Good article, and I agree that Apple will not leave the Mac behind in favour of licensing the OS to generic PCs or other manufacturers. I think some people want this to happen so badly that they convince themselves it's good for Apple.
Another thing worth considering: The iPhone runs OS X. The new iPods will probably run OS X. The AppleTV either runs OS X, or it, or a similar future device from Apple will at some point soon.
OS X. OS X. OS X.
What kind of future does OS X have without a Mac to run it on? It seems like the best way to develop a feature rich handheld-device's OS, is to develop a full desktop OS, then slice off the parts you don't need (as Apple appear to have done for the iPhone). OS X and specifically Cocoa and Core Animation put the iPhone so far ahead of their Java-and-Flash-using-competition it's not funny.
So what I'm saying is that killing the Mac hardware platform would have drastic results on the iPhone, future iPods and other Apple goodies. Why would Apple do that?
Also, from what I've seen in sales reports, the iPod is still a smaller source of revenue than Macs. Plus... there's really only one place you can go when you have 80% of the market... down. Macs are healthy, but in the exact opposite position. There's really only one direction I can see the Mac market share going... and that's up.
"Remember the week before WWDC '05, when all the pundits where saying the Intel transition would never happen?"
Fair call. I certainly thought it was possible, but didn't think it'd happen when it did.
It's funny though... in hindsight, the change was tiny from a user's perspective. You could be completely forgiven for not noticing any difference between a PPC Mac and an Intel Mac at all. The hardware aesthetics and software is practically identical.
by Marc Edwards — Jan 27
Another thing worth considering: The iPhone runs OS X. The new iPods will probably run OS X. The AppleTV either runs OS X, or it, or a similar future device from Apple will at some point soon.
OS X. OS X. OS X.
What kind of future does OS X have without a Mac to run it on? It seems like the best way to develop a feature rich handheld-device's OS, is to develop a full desktop OS, then slice off the parts you don't need (as Apple appear to have done for the iPhone). OS X and specifically Cocoa and Core Animation put the iPhone so far ahead of their Java-and-Flash-using-competition it's not funny.
So what I'm saying is that killing the Mac hardware platform would have drastic results on the iPhone, future iPods and other Apple goodies. Why would Apple do that?
Also, from what I've seen in sales reports, the iPod is still a smaller source of revenue than Macs. Plus... there's really only one place you can go when you have 80% of the market... down. Macs are healthy, but in the exact opposite position. There's really only one direction I can see the Mac market share going... and that's up.
"Remember the week before WWDC '05, when all the pundits where saying the Intel transition would never happen?"
Fair call. I certainly thought it was possible, but didn't think it'd happen when it did.
It's funny though... in hindsight, the change was tiny from a user's perspective. You could be completely forgiven for not noticing any difference between a PPC Mac and an Intel Mac at all. The hardware aesthetics and software is practically identical.