It has been revealed that Apple will not be merging its desktop OS X operating system, with iOS, its smartphone operating system, as the company feels it would be a "waste of energy."
Phil Schiller, Apples marketing executive, on the eve of Macs thirtieth anniversary, stated that "We dont waste time thinking, But it should be one [interface!] How do you make these [operating systems] merge together? What a waste of energy that would be," to Mac World in an interview.
"The reason OS X has a different interface than iOS isnt because one came after the other or because this ones old and this ones new," added Craig Federighi, Apples software head. "Instead, its because using a mouse and keyboard just isnt the same as tapping with your finger."
Federighi also added that they do not want to create an impression among their users that Mac and iOS is created by two different companies by merging both. "You dont want to say the Mac became less good at being a Mac because someone tried to turn it into iOS," he said. "At the same time, you dont want to feel like iOS was designed by [one] company and Mac was designed by [a different] company, and theyre different for reasons of lack of common vision."
Microsoft, Apples biggest rival in the PC/ laptops space, has been working towards merging its desktop and smartphone operating systems for a while, with of course, the tablet category the true meeting point of portability and productivity. The Redmond-giant to that end released its desktop Windows 8 operating system with a touch-friendly interface, featuring Metro-style apps, which were first seen on the Windows Phone platform. To aim at ARM-based devices, the company also made Windows RT, or an ARM-compatible version of Windows 8.
However, the much vaunted shared Windows NT kernel between the new Windows operating systems never really bore any fruit, with us not seeing any major Windows software making its way to the Windows Phone platform, or vice versa. Hopefully, the Windows Threshold update, expected to arrive as Windows 9 for desktop in April 2015, will work further towards the convergence of devices. The exact changes in the proposed OS version are not clear as of yet, but the "Metro 2.0" feature in the OS version is said to focus on enhancing Microsofts new apps and tiles.
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