Former Apple Senior Engineer says OS X could adopt Front-Row-style iPhone OS implementation in future version

After January 27th’s unveiling of the iPad, it became abundantly clear that Apple has meaningful plans for iPhone OS outside of the smartphone arena. In fact, given the App Store’s runaway success, it’s just good business sense for Apple to try to get iPhone apps on as many devices as possible: not just phones, portable media players and tablets, but more traditional laptop and desktop machines as well.

The question is, then, when will OS X and iPhone OS begin to converge? When will OS X become compatible with iPhone OS?

In a recent New York Times blog post, Nick Bilton examines this very question, and talks to a former senior Apple Engineer to get to the bottom of whether or not iPhone apps could run natively on OS X one day.

Unfortunately, according to Bilton’s source, implementing global multi-touch support on OS X would be a very thorny problem: the operating system simply wasn’t designed for touch input, so until Apple redesigns it from the ground up with multitouch in mind (OS Xi, anyone?) all they can do is program in some light support.

However, Bilton brings up an interesting solution to the problem: while redesigning OS X to support multitouch enough to bring apps to the operating system natively is a challenge, Apple could simply add iPhone OS as a new layer on top of OS X, just like how they handle Front Row or widgets.

DON'T MISS
Concept: The Apple TV’s New ‘Magic Mouse’ Remote

This makes a lot of sense to me. In fact, it makes so much sense that I’d be shocked if the next version of OS X didn’t go for just such a solution towards bringing iPhone apps to Mac notebooks and desktops, in conjunction with a multitouch rollout across their iMac and MacBook lines. What do you think?

[via Mac Rumors]

17 comments »

About the author

John Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

(sorry, you need Javascript to see this e-mail address)| Read more posts by John Brownlee.

Posted in iMac, iPhone, Macbook, News, OS X |

Bill
Multitouch on my Macbook? I mean, screen multitouch? Meh…
Can’t figure out how I would need those apps on my iMac either. What’s the point?
http://ihbs.co.uk Ben
I predicted this very idea a few days ago on that apple engineering manager job posting. My first (hopefully) successful rumour prediction. Yay!
Andy
Er, i already have multi-touch on my mac, at least via the trackpad and Magic Mouse.
Also, i’m a bit confused. How abstracted is iPhone OS from core OS X? I believe they share the same core, so at what point do they folk that makes them so dissimilar?
Regarding iPhone apps on the Mac; i can see the benefit as some apps (such as TapForms) don’t have a Mac client, so it’d be useful to share the data on the Mac and iPhone
Michael_STL
I just want multi-tasking and flash on my iPhone. Anything else is just icing on the cake.
http://ihbs.co.uk Ben
@Andy
its not about deep down stuff. this is talking about the ability to run iphone apps natively on your mac, through an interface such as front row or something similar.
Eugene
“Also, iâ€™m a bit confused. How abstracted is iPhone OS from core OS X? I believe they share the same core, so at what point do they folk that makes them so dissimilar?”
Not much The article is rubbish. I doubt the engineer is that senior, because no senior engineer would make that mistake. The only thing holding back Apple from putting multi-touch on the Mac is hardware, if anything. And as someone said the multi-touch trackpad uses it.
“its not about deep down stuff. this is talking about the ability to run iphone apps natively on your mac, through an interface such as front row or something similar.”
Lol. Well any iPhone app I wrote works natively on my Mac via the mechanism of the ( misnamed) simulator. Thats not a virtual machine.
It would take Apple two days to allow these apps to run for everybody.
Brett
With the new magic mouse, all that is lacking is being able to use your finger to tap once for a click, tap twice for double click and tap right for right click. If that were added, the mouse basically makes the Mac a touch environment. Just without the fingerprint mess to be cleaned constantly on screen.
Would enabling the magic mouse to tap be tricky because scrolls and swipes begin with an initial touch and that could be confused as a click?
I would like to have some of my iPhone apps on my computer, and a widgets like setup that I could assign to a corner in Expose would be fine. But I hope the profit that apps bring to iPhone and iPad will not change the operating system I love too much on my computer. Perfect for the mobile devices though.
Give me taps on magic mouse.
http://ihbs.co.uk Ben
@eugene
“Lol. Well any iPhone app I wrote works natively on my Mac via the mechanism of the ( misnamed) simulator. Thats not a virtual machine.
It would take Apple two days to allow these apps to run for everybody.”
it would be the same apps as whats on the app store already, so it wouldnt take any longer than before. and running iphone apps on a simulator that you got when you signed up for the developer participation programme, is not the same thing as iphone apps running within a built in virtual machine that would ship out with the refreshed mac OS.
thanx_Al
No, no, a million times no. Simple OSs for the stupid are fine on phones and mp3 players and glorified phone devices.
I am a hard core computer user who switched to Mac due to the superior OS. I have a high degree of knowledge about OSs in general (although not an expert). I like being able to have near full control over my environment. Yes, I know there are core things off limit in any Unix based system. I would flat out reject any Mac that came with the iPhone OS.
And let us remember… the iPhone OS has the same fatal flaw as all M$ OSs. No root user account. If Apple didn’t maintain such a strict walled garden iPhones would be just as vulnerable to shenanigans as all M$ Windows versions (and that includes Se7en).
http://ihbs.co.uk Ben
@ thanx_AI
Its not going to replace Mac OS X, its just going to be an additional feature. Imagine opening your widgets, press a differetn key, and instead of widgets appearing, something similar to the iPad interface shown at the demo would appear instead.
As far as I know, the iPhone does have a root user account. the whole weakness with the jailbroken virus took advantage of iphones that were jailbroken, and the root password had not been changed.
Smathers
that would be the end of the mac os. it would be awful.
jsk
Thank god he’s a “former” Apple engineer. I’ve been a die-hard Mac user since 1987 (still have my SE and it still works!); if the iPhone OS is the Mac’s future, I’m switching to Windoze!
Ug. I think lunch is coming back-up.
elearn
hm.. i use mac os x a lot, and have for years. with mouse-driven os’s health issues like carpal tunnel are a concern.
what issues are there with reaching over my keyboard to touch my iMac’s or macbook pro multitouch screen over and over all day?
owie.
John C. Randolph
I run iPhone and iPad apps on my Mac every day, and so does every other developer who’s using the iPhone SDK.
-jcr
Frederick
Apple’s plans for the iPhone and desktop OS might remain separate from one another. Doesn’t anyone remember to ad for the Mac Conference the year the iPhone was unveiled. The image was the San Francisco’s bridge diverged in two. The company might be hinting that the OS’s were similar and with time the OS’s will be more and more different.
In terms of compatibility the iPhone SDK runs on the mac desktop’s OS (as mention in this blog). The real question is will the GUI of the iPhone ever move onto the desktop OS? Well Stevo will only be able to tell us Mac lovers. This is very much possible with the development of the new mouse and the current MacBook mouse Implements.
Eugene
” is not the same thing as iphone apps running within a built in virtual machine that would ship out with the refreshed mac OS.”
What are you talking about. Compiling a iphone application on the Mac creates a byte level Max OS X program running in a window which merely looks like an iPhone. No virtual machine is needed. There is no technical hurdle to running iPhone applications on a Mac – since it already happens – the problem is UI. So it wont happen.
Steve
Here’s a great resource for seniors: http://www.modernseniortech.com