Tim Cook admits Apple may further converge iOS & OS X, Macs could run on ARM CPUs - Page 3

Yeah, but Anand doesn't address a few things. Like how peripheral TB devices don't have Intel chips in them which means that the iDevices could be used as such (assuming it's something Intel legally allows), how NAND flash transfer rates will increase over time, and, perhaps most important to me, how TB allows for 10W instead of 5W for USB so that charging from a Mac would be as fast a a wall outlet.

They can merge it, converge it, call it whatever they want and use whatever processor they want.

Just build an XMac to run it on!

Metro isn't a "tablet/phone" UI.

i agree with you.
exactly same thing i wrote just yesterday for the same thing that apple HDTV can bring game console and subscriptions and app store on it and there will be no need for the other set-top boxes for most of the people

Interestingly, "Metro" isn't too bad on an Xbox360. Kinda fresh.

That's an interesting dilemma from Apple. Go the whole way and make their own HDTV (tons of people would buy it just because it's not Sony/ Samsung/ Pioneer/ Etc.

Or roll out AppleTV 3/4 with apps and reach out to a very broad base. Most HDTVs have about 3 or 4 HDMI inputs now so another set top box is slightly annoying, but not a dealbreaker.

Whoa... a blast from the past. Where have you been for the last 2-3 years?

Dang! I was mostly finished with a long post to you on this when Safari crashed, and I lost it all. Too frustrated to attempt to recreate it now. Sigh!

Ah, but I doubt the interpretation we're seeing from Gruber is the correct one. He makes his mistakes in understanding as does everyone who is such thinking in a narrowly defined path.

I'm not saying that all these devices will look exactly the same on screen. I never said that. There must be, and will be differences because of the difference in screen size and processing power.

It seems that those who don't agree with the idea of a merger are thinking that the iPhone and the Mac will have exactly the same screen UI, and underlying methodologies of use. Not so!

Of course we'll see more on the Mac, and have more available. It's the smooth graduation between the devices that's going to be in the merger, not an exact duplication.

I believe the mistake being made is the assumption that Apple will eliminate all of the features that OS X has, and replace them with the simpler ones from iOS. I don't see that happening. What I do see is them doing things to make it easier and simpler for the average user. To the average user, a computer can be a nightmare. How many really need, or use all of those sophisticated features? Very few. Even saving is beyond most people much of the time. And backups? How many people respond with more than a; "What?" when you ask about it?

But despite hiding the user library from casual users, who no doubt screw it up, which is why Apple did it, there's no reason to believe that they will remove the ability from sophisticated users. It may just get a bit more hidden.

Solly, really, on this issue, you're really missing the point. No one is saying that there is a need to put Cocoatouch into OS X, though you can bet Apple is experimenting with doing just that. Most non technical people would define what an OS is by which programs it runs. If it runs the same programs, it's the same OS, details of differences notwithstanding.

That's why, despite what MS says, Metro on ARM is NOT Win 8, no matter what they say.

But if Apple gets to make a universal app that would install across all their devices, even if there would be some UI and functionality differences, it would be considered to be the same OS. And please don't continue to say that universal apps should only work across the uPhone and the iPad. We've had universal (I'm struggling to call programs from the Mac, apps, but am having a tough time of it) apps for many years from Apple. It's nothing new to them, and they're pretty familiar with how to do it.

I remember that we didn't have video on iPods either, and never wouldoops!

You can't buy ML from the App Store and install it on all Macs and iDevices alike then the OSes aren't converged. They aren't one! All you're talking about is having some features converged between two very distinct OSes. You have a converged Darwin core, some converged foundations and framework, some converged code and UI elements for familiarity reasons, and some converged SDK offerings. If we see an SDK that will allow devs to make universal apps for iPhone, iPad and Mac then that would still be a converged app, not converged OSes.

Compared to x86 based chips, ARM based SoC's, which contain almost the entire thing, are so very cheap, that Apple could, if they wanted to, include it within every Mac. That would give them 100% compatibility with iOS apps, just needing the touch input, which Apple is increasing the capability of on their hardware on a regular basis.

This is certain,y possible without compromising the performance of the device. There is a lot that could be done here.

The real problem is that TB is an extension to the Express bus, as I think I mentioned a day ago. No Express Buss in an iOs device would preclude its inclusion. Nothing else really matters.

Personally, I hate how it's implemented. It wouldn't be so bad if the software advertisements weren't the largest part of the visual real estate, but they are. If this is how Windows 8 and a Windows 8 phone are going to look, I'll pass.

Anyway. re: OS X and iOS integration dumbing up/down. They're exactly the same OS with a different "windowing manager" if you will. What do you think people develop iOS apps on? When you run the emulator it's running the application native on OS X, using the native API's, of which the "iOS" emulator sits on top of.

In some ways we are going back to the days of Apple II and DOS where only one application is ever "running in the foreground", just we're doing it in a smarter way now. Windows and Mac early versions were all about MDI (Multiple Document Interface) but applications have steadily moved away from this, to multiple applications or tabs in the same interface.

I don't know about everyone else, but I absolutely hate running everything full screen. Back in the day when when I had a 14" monitor and ran things 640x480, full screen was desireable, but with every bump up in screen size, I've kept things fitting to the same 800-1280 width, but mostly the full height of the screen short of the bottom unusable inch of the screen (which was only 16 pixels back in windows 95, and never done on the mac platform until MacOS X)

Someone, somewhere along the line must have realized that the "icons on the bottom of the screen" is inherently useless, most people only run one or two things at the same time, why waste all this screen real estate? The apps that require this functionality will have it, where as things that don't, won't (like games.) In fact for games, the argument could be made that you shouldn't be able to switch away from the game. If you need access to the web browser or social media during the game, it should be integrated better into the game API's rather than let the other application hijack the state of the game by swapping it to disk. We see some of this already with Steam.

I don't know about others, but I find that if I'm doing "Work", I need access to like 20 tabs of a web browser (safari, chrome or firefox, it doesn't matter) plus something that acts as a notepad(not necessarily a full word processor,) calculator, plus whatever central application I do work with (for today it's terminal/SSH, other days it's Visual Studio, XCode, or some other IDE.) When I play games however, I close everything but the web browser that is running google and twitter (no apps.) However if I were to be using an iPhone or iPad, I wouldn't be doing this at all. No, I'd be using the iPad for the social media and as a separate "web browser tab", while still doing work on the Mac or PC.

But that's what I work on right now, sometimes working on Photoshop or doing video work demands things that are impossible to do with an iPad, and that's primarily because the i/o on the iPad is too slow and small to be useful. This is unlikely to change until memristors or some other solid state storage comes out. My needs are not the average person. I consider my parents the average user for a PC and my grandparents and nephew's the average user of an iPad.

Ever watch a 3 year old play with an iPad? Adults don't give children enough credit. They can find the app, run it and play the game. Where as the same kid had to get his daddy to find and run the game on the android phone. Likewise an iPhone and iPad can replace dozens of toys and board games that have limited interest. A 3 year old can use an iPad and not want to throw it out of frustration, I think apple has succeeded in making it easy enough to use.

If Apple is dumbing down OS X, I'm fine with it as long as they aren't removing the advanced functionality altogether. I don't see the command line going anywhere.

Well, to be accurate, it began as the UI on the demised Zune HD. Then it was extended to be usable on a phone, and so we see it as the UI for WP7. And now, MS is extending it again for Win8.

It's why they SAY that WP7 won't be used on tablets. But we know that that's not exactly true. The big difference is that the kernel from Win 7, with modifications is now in Metro as well as the Desktop in Win 8. So when they put Metro on ARM, they're really doing what they should have done from the beginning, but didn't have the time for, which is finally dumping CE, which Win Mobile, and then WP7 is based upon.

Good reason to dump it, as it is a simple OS which in no way is equal to iOs or Android. That is the reason why MS stated that WP 7 wouldn't go on tablets. It's not strong enough for tablets. It would be at a great disadvantage, in that it can't use higher resolutions than 800 x 480, or multiple core processors, which the upcoming Apollo, which will be WP 8, with that same kernel from Win 8, which, of course, being that it's from Windows (the real Windows), it can handle.

But Metro, the UI, and programming model, is most definitely from their music player and their phone.

We don't know what Apple is planning over time. I'm not talking about what is possible now, but what could be possible several years from now. And you're talking from a techie viewpoint, which isn't relevant. It doesn't matter whether all of the underlying technologies are present in all devices, I've already said that they won't be. What matters for a converged OS is that they accept the same apps. A universal app would be required not because of the OS difference, but because of the difference between ARM and x86, which is an entirely different matter. It's like the PPC vs x86. It has nothing to do with the OS at all.

OS X is highly portable; always has been. In its lifetime (including NeXTSTEP), it has run on M68K, SPARC, HP-PA, Intel x86, PowerPC, Intel x86 again, and now ARM. The principle of fat binaries is also well-known: in the recent past there have been x86/PPC fat binaries, in the more distant past there were quad fat binaries, even.

Apple would be stupid to not guard this hardware agnosticism closely and they probably have experimental builds running on different hardware platforms, internally.

If Intel suddenly turn up with an Atom CPU that is a viable competitor to ARM's offerings, Apple can us it in iOS devices a heartbeat. For developers, it would mean a mere recompile; for users, it would be entirely transparent. Same for the scenario where ARM (or any other CPU foundry, really) produced a viable desktop CPU to rival Intel's offerings, although the ability to run Windows on a Mac would be limited to Intel based macs.

That's what Tim Cook is really saying, here. You might read into that what you want to hear, from ARM-based Macs to Intel-based iDevices, but he's really not saying anything other than, "we're keeping our options open."

Personally, I'd see CPU divergence happening for iOS sooner than OS X, since the (corporate) market dominance of Windows is still a force to be reckoned with and the ability to run Windows natively is a huge boon to Mac sales, while in the iOS space there is no such competition. But there is certainly something to be said for an ARM-based Mac "lite" that is even smaller, lighter and more energy-efficient that Apple;s current low-end offerings (Mac Mini/MacBook Air).

.tsooJ

We don't know what Apple is planning over time. I'm not talking about what is possible now, but what could be possible several years from now. And you're talking from a techie viewpoint, which isn't relevant. It doesn't matter whether all of the underlying technologies are present in all devices, I've already said that they won't be. What matters for a converged OS is that they accept the same apps. A universal app would be required not because of the OS difference, but because of the difference between ARM and x86, which is an entirely different matter. It's like the PPC vs x86. It has nothing to do with the OS at all. We could call it Fat Binaries, as it's been called in the past, but the concept of it working on everything to me means it a universal app.

From what I read Apple was heavily involved in the development of Thunderbolt.
So I assume that Apple has the rights to use and implement the technique in its own ARM chips.
Further, ARM is a formidable opponent for Intel, not only because it has a huge performance per watt advantage at the moment and an enormous installed base (with the inertion that goes with it) but also a very aggressive roadmap and very good GPU integration.
For Mac OS X (and iOS) GPU acceleration is key and some very inventive GPU makers (PowerVR and NVIDIA) have 'joined forces' and make a formidable package.
The GPU roadmap of PowerVR is especially impressive and its current products outclass Intel by by far.
Another important factor contributing to ARMs succes is that it isn't one firm, it's a consortium of corporations all working from the same specification (similar to the argument that Android has an advantage compared to iOS) but varying the SOC (package) in inventive ways.

J.

Not really. He doesn't really give any definitive answers but rather broad strokes.

Apple is about making money, not giving techno snobs something to wank over. So yes they are going to look to what the general consumer needs, including ways to protect themselves in what is perceived as the Wild West of the Internet.

At the same time, Apple is keeping options for those that don't need such protections to reduce or even completely turn them off. Just as while Launchpad was added, they didn't remove Finder etc.



Or give such non answers to questions and get away with it.



False and potentially bad assumption. It means what he said. They think about everything. But they aren't in a position to say which way their thoughts are going or might go in the future if ARM becomes appropriately powerful.

Which is in its own way way better than Steve who on more than one occasion declared Apple wasn't doing something only to turn around and do it a year or so later. While the company is certainly allowed to change their minds, his comments led to a lot of negative PR in the press and the blogs/forums. This kind of answer avoids such situations because it is a non answer.

That depends a bit on your definition of 'improvement'


That's why there are also versions and duplication.

They'd really need to do something with the interface. Apple has nothing on these other guys in terms of technology related to things like picture quality. Even if they started today, picture quality doesn't guarantee people will pay for it. If they were approaching it from a standpoint of picture quality or sophisticated technology, Apple is a big company. They'd look for a small company with promising research and invest or buy those guys out rather than developing in house. I haven't seen any rumors that really point to such a thing. I think it would be heavily based around aesthetics and interface. Apple rarely has the greatest hardware specs, and they don't market heavily based upon them outside of the apple site.


They are cheap, but the total system cost would still go up given potential design and assembly costs tacked onto the price of the necessary components. My argument was that with what is currently available, implementing such a solution within a laptop or desktop computer would require a much more expensive implementation that consumes much more power than what is seen in an iphone or ipad. I get tired of people suggesting that they can replace an i7 with a $15 ARM chip at its current manufacturing cost without impeding performance for the majority of users. It just shows a lack of understanding on their parts and too much attention paid to internet hype rather than white papers. I am not including your statement in that (as obviously you didn't make those claims).

The thing about touch screens is that implementing an ergonomic solution for that in a typical desktop or laptop situation could be expensive in itself. I'm wondering how they'd deal with that. Even cheap monitor arms seem like they would require a fair amount of testing at different angles to see how they hold up to long term stress and torsion. With a clamp type locking system stability and creep also become significant factors in the overall experience. It wouldn't surprise me if this is one of their research projects. Wacom seems to have done a nice job on their recent one. The old one sucked in terms of ergonomics, and yeah with painting/drawing before computers it was typical to use an angled surface rather than looking straight down. Their old stand also lacked a stable feel.

The Metro design language was born out of Media Center (circa 2002).


The "start screen" on Windows 8, and "metro-style" apps targeting WinRT are not using a "tablet/phone" UI.

This interface and its apps are what Microsoft is calling "touch first". The concept being that apps are written to support touch, but also take into consideration the other first class input citizens (mouse, track pad, keyboard and stylus).

This is one of the key (and interesting) differentiators between Apple and Microsoft's strategies.

The iPad has been designed from the ground up to be touch-only. This has had obvious benefits and the results for Apple have been phenomenal.

However there have been some side-effects to Apple's approach, in that it's hard to imagine that Apple could ever retro-fit a mouse/track pad/keyboard/stylus environment back into iOS without it looking like a hack job.

This idea seems to have been confirmed with the Mountain Lion mountain lion announcement. i.e. Your data and the OS concepts flow freely between environments, but there is a clear line between them. iOS is for touch (or maybe at some point, touch+voice), OSX is for keyboard\\track pad\\mouse, and never the two shall meet.

Something like this...


Conversely, Microsoft has not drawn a clean line between the two environments. Windows 8 is designed from the ground up as an OS for hybrids.

The traditional Windows desktop will be included on all Windows 8 devices.

When a PC has a mouse/track pad/keyboard connected a user can access both "metro-style" apps (which are touch first, but mouse/track pad/keyboard/stylus enabled) as well as the traditional Windows desktop.

On a device without a mouse/track pad/keyboard a user can access "metro-style" apps (which are touch first) as well as the traditional Windows desktop (if they happen to be a masochist).

Something like this...



At first glance it's easy to dismiss Microsoft's approach as it appears they are using the same failed tactic they have for a decade (try to cram the wrong UI on the wrong device) however there are a few differences this time around (namely, they are creating something new).

Microsoft's promise is to deliver a first class touch experience, whilst still supporting traditional user input elements like the keyboard, mouse, track-pad and stylus. We'll know before the year is out if this is complete bullshit or not