09 February 2012

The future of the Mac

The iOS-ification Of Apple’s Ecosystem

It does indeed look like the Mac is going to start looking more and more like iOS. Honestly, that makes me uncomfortable.

A key to the success of the iPhone and iPad is that they didn’t try to shoehorn desktop/laptop software onto the palmtop/tablet. I think the same logic holds that what is good for the palmtop/tablet isn’t necessarily good for the desktop/laptop.

(If I had my druthers, the iPad would be called a laptop and MacBooks would be called mobile desktops.)

Apple does recognize this. They’ve said that their research showed touch-screens don’t work well for desktop/laptop systems. But, still, they seem to be carrying “back to the Mac” farther than I’m comfortable with.

But that’s OK.

The reason I don’t have a Linux or *BSD system in the house anymore is simply that the Macs can do pretty much everything Linux can do. Perhaps as the Mac becomes more like iOS, I’ll have a reason to bring Linux back into the house.

It may even be that someday I won’t even have a Mac. The iPad and the Linux box will split everything that I used to use my Mac for.

2 comments:

Craig Weeks said...

Well, that last part is just plain blasphemy. That's all I'm sayin'.

:)

Robert said...

Just as my Christianity may seem unorthodox to some, I’ve never been entirely Apple orthodox either. ^_^

Honestly, I’ve been waiting for “the next Mac” since about 1996 when I got my first Palm (née Pilot).