Despite continued rumors that a merger of macOS and iOS is in the works, Apple CEO Tim Cook said mobile devices and desktop/laptop computers should remain in separate worlds with their own operating systems, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
“We don’t believe in sort of watering down one for the other. Both [The Mac and iPad] are incredible. One of the reasons that both of them are incredible is because we pushed them to do what they do well. And if you begin to merge the two … you begin to make trade offs and compromises,” he told the SMH’s Peter Wells. “”So maybe the company would be more efficient at the end of the day. But that’s not what it’s about. You know it’s about giving people things that they can then use to help them change the world or express their passion or express their creativity. So this merger thing that some folks are fixated on, I don’t think that’s what users want.”
Wells called Cook’s comments “surprising” consider that Apple analyst Mark Gurman of Bloomberg says Apple is working on a project called “Marzipan,” which involves merging the codebase of macOS and iOS apps. Apple plans to allow developers to release universal apps that work across the macOS and iOS as early as next year as part of the company’s “Marzipan” project, according to Bloomberg News. The apps will work with a touchscreen or mouse and trackpad depending on whether it’s running on the iPhone and iPad operating system or on a Mac, the article by Gurman adds, quoting unnamed “people familiar with the matter.”
Currently, of course, developers have to develop apps separately the iOS or the macOS. Unifying the apps could help the iOS and macOS platforms “evolve and grow as one, and not one at the expense of the other,” Steven Troughton-Smith, an app developer, tells Bloomberg News. “This would be the biggest change to Apple’s software platform since iOS was introduced.” However, Bloomberg News says the plans are still “fluid,” the people said, so the implementation could change or the project could still be canceled.
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