Top Bananas | Tag Archives: iOS

The Coming Intel-Free Macintosh

Posted on May 1, 2019 by admin Posted in Business, Hardware Leave a comment

What it is: The Macintosh is getting constrained by Intel’s limitations, which will likely motivate Apple to abandon Intel.

Intel does not have a bright future. At one time, nearly every computer in the world had to rely on Intel processors although a few used cheaper AMD processors. Still, Intel dominated the computer market, but that domination appears coming to an end.

Despite Intel’s market share and dominance, they’re having trouble keeping up with progress. While other processor manufacturers are looking at 7mm processors, Intel is still producing 14mm processors and can’t even make 10mm processors that other companies have been able to do for years.

With Intel unable to keep up with competitors, it’s likely Apple will choose to abandon Intel processors soon. Intel already abandoned their 5G modem development and Intel previously abandoned their low-energy processors called Atom. With Intel unable to develop future processors, it’s likely Apple will simply move on to ARM processors instead.

The huge difference between Intel and ARM processors is that ARM processors are more energy-efficient, which lets them run far longer on battery power for mobile devices. Another growing difference is that ARM processors are nearly equal in power to Intel processors. When ARM processors exceed Intel processors in power, there will be little reason to stick with Intel processors, especially if Intel can’t improve them fast enough.

Apple will likely keep the Macintosh running Intel processors and simply create a new product category to run ARM processors. Apple is already transitioning iOS to handle a mouse and file support, which means it’s far more likely an ARM-based laptop will more closely resemble a souped up iPad than a Macintosh.

By giving this new product a distinctive name, Apple can avoid people confusing an Intel-based Macintosh with an ARM-based Macintosh. Apple is already creating a software framework to make it easy for iOS developers to create macOS apps, so it’s likely Apple will simply merge the iPad into a laptop computer rather than try to merge a desktop operating system (like Windows) into a mobile device (like the Microsoft Surface tablet).

The Macintosh is an aging product in its current form, so it’s likely that Apple will simply let it fade away while newer products take its place. The coming ARM-based laptop should be here soon, but it likely won’t be called a Macintosh even if it acts like a Macintosh. Whatever it’s name, it will be the future of laptop computers.

iOS 13 Getting Mouse Support?

Posted on April 26, 2019 by admin Posted in Hardware, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: iOS 13 is rumored to offer mouse support to help turn the iPad into a full-fledged laptop computer.

The iOS operating system originally began life as a tablet operating system. Then Apple realized they could use this to create a phone operating system. After Apple introduced the iPhone, it was easy to release the iPad running the same iOS software.

As the iPhone and iPad have evolved, their shared iOS is starting to cause problems. The iPad has gotten bigger and more capable to the point where it can replace a laptop computer for some people. Yet the iPad is still tied down to iOS.

While this shared operating system makes it easy for apps to run on both devices and it makes it easy for developers to create apps, the operating system isn’t optimized for either the iPhone or iPad.

What will likely happen is that Apple will split iOS into an iPhone and an iPad operating system that will continue sharing the same foundation. This will allow Apple to optimize iOS for each device.

That’s why iOS 13 is rumored to offer mouse support. While some people believe this would allow people to use an iPad like a laptop, it could also mean that Apple is planning to release a laptop computer based on iOS.

Apple will eventually shift away from Intel processors and move to their own A-series ARM-based processors. Now that ARM-based processors are getting faster than Intel processors while consuming less power, it’s only a matter of time before ARM processors surpass Intel processors in speed and power. When that happens, why would anyone want to handicap themselves with a slower, energy-consuming processor from Intel when they could use a faster, energy-efficient processor from ARM?

So the rumored mouse support for iOS might not be just for the iPad but for the rumored Macintosh computer that will switch to ARM processors.

If Apple releases a computer that uses ARM processors, it only makes sense to run iOS instead of macOS. The future is ARM processors (not Intel) and the future is iOS (not macOS).

The ARM-based Macintosh may not come out this year or next, but it’s coming within the next five years. When that happens, Intel-based computers will look antiquated, slow, and obsolete next to ARM-based devices running modern operating system like iOS.

So if mouse support does arrive for iOS 13, it may not be just for the iPad. It may be for a future laptop that Apple has yet to release.

Another Augmented Reality Patent by Apple

Posted on February 26, 2019 by admin Posted in Business, Hardware, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: Apple filed another patent for augmented reality that hints of its future plans.

Augmented reality is already a part of iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad. While augmented reality hasn’t yet become commonly used like location tracking (for getting rides through services like Uber) on the iPhone or real-time health monitoring on the Apple Watch, augmented reality is coming in the form of smart glasses.

Apple’s latest patent highlights how augmented reality could track the location of interesting objects and transpose that information when you walk near it. For outdoor use, this could help you find directions while for indoor use, this could help you find the location of your iPhone or iPad.

Like most patents, this may never become part of a real product, but it shows what Apple is thinking about and where augmented reality will be heading. It will start with the iPhone and iPad and gradually when it becomes more useful, it will migrate to smart glasses. Apple will likely test the concepts for augmented reality on iOS devices. Then when the most practical purpose appears, Apple will introduce smart glasses.

What most companies are doing now is releasing smart glasses and then hoping people will find a use for them, which is backwards thinking. These companies should be thinking of what pressing problem smart glasses can solve and then build smart glasses optimized to solve that particular problem.

Augmented reality is a growing field and will only improve with each passing year. That means augmented reality will become commonplace soon but only when it can solve problems that can’t be solved easily with todays’ technology.

Why Apple is Ignoring the Macintosh

Posted on February 24, 2019 by admin Posted in Business, Hardware Leave a comment

What it is: Apple has been ignoring the Macintosh for years. The reason may be they’re planning to switch processors.

For the past few years, Apple has let their Macintosh lineup lag behind the times. The iMac hasn’t been updated in almost two years, which makes no sense because PC makers such as Dell or Hewlett-Packard can release updated models every few months. Certainly Apple could update the Macintosh at least once a year. That could be extreme incompetence or something else entirely.

That something else will likely be the switch from Intel processors to Apple’s own ARM processors. Already Apple’s latest A-series processor is faster than Intel’s processors and Intel’s constant delays also interrupt Apple’s ability to upgrade the Macintosh, so even Intel expects Apple to transition the Macintosh to ARM processors by 2020.

So that might be the reason why Apple has been dragging their feet on updating the Macintosh. It’s not that they can’t do it; it’s just that they’re too busy working on the transition to ARM processors so they don’t want to work on new Macintosh models when they know a new ARM-based Macintosh is coming soon anyway.

What’s likely to happen is that the Macintosh will become a “pro” model, running Intel processors for developers while the consumer model Macintosh will run ARM-processors for longer battery life. It’s possible that this ARM-based Macintosh will be called something else entirely. That way people won’t get confused trying to run Macintosh programs (designed for Intel processors) on an ARM-based Macintosh.

So the long delay in updating the Macintosh is likely because Apple is planning to make them obsolete soon anyway. Apple is already developing a software framework to allow iOS apps to run on the Macintosh. Most likely an ARM-based computer will be a super portable laptop.

If the lack of updates bothers you, wait if you can. Apple will likely redefine a laptop with a device that runs iOS apps but acts more like a computer. Either that or Apple is really incompetent after all. Which seems most likely?

To read about Apple’s possible plan to switch to ARM-based processors, click here.

The End of Microsoft Windows Mobile/Phone

Posted on January 21, 2019 by admin Posted in Business, Hardware, Software, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: Microsoft officially announced the end of support for their mobile operating system Windows Mobile 10.

Before Apple introduced the iPhone, Google was trying to make a Blackberry clone called Android and Microsoft had morphed their Palm Pilot clone (Windows CE) into a phone operating system. Then Apple introduced the iPhone and redefined the touch screen interface for smart phones.

Google quickly rewrote Android to mimic iOS and Microsoft abandoned Windows CE in favor of creating a new operating system from scratch. That took time and by the time Windows Phone 7 came out, Android and iOs were already dominating the smartphone market.

Even worse, Microsoft decided to rewrite their mobile operating system again and come out with Windows Phone 8, which was incompatible with Windows Phone 7 apps. That meant developers had to rewrite their apps all over again for Windows Phone 8.

Then Microsoft changed Windows Phone 8 to Windows Mobile 10 and forced developers to rewrite their apps once more. Even worse, the official language for Windows Phone development was Silverlight, a Microsoft clone of Adobe Flash.

When Adobe Flash started dying since it couldn’t run on mobile devices, Microsoft Silverlight also died. Now developers had to rewrite their Windows Phone 8 apps to run on Windows Mobile 10.

With all this constant changing, is it no wonder that Windows Phone/Mobile failed? To make matters even worse, Microsoft was so fixated on Windows Phone that they failed to anticipate the iPad, which forced Microsoft to come up with a separate tablet operating system called Windows RT.

Now developers had to write separate apps in different languages for Windows RT and Windows Mobile 10. Instead, developers simply abandoned Windows RT and Windows Mobile 10. With few apps, users started to ignore Windows Phone/Mobile as well.

The lesson is clear. Mere copying of a successful product is rarely the path to success. The real path to success is originality. Come up with a new solution that’s better than existing solutions, not simply a copy of the same solution.

Microsoft Silverlight was a slightly better version of Adobe Flash, but solved nothing new. So people tended to stick with Adobe Flash and when Flash died, so did Silverlight.

Fortunately with Steve Ballmer out of the way, Microsoft no longer seems content to copy other successful products and hope it pays off in the long run like the Xbox. In the meantime, Windows Phone/Mobile wasn’t a bad idea, but it showed that unless you make a dramatic leap like the iPhone did over Blackberry and Nokia, there’s little reason to adopt it.

So rather than blatantly copy, companies should strive to solve problems that aren’t currently met by today’s technology. The iPhone’s touch screen interface solved the problem of tiny screens and physical buttons. Windows Phone/Mobile solved nothing over Android and iOS.

Nobody will miss Windows Phone/Mobile. Even Microsoft’s employees stopped using that operating system years ago. The lesson is copying rarely leads to success so strive for solving the problems of today, not the problems of yesterday that are already being met with today’s products. Just that simple lesson alone could have saved Microsoft billions of dollars and years of wasted development.

Project Marzipan

Posted on January 13, 2019 by admin Posted in Software, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: Project Marzipan is Apple’s framework to allow iOS apps to run on the Macintosh.

Last year during their Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC), Apple introduced Project Marzipan, which is a framework designed to make it easy to convert iOS apps to run on the Macintosh. Apple used their own framework to port several of their iOS apps to the Macintosh such as the Stocks app.

With iOS and mobile computing becoming far more important than desktop/laptop computing, it only makes sense for developers to focus exclusively on iOS programming because then they’ll be able to write apps for iOS and port them to the Macintosh.

Otherwise you’ll haver to write apps for iOS and macOS. That’s not too much of a problem since iOS and macOS are so similar but it does require you to write slightly different code. With Project Marzipan, the goal is to let you write an iOS app and let Apple’s framework convert it to run on the Macintosh with little work on your part. That way you’ll have two apps capable of running on the Macintosh and iOS.

For ordinary users, this simply means the Macintosh will soon get more apps. This can make the Macintosh more attractive but it will likely give developers an incentive to focus exclusively on iOS and then use Project Marzipan to create Macintosh apps that may not be optimized completely for the Macintosh.

So developers will likely need to tweak their code to make their app better for the keyboard/mouse interface of the Macintosh from the touch screen interface of iOS.

The Macintosh will likely never take over the desktop/laptop market with Windows PCs so entrenched in the corporate world. Then again, it doesn’t really matter since the world is moving towards mobile computing anyway.

The Macintosh has been around since 1984 and it likely won’t get any more innovative. So look at Project Marzipan as a way to keep iOS developers happy by giving them a larger market for their existing apps. Project Marzipan is not likely to attract more people to the Macintosh just for the ability to run iOS apps. Project Marzipan is interesting and will likely appear during 2019’s WWDC, but it’s just a short-term solution to help transition the world towards mobile computing so they can leave the world of desktop/laptops behind.

To learn more about Project Marzipan, click here.