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A very far fetched possibility would be that Macs will run iOS - no UNIX stuff exposed, everything signed and secure. An embedded SoC will run in secure space a

A very far fetched possibility would be that Macs will run iOS - no UNIX stuff exposed, everything signed and secure. An embedded SoC will run in secure space and expose Linux in a iOS terminal application so you can do all your development work - ssh, vim and whatnot there. Kind of like WSL but instead main OS is completely locked down and instead of software emulation you get isolated hardware to run Linux.

mankash666 9y ago
To enable iOS apps on the Mac, they only need to activate the iOS developer API with their existing OS - Darwin. AFAIK, iOS and macos share the same kernel, more or less
- bitwize 9y ago
  But that won't lock down the BSD API all macOS apps have access to.
- matthewmacleod 9y ago
  Yeah, it’s worth pointing out that iOS already runs on the mac, as anybody who’s used the simulator knows.
- scarface74 9y ago
  Just to be clearer, when you run iOS apps under the simulator, the code is compiled as x86 assembly and linked against an x86 version of the iOS framework. There's no emulation involved.
vbezhenar 9y ago
What's wrong with exposing UNIX stuff? When I jailbroke my iPhone and ssh-ed into it, there were UNIX tools there. I'm not sure whether they are from iOS or from jailbreak.
rcarmo 9y ago
They already ship a perfectly good hypervisor with macOS that is able to run a Linux kernel (and is used by Docker for Mac and many other projects).
- blinkingled 9y ago
  Secure lock down is not possible with hypervisor that allows you to run any OS. The idea would be to only run what Apple allows - a tailored Linux distro - and only on the coprocessor which is isolated from the fully locked down main OS. Oh and by the way "perfectly good" is way too generous for the hypervisor macOS ships with, unless there have been recent drastic improvements..
mr_toad 9y ago
Can’t see the point. I need my Unix tools, like git, ssh and wget etc to have full file system and network access. Having them run in a hypervisor adds overhead and complexity for no real benefit.

mankash666 9y ago

To enable iOS apps on the Mac, they only need to activate the iOS developer API with their existing OS - Darwin. AFAIK, iOS and macos share the same kernel, more or less

bitwize 9y ago
But that won't lock down the BSD API all macOS apps have access to.
matthewmacleod 9y ago
Yeah, it’s worth pointing out that iOS already runs on the mac, as anybody who’s used the simulator knows.
scarface74 9y ago
Just to be clearer, when you run iOS apps under the simulator, the code is compiled as x86 assembly and linked against an x86 version of the iOS framework. There's no emulation involved.

vbezhenar 9y ago

What's wrong with exposing UNIX stuff? When I jailbroke my iPhone and ssh-ed into it, there were UNIX tools there. I'm not sure whether they are from iOS or from jailbreak.

rcarmo 9y ago

They already ship a perfectly good hypervisor with macOS that is able to run a Linux kernel (and is used by Docker for Mac and many other projects).

blinkingled 9y ago
Secure lock down is not possible with hypervisor that allows you to run any OS. The idea would be to only run what Apple allows - a tailored Linux distro - and only on the coprocessor which is isolated from the fully locked down main OS. Oh and by the way "perfectly good" is way too generous for the hypervisor macOS ships with, unless there have been recent drastic improvements..

mr_toad 9y ago

Can’t see the point. I need my Unix tools, like git, ssh and wget etc to have full file system and network access. Having them run in a hypervisor adds overhead and complexity for no real benefit.