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With iOS 11 and watchOS 4, it feels like watchOS is taking aim for iOS, and iOS is taking aim for macOS. What’s Apple’s endgame here? The whole Mac Pro mini-cri

With iOS 11 and watchOS 4, it feels like watchOS is taking aim for iOS, and iOS is taking aim for macOS. What’s Apple’s endgame here? The whole Mac Pro mini-crisis last year proved that professionals are a super loud minority, so they can’t flat out kill macOS. I think they’ll just make iOS more and more attractive, while they make macOS more... iOS-like? And in turn, watchOS is an added benefit to iOS that macOS won’t fully utilize. There’s some sort of uneasy tension here, I’ll be interested to see how it (slowly) develops.

eridius 9y ago
I don't think iOS is "taking aim" at macOS. But a lot of people do use the iPad as a primary computing device these days, and the new iPad features in iOS 11 are definitely aimed at making the device even better for these people. For the things an iPad can do, it should do them as best it possibly can. For the things an iPad can't do, or can't do well, there's always macOS. And making the iPad better at the things it can do well doesn't harm macOS in any way.
matrixtransform 9y ago
I notice that the watch now covers all 3 tentpoles from the original iPhone launch: a phone, an ipod with touch controls and an internet communications device. Of course, the iPhone is now marketed as a multipurpose computing device, a 4k video camera and an AR viewer, so things have moved on. It would make sense to me to add more power-user features to MacOS in future, rather than making it more iOS-like? Apple made that mistake with Lion and the app grid with folders and massive icons that can't be resized is crappy to this day. iOS won't be a MacOS replacement at least until all Apple's professional apps are available on it. Processing-wise they are probably only a couple of generations away from being able to support Final Cut Pro, Logic X and XCode, but interface-wise there is a huge amount of work involved in reinventing those apps as touch-first.

eridius 9y ago

I don't think iOS is "taking aim" at macOS. But a lot of people do use the iPad as a primary computing device these days, and the new iPad features in iOS 11 are definitely aimed at making the device even better for these people. For the things an iPad can do, it should do them as best it possibly can. For the things an iPad can't do, or can't do well, there's always macOS. And making the iPad better at the things it can do well doesn't harm macOS in any way.

matrixtransform 9y ago

I notice that the watch now covers all 3 tentpoles from the original iPhone launch: a phone, an ipod with touch controls and an internet communications device. Of course, the iPhone is now marketed as a multipurpose computing device, a 4k video camera and an AR viewer, so things have moved on. It would make sense to me to add more power-user features to MacOS in future, rather than making it more iOS-like? Apple made that mistake with Lion and the app grid with folders and massive icons that can't be resized is crappy to this day. iOS won't be a MacOS replacement at least until all Apple's professional apps are available on it. Processing-wise they are probably only a couple of generations away from being able to support Final Cut Pro, Logic X and XCode, but interface-wise there is a huge amount of work involved in reinventing those apps as touch-first.