Pure Speculation OS 11

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
I was thinking recently about the progress of OS X. We have some really interesting features and a rock solid core. However the interface is pretty standard 1980's vintage. We still use the mouse and keyboard and the windows concept.



What do you think will be the next major leap in our OS?



Do you think that Apple will abandon Unix as a core and go with a GPL Linux core instead?



What about the interface? We are looking at 5-10 years down the road for the numerical switchover. Apple labs must be hard at work on the next OS and they are working on it now.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 46
    My random thoughts:



    Here is a link to a good article on the history of OS-X. Moving away from the Mach Kernel to the Linux kernel is a significant change, I haven't seen a reason for that change yet. http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/oshistory/



    With regard to the interface and the fact that everything is getting interconnnected via the internet these days, I would assume they have some significant changes planned. They already have a tie-up with Google and I believe they are defining the next generation of human computer interaction.



    The home-on-iPod patent they have applied for makes it seem like it will be a part of OS-11.



    Microsoft's integration of Windows MCE into Vista stems from their belief of the convergence of the computer and home entertainment. Apple's product line up and development on this front is something to watch out for. iTV seems to be part of a bigger plan.
  • Reply 2 of 46
    feynmanfeynman Posts: 1,087member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TednDi


    I was thinking recently about the progress of OS X. We have some really interesting features and a rock solid core. However the interface is pretty standard 1980's vintage. We still use the mouse and keyboard and the windows concept.



    What do you think will be the next major leap in our OS?



    Do you think that Apple will abandon Unix as a core and go with a GPL Linux core instead?



    What about the interface? We are looking at 5-10 years down the road for the numerical switchover. Apple labs must be hard at work on the next OS and they are working on it now.



    I would absolutely love to see what the Apple Labs have for Mac OS 11. Just think, it's everything we have so far and everything that 10.5 has and then a heck of a lot more. Even if it is all on paper at this point. I remember being at MacWorld 00 when Mac OS 10.0 was demo'd for the very first time with Aqua and it looked like the slickest OS in the world. I cannot even fathom what we will have in 10.6 let alone 11. I imagine in the next few 10.x upgrades we will see a few more Core additions and towards the end they will all kind of come together and work in a beautiful harmony for developers and all of the iApps.
  • Reply 3 of 46
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    It's gonna have pixels.
  • Reply 4 of 46
    icfireballicfireball Posts: 2,594member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Feynman


    I would absolutely love to see what the Apple Labs have for Mac OS 11. Just think, it's everything we have so far and everything that 10.5 has and then a heck of a lot more. Even if it is all on paper at this point. I remember being at MacWorld 00 when Mac OS 10.0 was demo'd for the very first time with Aqua and it looked like the slickest OS in the world. I cannot even fathom what we will have in 10.6 let alone 11. I imagine in the next few 10.x upgrades we will see a few more Core additions and towards the end they will all kind of come together and work in a beautiful harmony for developers and all of the iApps.



    I honestly don't think Apple has ANYTHING for OS 11 right now. They of course have a lot of random technologies they are developing, but none of these are in context yet. At any rate, you have to realize, with almost all corporate companies, 99% of the energy, money, workforce, etc., will be spent on developing products that are to be released very shortly after development. Running around with your head off is not a good way to run a business. And this is the very reason why companies like Toshiba, etc. have technology competitions -- to usher in ideas so they can spend their resources on current stuff.
  • Reply 5 of 46
    I'm hoping that processors get so fast that the processing power necessary to make computers more voice interactive in a natural way is coming. Keyboards are great, but it's an old paradigm. And I hate typuing. (see!)
  • Reply 6 of 46
    feynmanfeynman Posts: 1,087member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by icfireball


    I honestly don't think Apple has ANYTHING for OS 11 right now. They of course have a lot of random technologies they are developing, but none of these are in context yet. At any rate, you have to realize, with almost all corporate companies, 99% of the energy, money, workforce, etc., will be spent on developing products that are to be released very shortly after development. Running around with your head off is not a good way to run a business. And this is the very reason why companies like Toshiba, etc. have technology competitions -- to usher in ideas so they can spend their resources on current stuff.



    Which is why I said "Even if it is all on paper at this point." I can promise you that Apple Labs have something on their minds in writing about Mac OS 11. Do you honestly think Apple used their energy on "developing products that are to be released very shortly after development" with Mac OS 10? Mac OS 10 had many many years of development. There is a lot more to an OS cycle then just that of developing the hard code. Heck, Steve alone openly admitted that Mac OS 10 has been running on Intel hardware since the very first release and who knew that we would one day actually be running Intel hardware?
  • Reply 7 of 46
    mydomydo Posts: 1,888member
    Apple has OS 11 planned out for sure.



    zfs?



    No Linux kernal at all. There's no reason at all. If Linux has some tech' that apple needs they just write it in.



    Maybe they are looking to slim down the OS? Fit it into a small architecture?



    I don't know what else? More acceleration? Better tech for writing multi-core apps?
  • Reply 8 of 46
    sc_marktsc_markt Posts: 1,401member
    I hope that Apple is working on OS 11. I remember the Copland fiasco.



    Wonder if Apple will start from scratch or keep adding onto OS X. If I was running Apple, I'd start looking at a brand new state-of-the-art OS architecture.



    - Mark
  • Reply 9 of 46
    Not to worry.... there are plenty of cat names still to go though. When Apple runs dry on the names - then and only then will there be OSXI.
  • Reply 10 of 46
    tednditedndi Posts: 1,921member
    I would wonder about the old knowledge navigator concept for OS 11



    http://www.billzarchy.com/clips/clips_apple_nav.htm
  • Reply 11 of 46
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TednDi


    I would wonder about the old knowledge navigator concept for OS 11



    http://www.billzarchy.com/clips/clips_apple_nav.htm



    I wouldn't, if I were you.
  • Reply 12 of 46
    tednditedndi Posts: 1,921member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Chucker


    I wouldn't, if I were you.





    Why not?
  • Reply 13 of 46
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    The Sculley-era sci-fi visions of Apple are nice to gush over, but the reality is completely different. An interface like that has been tried numerous times and is significantly more complicated and time-wasting than the traditional GUI.
  • Reply 14 of 46
    tednditedndi Posts: 1,921member
    ok, but with an exponential speed increase since 1987 to 2012 why wouldn't it be more feasible. We wouldn't have windows if Steve didn't convince Xerox to let him into the labs.



    We would be using the command line.
  • Reply 15 of 46
    mr. memr. me Posts: 3,221member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TednDi


    ok, but with an exponential speed increase since 1987 to 2012 why wouldn't it be more feasible. We wouldn't have windows if Steve didn't convince Xerox to let him into the labs.



    We would be using the command line.



    Not all problems are computer problems. The keyboard, mouse, and GUI make for a very efficient paradigm for interacting with your computer. Voice control is great science fiction. However, it is a spoken rather than typed commandline interface. It might work in your parents' basement. In the workplace, however, it has serious problems. Your colleagues can't talk to you and you can't talk to them.
  • Reply 16 of 46
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mr. Me


    Not all problems are computer problems. The keyboard, mouse, and GUI make for a very efficient paradigm for interacting with your computer. Voice control is great science fiction. However, it is a spoken rather than typed commandline interface. It might work in your parents' basement. In the workplace, however, it has serious problems. Your colleagues can't talk to you and you can't talk to them.



    I do agree that the Mouse/Keyboard combination is efficient, however spoken commands also can be very useful. They only become useful when the computer can do all of the following accurately:
    • Understand human dialect accurately (over 95%)

    • Can take human verbal requests, understand them, and the process them (i.e. Email my resume in my Documents folder to my boss).

    • When it can determine that the request is being made to it, and not some other machine/person.

    Once those things can be overcome, then verbal commands are extremely efficient. Just remember all of the blow-harding about the mouse when it was first invented. No one thought it would catch on, or be usable. Now it is a part of daily use.
  • Reply 17 of 46
    tednditedndi Posts: 1,921member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mr. Me


    Not all problems are computer problems. The keyboard, mouse, and GUI make for a very efficient paradigm for interacting with your computer. Voice control is great science fiction. However, it is a spoken rather than typed commandline interface. It might work in your parents' basement. In the workplace, however, it has serious problems. Your colleagues can't talk to you and you can't talk to them.



    Ok, but if you throw in gestures and touch screen buttons in the GUI you have something that most people would find workable. Why wouldn't talking to your computer be a valid way of getting data into it. People dictate to their secretaries who type or use a dictation software. You navigate phone directories when calling a company like Fedex and we navigate touch screens at ATM's etc. If the interface can change while you type.



    We are talking about an OS that is 5+ years away. Graphics will be huge and so will a massive number of cores. We may even see widespread consumer level implementation of xgrid.



    http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/xgrid/
  • Reply 18 of 46
    mr. memr. me Posts: 3,221member
    People dictate to human beings. These human beings known as secretaries often do much more than simply take dictation. They understand their bosses and translate the bosses' dictation into proper business language and format. These are things that the boss probably could not do for himself. For a computer to do it for him, the advances in computer technology required are just a few decades off. As for the other examples, these are very limited and specialized tasks. They are probably well within the intellectual capacity of chimps, monkeys, and maybe even many dogs. As for talking to your computer, you have to train the computer to listen to your voice. You have to filter-out all other sounds including communications of other users with their computers. You cannot speak to or about anything else while you are using the computer or when you say "Oh, sh!t!", you may end up saying "Oh, sh!t!" again. The second time, you will probably mean it--a lot.
  • Reply 19 of 46
    icfireballicfireball Posts: 2,594member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mydo


    Apple has OS 11 planned out for sure.



    zfs?



    No Linux kernal at all. There's no reason at all. If Linux has some tech' that apple needs they just write it in.



    Maybe they are looking to slim down the OS? Fit it into a small architecture?



    I don't know what else? More acceleration? Better tech for writing multi-core apps?



    I don't think so. First of all, if it WAS planned out to any degree, virtually all of that would be different by the time of release. Why would they start planning of OS 11 now? My point was it is not in terms of OS 11. For OS Systems you have a large pool of technologies, features, and ideas you are working on in the labs, and you only have a road map for the next two (possibly three) operating systems.
  • Reply 20 of 46
    feynmanfeynman Posts: 1,087member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by icfireball


    I don't think so. First of all, if it WAS planned out to any degree, virtually all of that would be different by the time of release. Why would they start planning of OS 11 now? My point was it is not in terms of OS 11. For OS Systems you have a large pool of technologies, features, and ideas you are working on in the labs, and you only have a road map for the next two (possibly three) operating systems.



    Okay take Classic (in the Rhapsody days it was known as Blue Box)...rumor has it that it will be obsolete from Mac OS 10.5. Now you tell me, do you think they planned for it to still be there in just a few years? Of course not. Why not? Because supporting a legacy technology is not financially savvy. So of course Apple will plan ahead to Mac OS 11.
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