In article , Alan Browne
wrote:

No. It's crappy advice. Apple will not merge iOS and MacOS despite
greater and greater integration and interoperability between them
(across apps via iCloud and local comms services such as handover).

it depends what you call merge.

under the hood, they're already merged, since both are os x, but with a
different user interface layer and minor other differences.

It's not OS X.

yes it most certainly is os x.

It has a lot of OS X components

because it's os x.

but its behaviour, most
notably in the user relationship to the file system is completely
different.

more accurately, the ui layer is the major difference, specifically
appkit versus uikit.

the mac does provide direct file system access, but it's not normally
needed, so that falls into the minor category.

there are other minor differences, such as ios not including useless
crap such as man pages or drivers for hardware that will never exist on
any ios device.

Likewise wrt to the gammut of i/o for MacOS v the thin world
of iOS.

there's nothing thin about it.

in fact, some frameworks show up on ios before they do on the mac.



The main difference is that iOS is mainly a "consumption and capture"
device whereas a Mac is a mainly "workstation and creation" device.
There is overlap (when isn't there?). But they will remain very
separate for many years to come.

that's a myth.

both platforms serve both purposes, depending on the user and tasks.

Wow - what contradiction in one phrase.

there's no contradiction.

different people use ios devices and macs for different things, a
concept you refuse to accept.

some users consume, some create and some do both, regardless of device,
and not just with macs or ios devices either.

That said, the higher end iPads are becoming desktop class devices in
computing and graphics power.

they already are and have been for a while.

the a11 chip benchmarks faster than recent macbook pros.

But they are hampered to a degree where
storage and peripherals are concerned.

not really.

Really. Don't see many Thunderbolt class peripherals running at full
tilt in an iOS environment. Try printing a 4 colour separation from iOS
... etc. Indeed using iOS where a lot of files are in use is pretty
lame all around. It's just not oriented to that.

that's one highly specific use case and you know it.

plenty of people create and edit videos & photos, create and edit
music, write novels or papers and much more, entirely on an ipad or
iphone.

iOS / iDevices are thinly interfaced. Which is fine for what they do.

anyone who thinks that is not using ios devices to their potential.