Snippet: The Mac’s Marginalized Future ☇

Stephen Hackett takes Mark Gurman’s thoughts a bit further:

To a degree, it’s hard to argue with Apple here. The iPhone is Apple’s driving force, and to let off the gas there would be a really dumb move. The iPad — while still in a sales free fall — is so closely tied to the iPhone, it’s easy to see why it’d get attention before the Mac. Plus, Tim Cook is super into it, and you’ve got to keep the boss happy.

Most of the big features added to macOS in the last few years originally appeared on iOS, or at the very least are in place to make using a Mac with an iPhone or iPad better.

I don’t think Apple is going to merge its two operating systems, but rather keep dragging macOS behind iOS. The news of the stand-alone macOS team being absorbed shouldn’t be shocking for people who have been paying attention.

There is much truth to this…the iPhone gets the headlining features and development, some features come to the Mac (maybe after a long delay), while some don’t at all (think of the weirdness with iMessage this fall). The iPad, by virtue of being a “big ol’ iPhone” is easy to implement features on, despite being something that should probably also get less attention. Even app developers can easily turn an iPhone app into an iPhone and iPad app, but moving it to a Mac requires a complete rewrite. As a fan of the iPad, this does give me some hope that Apple will keep building and growing the platform.