Re: [RUMOUR] Apple planning enormous changes to iOS and macOS

On 2025-03-12 06:15:36 +0000, John said:

On Tue, 11 Mar 2025 03:47:39 +0000, Tyrone <none@none.none> wrote:

On Mar 10, 2025 at 5:33:46 PM EDT, "Your Name" <YourName@YourISP.com> wrote:

 Apple already started trying to make macOS look and work more like iOS
/ iPadOS, and it's a bit of a horrible mess. Trying to make computers
and touch devices work in the same way will never be a good option, let
alone the ridiculousness of trying to make both of them work like a
pair of AR/VR goggles.  :-\

  Why?
  If Apple started with, as a random example, a neutral OS that had a
switch to turn it into a touch-OS for pads or a KB-rodent OS for
desktops, or anything else that comes along, would that not be a good
thing?
  A Unified OS - maybe called Orchard or Tree or Forest or something
equally Apple-adjacent - with several "desktops" overlaying it
shouldn't be difficult if they could standardise the parts and the
File Systems on all of their kit.
  From watches through vambraces, pads, slates, desktops, integrated
systems in machines, mainframes and super-computers to space-probes
and City-Minds doing traffic-control they could have the same basic
operating system with many, many interfaces.
  Apple are large enough, they have sufficient money, they even have a
few programmers, they could do that.
  Or is that the way to SkyNet? :)

Apple has already done that.
MacOS X was based on NeXTSTEP Unix. Apple then modified that to create iOS specifically for the iPhone and then iPad as touch devices, and then later split it into iOS and iPadOS (although there isn't a huge difference). Similarly they modified MacOS X for use on the Apple Watch, the Apple Vison goggles, and even CarOS.
BUT trying to make each OS look and work exactly the same is just silly. A Mac computer will never be an iPad - they are different devices, used in different ways.

Plus, whichever moron in management thinks such a silly design change
will somehow "recapture some of its Pandemic-era sales" needs to be
fired.

 These rumours are very common. Because any "rumour" about Apple generates
clicks on websites.
 MacOS UI and iPadOS UI are never going to merge. To do so would be like a
broken pencil.
 Pointless.
 The people who want a mouse and keyboard on an iPad and the people who want a
touch screen on a Mac have one thing in common.  Both need to Get A Life.
 You might as well wish for a steering wheel on motorcyles and handle bars on cars

  The steering wheel thing may be a bit of a weirdy but haven't I seen
handle-bars in cars in the vast, deep, distant past? Or at least
segmented half-wheels? That sort of thing (segmented half-wheels, not,
necessarily, full-on bars) does work on aeroplanes and boats so it
could save the car-makers some cash if they could buy more
standardised parts. Don't they work? Didn't people like them? Were
they less safe?
  I think that I've even seen joysticks as controllers for cars, not
just for idiotic, dangerous submarines. Those don't seem to be very
popular, either. Perhaps those were only on electrics? Or on
experimentals? Or even on "flying cars" (which, like "power too cheap
to meter" from Nuclear Fusion have been about ten to twenty years away
for about seventy years. :) ) perhaps?

There have been a few different attempts at a steering control for a car.
Many of the early cars of the late 1800s used a tiller handle, similar to a small sailboat.
Tesla's original yoke, basically taken from the old TV show "Knight Rider", is widely criticised as being awful and useless. The newer version, which is more of a flatted steering wheel, is reportedly better, but still pretty bad to use.
But the normal steering wheel (flatted on the bottom in some models) is still the best way.

Different tools for different jobs, folks.

  If you only have a hammer, every screw becomes a nail. USAlien
politics has shown this truism recently. :)

A screw knocked in with a hammer won't be doing the job of being a screw properly and doesn't make a particularly good nail either.

 Truthfully, I'd like a wired-in keyboard with touchpad for my
experimental iPad but it's a generation six and they only made
BlueToothed devices for it. I think.

Wired keyboards and mice can be used, but you need a Lightning to USB adapter, and to use both at once you'll need a USB hub as well.
<https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254750745?sortBy=rank>

I find the onscreen KB far too tiny and cramped for my fat, heavy fingers and holding it in one hand while forcing the other to type all of the keys is mildly annoying.

If you're using a normal-sized external keyboard, wired or wireless, you wouldn't be able to hold the ipad and type at the same time either. It is potentially possible with a keyboard case, but is still clumsy.
Although Apple did relent and include the functionality of using a mouse in iPadOS, it's still a very clumsy system that is nowhere near as precise as using a proper computer.

Stiil, it's a lovely machine and I like using it to read on. It's like a paperback book but with hundreds and hundreds of other books between the "covers" and with lots of extra functions.
  I would also like my vambrace computer with either a roll-out solid screen or a virtual one done with magnets and lasers but I don't see them happening.
  I get the urge to merge all of the OSes, it would allow Apple to fire many, many teams of programmers thus allowing them to profiteer more. It's the Capitalists' Dream and however much we don't like it sometimes, it's how Life will always work. We just need to live with it.
  Or to become Capitalists ourselves, out-money Apple and design kit with a different, better, more ethical philosophy.
  Yeah, I can see *that* happening. :)
                                                        J.