The merge of iOS and macOS team could be a good decision, as both of them sharing the same kernels, file systems, APIs, etc..
1) They already use the same kernel, file system, APIs, etc. This happened from the very beginning.
2) They will never be a merger of iOS and macOS into a single OS that will allow you to install a single combo update to your iDevice or Mac, the way you can with macOS to any other Mac. This doesn't make sense today and will not make sense in the future.
I didn't mean to merge both of them together, but it could be a whole lot easier to develop and catch up, as they both shared the same technology from inside.
Then I don't understand your comment since this was the case since the iPhone was first developed, and carried over to the now tvOS, watchOS, and OS running the T1-chip controlling the Touch Bar, Touch ID, and Apple Pay in new MacBook Pros.
But there are definitely pros and cons. For example, there were many pros for stripping macOS down to OS X basics to create iOS as the much slower HW required a great deal of rewritten SW which then made it back into macOS thereby making it more streamlined. On the other side of that is the potential for streamlining that reduces functionality so that you can build to the lowest-common denominator. We saw this with the iWork suite of apps a few years back where many features were removed for platform parity. Daring Fireball just linked to an article today about that very thing with PDF support in macOS.
Reading news like this strengthens my believe Apple appears to be falling for the temptations to go for fashion instead for delivering really professional products. Apple appears to forget many professionals are using Apple products as merely tools, professional tools. I like to see updates for my professional tools so I can decide to replace my current tool when it speeds-up my professional work process, makes it easier or more reliable. To me the touchbar in the new MBP is just a gimmick. It doesn't improve my professional work - worse, the noisy keyboard makes the laptop less usable in environments with many people, the omission of the magsafe adapter makes it more prone to accidents, the need to carry a lot of converter cables is just cumbersome and I didn't even mention the removal of the physical Esc key. Several co-workers had to replace their MBP over the last week - without exception they bought a 2015 MBP. As a professional I don't care about the thickness of my MBP. I do care about interfaces, about a very good keyboard and about a good screen. And I care about a reliable discrete GPU which won't stop working after five years. The new MBP is just a fashion product, not a professional product. It should have been called MacBook. I'm still waiting for the real Pro update of the 2015 MBP.
In short, will Apple keep in mind all those professionals using their products, having built a lot of loyalty with them. Or will Apple go the IMHO rather volatile fashion way? I'm afraid the marketeers have taken over Apple. Again. Apple urgently needs the arrogance and stubborness Steve Jobs had. Cook and Ive don't show this, unfortunately.
This is the same nonsense we written since the demise of the last affordable Mac tower (probably the MDD powermac) in favor of the iMac and very expensive G5 cheese grater powermac.
This professional, after lugging two laptops through airport security, sure as hell welcomes a thinner and lighter MBP. I should have shipped the damn things but sometimes when you have to have something at the other end you hand carry them.
And as a pro I don't care if the GPU dies in 5 years. We replace all our computers every 3 years.
Actually, 16G is still okay for most of the things today. I know a Photoshop developer that still keep his 8G rMBP15 today, and it works just fine.
People were outrages mostly because 16G it's just "okay". But looking from another viewpoint, I think having only 16G of memory has nothing to do with "thin and light", as the processor itself could not support LPDDR4 now (perhaps next few years as well).
In a parallel world, MBPs could got all 64G (the maximum capacity that Skylake supports) with Iris Pro (which could benefits from eDRAM, eliminating the needs for GDDR5), while having external Graphics card that hooked up on one of those Thunderbolt 3 ports. If something like this happened, you could get both "thin and light" while having the maximum performance allowed.
The merge of iOS and macOS team could be a good decision, as both of them sharing the same kernels, file systems, APIs, etc..
1) They already use the same kernel, file system, APIs, etc. This happened from the very beginning.
2) They will never be a merger of iOS and macOS into a single OS that will allow you to install a single combo update to your iDevice or Mac, the way you can with macOS to any other Mac. This doesn't make sense today and will not make sense in the future.
I didn't mean to merge both of them together, but it could be a whole lot easier to develop and catch up, as they both shared the same technology from inside.
Then I don't understand your comment since this was the case since the iPhone was first developed, and carried over to the now tvOS, watchOS, and OS running the T1-chip controlling the Touch Bar, Touch ID, and Apple Pay in new MacBook Pros.
But there are definitely pros and cons. For example, there were many pros for stripping macOS down to OS X basics to create iOS as the much slower HW required a great deal of rewritten SW which then made it back into macOS thereby making it more streamlined. On the other side of that is the potential for streamlining that reduces functionality so that you can build to the lowest-common denominator. We saw this with the iWork suite of apps a few years back where many features were removed for platform parity. Daring Fireball just linked to an article today about that very thing with PDF support in macOS.
They were still two dedicated teams, a merge would still means much easier to handle. I've heard about how great those apps were before, but it's not like they will never adds new function forever, just needs time to catches up.
Comments
But there are definitely pros and cons. For example, there were many pros for stripping macOS down to OS X basics to create iOS as the much slower HW required a great deal of rewritten SW which then made it back into macOS thereby making it more streamlined. On the other side of that is the potential for streamlining that reduces functionality so that you can build to the lowest-common denominator. We saw this with the iWork suite of apps a few years back where many features were removed for platform parity. Daring Fireball just linked to an article today about that very thing with PDF support in macOS.
Here you can see the Darwin release history to see that they've been working with the same codebase at roughly the same time since for its entire run.
People were outrages mostly because 16G it's just "okay". But looking from another viewpoint, I think having only 16G of memory has nothing to do with "thin and light", as the processor itself could not support LPDDR4 now (perhaps next few years as well).
In a parallel world, MBPs could got all 64G (the maximum capacity that Skylake supports) with Iris Pro (which could benefits from eDRAM, eliminating the needs for GDDR5), while having external Graphics card that hooked up on one of those Thunderbolt 3 ports. If something like this happened, you could get both "thin and light" while having the maximum performance allowed.
I've heard about how great those apps were before, but it's not like they will never adds new function forever, just needs time to catches up.