It’s interesting that this WWDC keynote was all about mobile. Obviously he had a big reveal this year – last year was all about the 3GS and Snow Leopard – but there was a decided lack of desktop talk this year.
iOS looks like the horse Apple is betting on, at least this year. The uptake in terms of programming for the iPhone far surpasses that of OS X. After all, you’re not going to make a mint writing for Mac desktops and laptops. With 10 million phones and iPads in the pipeline and $1 billion in app sales, the economics of iOS are staggering.
My hope is this: that OS X moves in the direction of the iPad with clever integration of touch on laptops and iMacs. Now I’ve been against touchscreen PCs for years now and I doubt things can get much better on that front but that’s what I used to say about tablets. Apple can redefine a few things, tweak some more, use the Darwin core, and please everybody all of the time.
Apple will never sell as many laptops and desktops as it does iPhones. Ever. The market share it enjoys in phones is not transferrable and it’s clear Apple knows where it should point its engineers and designers. My worry is that OS X will lie fallow while iOS takes off. It’s not a fear, however, as much as a knee-jerk concern.
Thoughts?