Inside Apple's iPad: iPhone OS vs Mac OS X - Page 3

I think your totally right. How about the ipad is a conduit to your main computer, just and interface. Then the whole world of desktop pc is served to the ipad (windows or mac). I've used VNC and Jaadu and they've worked great. I think they will have to make a custom version as the iphone version will not be at full screen. I hope this unit can handle this sort of usage.

excellent point that no one else has picked up on. we will have to wait and see if the iPad allows separate user accounts. hope so.

Question I have is this...

When will Mac OS get the ability to shop apps from the App Store? It might not have made all that much sense to make it happen when all of the Apps were designed to utilize the screen size of the iPhone/iPod Touch, but with the table that's all gonna change.

Apple has already done much of the work since the dev tools provide a method of running iPhone and now iPad apps... all that would be needed is to make it more seamless.

Yes, Mac OS X rules and the iOS shares the same OS X core as Mac OS X.

The problem with Atom processor, even Intel admits, is that it has much higher power requirements than ARM-based processors.

iWork does everything Office does. Keynote is part of iWork.

There will be many other exciting apps available, such as OmniGroup's OmniFocus, OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner (at some point).

iWorks doesn't even come close to doing what Office does. Keynote is the best part of iWorks but you have to jump through hoops to show a presentation if you don't live in an all Apple world. Numbers isn't even remotely in the same league as Excel.

If MS brought Office to iPad, it would sell iPads, which is what Apple does, sell Hardware. I have a hard time believing MS will fork over 25% of those licenses to Apple, that would be the day indeed!

First off if an author here doesn't understand the word "resolution" then he should not be allowed to to publish. Much of the article is completely invalidated due to the confused usage of the word resolution.

Second the article seems to be a bit of speculation more than anything. Like it or not iPhone OS was chosen for this tablet even before iPhone came out. While Apple hasn't detailed exactly what happened here, there is ample evidence that iPhone OS came from a tablet prototypye OS.

As to what the OS'es are they both (iPhone & Mac OS) derive from the same base code. For the most part they only differ in the UI kit and how multitasking is handled. The OS'es are otherwise the same. Where they do differ though is extremely important to delivering viable user experiences. The bloggo sphere should be more focused on how the two OS'es are alike than different.

Sure from a developers standpoint there are a lot of important details that separate the two OS'es that are significant. From the users standpoint though both are very capable. IPhone OS greatest limitation being the lack of virtual memory. Unfortunately here Apple has not been honest with us regarding how much RAM each iPad will have. This has a direct impact on what sort of apps can be built for the device. This one little missing detail makes it impossible to judge the utility of the device.

Dave

What does that mean? Can you provide an example of the jumping through hoops?

This will be a good test of Apple's ability to use its own chips. As a 25-year Apple user, I remember the days When Apple had much greater control over their processors, and it resulted in stability problems. OSX and the move to Intel processors was a good step for Apple. I'd hate to see a new generation of extension conflicts arise because of the processor design and manufacturing moving in house.

Pray, tell us how it is invalidated, and what's your take to the contrary?



What else were you expecting, when it relates to a product/UI that is not even out yet?


What insights do you think that will give us? If you have any to share as examples, why don't you?


That's basically about all that the article is saying, imho. The video at the end was just a bit of silly (although, I must admit, very watchable) spoof.

Agreed, I like the 'instant-on' of the SSD version, too. But still out of my budget range. I'll be getting an iPad now, Save a $1,000 to apply to a 27" iMac maybe.

Ps. Thanks. It's nice to have someone agree with me once in awhile! Sometimes they are are little 'grumpy' here...I can get that at home from my GF anytime I want!

'Dull' very funny! First time I've heard that but oh so apropos (that's french, BTW)

hahaha, so funny...

It isn't a question of the lack of a keypad or the multi touch interface but rather hardware. If iPhone OS doesn't support virtual memory then the installed RAM will have a significant impact upon the behaviour of installed apps like iWork. Sadly Apple hasn't been up front about installed RAM so we don't really know how well iPad will handle business productivity apps that use lots of RAM. Based on this issue alone I wouldn't assume that iPad would be viable for such apps. Maybe th RAM compliment isn't that bad but we just don't know.

Beyound that there are issues commonly discussed about volume text entry and such. That isn't always important though. For example once a spread sheet is developed, mass text entry might not be common place. Same thing for presentations, iPad could really shine for use in the field. What I'm saying is the in my mind business productivity isn't the killer app on these machines. Atleast not in the sense that common laptop users would expect.

As a side note; people have mentioned the issue of repetive stress injuries and the use of Glass keyboards. This is a real possibility folks, don't dismiss it out of hand. A glass keyboard should not be assumed to be safe for long term usage. Atleast not for mass text entry like one would with a normal keyboard. I'm actually hoping for handwriting input in iPhone OS 4.0 which should help some.


Dave

If you had read the article the usage problem should have stood right out. Either that or you flunked high school science.

In a nutshell resolution has nothing to do with the screen size. With video hardware resolution is often expressed in "dpi" or Dots Per Inch. As you can see this has nothing to do with the screen size. An iPhone screen for example has relatively high resolution. The new iMacs have screens with much higher resolution than before, currently industry leading.

This particular article really bothers me because so many people don't seem to understand what the words resolution and precision mean. They are often mixed up or completely misunderstood even by well educated people like engineers surprisingly. The one common mistake being picking up a 6 digit DVM expecting 6 digits of precision on every range. It is really something that should have been drilled into the heads of high school students well before graduation. It is extremely frustrating when dealling with people with 4 or more years of college.

In this case if your going to run an article that is even somewhat technical you really need yo have the basics covered well.

In this case it doesn't matter, because they don't have the information to detail the implied decision making process. They most likely never will be privy to that information either. In the end it ends up looking like a fabrication to support the position taken.

Well for one Appleinsider could effectively educate thier readers and explain to them that the two systems contain the same UNIX like core. That would lead to reducing the number of posts here whinning about iPhone OS and it's lack of capability. It is ligitimate to express concern about specific issues with iPhone OS, such as the lack of user multitasking, it is another thing to imply that iPhone OS is a completely different beast.

As to examples the best one cintelligent method an do there is to download the current public SDK and learn ones self. This way everything comes from the horses mouth so to speak. Outside of the user interface APIs one quickly discovers that the other APIs are either exactly the same or near complete subsets of what runs on the Mac.

I'm still of the opinion that what the article implies as fact is not. As far as I know there has not been a public discussion of what caused the feature set of iPhone OS to be developed. There is some evidence though that it began as a tablet project. So the whole idea that the iPhone interface developed specifically to support a small screen is false.

I'd rather buy Air Pro with 15" screen to replace my current MBP - no need for DVD drive or high-end graphic card. Or new Core i5-based 13" Air with at least 4 GB RAM.

And for small screen device to carry around the cheapest iPad with 3g is more than enough. Also than I might replace my iPhone with no-data-plan-required phone.

What exactly is the connection between Apple's "control" over their chips and stability problems?

OSX has been very stable going back to nearly its inception. The stability problems of the pre X MacOS was due largely to its lack of protected memory in the operating system, and in combination with virtually unrestricted extensibility afforded again by the operating system. There certainly was additional instability in OS9 on PPC, but this setup included emulation of 68k apps, as well as the fact that significant portions of the OS (including the Finder) were also running in emulation. I don't know how any of this can legitimately be blamed on Apple having "much greater control over their processors".

It's difficult to tell based on the lack of specificity in your post whether you simply don't know what you're talking about or whether you're spreading FUD. The title of your post "Proprietary chip" leads me to suspect it's the latter.

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Then do not buy it. Go get a laptop instead. But is it okay if I get one? Is is okay that it will meet my needs for a mobile keyboard less touch screen device that runs thousands of applications (some of which I already own)?

Um .... this does not seems to be a problem: http://www.quickoffice.com/quickoffi..._suite_iphone/

Spot on!

Well, Apple agrees with you - it has Cocoa Touch instead of the desktop version of Coca! Relax, your covered

I mean, you do realize the iPhone and iPod touch and soon to be iPad have OSX at their core?

You are right if you consider doing the kinds of things that we do at work which have been almost designed around using the capabilities of MS Office for decades - long boring text based presentations, big spreadsheets with macros, long complex documents with bibliographies, footnotes etc. All of which I have to do on occasion and would be hard to do with iWork.

Flip your argument over and talk about all the lightweight productivity work that people have to do for home/charity/hobby/school/family etc. and iWork is generally a much better solution since it is easier to make good looking content, has more creativity baked into the templates etc. and has a much lower learning curve and less feature bloat.

Since the iPad/iWork will never be a full on productivity platform, it will probably do a great job of a huge segment of casual productivity work for which Office is a far inferior tool.

As for other people's points...
Macbook Air vs. Netbook - Air is already old so not really fair to compare to unreleased netbooks but fundamentally Netbooks are miserably slow, small screened, tiny keyboard runts. The Air is a proper laptop with a proper CPU (C2D at full speed >2Ghz) in a netbook weight. Key advantage is battery life but not surprising considering you can do so little with them.
As for the footprint, a lot of people like the low weight/large size because netbooks screens/kbds are so small and crappy. When it is as thin/light as it is and the size of a paper pad the only size inconvenience is if you carry it around without any sort of case or want to put it in a purse/manbag? I see plenty of Airs on the plane in the hands of people who can afford them. As for price, they are predictably expensive but if you look at the Apple refurbs, they are often found approaching $1000 - still no netbook $s but much less.

I was round at a friend's last night and his wife was using her netbook (which she generally likes) to surf around but then had a problem that hubby had to try to fix. To watch him use this tiny thing was comical. We then competed to find something out via google - my iphone vs. her netbook. Needless to say, I won since the touch UI is so much easier to move around in (and not much slower to type a few keywords). She is now considering an iPad.

BTW did you know that the native Intuit peoples of the frozen Canadian north who designed the 2010 Olympic rock man figure make their living these days making trinkets and preparing taxes? That's what you get using a netbook

Oh and Daniel/Cara - the new Dr Tiki/Lala?

Really? Apple is in control? So I the contacts, songs, videos, podcasts and applications on my iPhone weren't put there by me but by Apple? I really didn't call my friend earlier this morning but Apple did it instead?

Fascinating...

Actually, I would like a replacement for my 12" PowerBook G4 which is the same size or smaller than many netbooks and is over six years old! And the G4 in it is more powerful than many of the currently shipping Atom processors The 13" MacBook Pro is the closest Apple has came, but it's still significantly larger than my beloved 12" PB G4.

Having said that, I have a 15" MBP (typing on it now) and the iPad will replace everything I did with the PB G4 with ease - I can't wait for them to shiop! When I need more umph for my photography, I'll schlep out my 15" MBP, and when I go to replace my MBP in four to five years, I will pick the smallest one they are offering unless someone devises an add-on for the iPad where I can plug in an external USB hard drive for mass storage. If so, then the iPad will even do all I need when I'm on the go. I'm wagering that by the time I look at replacing my MBP, the iPad and accessory market will probably have matured where I will no longer require a full blown notebook.

Exactly! Such a good point I felt it worthy of repeating

They understand it perfectly - if you always need a "real" keyboard you can get a notebook.

See what they did there? Different products for different needs. If you don't need an iPad, congratulations! No one is forcing you to buy one


A heck of a lot better than a notebook with a keyboard! The footprint is killer (along with the battery life). I can't wait to fly with an iPad.


IMO expecting a touch device to be configured like every other existing device kind of defeats the purpose of having a different device.

Which is why I'm glad Apple doesn't listen to people like you

Not to me it won't. I will judge the utility of the device by the applications that are available for it, not by a long list of features.

Features matter to geeks, but this is a tool or an appliance. I for one am glad that Apple is not focusing on technical specs. If you want that, there are tons of other devices you can "geek out" on.

But I guarantee you the absence of a tech spec will not limit my enjoyment of the iPad any more than it has for my iPhone. That's the point - the iPhone, iPod Touch and IPad aren't traditional computing platforms. The same rules don't apply and it's silly to try to apply them.

You can't want something different and then when it's delivered complain that it's not like everything else

When and what CPU are you thinking of? Apple has always used off the shelf parts when it comes to CPU's. True, they have often created their own chips for IO and other functionality, but Apple vs. third party's certainly hasn't caused stability issues - heck, look at the problems from the NVIDIA GPS's here recently. Anyone can have an issue - if anything apple is no better or worse than the rest of industry. Of course if you have something concrete, I'm always interested.


Something like OSX was inevitable, they were dead otherwise. The fact that they happened to get Jobs with the deal was the real godsend even though there were probably many in Apple management at the time that didn't think so months after the deal was finished

If the PowerPC architecture would have been able to deliver decent mobile chips, the move to Intel would never have happened. And if something better comes up in the future, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple moves from Intel to something else. With Intel's volume that's probably pretty unlikely - then again, even with their volume their efforts for ultra low power (atom vs. arm) has been pretty lackluster. Can Apple scale up ARM with their PA Semi engineers? Now that would be fascinating indeed. Highly unlikely, but I can see it as very appealing to Apple who is notorious for control


Apple has been very good with processor transitions in the past, if it were to happen in the future I have no doubt it would be just as smooth. The ability to run Windows might be the worst thing at jeopardy with such a move, but frankly with each day that becomes less and less of an issue. I expect the iPad to create an even larger wave of Mac OSX buzz, further reducing the dependency on Windows.

If Valve does release Steam for Mac OSX the last complaint about the Mac, it stinks for games, will finally start to fade away.

It's all about momentum baby!

Next time, please use a half-decent microphone so the video doesn't feel like amateur hour...

Yup hated netbooks from the start. Having a mobile device that is a crippled version of a non mobile device is quite silly. That is why iPhone OS was so sucessful - it was better at mobile then Mac OS X, Windows or Symbian plain and simple. Since iPad is meant for mobility as well it should have iPhone OS. The only problem is the app compatibility. Since iPad can do more some of its apps won't run on an iPhone, creating some confusion.

One problem though: you can't really take notes with an iPad in a lecture. You'll need a hardware keyboard for that - hence my wishes for an Air Mini or something like that. Although an Air Pro would be an interesting idea too.

iWork is a nice mix between a word processor and a DTP application.

and it does. Mac OS X Touch is the iphone OS.


as my Pappy would say, here's a fellow that's using his head for something more than holding his hat.

thanks for your comments. It is nice to read some good posts on this site for once. Maybe there was a convention of Wintel lovers somewhere and they took the weekend off from criticizing Apple. Is refreshing to come to a so called pro-Apple site and not see a bunch of blathering about how evil Steve Jobs and the iPad are.

my ipod touchj runs slow, frustratingly but its still fantastic


If the netbook market is doomed to failure on that reasoning, the iPad wont make enough sales to fail.

That's the clearest explanation I've read of why the iPad needs to be an iPhone OS platform rather than an OS X platform. Bravo. I also noticed that there are 2.5 times as many iPhone & iPod Touch units in the field than there are Macs which is an astonishing fact give the youth of the former and the old age of the latter.

This is one of the best written posts I have ever red. Your assessments and approach are flawless.

that is playing with semantics. the word "resolution" can be used differently depending on the context of the discussion.

just look at your own Mac display System Preference, and it specifically refers to "Resolutions" as lines of resolutions - vertical and horizontal, e.g. 1344 x 840, my current screen resolution - NOT DPI as you would have. so Apple is wrong too? the same is true of television discussions of resolution. yes, that version of resolutions is independent of the measured screen dimensions. and the article never implied otherwise.

BUT DPI of course IS directly related to a fixed measured dimension - one inch. so many dots per inch. so it DOES relate directly to screen size. tell me your screen dimensions in inches and its DPI and i'll tell you how many pixels it contains. this use of the word resolutions is of course to be able to discuss the varying densities of different displays' pixels. which is exactly what the article went on to do, noting how this key factor affects touch UI precision etc. it then looked at the larger issue of how much screen real estate is needed to provide easy to use error-free UI controls, which is related to that. and then how that also relates to the % of total screen area required on any device of given measurements for such controls.

in other words, it is all interrelated. which was clear in the article.

now one can say the article did not bother to differentiate all this at length like this, lumping both concepts into a single sentence. but boy, is that ever nit-picking. the topic of that paragraph was the UI consequences of it all. to say as you did earlier "Much of the article is completely invalidated due to the confused usage of the word resolution" is baloney.

I'm pretty sure Apple knows why their using the iPhone OS. We'll just have to see when the time comes....

Excellent article! I have been deploying applications for a large pharmaceutical firm for almost a decade. We have shipped over 12,000 systems to physicians around the globe so they can enter clinical trial data. About 5k of those systems have been Pc tablets. I have logged just under 500 hours over the years profiling how uses intreract with these PC tablets and notebooks.

The verdict.
You can get people to use them... even efficiently, but the overall experience kind of sucked. It required a massive change in thinking on how designed the UI. We ended up hidind as much of the Win interface because it got in the way. Users got frustrated with using the stylus. The stylus often was lost ( yes we taped it the the tablet), and most importantly training the user was tough. Really tough.

The iPad is exciting because millions of people already know how to use it. The UI conventions in the iPhone OS are the similar to what we implemented to simplify how the user gets their job done. The price is amazing and it is 3.5 lbs lighter than the systems we shipped around the globe.

The medical field will love the iPad. It is soo nice to read a well thought article. Unlike the dribble that many people wrote about just after the announcement.
http://www.businessinsider.com/henry...he-ipad-2010-2