This would be amazing. Imagine having everything you need in a single device which fits in your pocket. It's iOS when you're out and about and mostly need communication functionality, then it's full blown macOS when you're at your desk working. Perfect.
Until I see more evidence, I’m reasonably sure this is just Apple extending Sidecar. Sidecar was a neat trick to pull off between Intel Macs and ARM-based iPads, and proved that there was a lot of common ground in the code already. For legibility reasons, your iPhone would make a terrible Mac for most apps, but there’s a few I can think of that would work well. Look at the differences between existing Mac versions of, say, Pages, and the iPhone version, and all the differences in the UI required to make that stuff fit on an iPhone screen and still be accessible.
Sharing the same chipset will definitely have advantages, but there’s a reason I don’t do much writing on an iPhone (even with dictation) compared to an iPad, and there’s no chance I could do the kind of larger work I sometimes do (video editing, audio editing, graphic design) on my XR. Maybe the weak link there isn’t so much the iPhone screen size as it is my aging eyeballs, but if anything I’d kind of like to see the opposite direction happen: since iPhone/iPad apps can run natively on Apple Macs, maybe find a way for them to scale elegantly to proper monitors?
Yeah I doubt it. I can see a future where iOS and iPadOS have better external display support and if you've got an Airplay happy TV or an TV then you could have a virtual trackpad/keyboard on the iPhone or iPad that lets you put two or three apps side by side on that external display and control it like that-- not unlike how you can control an TV right now on your iPhone. But yeah, a whole Mac crammed into mobile devices? Seems like the proverbial toaster/fridge combo they've been strenuously avoiding... and yeah- why would they want people to buy less hardware?
Also how does the transition happen. You are running 5 apps on your iOS device and writing some notes. Then you come home, plug it into the monitor and the iPhone now mirrors onto the monitor except it is now showing the apps as Mac OS apps, rather than iOS apps, which means they are bigger and multi-documented and dont use touch interfaces. So you work on that for a while and save a few windows and put some files on the desktop and then take the iPhone away but the iPhone doesn't have access to the desktop, the multiple windows are gone, and everything is different in layout.
The iPad with a keyboard is slightly more believable, it is closer to the Mac, but not totally. I mean if you were to imagine a few years back a merger between iOS and Mac OS, then the modern iPad OS is it. But it is still not Mac OS.
In the future if iPads can power monitors, why would you plug an iPad into a monitor and get Mac OS? Maybe a version of iPad OS will work with monitors in the future, maybe a menubar will appear when you plug it in. Maybe you have some access to the desktop when you plug it in. ( I doubt it). If apple does that they will call still it iPad OS.
The problem I see is one of RAM. iPhones have a relatively small amount of ram because of energy use, and Macs the more ram the better. I don't see how this is limitation is overcome.
Really?! Maybe a docking station that includes the extra ports needed to connect a monitor, external hard drives and other devices that also bumps up the RAM and maybe adds a graphic card.
You're thinking too Windows.
I don't see a nerdy dock with ports and tangled wires. I see a seamless wireless connection that allows users to collaborate devices. Example: you're running Photoshop on an iMac but wanna use a stylus. Turn on your iPad and start drawing. No need to download apps or open programs. That easy. You've been working on a song on your iPhone, turn on your iMac and run Logic, finish it there. Easy.
They went through a great deal of effort to provide a good user experience on iPadOS with mouse and keyboard, where would that go? Forget about it and switch to macOS?
Anyone who watches the company should know by now that Apple is the last outfit on earth who would hang on to a product just because they spent a lot of resources developing it. Once a product doesn't fit in their long term plans, it's gone. Steve Jobs is famously averse to getting sentimentally attached to a product and thankfully for Apple, it got baked into their DNA.
Retaining a product because of sunk cost has led to many a company's demise.
But thats not the point of differentiating the OS, the point is the user experience. A Mac has huge screen real estate, an iPad less, an iPhone even less. A watch, the least. And therefore they also need different UX and UI. The point and click of the mouse vs the touch of the other devices. Or the wheel on the watch. A menubar vs none. A filesystem vs none.
Of course Apple is not so stupid as to force a desktop interface on a smartphone or tablet. But is it really beyond your imagination to conceive of a mobile device with an OS that presents a small screen (i.e. smartphone) interface when standing alone but switches to a large screen (i.e. desktop) interface when connected to a screen and keyboard (the mobile device becomes a touchpad)? It might not prove feasible today, but as computing devices get more and more powerful (something that I have a sneaking suspicion is going on) why rule it out automatically?
I mean look, already for a lot of apps (Pages, Excel, etc.) you can work on the same document file either from the mobile app or the desktop app. So it's not that much of a conceptual reach to merge the desktop and smartphone functions in one physical device. As to whether Apple would intentionally kill the market for Macs, see my post above.
Here's another pithy business adage: You better be the one who makes your own product obsolete or your competitors will do it for you. Another principle that Apple lives by. It's also more famously known as "skating to where the puck is going to be".
Although I am more of a Mac user myself when I need to be productive, wouldn’t it make more sense to have some sort of an iPadOS active for desktop mode, assuming iPadOS will have things like proper external screen support, multiuser, etc? That wouldn’t require complete two different operating systems on one device, but more or less a derivative of iOS. Or does Apple have the philosophy that with that specific case the end user wants overlapping windows and a proper desktop environment?
The problem I see is one of RAM. iPhones have a relatively small amount of ram because of energy use, and Macs the more ram the better. I don't see how this is limitation is overcome.
Really?! Maybe a docking station that includes the extra ports needed to connect a monitor, external hard drives and other devices that also bumps up the RAM and maybe adds a graphic card.
Sure, right now perhaps, but wouldn’t installing more and faster RAM be a relatively trivial thing for Apple to do? The pricing of the phone would be problematic most likely, but with miniaturization still happening every generation I can image that installing more RAM wouldn’t be a problem.
Look at all those wires! And notice how literally the only things running there are browsers. That's ChromeOS in a nutshell: if it doesn't run in a browser (so that Google can build a profile of everything you do), it doesn't run.
And all because advertisers (including Apple BTW) want to be sure that the money they spend is going to the right market. For example, no sense in presenting you with panty ads if you're a male, and besides you'd just get them in a wad anyway.
BTW, just as Apple would deny any merging of iOS and macOS using a hybrid operating system, Google too denies any merging of Chrome and Android utilizing their own hybrid OS Fushia. I don't think either one of them have yet decided for certain but all signs sure point to it being an eventuality, and they're both spending engineering resources on it.
I really don’t know how Apple can say it any clearer to you people....
They’ve already said it’s been decided. Could this change? Sure, anything is possible. But it’s disingenuous to suggest they haven’t make a decision on this frequent topic.
iOS and macOS both already come from OS X and already share code today. They are modified for their target form factors with appropriate layers and components. It makes no sense to include modules not used by a given form factor.
I predicted this awhile back (having macOS on your phone).
This is a brilliant idea, and so much better than that massive failure called Dex.
Microsoft had the right idea, they just couldn’t execute it. Apple is in a fantastic position to make this work.
If you look at the recent Developer Test Kit with the A12Z, it has 16GB RAM. Unless iPads or iPhones get significantly more RAM, I'm not sure how Apple will pull this off.
macOS runs just fine on 8GB equipped Macs. Developers typically require more RAM, which Apple has included in the dev kit because, well, it's only for developers. I highly doubt that macOS on ARM suddenly requires 16GB where macOS on Intel worked on 8GB.
iPad Pros already have 6GB RAM - it's not a stretch to think future iPads or iPhones could also come with additional RAM (8GB).
No, this is not going to happen. When Jobs introduced the iPhone he said they put OS X on it. In effect that was what it was. A modified version of OS X.
Then they decided to create a new OS, called iPhone OS, now iOS, to differentiate. Then they broke iOS into iPad OS. Then they created watchOS. Then they created TvOS. Carplay. All are based on the same original OS.
Whats happening here? Are they differentiating? Yes, they are. Why then would they throw it all back together again?
You can in fact use similar, or mostly the exact same code ( with Swift UI in particular) to create apps for all of these Oses.
But thats not the point of differentiating the OS, the point is the user experience. A Mac has huge screen real estate, an iPad less, an iPhone even less. A watch, the least. And therefore they also need different UX and UI. The point and click of the mouse vs the touch of the other devices. Or the wheel on the watch. A menubar vs none. A filesystem vs none.
If an app with the same code ( swiftUI or catalyst) is built for Mac OS and iOS they will look different on either OS, that's the point. And even then with complex apps you are almost certainly going to want to break out custom code for either platform. Mac OS isnt going to work at all on the smaller device. iOS isn't going to look good on the larger device. Hooking a phone to a monitor to get it to look like MacOS sounds terrifically stupid to me. This is kinda like how CarPlay works ( CarPlay can be a separate screen running from your device but on the dashboard). But that doesn't scale up at all to a PC/Mac and photoshop etc. aren't going to scale down to the iPhone either, not without looking totally different. ( I doubt if their OS X apps and iOS apps are exactly the same code, catalyst and swiftUI are not that powerful and too new).
So a big rewrite for the big app devs to have cross platform apps in the same binary.
And what's in it for Apple. A device that can attach to a monitor so people dont have to buy a Mac? And for the user? An underpowered "Mac" which is a dumb monitor with bad cross platform apps which kills your device's battery.
You're completely missing the point here.
The best comparison would be your MBP running Bootcamp. You can choose to start on macOS or Windows. When you're running Windows you lose access to your Mac. Windows has its own partition and it runs like its own separate machine. You're not running Mac Apps on the Windows side nor are your Windows/Mac Apps being re-written to look/run like a PC/Mac on either side. They are TWO SEPARATE SYSTEMS each with their own Apps and look/feel/user interface.
This would be like Bootcamp, except for a few differences:
- Your two choices would be iOS and macOS. - When running iOS your iPhone behaves exactly like the iPhone it does now. When running macOS your iPhone behaves exactly like a Mac does now. - Both OSes would have access to your storage, since both work with APFS (unlike trying to access your macOS partition from Windows). - With Handoff, switching from iOS to macOS would be the same as putting down your iPhone and working on your MacBook, except you're not switching physical devices - you're just connecting your iPhone to an external keyboard, monitor & mouse. - Apple could make improvements to Continuity/Handoff since everything is on a single device (universal clipboard or photos, for example).
Bottom line is Apple isn't merging iOS and macOS. They're just allowing a single device to run more than one OS, and behave exactly as you'd expect when running either OS.
No, this is not going to happen. When Jobs introduced the iPhone he said they put OS X on it. In effect that was what it was. A modified version of OS X.
Then they decided to create a new OS, called iPhone OS, now iOS, to differentiate. Then they broke iOS into iPad OS. Then they created watchOS. Then they created TvOS. Carplay. All are based on the same original OS.
Whats happening here? Are they differentiating? Yes, they are. Why then would they throw it all back together again?
You can in fact use similar, or mostly the exact same code ( with Swift UI in particular) to create apps for all of these Oses.
But thats not the point of differentiating the OS, the point is the user experience. A Mac has huge screen real estate, an iPad less, an iPhone even less. A watch, the least. And therefore they also need different UX and UI. The point and click of the mouse vs the touch of the other devices. Or the wheel on the watch. A menubar vs none. A filesystem vs none.
If an app with the same code ( swiftUI or catalyst) is built for Mac OS and iOS they will look different on either OS, that's the point. And even then with complex apps you are almost certainly going to want to break out custom code for either platform. Mac OS isnt going to work at all on the smaller device. iOS isn't going to look good on the larger device. Hooking a phone to a monitor to get it to look like MacOS sounds terrifically stupid to me. This is kinda like how CarPlay works ( CarPlay can be a separate screen running from your device but on the dashboard). But that doesn't scale up at all to a PC/Mac and photoshop etc. aren't going to scale down to the iPhone either, not without looking totally different. ( I doubt if their OS X apps and iOS apps are exactly the same code, catalyst and swiftUI are not that powerful and too new).
So a big rewrite for the big app devs to have cross platform apps in the same binary.
And what's in it for Apple. A device that can attach to a monitor so people dont have to buy a Mac? And for the user? An underpowered "Mac" which is a dumb monitor with bad cross platform apps which kills your device's battery.
There is no rewrite. Changing the Universal binary format is a recompile to pack the iOS version and the MacOS version into the same binary. The phone runs the iOS version, but if you plug the phone into the terminal, it runs the MacOS version from the same binary package.
The terminal powers the phone and carries extra memory.
What's in it for Apple: a bigger chunk of the schools market, and since they would need an iPhone to work, they'd sell more iPhones.
Look at all those wires! And notice how literally the only things running there are browsers. That's ChromeOS in a nutshell: if it doesn't run in a browser (so that Google can build a profile of everything you do), it doesn't run.
And all because advertisers (including Apple BTW) want to be sure that the money they spend is going to the right market. For example, no sense in presenting you with panty ads if you're a male, and besides you'd just get them in a wad anyway.
BTW, just as Apple would deny any merging of iOS and macOS using a hybrid operating system, Google too denies any merging of Chrome and Android utilizing their own hybrid OS Fushia. I don't think either one of them have yet decided for certain but all signs sure point to it being an eventuality, and they're both spending engineering resources on it.
I really don’t know how Apple can say it any clearer to you people....
They’ve already said it’s been decided. Could this change? Sure, anything is possible. But it’s disingenuous to suggest they haven’t make a decision on this frequent topic.
iOS and macOS both already come from OS X and already share code today. They are modified for their target form factors with appropriate layers and components. It makes no sense to include modules not used by a given form factor.
Nope, not merging. If Apple is going to do this then I reckon that the terminal version will be running full MacOs.
I believe that Apple have prototype models running macOS, just to assure themself how bad idea it is. That's normal. Desktop Mac environment and apps will always be much more demanding and I can't imagine Apple to allow users to fry their iPhones in some docking stations. Because running macOS on a phone too often would destroy it quickly. I think this leaker have revealed it's identity thru this dumb leak and will be fired soon.
A little weird.. but because they now can do this, they will try it out. Eventually, when the Mac experience isn’t hampered with, they might even do it? Also if the phone has USB4, expansion might be pretty decent. But given that the developer transition kit used 16 GB ram, perhaps that could be seen as a minimum? in any case, the next Mac Mini (if there’ll be such a thing) might come in Apple TV form factor?
I believe that Apple have prototype models running macOS, just to assure themself how bad idea it is. That's normal. Desktop Mac environment and apps will always be much more demanding and I can't imagine Apple to allow users to fry their iPhones in some docking stations. Because running macOS on a phone too often would destroy it quickly. I think this leaker have revealed it's identity thru this dumb leak and will be fired soon.
You are right if we assume that technological progress stops today and hardware will never ever get more powerful or more energy efficient.
On the other hand, if we believe what Apple execs said, that they start seriously working on a product about 7 years before the release, with most of the time spent waiting for the hardware technology to catch up to the requirements of the proposed product, then we just might see the device described in the article sometime in the future. Emphasis on 'might'.
This would be amazing. Imagine having everything you need in a single device which fits in your pocket. It's iOS when you're out and about and mostly need communication functionality, then it's full blown macOS when you're at your desk working. Perfect.
Great copy Samsung Dex!!
Except that it doesn't run a joke for an OS. I've worked with Chromebooks before and no thanks!
You have no idea what you are talking about! Samsung Dex has nothing to do with Chromebooks. It is Android. And unlike iOS, Android is Linux and not a joke OS.
Just because they could
run MacOS using an iPhone's hardware, doesn't make it a good idea. This is not about convergence at all. It is about either
running iOS or MacOS. The fundamental problem with MacOS is the lack of
touchscreen support.
Once MacOS gets touchscreen support, you won't need iOS
anymore.
Samsung DeX is the correct way to go: you use the same OS in
both modes, you share exactly the same files, the same apps and you have a
perfect seamless switch between both. Android is a real capable OS because it
is basically Linux.
Since Office, Outlook and Teams for Android, you have
everything you need in DeX, including real desktop sharing, connecting a second
monitor, running all Android apps. Actually everything that people are excited
about in this discussion. Oh, I forgot ... it is from Samsung and therefore
Apple fans cannot admit that it is good.
Comments
You guys are nuts if you think Apple will do things the Windows/Samsung way.
When has Apple half-assed software to tick a box?
Sharing the same chipset will definitely have advantages, but there’s a reason I don’t do much writing on an iPhone (even with dictation) compared to an iPad, and there’s no chance I could do the kind of larger work I sometimes do (video editing, audio editing, graphic design) on my XR. Maybe the weak link there isn’t so much the iPhone screen size as it is my aging eyeballs, but if anything I’d kind of like to see the opposite direction happen: since iPhone/iPad apps can run natively on Apple Macs, maybe find a way for them to scale elegantly to proper monitors?
The iPad with a keyboard is slightly more believable, it is closer to the Mac, but not totally. I mean if you were to imagine a few years back a merger between iOS and Mac OS, then the modern iPad OS is it. But it is still not Mac OS.
In the future if iPads can power monitors, why would you plug an iPad into a monitor and get Mac OS? Maybe a version of iPad OS will work with monitors in the future, maybe a menubar will appear when you plug it in. Maybe you have some access to the desktop when you plug it in. ( I doubt it). If apple does that they will call still it iPad OS.
You're thinking too Windows.
I don't see a nerdy dock with ports and tangled wires. I see a seamless wireless connection that allows users to collaborate devices. Example: you're running Photoshop on an iMac but wanna use a stylus. Turn on your iPad and start drawing. No need to download apps or open programs. That easy. You've been working on a song on your iPhone, turn on your iMac and run Logic, finish it there. Easy.
Think Continuity on steroids.
Retaining a product because of sunk cost has led to many a company's demise.
I mean look, already for a lot of apps (Pages, Excel, etc.) you can work on the same document file either from the mobile app or the desktop app. So it's not that much of a conceptual reach to merge the desktop and smartphone functions in one physical device. As to whether Apple would intentionally kill the market for Macs, see my post above.
Here's another pithy business adage: You better be the one who makes your own product obsolete or your competitors will do it for you. Another principle that Apple lives by. It's also more famously known as "skating to where the puck is going to be".
Or does Apple have the philosophy that with that specific case the end user wants overlapping windows and a proper desktop environment?
They’ve already said it’s been decided. Could this change? Sure, anything is possible. But it’s disingenuous to suggest they haven’t make a decision on this frequent topic.
iOS and macOS both already come from OS X and already share code today. They are modified for their target form factors with appropriate layers and components. It makes no sense to include modules not used by a given form factor.
macOS runs just fine on 8GB equipped Macs. Developers typically require more RAM, which Apple has included in the dev kit because, well, it's only for developers. I highly doubt that macOS on ARM suddenly requires 16GB where macOS on Intel worked on 8GB.
iPad Pros already have 6GB RAM - it's not a stretch to think future iPads or iPhones could also come with additional RAM (8GB).
You're completely missing the point here.
The best comparison would be your MBP running Bootcamp. You can choose to start on macOS or Windows. When you're running Windows you lose access to your Mac. Windows has its own partition and it runs like its own separate machine. You're not running Mac Apps on the Windows side nor are your Windows/Mac Apps being re-written to look/run like a PC/Mac on either side. They are TWO SEPARATE SYSTEMS each with their own Apps and look/feel/user interface.
This would be like Bootcamp, except for a few differences:
- Your two choices would be iOS and macOS.
- When running iOS your iPhone behaves exactly like the iPhone it does now. When running macOS your iPhone behaves exactly like a Mac does now.
- Both OSes would have access to your storage, since both work with APFS (unlike trying to access your macOS partition from Windows).
- With Handoff, switching from iOS to macOS would be the same as putting down your iPhone and working on your MacBook, except you're not switching physical devices - you're just connecting your iPhone to an external keyboard, monitor & mouse.
- Apple could make improvements to Continuity/Handoff since everything is on a single device (universal clipboard or photos, for example).
Bottom line is Apple isn't merging iOS and macOS. They're just allowing a single device to run more than one OS, and behave exactly as you'd expect when running either OS.
There is no rewrite. Changing the Universal binary format is a recompile to pack the iOS version and the MacOS version into the same binary. The phone runs the iOS version, but if you plug the phone into the terminal, it runs the MacOS version from the same binary package.
The terminal powers the phone and carries extra memory.
What's in it for Apple: a bigger chunk of the schools market, and since they would need an iPhone to work, they'd sell more iPhones.
Nope, not merging. If Apple is going to do this then I reckon that the terminal version will be running full MacOs.
Never put 'but' and 'plug' in the same sentence.
in any case, the next Mac Mini (if there’ll be such a thing) might come in Apple TV form factor?
On the other hand, if we believe what Apple execs said, that they start seriously working on a product about 7 years before the release, with most of the time spent waiting for the hardware technology to catch up to the requirements of the proposed product, then we just might see the device described in the article sometime in the future. Emphasis on 'might'.
Just because they could run MacOS using an iPhone's hardware, doesn't make it a good idea.
This is not about convergence at all. It is about either running iOS or MacOS. The fundamental problem with MacOS is the lack of touchscreen support.
Once MacOS gets touchscreen support, you won't need iOS anymore.
Samsung DeX is the correct way to go: you use the same OS in both modes, you share exactly the same files, the same apps and you have a perfect seamless switch between both. Android is a real capable OS because it is basically Linux.
Since Office, Outlook and Teams for Android, you have everything you need in DeX, including real desktop sharing, connecting a second monitor, running all Android apps. Actually everything that people are excited about in this discussion. Oh, I forgot ... it is from Samsung and therefore Apple fans cannot admit that it is good.