Last week Apple announced that again this summer there will be an OS X update, this time code-named “Mountain Lion,” and again they are bringing over aspects of their extremely successful iOS platform. “Inspired by iPad. Re-imagined for Mac” is their slogan. I will briefly discuss the highlighted features and then consider some to the fears that are being expressed over whether such moves mark Apple’s ultimate plan to abandon “traditional desktop” computers. Now that I have completed the roundup I realized this post is long enough. I will create a separate post with my musings of what this means about Apple desktop computers.
There are a number of apps and few services that are coming directly over to OS X. The apps include Messages, Reminders, Notes, Game Center and Notification Center. The services include “Share Sheets” (integration of sharing websites, etc. via Twitter), AirPlay mirroring to your TV, and greater integration of iCloud.
iCloud
Starting with the last first, iCloud is really the key to the whole enterprise for Apple now. This is what allows you to be able to add a bookmark to Safari on your iPad and have it automatically sync with your other devices, including your desktop. That aspect already works now and if you haven’t signed up for the free service, it is worth it. What is changing in Mountain Lion is, apparently, deeper integration and the ability for third-party developers to now hook into iCloud. If you use something like Evernote then you already have a good sense of how it all works. Apple is apparently going to try and also get right, something they have not yet done, document syncing as well. I will wait and see. In my opinion Dropbox is still a far better solution for managing documents across devices at this point in time. Still, having tighter integration across these devices is better (also IMO, but you should feel comfortable assuming where opinion is expressed in this article it is my own, I will let you know otherwise) and when I set up my new MacBook Air last week I simply logged in with my iCloud account and much of my data was populated. Handy.
Reminders & Notes
Since we use an Exchange server in our college I use those services, but for those who do not you will now have automatically updated and synchronized copies of your notifications and reminders on all your Apple devices. (Your Notes do update automatically now, they are just in your Mail app where no one thinks to look for them. Now they will be a free standing app.) For the many people who use the Note app on their iPad rather than something more robust like Evernote this will be a nice change. You will even be able to add photos and attachments, but I believe those will not sync back to iOS devices.
Notification Center
Do you use Growl to notify you of emails, iTunes songs, AIM messages, etc.? You won’t need to any more which is, no doubt, a bummer for the folks who developed Growl. (Of course it also means I will be able to get rid of the annoying reminders to upgrade to the now-no-longer-free version of Growl.) Just as on iOS devices on OS X you will now have a nice little one-stop-location for all your notification needs. This was a much needed feature on iOS and rightly borrowed/stolen from Android and I think will be very nice to have on the desktop as well. It will appear on the right hand 1/4 of the screen when you click on a menu button in the top right corner, or a floating notice will appear (remember Growl?). A swipe of the trackpad will make it go away, just as on your iPad. This is perhaps the most iOS-like addition, but it simple replaces various third-party offerings as already noted.
Share Sheets & Twitter
Ho hum. This will be convent, since I do share lots of stories, photos, and via twitter and of course email. This will certainly be handy, but it doesn’t seem like a top billing, unless of course I am the CEO of Twitter in which case I am thrilled.
Messages
iOS 5 brought an integrated Messages app that allowed you to send SMS messages, just as always, but if your friend was on WiFi you could also send messages that way as well. What do I mean? Just this: I have an iPad that I use for taking notes in meetings. My wife can “text” me from her iPhone 3GS and it pops up in the Messages app on my WiFi-connected iPad (and my iPhone). I can now reply to her from the iPad without getting out my phone. Now, as in right now since you can download the beta, you can do the same thing from your desktop. When you install it iChat is replaced and you can use Messages for all your AIM, Google Chat, Jabber, and Yahoo! conversations and I do. I really do like this addition. I am able to keep working at my desktop as messages come in from my wife and my colleagues (we are on AIM in the office). Nice integration.
Game Center
If you use it on the iPhone or iPad you know what it is and will look forward to it on your Mac. If you don’t…carry on.
Gatekeeper
This has raised some questions about how much Apple may be controlling the OS environment and I will leave that to others. What it means (or is supposed to) in short is greater security as the OS will only install software from Mac App Store and “Identified Developers” but you can override the gatekeeper so it should not rule out side-loading.
AirPlay Mirroring
This is actually quite exciting. If you have an Apple TV connected to your HDTV or, say, your classroom projector (and remember this is only a $99 device, not much for many IT budgets) then you already can mirror whatever is on your iPad. With Mountain Lion you will be able to mirror from your OS X computer as well. The “mirroring” is already quite sophisticated on iOS so that, for example, games can have one view up on the TV and other on your iOS device. With one driving game that my son and I play, when we go into mirroring mode the TV has both our cars in their own window on the TV while our iOS devices (an iPod Touch and iPad) have the steering wheel, accelerator, etc.
Now, why is this exciting? Imagine this in your classroom. You walk in and without making any connections simply open up your Apple notebook and begin your presentation through the Apple TV. (There are other wireless solutions, but most if not all cost far more than $99.) Even the sound and HD video will be wirelessly streamed to the projector in the room. As I said, you can already do this with the iPad, which is liberating enough, but soon you will be able to do it with all your OS X bells and whistles (say the full Accordance application maps and fly throughs).
So what?
If you read my opening paragraph and still got all the way down here you know I am going to write another post with my analysis. I will simply say now that some see this iOS “inspiration” as a move towards merging the two OSes and Apple moving away from desktop computer. I don’t think so…
Whither Apple?
I could prattle on about how I think that Apple will always make some form of desktop and full-service notebook computers because the need will always be there for such devices. I could also make an argument about the fact that they need folks to create apps for their iOS devices and I am sure they would prefer they be developed on Apple machines. I won’t and just leave those arguments at that. Instead let’s take a look at these new apps and features introduced with Lion and now Mountain Lion that are so iOS-like.
If you consider Lion that came out last summer there are a number of changes Apple made that are analogous to how people who use iOS devices now do things. For those using MacBooks or the Magic Trackpad there are now multi-touch gestures, similar to those used to move around the iOS environment. On an iPad or iPhone you can only interact with one app at a time and the app fills the screen. Some like this focused work environment and Apple created full-screen app support at the system level in Lion. The Mac App Store is just like the app store on the iOS (but with its own sorts of problems: no ability to download demos, beta, or updates of software you bought directly from the developer before the Mac App Store existed). Launchpad is meant to mimic the “Home” screen of iOS, but frankly I know of no one who was using Mac’s before iPhones were created who use it. (Of course there are tens or hundreds of thousands who have come to the Mac platform after using an iOS device, perhaps these folks find it comforting and useful.) Fortunately it is easy to ignore. And so on.
In none of these changes to (Mac) OS X, however, do we find a fundamental shift in OS X. This is evolution and it makes a lot of sense for Apple to unify, in so far as possible, the experience of moving from one Apple device to another. This is where iCloud comes in. This is more about interface than architecture.
When I move from using Pages or iMovie on my iPad to the desktop I expect to know “where” I am in the app and, more importantly, to have my documents right there, updated from the last time I worked on them, no matter on which device I was working. Now in my experience iCloud is not yet there but it is getting ever closer and the Mountain Lion announcement makes it clear that Apple knows they have to get this right. The transition from couch to desk needs to be seamless and that is what these OS updates are about as much as anything else.
The fact that they are not about making the OS and app experience the same is exemplified with iMovie. iMovie on the iPad is not exactly the same on the iPad as on the Mac and it can’t be. There are many, many things I would want and need to do in a movie editor that I simply cannot do in the iPad version. The device simply doesn’t have the horsepower nor the screen real-estate to produce much beyond a slide show or quick clips. Yes, amazing things have been done on the iPad but it has very real limits. But those limits don’t mean that moving to the desktop has to be like traveling to a foreign land. This is the transition to which Apple is dedicated.
So I do not see the end of OS X (even if the “Mac” is removed from its name) nor do I expect a touch-screen iMac anytime soon. It might happen, but the iPad and iMac remain different beasts for different tasks and some differentiation will remain. What I do see happening is a better user experience from beginning to end. I can shoot a video on my iPhone, edit the movie on the bigger real estate of my iPad, and add audio and soundtrack on the Mac all without having to “translate” as I go along. That is the goal and I think Apple is moving ever closer to the mark.
Posted in: iOS, MacOS.
Tagged: Commentary