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Jason D. O'Grady & David Morgenstern
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iOS: Coming soon to Mac OS 11?

By | August 24, 2010, 1:00am PDT

Summary: A new patent application by Apple called “Transitioning between Modes of Input” is loaded with hints as to what to expect from Mac OS X in the future.

Like Apple patents? Me too.

Patently Apple got the goods on a new patent application for what it’s calling the iMac touch and MacBook Tablet — and it’s loaded with hints as to what to expect from Mac OS in the future. Imagine an iMac that works with a keyboard and mouse when the screen is in an upright orientation and as a touchscreen when at a flatter, or lower screen orientation. Boom. Best of both worlds.

There’s been a lot of speculation about the future of the desktop Mac OS in light of the rising star that is iOS. Some have theorized that iOS will morph into OS 11, with both users and Apple benefiting from the success of the new “app economy.” What’s not to love? For starters, power users cringe at the thought of losing their pro applications, and writer (ahem!) need our keyboards and mice thankyouverymuch.

Could the two OSes peacefully coexist? Up until now there’s been a discreet difference between Apple’s mobile OS and its desktop OS.

iOS was designed for smaller devices like the iPhone, iPod and iPad where the emphasis is on battery life. Mac OS X was designed for larger devices, with different input methods (keyboards, mice and trackpads) and an emphasis on the speed and capacity of processor, disk and memory. Two divergent goals.

Could Apple’s mobile and desktop OSes live together? Apple’s new patent application ”Transitioning between Modes of Input” would lead us to believe so. Both the Patently Apple piece and the patent itself are recommended reading and provide insight into how we’ll be using our desktop Macs in the not-too-distant future.

What’s your take on the role of iOS on the desktop and the future of Mac OS X? Let us know in the TalkBack.

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Topics

Apple Macintosh, Operating System, Apple Mac OS, Operating Systems, Desktops, Software, Hardware, Jason D. O'Grady

Jason O'Grady is a journalist and author specializing in mobile technology. He has published six books on Apple and mobile gadgets and his PowerPage blog has been publishing for over 15 years.

Disclosure

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady is the creator and editor of O'Grady's PowerPage, which has been publishing mobile technology news since 1995. He maintains an advertising relationship with the following legacy advertisers on the PowerPage:

  • Amazon Associates
  • Google Adsense
  • Tekserve

    • Advertising on the PowerPage is brokered by a third-party agency (BackBeat Media) and he recuses himself from these negotiations.

Biography

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady developed an affinity for Apple computers after using the original Lisa, and this affinity turned into a bona-fide obsession when he got the original 128 KB Macintosh in 1984.

He started writing one of the first Web sites about Apple (O'Grady's PowerPage) in 1995 and is considered to be one of the fathers of blogging. He has been a frequent speaker at the Macworld Expo conference and a member of the conference faculty. He also co-founded the first dedicated PowerBook User Group (PPUG) in the United States.

After winning a major legal battle with Apple in 2006, he set the precedent that independent journalists are entitled to the same protections under the First Amendment as members of the mainstream media.

O'Grady is the author of The Nexus One Pocket Guide, The Droid Pocket Guide, The Google Phone Pocket Guide, and The Garmin nuvi Pocket Guide (Peachpit Press), the author of Corporations That Changed the World: Apple Inc. (Greenwood Press), and a contributor to The Mac Bible (Peachpit Press). In addition, he has contributed to numerous Mac publications over the years, including MacWEEK, Macworld, and MacPower (Japan).

When he's not writing about Apple for ZDNet at The Apple Core, he enjoys spending time with his family in New Jersey.

Talkback Most Recent of 59 Talkback(s)

  • RE: iOS: Coming soon to Mac OS 11?
    They need to be careful not to take the iOS obsession too far. The natural input method for a desktop OS is keyboard and mouse, adding a touchscreen just increases the cost and would initially be very gimmicky.

    It will be interesting to see how they approach OS 11 but I'm sure OS X has got a couple more iterations in it yet (true system wide 64-bit, further refinements to the interface etc.)
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Ben_E
    24th Aug 2010
  • RE: iOS: Coming soon to Mac OS 11?
    @Ben_E

    With every discussion about touch screens, comes the comment about traditional Input Methods being far superior. And at this point they are. I do believe there will be a revolutionary new method of input in the near future. Beyond touch/verbal/typing.
    It will be (my humble opinion of course) something akin to hand gestures. And lets face it, typing IS just a finger gesture that connects to a plastic board that detects the depression of the finger. I foresee a system of hand gestures that will allow, once mastered, an individual to input the entire alphabet in the same amount of time it takes to type it.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Bodazapha
    24th Aug 2010
  • It Looks Like You Saw "The Minority Report" Too
    @Bodazapha
    ZDNet Gravatar
    yobtaf
    24th Aug 2010
  • RE: iOS: Coming soon to Mac OS 11?
    @Bodazapha "It will be (my humble opinion of course) something akin to hand gestures."

    Hmmm... You could be right, but never underestimate the benefit of tactile feed back. So while gestures may take over some day I don't think I'll be holding my breath waiting for it. I do reserve the right to be 100% wrong, but I just don't see the mouse keyboard is going anywhere for actual computer use.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Rabayn
    24th Aug 2010
  • RE: iOS: Coming soon to Mac OS 11?
    @Bodazapha At the end of the day you need to point at letters and press them to get any kind of real work done.. I.E. programming, writing documents, etc. The mouse may not be the most natural input device, but the keyboard will always be king, or a touch version thereof... Programmers don't want to learn sign language to type.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    snoop0x7b
    24th Aug 2010
  • Wireless touchpad?
    @Ben_E
    It just struck me--Apple recently came out with a wireless touchpad that can be used with desktop systems. That makes a WHOLE lot more sense than having a full-screen touch system on a desktop.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Userama
    24th Aug 2010
  • RE: iOS: Coming soon to Mac OS 11?
    @Userama I procured one of the Magic Trackpads and love it. I've a service connected disability that makes gripping a mouse all day, or a trackball for that matter, a painful proposition. With the Magic Trackpad I can open my hand up and not end up with 'claw hand' by day's end. Oddly, I've never much liked the trackpad on my Mac laptops as they seemed too small and of course didn't have all of the gesture input that the MT has. I think the MT is, however, only an interim technology. The drawing suggests a very versatile way of input.
    You can ask many of my ex-clients (retired Mac consultant here) what their monitors looked like after I'd left them. Smeared with my fingerprints from trying to show them how to move icons about and do drop menu hits.
    I've looked at an iPad and would still want a chicklet keyboard for typing input. I am a touch typist (trained in High School on an upright manual Royal) and find the lack of aural and physical feed back on the iPad's virtual keyboard to be unsatisfactory. But hey the ensuing generations may not have that problem.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    dheady@...
    24th Aug 2010
  • RE: iOS: Coming soon to Mac OS 11?
    @Userama
    Agreed, I now use multi-touch gestures on my MBP trackpad without thinking about it, and then wonder why I struggle going to other laptops!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Ben_E
    24th Aug 2010
  • RE: iOS: Coming soon to Mac OS 11?
    @Ben_E So the iPhone is a gimmick? iPad? iPod Touch? Get over it, the mouse is going the way of BetaMax, Kodachrome, cassette tapes and the 8-track. It's called PROGRESS.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    eddit13
    24th Aug 2010
  • Mouse Obsolete? Yes, but...
    @eddit13
    I'm not so sure that the mouse is going away any time soon; years ago, I had a trackpad on my PowerMac G3 that worked wonderfully, as well as a trackpad on an old Dell PC (these had come out about the same time as the trackpads on laptops first appeared, about 15 or so years ago). Yet, mice continued to proliferate--the only real improvement was the move to an optical system, replacing the track ball. I hope that the trackpad takes hold again, but it seems like users have no great desire to give them up and manufacturers are willing to humor them.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    kg6ygs@...
    24th Aug 2010
  • RE: iOS: Coming soon to Mac OS 11?
    @eddit13
    It's not a gimmick on the current iOS devices - it makes sense on those - I have used iPod Touch, own a 3GS and plan to get an iPad. It's not a gimmick there.

    The gimmickery will be the way that the first generation of true touch-enabled OS desktops are marketed. The screen is that much bigger, and usually further away, that Apple are going to have to justify the touch interface as being something that people can work with. I love Apple products, I really do, but I am apprehensive about a potential move towards an interface on a non-mobile device that requires it to be used in the style of a mobile device. The current iOS devices all work perfectly in that regard because the hardware is designed around the software and the intended function. This is going to be a case of shoehorning the touch interface into a usage scenario where it is not necessarily the best/most appropriate way to work.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Ben_E
    24th Aug 2010
  • RE: iOS: Coming soon to Mac OS 11?
    @Ben_E Depends on what business you're in... as a designer and illustrator, I'd love to have something equivalent to the Wacom Cintiq built into my computer. That is, touch screens, if the sensitivity is right, would be a huge boom for some industries.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Carrie Johnson
    24th Aug 2010
  • RE: iOS: Coming soon to Mac OS 11?
    Sad the Apple zealots are out defending their cult already. Grow up people! One company has found several bug in another company's product. This is good, irrespective of the companies concerned and their sour relationship. Look at the message, not where your allegiances lie.
    In this case, Adobe has done the world and Apple a favor. Now Apple can work on fixing them.
    As for people in business demanding to upgrade one something as unsettled as a brand new OS, what a bunch of idiots.
    Read here to get your head straight: Sad the Apple zealots are out defending their cult already. Grow up people! One company has found several bug in another company's product. This is good, irrespective of the companies concerned and their sour relationship. Look at the message, not where your allegiances lie.
    In this case, Adobe has done the world and Apple a favor. Now Apple can work on fixing them.
    As for people in business demanding to upgrade one something as unsettled as a brand new OS, what a bunch of idiots.
    Read this to get your head straight: http://v12ntoday.com/news/news-news/apple-os-x-lion-to-offer-mac-users-more-virtualization-options.html
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Bonchucin
    22nd Jul
  • RE: iOS: Coming soon to Mac OS 11?
    Sad the Apple zealots are out defending their cult already. Grow up people! One company has found several bug in another company's product. This is good, irrespective of the companies concerned and their sour relationship. Look at the message, not where your allegiances lie.
    In this case, Adobe has done the world and Apple a favor. Now Apple can work on fixing them.
    As for people in business demanding to upgrade one something as unsettled as a brand new OS, what a bunch of idiots.
    Read here to get your head straight: Sad the Apple zealots are out defending their cult already. Grow up people! One company has found several bug in another company's product. This is good, irrespective of the companies concerned and their sour relationship. Look at the message, not where your allegiances lie.
    In this case, Adobe has done the world and Apple a favor. Now Apple can work on fixing them.
    As for people in business demanding to upgrade one something as unsettled as a brand new OS, what a bunch of idiots.
    Read this to get your head straight: http://v12ntoday.com/news/news-news/apple-os-x-lion-to-offer-mac-users-more-virtualization-options.html
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Bonchucin
    22nd Jul
  • This proves Apple isn't immune to having stupid ideas
    Let's face it--there are places a touch UI makes sense (handheld/mobile devices), and places where it doesn't (desktop). Touch works great on small screens, but would be an ergonomic killer on large screens.
    One more thing. Unless the law of gravity has been repealed, part no. 309 in the diagram above would have to be bolted to the desk!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Userama
    24th Aug 2010
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