The missing link between iOS and Minority Reports: Mac OS

A few weeks ago there was a rumor saying that Apple will kill Mac OS X and replace it with iOS. The rumor was so strong that Steve Jobs in person answered an email denying it. Steve Jobs's words were: "Completely wrong. Just wait."

The rumor was fueled by three facts:

1. There were almost no sessions dedicated to Mac OS in the Apple Developer Connection in San Francisco,
2. There were no announcements of a new release.
3. The last Mac OS upgrade was pure optimization with only a few new features

 So, is Apple running out of ideas? I don't think so. So what is delaying them? I believe there are two things:

1. They want to kill the keyboard and the mouse.
2. I think they believe that for the keyboard and mouse paradigm the OS is good as it is.

A few months ago they have introduced the Magic Mouse and now the Magic Trackpad. So why aren't they introducing a Touch screen computer like HP or Sony? Likely because it would be only for showing off with no much practical use whatsoever.

Knowing Apple, they probably want to totally change the way we use computers, but at the same time they want the process to feel natural and friendly.

So, in my opinion the next release of Mac OS X (if it is still called Mac OS X) will be based on the following pillars:

1. Cocoa Touch applications (iOS apps) will be able to run on the desktop controlled by some kind remote interaction device, like giant trackpads or iPad like keyboards.
2. Cocoa Touch will add to the desktop a new type of controls to interact with applications. For instance, not long ago there used to be scroll bars in the phones, now the standard for scrolling is swiping a finger and the inertia effect.
3. We will see not only multitouch interaction, but also multi-hand gestures.
4. We will see a new set of Apple computers prepared natively to run this new Cocoa Touch controls.
5. Cocoa will slowly become deprecated when the users start adopting the new devices. And developers will of course start to complain about it.
6. And last but not least, we will see a more modern file system (sorry this is wishful thinking)

Do you think anything different is going to happen? Please leave me your comments!

Comments

[Thomas]

What do you mean by a more modern FS ? What would you add/change in HFS ?

[Guillermo Acilu]

Thanks for your comment Thomas!
HFS+ is about 12 years old and it is an extension of HFS which it is about 25 years old. By the time HFS+ was created the average HD capacity was about 250 Mb.
Since then, technology has grown quite a lot and file systems are one of the most important parts of the OS. Here you have some examples of what I would add to HFS+:
- In a new FS you have the possibility to create snapshots of the entire disk in a hart beat
- you have block-level incremental backups, which very efficiently identifies which data has changed and save only that part, reducing the writing time. In the times of SSDs this is extremely important.
- Data duplication, which helps to save space. If a data chunk is duplicated in the disk, it is saved only once and referenced by the different files.
- Also HFS+ is not very efficient in concurrent access. The latest copy of the disk catalog can be updated by only one process at the time.
But the biggest problem I find in HFS+ is the reliability. After several months of constant use, big HFS+ file systems tend to become corrupt easily and you must repair them (if you can). So the only thing you can do is to reinstall the OS from an image or reinitialize completely the corrupted volume. Time Machine is the best example. My backups are giant beasts and Time Machine volumes cannot handle them. They become corrupted after a couple of months. I stopped using Time Machine because the volume corruption.
I really wish Apple replace the FS in the next Mac OS upgrade.
Thanks again for the comment!