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IMO you vastly overestimate the care Apple has for "old-timey folks who want root access." They will remove your usecase in due time, when they decide to merge

IMO you vastly overestimate the care Apple has for "old-timey folks who want root access." They will remove your usecase in due time, when they decide to merge the two(MacOS and iPadOS).

the_other 6y ago
They could have done that at any point in the last 10 years. They're not going to. "Operating systems" are the bit that makes the hardware work for the software, and because the hardware of "computers" is different from "portables", they'll continue to get different OS for a LONG time. Apple make mac-, i-, iPad-, tv- and watch- OS. That's five different OSs. The "bringing together" of macOS and iOS has nothing to do with unifying the OS over the hardware: it's about unifying the experience of interacting with digital representations of physical reality. Need a surface for displaying 2d media? Here's a "window" or an "app". Need to write a message to your friend? Here's a surface that accepts typed characters or your handwriting. Need to write some code? Here's a surface that accepts text and has some editing controls. Etc. What's much more likely is that they'll find some new form factor of sensors and projectors (keys, screens, pointers, loudspeakers, data i/o) that does away with "computers" and "tablets" entirely. And that'll have its own widgetOS. EDIT: punctuation.
saagarjha 6y ago
Someone has to write the OS…
dividedbyzero 6y ago
Maybe they will, maybe they won't. Right now they don't appear to be moving into that direction – what better opportunity to further lock down things than a big architecture change, when you have to rebuild lots and lots of things anyway, when you're transplanting a whole bunch of iOS features (and even whole iOS apps, it seems) to MacOS? But instead they explicitly mentioned virtualization support for Linux. There seem to be no additional measures like Gatekeeper and Notarization. The security measures introduced in Catalina have carefully-placed gaps to not break terminal workflows, and unless I'm mistaken they can be disabled. Notarization is a bit of a mixed bag; I get the security benefits, but it does give them quite a lot of control. I may be totally naive and utterly wrong, but the vibes I get from all of this isn't that Apple is currently pursuing a strategy of forcing MacOS into the iOS mold and turning it into a two-apps-side-by-side, fully locked down, anti-productivity, content consumption and light Excel, iPad-with-permanently-attached-keyboard device. Rather, they seem so be trying to build a nice and coherent user experience across phone, tablet, laptop/desktop on the UX front that works for a wide audience with little customization, and to find a security compromise between hundreds of millions of (potential) users and organizations who need an ecosystem that keeps them as safe as possible vs. developers, researchers etc. who want their systems to be very open and unrestricted and safeguards to be very lax. I imagine it is kinda hard to build a product that serves both of these well while remaining coherent and fun to use. With that in mind, I think they did a decent job at this with Catalina and the lastest iOS. Big Sur seems to be a continuation of that; it remains to be seen what it'll actually be like in the beta, but right now, I'm optimistic.

IMO you vastly overestimate the care Apple has for "old-timey folks who want root access." They will remove your usecase in due time, when they decide to merge the two(MacOS and iPadOS).

the_other 6y ago

They could have done that at any point in the last 10 years. They're not going to. "Operating systems" are the bit that makes the hardware work for the software, and because the hardware of "computers" is different from "portables", they'll continue to get different OS for a LONG time. Apple make mac-, i-, iPad-, tv- and watch- OS. That's five different OSs. The "bringing together" of macOS and iOS has nothing to do with unifying the OS over the hardware: it's about unifying the experience of interacting with digital representations of physical reality. Need a surface for displaying 2d media? Here's a "window" or an "app". Need to write a message to your friend? Here's a surface that accepts typed characters or your handwriting. Need to write some code? Here's a surface that accepts text and has some editing controls. Etc. What's much more likely is that they'll find some new form factor of sensors and projectors (keys, screens, pointers, loudspeakers, data i/o) that does away with "computers" and "tablets" entirely. And that'll have its own widgetOS. EDIT: punctuation.

saagarjha 6y ago

Someone has to write the OS…

dividedbyzero 6y ago

Maybe they will, maybe they won't. Right now they don't appear to be moving into that direction – what better opportunity to further lock down things than a big architecture change, when you have to rebuild lots and lots of things anyway, when you're transplanting a whole bunch of iOS features (and even whole iOS apps, it seems) to MacOS? But instead they explicitly mentioned virtualization support for Linux. There seem to be no additional measures like Gatekeeper and Notarization. The security measures introduced in Catalina have carefully-placed gaps to not break terminal workflows, and unless I'm mistaken they can be disabled. Notarization is a bit of a mixed bag; I get the security benefits, but it does give them quite a lot of control. I may be totally naive and utterly wrong, but the vibes I get from all of this isn't that Apple is currently pursuing a strategy of forcing MacOS into the iOS mold and turning it into a two-apps-side-by-side, fully locked down, anti-productivity, content consumption and light Excel, iPad-with-permanently-attached-keyboard device. Rather, they seem so be trying to build a nice and coherent user experience across phone, tablet, laptop/desktop on the UX front that works for a wide audience with little customization, and to find a security compromise between hundreds of millions of (potential) users and organizations who need an ecosystem that keeps them as safe as possible vs. developers, researchers etc. who want their systems to be very open and unrestricted and safeguards to be very lax. I imagine it is kinda hard to build a product that serves both of these well while remaining coherent and fun to use. With that in mind, I think they did a decent job at this with Catalina and the lastest iOS. Big Sur seems to be a continuation of that; it remains to be seen what it'll actually be like in the beta, but right now, I'm optimistic.