The new Magic Trackpad 2 introduced Force Touch to the iMac, but Apple’s not ready to embrace the concept of a Mac touchscreen — and according to Phil Schiller, it’s unlikely to do so anytime soon.
We’ll take that as a “no” for anyone dreaming of an iOS/OS X hybrid.
“iOS from its start has been designed as a multi-touch experience – you don’t have the things you have in a mouse-driven interface, like a cursor to move around, or teeny little ‘close’ boxes that you can’t hit with your finger,” Schiller said recently, speaking with tech writer Steven Levy for a (superb) Medium article about Apple’s new iMacs.
“The Mac OS has been designed from day one for an indirect pointing mechanism. These two worlds are different on purpose, and that’s a good thing — we can optimize around the best experience for each and not try to mesh them together into a most-common-denominator experience.”
Schiller has said similar things before, but this time he is responding specifically to Microsoft’s recent entry into laptops with the Surface Book, which further merges the desktop and mobile experience.
He makes it sound as though Apple has experimented with this concept internally before turning it down — which is exactly what you’d expect from an innovative company open to new possibilities.
“From the ergonomic standpoint we have studied this pretty extensively and we believe that on a desktop scenario where you have a fixed keyboard, having to reach up to do touch interfaces is uncomfortable,” Schiller said.
Would you like to see an OS X and iOS mashup, or perhaps a Surface-style tablet/notebook that can operate in both modes? Leave your comments below.
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
16 responses to “Apple still has no intention of merging OS X with iOS”
I love mac. I don’t think I could change to windows simply because of stability issues. I have a close friend who just recently had to do a hard reset upon updating to windows 10 on his surface. As a student, I love the idea of having a computer/touchscreen combo. It would make taking notes much easier. While the iPad pro is large enough to try and compete there, as I am also a graphic designer, I still need a mac to do all of my work. The combo is the perfect solution, but I can understand why apple doesn’t want to jump into it. Its a tough position to be in for a lot of people, but those that are specific to one thing (being a graphic designer, or a writer, or a student) generally can get away with just one or the other. Once Adobe releases all of the FULL CC programs (or at least illustrator, Photoshop and inDesign) the iPad pro might be a solution
You have to be careful and read between the lines of what anyone at Apple says. What he said was that with a fixed keyboard it is a poor design to have to reach up to move the mouse around and select things. Which I totally agree with. However what can be read from what he said (or didn’t say) is that once you don’t have a fixed keyboard you have a tablet and touch is the right solution. Hmm… 12″ Macbook, 12″macAir pro with non-fixed keyboard? Seems like they are blurring the lines between the laptop and tablet… the difference is you can’t use Xcode on the tablet… Hint: that is exactly what I want, portable development at the beach. :)
Can you imagine the giggle Federighi would have on-stage introducing the tablet app that spawns tablet apps? I see many semi-lame jokes ripe for the picking there…
They had Intel chips running Macs from the start of OSX. They had an iPhone in development for many years before it showed up. I’m sure somewhere they have a combined system that they are working on.
No one has successfully combined mobile and desktop systems. Microsoft almost tanked the company trying.
However, I think Apple could figure out a way to make it work. They could have different interface modes for desktop and mobile, and different app displays (an extension of auto-layout) for touch versus mouse.
It could work. It would just rest on app developers to properly support both modes.
A case in point would be apps that already support completely different layouts on iPhone and iPad to take advantage of the bigger screen.
There is a phone, tablet, watch, and TV version of iOS, with different input methods on the watch and TV. Why not a desktop version of iOS?
This is what Microsoft kinda did, no?
They’ve created two different interface but they crippled the OS.
So far desktop experience if you’re thinking about the form factor of the machine is perfect without touch.
In fact I have friends with AIOs running windows with a touch screen.
They used this feature twice in their life tops.
It is not comfortable, however win8 ruined their user experience precisely because of this dual interface.
I think the OS is good if it was designed this way. If not just do not bother.
You can deploy an ergonomically sound touch interface on a traditional laptop. It’s called the “touch pad”. Just map whatever’s on screen to the touch pad and display ‘fingerprint cursers’ on the screen to show the user the correspondence between the graphical display and the exact spots he is touching on the pad.
Right now Apple is very content to sell us two devices (and thus make more money). They won’t give us a hybrid device with touch screens that run both iOS and OS X (or merge the 2 systems) until the market forces them. At the moment, Apple is not under any pressure to do such things. Maybe they will be in the future when the competition gets better.
I don’t think iOS and OS X convergence has anything to do with the machines form factor and has everything to do with a combined, unified app store and processor choice.
Every year, the Ax processor gets better and better – this years A9x was compared in speed to the latest Macbook.
Every time a new line has come out, it joins the iOS App Store – first iOS apps became universal with iPad. Now TVOS apps are being merged into that as well. You’ll download 1 app that can work on your iPhone, iPad and Apple TV.
With App Thinning, it gets even better – each version of the app gets “thinned” per the device it’s installed on, only getting the features it needs. An Apple TV version of HBO has no need for Apple Watch integration – but an iPhone version may. (for example)
I think iOS and OS X convergence happens when the Ax process can meet or exceed the power of an Intel chip – OS X assumes the App Store ecosystem (dropping the Mac App Store system) and 1 app gets purchased across all devices.
Holdouts may still exist – Any Adobe software, 3d software, engineering software, etc… might be difficult to re-engineer but Adobe is as it stands trying to bring more products to the iPad.
Desktops (iMac and Mac Pro) would have enough room to run both an Intel processor and an Ax processor. Those could benefit from both worlds.
Figuring out how to properly add a touch screen / pen input to a Macbook Pro is a completely different other feature / problem to solve.
That’s what I was trying to get at above, although you may have put it better than I did. You don’t need a touch interface to converge iOS and OS X. It’s more about app compatibility and having apps support a desktop mode along with the small screen touch (iPhone), large screen touch (iPad), watch, and TV mode.
Apple will merge osx and ios, it is just a matter of when, Apple says and do something else when its convenient.
I use both IOS,OSX and Windows 10 and very pleased with both.There are millions of users that are best served with the functionality of Windows 10 as it is and the user base keeps on increasing, Windows strategy for Windows 10 as it is the best way to go and Apple is merely watching to see how the implementation goes. I can bet that Apple is already trying an cross of IOS and OSX in their RD dept.
OSx might be more stable than Windows and when you consider the functionalities of Windows as a platform including the user base and applications available on windows in relation to the limitations overall with OSX, one cannot help but understand some issues that Windows has occasionally.
A platform that supports touch and keyboard inputs is the way to go and i am sure Apple will jump on board at some point.
They WILL merge at some point! Apple always does exactly opposite of what they declare they are NOT going to do, i.e. a smaller iPad, a larger iPhone, and now a LARGER iPad with a stylus AND keyboard. LOL! Of course, all of this is driven by the market.
LOL
If you haven’t seen how they are slowly bring those platforms closer to each other then you are certainly not in the know .
We will have this same convo 2 years from now or even less
A MacBook with a screen that detaches and becomes an iOS device might not be a bad idea.
I don’t get why people want Mac OS X on a tablet. You can have any app from the mac on the ipad. Its just a matter of programing and cpu power of course. Does the surface run those 3d games call of duty and does it run Maya or any other 3d software?. I guess it could but does it at 60 fps?. Theres only one good thing about the possibility of having just one OS running on mac and iphone and its the fact that would make things easier for developers, or not, because they would still have to scale things up to fit the proper screen resolution.
Not now maybe, but come 2017 will the Apple marketing team be able to ignore the opportunities of iOS 11 and the inevitable release of OS 11 / XI coinciding (it can’t remain OS X / 10 forever)?