Another resident troll comment bashing an article while offering NOTHING to counter what was said.
What's the problem? Can't discuss technology or microprocessor architecture? Please enlighten us with your great wisdom and point out all the flaws in this article, and why Apple isn't the world's most advanced mobile processor company.
Oh please! If you've actually been following DED on his own website, you'd know what he is. I've pointed out many flaws in his "facts" and reasoning to him over the years. He refuses to acknowledge them. Even if you prove to him that it's flawed, he often won't even read the evidence.
This argument is flawed, because, for example, the new Tegra has better performance per core than the A8x, an argument that has been used for Apple's chips over the years, but since it only has two cores, poorer multi core performance, another argument around Apple's chips over the years. The graphics performance of the latest Tegra is also pretty good.
But this doesn't matter that much. As I said in my first post here, Apple's chips aren't much of a threat to Qualcomm or other manufacturers, because Apple doesn't sell their chips, amd Apple's market share in tablets is continually falling. But, Apple's chips are inspiring other chip manufacturers to increase the performance of their own.
The most important determinant to whether a chip is important is in how it leads to increased sales. Has the A7 led to increased Apple tablet sales? No, sales are down. Is the A8x going to? Well, we don't know yet, but it looks as though the answer is no.
While it's true that Apple's profitability is much higher than competing tablet makers, if sales continue to drop, it won't matter much.
So, DED's arguments are incorrect. It's a marketing challenge for other companies to claim that they too have 64 bit chips, no doubt. And while I don't believe that Apple has done this for marketing purposes, does it really matter? I don't think so. If the biggest selling component of the tablet market is now tablets selling for under $250, then having a performance leading chip is of less importance than before. The truth is that these cheaper tablets have seen their performance rise to the point to where what most people do, which is view video, listen to music, browse the web, buy things, and do email, that they don't need significantly increased performance. Particularly not if that increased performance comes at a highly increased cost.
My concern, and something that DED continually misses, is that Apple has a habit of shaking up a market with a major disruption, and then sitting on it, and merely iterating designs over the years, rather than coming up with something that shakes it up again, in a way that will continue Apple's leading position, and so that position continually erodes, as we are seeing happen.
So while TouchID is probably helping iPhone sales, and is enabling Apple Pay, which, hopefully will be a great success for Apple, it's not doing nearly as much for iPads. Mine is great to use, and buying online is easier. But is it going to have people spend $100 more to get an Apple tablet? I'm not so sure.
Overall, I think that people must be more critical of what DED writes, and just because he writes what most people here want to read from someone, they have to look at the real world situation as well. And there, his writing falls short.
I see Relic is back with his usual useless posts. How come you keep talking shit and then run away after you've been proven wrong? I have pointed out errors in your logic on the Denver K1 several times and you're back spouting the same garbage AGAIN?
She's another forum contrarian who reacts to any positive comments about Apple. They defensively post "but but but <competitor>!!!"
Mobile devices are also not the only thing ARM chips are used for, the K1 for instance is now being used in hospital imaging equipment and cars. Why did Ded leave out the absolutely huge market for none mobile device usage.
Same reason he left out the countless other processor and SoC manufacturers out there who already dominate those markets. Nvidia's presence in those areas is minuscule.
For example, ones I've worked with include Freescale, Siemens, Infineon and ST Micro.
I also disagree with his premise. With Apple only using their chips, and not selling them to others, they aren't threat to Qualcomm, or any other manufacturer who does sell chips. Unfortunely, most tablet sales increases are now for tablets costing less than $250. Because of that, the most advanced chips will be selling in a smaller percentage of devices as time goes on. It's one reason Apple didn't include this new (and more expensive) chip in the Retina Mini this year.
I'm seeing estimates that Apple may not sell more than about 10 million iPads this quarter, just half of last's year's sales. I hope that's not true, but with Apple tablets now considerably more expensive than competing tablets, which in many cases are "good enough" for what people are using them for, Apple is restricting their market significantly.
So DED's usual rant isn't making too much sense, as he often misses the big picture, and is certainly doing so here.
Wish Apple would spend more time explaining how the average iPad user benefits from these technology improvements. Lately with iPads they've basically just been reading specs off a keynote slide. Is there a special place in the app store that showcases apps taking advantage of the A8X? I think iPad is a product that Apple just doesn't know what to do with. This past keynote when Tim asked the question of what could you do to make the iPad better and then proceeds to show a video of it getting 18% thinner really crystallized for me that their loss with what to do with this product. And as we can see with the increase in Mac sales and decrease in iPad growth we are not in a post-PC world at all. During the last earnings call Tim Cook said it doesn't bother him at all if someone chooses an iPhone or Mac over an iPad. Okay I get that because at the end of the day they're still buying an Apple product. But wouldn't he want to know why people are choosing those devices over an iPad? IMO if the iPad doesn't get a major shake up the sales decline will continue.
Good post, agreed fully. I don't think we will ever see Apple selling their ARM chips to others, nor do I think we would see the kinds of speeds that iOS produces if they were used in say an Android or Windows 8 tablet, their too customized to their target group. Mobile devices are also not the only thing ARM chips are used for, the K1 for instance is now being used in hospital imaging equipment and cars. Why did Ded leave out the absolutely huge market for none mobile device usage.
Most of us here know DED pretty well. We know his goals. Therefor, it isn't in his interest in presenting anything that undermines those goals, unless everyone already knows it, and he therefor can't ignore it. But, even then, he attempts to denigrate it.
His goal, and the goal of those here who unthinkingly defend him, it to put blinders on when he writes, so that he can ignore everything that contrasts with what he wants to say. What he wants to say it that Apple is pretty much perfect, and that everything they do is good, and that all competitors are incompetent.
Obviously, that isn't the real world. I bought my first Mac for my own company back in 1988 as part of a photo correction system called the "Crossfield Editing system". This was a package that had a high end drum scanner, a Mac IICi, software, etc. We were possibly the first commercial lab in the US to have bought this precursor to Photoshop. I've been using Macs ever since. I know their triumphs, and their sins. To pretend otherwise is either naivé, ignorance, or deliberate rewriting of history.
As I also own several million dollars of Apple stock, I also try to see the reality behind that investment. If I rhlught the company was destitute of value, I would sell the stock. But I've held it since mid 2004, and haven't sold any, but bought some during low valuations, where I could. I point out my investment, because I've been accused here of being a troll when I point out things that are wrong. But I try not to live in a Woo Woo world.
Look, Apple would most certainly prefer to install the upcoming AMD K12 based APU or FX that Keller and company are developing than they would cripple their Macbooks or Macbook Airs with ARM solutions.
The real question for both the ARM and AMD options is whether Apple has the license to develop it's own compatible Thunderbolt Controller to interface with PCH freeing it to use either AMD or ARM.
Without Thunderbolt licensing, Apple either has to convince AMD to use something other than Hypertransport 3.x and ARM has to redesign its solutions to be compatible with Thunderbolt.
I always forget about that, thunderbolt being an intel development.
I wouldn't be surprised if apple moves away from thunderbolt all together. It seems like it never took off as much as they were hoping it would.
Correct me If I'm wrong ... AIR, Apple Developed Thunderbolt tech and licensed it to Intel!
From wikipedia which is as far as I'm willing to research, it's a little of column a and a little of column b:
"Thunderbolt was co-developed by Apple and Intel. It was commercially introduced on Apple's 2011 MacBook Pro, using the same Apple-developed connector as Mini DisplayPort, which is electrically identical to DisplayPort, but uses a smaller, non-locking connector. Though the Thunderbolt trademark was registered by Apple, full rights belong to Intel which subsequently led to the transfer of the registration from Apple to Intel.[5]"
Regardless, [@]mdriftmeyer[/@]'s point remains true.
Good stuff ... I don't know all I understand about it ...
Just to add some more spice(s) to the pot(s):
ARM isn't the only alternative -- for example there is the MIPS RISC CPU architecture, * which seems to be getting some press of late.
MIPS was used in SGI graphics workstations -- which ran circles around everything else in the late 1980s-1990s
Interesting -- the MIPS CPU IP is owned by Imagination Technologies -- whose GPU IP is used in the A8X chip. http://www.imgtec.com/mips/warrior/
Then, there's this new S1 APU used in the AppleWatch -- which needs to be super-efficient (power, size) ... possible 32 bit?
Then there's this thing(s) called llvm/clang -- which is used for all Apple software implementation.
Then there's this thing called Swift which scales from writing simple interactive scripting apps to writing entire Operating Systems ...
Oh, then there's this need for Apple to deliver a compelling device for $0-$50 to run ApplePay, Phone, Mail, Browser ...
I've been watching with great anticipation for a development board with Imagination's new MIPS64-Based I6400 CPU. This thing is going to be a beast and only strengthens what I have been saying, you can't categorically call these other ARM manufacturers as loosers, we're just now entering into a whole new era of low powered, extremely fast 64Bit CPU's. Articles like Ded's are just love letters to their favorite tech and actually don't offer anything of real substance.
Anyway I'm personally excited about what's coming especially in the world of MIPS, as a SGI enthusiasts I can't help but not get happy when I see so much progress being made to one of my favorite chip architectures of all time. Going to have so much fun when I get my hands on a I6400 development board. They have one for the 32Bit variants but I'm going to hold out for the 64Bit.
You are obviously concerned with details and being right, so you may be interested to know that [@]Relic[/@] is a woman.
I do remember something about that now that you mentioned it.
Regardless, Relic has on numerous occasions tried to downplay the significance of Apple A Series processor when compared to the likes of Qualcomm or Nvidia. These are details I'm concerned about as I don't understand why people are so determined to distort the obvious truth about the superiority of Apple processors.
My concern, and something that DED continually misses, is that Apple has a habit of shaking up a market with a major disruption, and then sitting on it, and merely iterating designs over the years, rather than coming up with something that shakes it up again, in a way that will continue Apple's leading position, and so that position continually erodes, as we are seeing happen.
Let's take Apple out of the picture... so who else is shaking up the market?
You say Apple is capable of causing a disruption (which is a feat in and of itself)... but then they sit on it.
So what are other companies doing?
I'm genuinely curious as a fan of tech (not just Apple... my only Apple device is an iPhone 5S)
Most of us here know DED pretty well. We know his goals. Therefor, it isn't in his interest in presenting anything that undermines those goals, unless everyone already knows it, and he therefor can't ignore it. But, even then, he attempts to denigrate it.
His goal, and the goal of those here who unthinkingly defend him, it to put blinders on when he writes, so that he can ignore everything that contrasts with what he wants to say. What he wants to say it that Apple is pretty much perfect, and that everything they do is good, and that all competitors are incompetent.
Obviously, that isn't the real world. I bought my first Mac for my own company back in 1988 as part of a photo correction system called the "Crossfield Editing system". This was a package that had a high end drum scanner, a Mac IICi, software, etc. We were possibly the first commercial lab in the US to have bought this precursor to Photoshop. I've been using Macs ever since. I know their triumphs, and their sins. To pretend otherwise is either naivé, ignorance, or deliberate rewriting of history.
As I also own several million dollars of Apple stock, I also try to see the reality behind that investment. If I rhlught the company was destitute of value, I would sell the stock. But I've held it since mid 2004, and haven't sold any, but bought some during low valuations, where I could. I point out my investment, because I've been accused here of being a troll when I point out things that are wrong. But I try not to live in a Woo Woo world.
Again good post, I to bought Apple very early, well during the Jobs second coming, early, in 2000 when it was trading at less than 14 dollars, I borrowed 100,000 CHF from my parents to help purchase 10,000 shares, after a 2 for 1 stock spit and than another 7 for 1 later, yea it's worth quite a lot now and hopefully will not sell in my life time. It's controlled by a living Trust, so my family should be financial secured when I pass. I also own quite a few others like Google, Microsoft, Space X, etc. that were also bought fairly early on.
I always forget about that, thunderbolt being an intel development.
I wouldn't be surprised if apple moves away from thunderbolt all together. It seems like it never took off as much as they were hoping it would.
Well, it's not so simple. Intel admits that it was Apple that came to them with the idea, and the specs they wanted to see. So while Intel did the actual development of at least most of the engineering work, would they have even thought of doing it if they haven't been approached by Apple? Likely not. Thunderbolt is doing better than ever. It's being accepted more than it was. As driver chips get down in price, more companies are using it.
And let's look at the ARM processor market. How many people are aware that ARM was an Apple product, more than anything? Not too many. It was Apple that went to Acorn computing after having evaluated other mobile processors for their Newton project. They told Acorn that their chip could be redesigned for mobile, and got Acorn and VSLI to form ARM along with Apple. Acorn did the hardware engineering, and VSLI produced the chips. Apple contributed specs, microcode and firmware. So ARM was an Apple invention. They sold off their ARM holdings in the early 2000's, I think it was.
I do remember something about that now that you mentioned it.
Regardless, Relic has on numerous occasions tried to downplay the significance of Apple A Series processor when compared to the likes of Qualcomm or Nvidia. These are details I'm concerned about as I don't understand why people are so determined to distort the obvious truth about the superiority of Apple processors.
I've never down played the A8, it's an incredible chip, what I don't appreciate is when people, like you, try to convince everyone, like Ded does as well, that every other chip out there is garbage when compared to the A8. I have never said the A8 wasn't any good, I bought three iPads because of how good it was. Chips like the K1, which you've gone on long rants about is also a very good chip, that's all I am trying to convey, never tried to downplay the A8.
Has the A7 led to increased Apple tablet sales? No, sales are down. Is the A8x going to? Well, we don't know yet, but it looks as though the answer is no.
The A7 was a bit of a departure for Apple, since they chose not to make a more powerful A7X version of that chip, which meant that there was no significant power advantage for the iPad Air vs the iPhone that year.
There was an A5X, an A6X, and an A8X. A7 is the odd man out.
Same reason he left out the countless other processor and SoC manufacturers out there who already dominate those markets. Nvidia's presence in those areas is minuscule.
For example, ones I've worked with include Freescale, Siemens, Infineon and ST Micro.
Stop saying "he". Relic is not a he. She also knows more than most people here, including you.
- It would be a huge undertaking to port over OS X to a different processor architecture, despite Apple efforts to make it easier to port code (developers writing OS X and iOS Apps, for example). An OS is several orders of magnitude more work to convert than an App.
Sure, but they've done that several times before with great success, including bringing OS X to ARM. Remember that iOS is born from Mac OS X and was labeled OS X iPhone by Apple at one point. I'm guessing they migrated Aqua to ARM a long time ago, and then probably after that built an entirely new desktop OS UI for ARM.
Yes! Not only have they done that several times before, but they are designing their OSes and IDE to facilitate moving both the OS and apps to different architectures.
For years now, Apple has been dragging developers forward (sometimes kicking and screaming) to use new concepts like Storyboards, ARC, and new tools like clang, llvm ...
Supposedly, this began in 2005 with the hiring of Chris Lattner!
The latest piece of the puzzle is Swift. Swift scales from simple scripting to writing System Level Code -- including writing the OSes themselves.
The current Xcode IDE supports the holy trinity of Swift/clang/llvm on both iOS and OS X (and, likely, AppleWatch OS).
A couple of months ago, when Swift was released to developers, they could use their existing code by bridging from Obj-C to Swift. In a similar way, the existing iOS and OS X frameworks were bridged from Obj-C to Swift.
In the ensuing months the underlying iOS and OS X frameworks have been/are rewritten in Swift ... At some point in the not-too-distant future, the OSes will be entirely implemented in Swift and the bridging will go the other way ...
Finally, I agree, that the 2 (3?) OSes will not be combined in the next several years. But that does not mean that there needs to be a separate code base for each OS. Already, we see Apple Sample Code containing both iOS and OS X (and Swift and Obj-C) files in the same project.
And the cross-pollination will continue ... The larger iPads could certainly use a construct like NSTableView -- multiple resizable, sortable, rearrangeable, hideable, editable table columns/rows.
Comments
Oh please! If you've actually been following DED on his own website, you'd know what he is. I've pointed out many flaws in his "facts" and reasoning to him over the years. He refuses to acknowledge them. Even if you prove to him that it's flawed, he often won't even read the evidence.
This argument is flawed, because, for example, the new Tegra has better performance per core than the A8x, an argument that has been used for Apple's chips over the years, but since it only has two cores, poorer multi core performance, another argument around Apple's chips over the years. The graphics performance of the latest Tegra is also pretty good.
But this doesn't matter that much. As I said in my first post here, Apple's chips aren't much of a threat to Qualcomm or other manufacturers, because Apple doesn't sell their chips, amd Apple's market share in tablets is continually falling. But, Apple's chips are inspiring other chip manufacturers to increase the performance of their own.
The most important determinant to whether a chip is important is in how it leads to increased sales. Has the A7 led to increased Apple tablet sales? No, sales are down. Is the A8x going to? Well, we don't know yet, but it looks as though the answer is no.
While it's true that Apple's profitability is much higher than competing tablet makers, if sales continue to drop, it won't matter much.
So, DED's arguments are incorrect. It's a marketing challenge for other companies to claim that they too have 64 bit chips, no doubt. And while I don't believe that Apple has done this for marketing purposes, does it really matter? I don't think so. If the biggest selling component of the tablet market is now tablets selling for under $250, then having a performance leading chip is of less importance than before. The truth is that these cheaper tablets have seen their performance rise to the point to where what most people do, which is view video, listen to music, browse the web, buy things, and do email, that they don't need significantly increased performance. Particularly not if that increased performance comes at a highly increased cost.
My concern, and something that DED continually misses, is that Apple has a habit of shaking up a market with a major disruption, and then sitting on it, and merely iterating designs over the years, rather than coming up with something that shakes it up again, in a way that will continue Apple's leading position, and so that position continually erodes, as we are seeing happen.
So while TouchID is probably helping iPhone sales, and is enabling Apple Pay, which, hopefully will be a great success for Apple, it's not doing nearly as much for iPads. Mine is great to use, and buying online is easier. But is it going to have people spend $100 more to get an Apple tablet? I'm not so sure.
Overall, I think that people must be more critical of what DED writes, and just because he writes what most people here want to read from someone, they have to look at the real world situation as well. And there, his writing falls short.
I see Relic is back with his usual useless posts. How come you keep talking shit and then run away after you've been proven wrong? I have pointed out errors in your logic on the Denver K1 several times and you're back spouting the same garbage AGAIN?
She's another forum contrarian who reacts to any positive comments about Apple. They defensively post "but but but <competitor>!!!"
You are obviously concerned with details and being right, so you may be interested to know that [@]Relic[/@] is a woman.
Same reason he left out the countless other processor and SoC manufacturers out there who already dominate those markets. Nvidia's presence in those areas is minuscule.
For example, ones I've worked with include Freescale, Siemens, Infineon and ST Micro.
Wish Apple would spend more time explaining how the average iPad user benefits from these technology improvements. Lately with iPads they've basically just been reading specs off a keynote slide. Is there a special place in the app store that showcases apps taking advantage of the A8X? I think iPad is a product that Apple just doesn't know what to do with. This past keynote when Tim asked the question of what could you do to make the iPad better and then proceeds to show a video of it getting 18% thinner really crystallized for me that their loss with what to do with this product. And as we can see with the increase in Mac sales and decrease in iPad growth we are not in a post-PC world at all. During the last earnings call Tim Cook said it doesn't bother him at all if someone chooses an iPhone or Mac over an iPad. Okay I get that because at the end of the day they're still buying an Apple product. But wouldn't he want to know why people are choosing those devices over an iPad? IMO if the iPad doesn't get a major shake up the sales decline will continue.
Most of us here know DED pretty well. We know his goals. Therefor, it isn't in his interest in presenting anything that undermines those goals, unless everyone already knows it, and he therefor can't ignore it. But, even then, he attempts to denigrate it.
His goal, and the goal of those here who unthinkingly defend him, it to put blinders on when he writes, so that he can ignore everything that contrasts with what he wants to say. What he wants to say it that Apple is pretty much perfect, and that everything they do is good, and that all competitors are incompetent.
Obviously, that isn't the real world. I bought my first Mac for my own company back in 1988 as part of a photo correction system called the "Crossfield Editing system". This was a package that had a high end drum scanner, a Mac IICi, software, etc. We were possibly the first commercial lab in the US to have bought this precursor to Photoshop. I've been using Macs ever since. I know their triumphs, and their sins. To pretend otherwise is either naivé, ignorance, or deliberate rewriting of history.
As I also own several million dollars of Apple stock, I also try to see the reality behind that investment. If I rhlught the company was destitute of value, I would sell the stock. But I've held it since mid 2004, and haven't sold any, but bought some during low valuations, where I could. I point out my investment, because I've been accused here of being a troll when I point out things that are wrong. But I try not to live in a Woo Woo world.
From wikipedia which is as far as I'm willing to research, it's a little of column a and a little of column b:
"Thunderbolt was co-developed by Apple and Intel. It was commercially introduced on Apple's 2011 MacBook Pro, using the same Apple-developed connector as Mini DisplayPort, which is electrically identical to DisplayPort, but uses a smaller, non-locking connector. Though the Thunderbolt trademark was registered by Apple, full rights belong to Intel which subsequently led to the transfer of the registration from Apple to Intel.[5]"
Regardless, [@]mdriftmeyer[/@]'s point remains true.
I've been watching with great anticipation for a development board with Imagination's new MIPS64-Based I6400 CPU. This thing is going to be a beast and only strengthens what I have been saying, you can't categorically call these other ARM manufacturers as loosers, we're just now entering into a whole new era of low powered, extremely fast 64Bit CPU's. Articles like Ded's are just love letters to their favorite tech and actually don't offer anything of real substance.
Anyway I'm personally excited about what's coming especially in the world of MIPS, as a SGI enthusiasts I can't help but not get happy when I see so much progress being made to one of my favorite chip architectures of all time. Going to have so much fun when I get my hands on a I6400 development board. They have one for the 32Bit variants but I'm going to hold out for the 64Bit.
I do remember something about that now that you mentioned it.
Regardless, Relic has on numerous occasions tried to downplay the significance of Apple A Series processor when compared to the likes of Qualcomm or Nvidia. These are details I'm concerned about as I don't understand why people are so determined to distort the obvious truth about the superiority of Apple processors.
Let's take Apple out of the picture... so who else is shaking up the market?
You say Apple is capable of causing a disruption (which is a feat in and of itself)... but then they sit on it.
So what are other companies doing?
I'm genuinely curious as a fan of tech (not just Apple... my only Apple device is an iPhone 5S)
Again good post, I to bought Apple very early, well during the Jobs second coming, early, in 2000 when it was trading at less than 14 dollars, I borrowed 100,000 CHF from my parents to help purchase 10,000 shares, after a 2 for 1 stock spit and than another 7 for 1 later, yea it's worth quite a lot now and hopefully will not sell in my life time. It's controlled by a living Trust, so my family should be financial secured when I pass. I also own quite a few others like Google, Microsoft, Space X, etc. that were also bought fairly early on.
Well, it's not so simple. Intel admits that it was Apple that came to them with the idea, and the specs they wanted to see. So while Intel did the actual development of at least most of the engineering work, would they have even thought of doing it if they haven't been approached by Apple? Likely not. Thunderbolt is doing better than ever. It's being accepted more than it was. As driver chips get down in price, more companies are using it.
And let's look at the ARM processor market. How many people are aware that ARM was an Apple product, more than anything? Not too many. It was Apple that went to Acorn computing after having evaluated other mobile processors for their Newton project. They told Acorn that their chip could be redesigned for mobile, and got Acorn and VSLI to form ARM along with Apple. Acorn did the hardware engineering, and VSLI produced the chips. Apple contributed specs, microcode and firmware. So ARM was an Apple invention. They sold off their ARM holdings in the early 2000's, I think it was.
I've never down played the A8, it's an incredible chip, what I don't appreciate is when people, like you, try to convince everyone, like Ded does as well, that every other chip out there is garbage when compared to the A8. I have never said the A8 wasn't any good, I bought three iPads because of how good it was. Chips like the K1, which you've gone on long rants about is also a very good chip, that's all I am trying to convey, never tried to downplay the A8.
Has the A7 led to increased Apple tablet sales? No, sales are down. Is the A8x going to? Well, we don't know yet, but it looks as though the answer is no.
The A7 was a bit of a departure for Apple, since they chose not to make a more powerful A7X version of that chip, which meant that there was no significant power advantage for the iPad Air vs the iPhone that year.
There was an A5X, an A6X, and an A8X. A7 is the odd man out.
Stop saying "he". Relic is not a he. She also knows more than most people here, including you.
I also own quite a few others like Google, Microsoft, Space X, etc. that were also bought fairly early on.
How in the world do you have Space X?
There hasn't been any Space X IPO yet.
Yes! Not only have they done that several times before, but they are designing their OSes and IDE to facilitate moving both the OS and apps to different architectures.
For years now, Apple has been dragging developers forward (sometimes kicking and screaming) to use new concepts like Storyboards, ARC, and new tools like clang, llvm ...
Supposedly, this began in 2005 with the hiring of Chris Lattner!
The latest piece of the puzzle is Swift. Swift scales from simple scripting to writing System Level Code -- including writing the OSes themselves.
The current Xcode IDE supports the holy trinity of Swift/clang/llvm on both iOS and OS X (and, likely, AppleWatch OS).
A couple of months ago, when Swift was released to developers, they could use their existing code by bridging from Obj-C to Swift. In a similar way, the existing iOS and OS X frameworks were bridged from Obj-C to Swift.
In the ensuing months the underlying iOS and OS X frameworks have been/are rewritten in Swift ... At some point in the not-too-distant future, the OSes will be entirely implemented in Swift and the bridging will go the other way ...
Finally, I agree, that the 2 (3?) OSes will not be combined in the next several years. But that does not mean that there needs to be a separate code base for each OS. Already, we see Apple Sample Code containing both iOS and OS X (and Swift and Obj-C) files in the same project.
And the cross-pollination will continue ... The larger iPads could certainly use a construct like NSTableView -- multiple resizable, sortable, rearrangeable, hideable, editable table columns/rows.