it iOS like ? It's akin to any other photo organizer application I've used in the last 2 decades if anything. Its UI is straight out of the WIMP model, except running in fullscreen mode instead of windowed mode.

File system viewable to the user, so yes, file manager, Finder.

Finder does not show you the filesystem. If it did, you'd gouge out your eyes. Filesystems (inode tables, groupings, flags, properties) have little meaning to a user. Finder shows you a certain interpretation of the contents of your disk based on a VFS layer to hide the gory details of the different underlying filesystems that a OS can read/write to. NTFS, HFS+, UFS, ext[234] are all fundamentally different in how they are represented on disk.

Finder enables certain operations (copy, move, list, delete, cwd) on your disks files through the kernel's VFS layer. It is not a "user viewable" filesystem.

----------

First of all, it IS possible to merge the desktop and touch experience. Look at the Windows 8 metro experience.

You mean the one that's completely separate, requires switching mode from one to the other and is emulated on keyboard/mouse devices ?

That's like the iOS simulator. Sure I can work the springboard with my mouse and the cursor acting like a finger. It sure as heck isn't like running the app on the actual touchscreen though.

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

You mean the one that's completely separate, requires switching mode from one to the other and is emulated on keyboard/mouse devices ?

That's like the iOS simulator. Sure I can work the springboard with my mouse and the cursor acting like a finger. It sure as heck isn't like running the app on the actual touchscreen though.

First, as I stated, I'm referring to solely the metro interface. It is my understanding that everything can be done in metro (assuming apps are updated accordingly). The legacy desktop mode is only there for people that refuse to change and I believe is part of a transitional phase; soon (windows 9 or 10) it will all be metro.

Although I haven't used windows 8, a good friend of mine (5 times the microsoft fanboy than I am for Apple) said that the metro interface actually works pretty well with a cursor input. Yes there are some different ways of doing the same thing. For example, the touch UI relies a lot of swiping from the edge of the screen, but if you have a cursor the same actions are accomplished by pushing the pointer to the corner of the screen. It just takes a little bit of ingenuity to design, but it can be done to make one UI that can work for touch and pointer.

iOS has given Apple 2 opportunities. One for success. And two to restart how an operating system works from the ground up. It was built simply for a phone, but now it is working it's way up and is definitely the future of Apple

 

[kolax]

My point was the GUI from iOS coming to OS X. iPhoto '11 is an example of that.

Eventually, the appearance of OS X will look like iOS - buttons, menus, fonts. Just because you use your finger with iOS and a mouse with OS X, doesn't mean they can't look the same to some extent.

And when OS X does get the general appearance of iOS, Apple might as well call OS X iOS.

The user doesn't care about what goes on underneath. If you need to use your finger and interact with objects differently on iOS on the iPad compared to iOS on the Mac, so be it.

You seem to be confusing my point with the fact that I think Apple will let you run iOS iPad apps and somehow interact with them using a mouse. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying Apple will rebrand OS X as iOS, and we'll see a lot of the user interface elements (buttons, fonts etc) look exactly like iOS, as Apple is already doing with their applications and web apps.

 

[MisterMe]

...

Well now hold on here. For big cat species I would say the only possible unused names left are cougar, bobcat and lynx. And cougar has conotations and lynx is like linux. I mean would you really expect Apple to use names like ocelot, margay, colocolo, sunda clouded leopard, fishing cat, and the like? Just seems a bit silly.

...

It is a mystery why you would persist in this assertion when a simple Google search will show just how wrong you are. There are 36 non-domestic species of cats. You may find them here.*

*This list does not include alternate names for the same species such as puma, panther, and mountain lion, and catamount. The addition to these four names alone stretches the list to 40. How many other such examples, I don't know.