sleepygeek - 03 November 2009 05:03 AM

[...]Conjecturing - not exactly. 10.6.2 is looking like a major release; so it must be the tablet release in all but name. So the tablet must be a Mac. But it also has to be a superset of iPod Touch OSX. So we are getting the App store for Mac, ARM/Intel universal binaries, and Apple-managed Mac App provenance. But hackintosh / netbook / PPC /Atom will be cut off from the goodies, which seem likely to include a new way to buy magazine/newspaper content. So the tablet’s going to be good enough, and cheap enough, to switch 95% of hackintosh netbook prospects. Meantime Apple has used netbooks to switch large numbers of influential geeks and early mainstream switchers. They will mostly go legal (tablet or Mac) over the next 2 years, and those they influence will mostly go direct to Apple hardware.

Apple is gradually extending the territory of its empire, establishing borders, and shutting down its guerilla incursions into Wintel territory.

Edit: I believe all current Apple Intel CPUs incorporate Intel Trusted Execution. Apple could use this to shut off the rest of hackintoshdom from the iTunes/App store goodies.

Sometimes we lose important catalysts in news thread or the daily thread.  I have reread this post a couple of times and have been hoping it might spark further discussion by those who have better understanding of the product pipeline than do I.

Whether or not the tablet will be OSX or iPhone, and whether (or when) the App Store comes to Mac are huge issues that will likely have major investment implications.  If the tablet turns out to be a Kindle in color with music and movies, I will be at least somewhat disappointed.  If it is full OSX with Mac getting an App Store, I will be one happy cowboy.

What say you, guys and gals?

Good question.

I don’t see a tablet without full app store capabilities so it would have to have iPhone OS attributes. But that does not preclude it from having Mac OS X features as well well. I’m expecting a touchscreen device.

I vote for full OSX.

I vote iPhone OS.

What does the question even mean?

the 1984 Mac was also a Mac, but has nothing in common with today’s Mac, except in having a screen, keyboard and mouse.

Look at the first titanium Powerbook of 2001:
clock speed: 400MHz; RAM 128/256MB, disk 20/40GB
with OSX installed, that’s very similar to iPhone: same clock speed, same RAM, similar disk size (32 vs 40), same OS.

Internally a tablet will be OSX, and Apple can put what frameworks they like in it. It’s not a matter of is it Mac OR iPhone, but of which pieces will be borrowed from each, and which (if any) will be entirely new.

So here’s a shopping list of things that vary between iPhone and Mac. Any combination could be selected by Apple for a tablet.

has touch screen
Works with a mouse
Works with a keyboard
usable with external screen
Finder or springboard
dock
multitasking
uses menus and windows
malware & virus proof (managed App provenance)
Has an app store
modifiable system software
Offers iLife, iWork functionality
offers carbon API
has terminal.app

In Mac’s system profiler, you can see a list of over 300 frameworks and many applications. You can work through them thinking “is this already on iPhone?” and “would this be on a tablet?”

Here’s a quick guess (based on little signs emerging from Apple): 1GHz (variable) ARM dual core CPU 1GB RAM. 960*640 multitouch screen. Signed Apps only (develop on Mac uses same iPhone developer registration), App store & managed App provenance. Maybe menus but no multiple windows onscreen. Springboard with Mac Dock; multitask app switch via dock.  Multiple window apps switch windows via the dock (all windows full screen). Works with bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and drives displayport monitors up to 1920 (HD video capable). On the App store: lite versions of iLife/iWork apps and it runs all iPhone apps. SImple Mac Cocoa Apps can just be rebuilt for tablet (but they won’t look exactly the same on screen). And it’s an iPod ( can be synced with iTunes if you have a Mac/PC, but doesn’t need to be).

And of course there will be developments in MobileMe and the iTunes content store to back it up with services.

No carbon, no terminal.app, no user OS or UI modification, no Finder.

on re-reading that post, this could easily be iPhone OS 4.0.

Maybe add stylus capability to act as an input device for drawing on the big screen.

Note: Atom processors (hackintosh) have been reinstated in the latest build.

My feeling is the tablet will be more about media than productivity. Although some current phone apps do cover such fields as word processing, photo editing, spread sheets, etc. Full OSX may not be required. But a beefier iPhone OS may be required for the proper scaling up of apps and the smooth playing of video at a higher resolution (although my iPod Touch plays the iTunes episodes of Mad Men on my HDTV with no pixelation). Some newer underlying technology should appear, to power the new Magazine/newspaper/comic book formats that will be text with video and “sound bites.” But this could just be a unique player app. I can’t see Apple disrupting MacBook sales with a full OSX system. They want to create a new product line, a new computing experinece and define the next big thing.

willrob - 07 November 2009 01:44 PM

My feeling is the tablet will be more about media than productivity.

I agree. It’s a vehicle to sell apps, music and movies. Though I do expect light productivity functionality and, of course, a device always connected to the Internet. Apps are the name of the game for growing the Apple eco-system. For all of the talk, I do expect full magazine, book, etc. functionality and a device that will function as well in the college classroom as the living room.

Here is my take

I would vote for a Full OS with a twist. Full OS but you can run the app from the app Store The apps would be DashBoard like apps. That way you grow the Mac base + iphone/pod Base at the same time. Need a tablet will full OSX ? you got it. Need small apps for games, productivity .... You get it. Need Big apps for OS X. Download it from the same App Store, run it as normal apps. You buy an App on your iPhone you get it at the same time on your Tablet and vice versa using a sync function.  Need to run an app from the App Sore on your Mac. Now you can (except for motion detector function etc). They should make them available as a DashBoard like application.

Apple have the tendency to build on what they have, in order to push the envelope. That’s why I’m sure that the Tablet will extend both the Mac and the iPhone/Touch ecosystems.

Need a Full blown computer buy a “normal Mac”

Need a portable device for basic computing. (email, web, social networking) use the tablet and get at the same time access to all those small apps that make life easier for iPhone user. Need to edit that presentation before the meeting?  The Tablet have the real OS so you got it. Need to read a book. Ue the built in reader.

Need a portable device for email web, photo and video and networking or read the occasional book . Get the iPhone

This kind of lineup will get people int the OSX ecosystems starting with the iPod Touch, and have them grew into the ecosystems to a Mac. The Tablet will be the missing links between the iPhone OS and the Mac OS. Learn to use a iPhone, easy then to use a Tablet. Once you learn the tablet you have learn the Mac OS. Game over!!!

just my 2 cents!

Maybe I didn’t read carefully enough, but did anyone throw out the idea that there is always a possibility of a dual boot system. On startup or login you choose your OS. as long as files are compatible then you don’t even need partitions to keep the OSs apart.

On the other hand I don’t see that happening as Steve likes to keep his pioneering devices simple.

josesensei - 07 November 2009 08:43 PM

Maybe I didn’t read carefully enough, but did anyone throw out the idea that there is always a possibility of a dual boot system. On startup or login you choose your OS. as long as files are compatible then you don’t even need partitions to keep the OSs apart.

On the other hand I don’t see that happening as Steve likes to keep his pioneering devices simple.

I don’t see a dual boot system for the very reason you mention. 

I am intrigued though by the thought of what OS (or variation) the device will use.

Like iPhone it won’t be user programmable, either directly, or indirectly via Apps. That’s the only known way to lock out viruses and malware. No-one wants antivirus bloatware with weekly innoculations for the latest malware/viruses. So iTablet OSX is none other than iPhone OS 4 (although it will probably be launched just for the tablet). (there is no reason to create another OSX variant).

Working back from that, the tablet UI must also work with iPhone. No finder; no multiple windows on screen.

willrob - 07 November 2009 01:44 PM

Note: Atom processors (hackintosh) have been reinstated in the latest build.

Now the latest developer build of 10.6.2 has again blocked Atom processors.

sleepygeek - 08 November 2009 09:33 AM

Like iPhone it won’t be user programmable, either directly, or indirectly via Apps. That’s the only known way to lock out viruses and malware. No-one wants antivirus bloatware with weekly innoculations for the latest malware/viruses. So iTablet OSX is none other than iPhone OS 4 (although it will probably be launched just for the tablet). (there is no reason to create another OSX variant).

Working back from that, the tablet UI must also work with iPhone. No finder; no multiple windows on screen.

I think we might all be surprised on what the next Iphone OS 4 supports.  If we remember back to one recent hire Ivan Krsti?

I work on core security for a California fruit vendor but do not speak for them on this site or elsewhere. In a previous life, I took a leave of absence from the academia to work as director of security architecture at One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a non-profit trying to save the world by fixing education.

I enjoy breaking computers. I enjoy making computers hard to break even more. Unfortunately, most people are really bad at the latter. At OLPC, I had put a lot of work into designing Bitfrost (technical details), which is a system for securing computers that’s trying to be both hard to break and easy to use. If this proves successful, a future version will make ice cream fall from the sky.

As far as multitasking.  With the release of the ARM Cortex A9 in 2010, the time is right to release preemptive multitasking to the Iphone OS.  As far as the the finder.  Until SL the finder was still Carbon and now having been rewritten for Cocoa it would be much easier to repurpose the code for Iphone OS.  I think Iphone OS needs to provide support for files.  For the tablet to be successful in business folks need to edit files received via email and then attach them to new emails and such.  If Apple cannot implement a security model which allows editing of files, I think it will limit some of the utility of the tablet at least for creation of content.

michelc - 07 November 2009 04:21 PM

Need a Full blown computer buy a “normal Mac”

Need a portable device for basic computing. (email, web, social networking) use the tablet and get at the same time access to all those small apps that make life easier for iPhone user.

Well, if it doesn’t play WoW and similar games, then Apple would be losing half of it’s potential customer base for a tablet.  Even on a 10” tablet, those role-playing games need some serious computing and graphics power - more power than you describe in what would basically be a large iPhone.