Apple has touted OS X as the most advanced operating system, but with iOS revolutionizing many computing paradigms, it is beginning to feel outdated. If Apple is to truly make the Mac the personal computer of the future, we will need to see some bold changes; changes that may eliminate some of the staples of desktop computing that most of us can’t imagine living without.
苹果夸耀说OS X是最先进的操作系统，但我认为iOS才是，它革新了更多概念，让OS X显得过时。如果苹果真的希望Mac在未来继续成功，那就必须进行大量的革新，去掉现有桌面系统的种种限制。
I think that Apple can, and will, successfully transition us to a future where iOS runs across all of its hardware. Read on for my take on why our computing world is headed this way.
我认为苹果最终会成功地将把iOS跨越它的各种硬件平台。以下是我的详细解释。
It’s All In The Name
以王者之名
After a decade of OS X versions named after big cats, we finally find ourselves with Lion. Apple definitely made a strategic move in naming OS 10.7 after the proverbial “king of the jungle”. It is pretty difficult to imagine using a lesser cat for a future operating system (Lynx or Ocelot? No way). And it is unlikely that Apple could ever gracefully move on to an operating system called “OS XI”.
十多年来，OS X一直以猫科动物的名字来命名，最新的版本叫“狮子”。丛林之王。苹果对这个版本寄予了厚望。
Apple also tipped its hand a bit when it changed the name of iPhone OS to iOS. Of course, a name change was necessary once the iPod Touch and iPad joined the ranks. But if it were meant to remain solely a touch operating system, it could have been named something like Touch OS. With a name like iOS, Apple made a statement: this is the OS, the future of all of their products.
苹果把“iPhoneOS”更名为“iOS”这一点也饱含深意。当时看来是为了给iPad让路，但为什么不叫做“Touch OS”呢。iOS的真正的含义是，这是操作系统的未来，是苹果所有产品的未来。
Lion只是个过渡产品
Lion’s tagline is “OS X meets the magic of iOS”. I would say that so far, it has been a fairly awkward meeting. It was clear when Lion was unveiled that it was really just OS X with some iOS features tacked on. I don’t know anyone who uses Launchpad on a regular basis, and fullscreen mode just feels like a hack on top of the operating system.
Lion系统有个漂亮的广告词：“OS X遇到iOS的魔法”。但实际上，我觉得两者的整合非常得牵强。没有多少人经常性使用LaughPad，而全屏模式仅仅是形似。
Sure, Lion tried to give us a taste of the magic that makes iOS so enticing, but in the end, it did not make any bold enough changes to truly revolutionize the Mac experience.
苹果很有心，但把iOS引入到桌面系统的努力并不尽人意。
How Will iOS Revolutionize the Mac?
iOS如何才能催化Mac？
iOS is about changing paradigms. In particular, it is about simplifying the computing experience by taking away choices that the user has to constantly make in order for things to run smoothly. Here are some aspects of computing that iOS on the Mac could change forever.
iOS是翻天覆地的颠覆。iOS掌控一切，用户既不需要也没有可能接触到底层细节，这样就保证了系统不需精心维护也运作如飞。要想把这一切带入到mac上，你就必须了解ios是如何做到的。
No Visible File System
再见，文件系统
For most of us, the visible file system has been a staple of the computing experience since we first used a personal computer. With a visible file system, the user can explore all of the files and folders contained on a hard drive, move them around, and delete them.
对于普通人来说，操作文件是个难以学习的障碍。让用户看到文件的目的，无非是让他们可以查看目录结构，移动文件和删除文件，但真的有此必要吗？
On Macs, the beloved Finder has served us well since it was introduced on the very first Macintosh computer. Finder has been such an icon of Mac computers that when Steve showed off the iPhone, some may have expected to see a little Finder in iPhone icon form. But with the first iPhone OS, Apple eliminated the user’s ability to directly see the file system of the device.
桌面系统上的文件管理器可谓源远流长，基本而言，Finder这个文件管理程序干得还不错。但，在ios上，苹果抛弃了这一切，用户再也见不到文件本身。
So how exactly does iOS avoid having a file system? Basically, everything on iOS is app-oriented. This means you can never find a file and open it as you might on OS X. Instead, in iOS you must open an app first, which will then present you with the files it handles, whether they be Pages documents, music files, or photos.
那么iOS是如何做到这一点的呢？iOS是以应用为基本单位的，这就是说你永远也不需要找到文件并打开，相反，你必须先打开应用程序，应用程序会告诉你有哪些文件可以被处理，不管它是文本还是音乐还是照片。
iOS apps must showcase files to you at startup, since the OS has no visible file system.
iOS没有提供系统级别的文件管理器，如果有这样的需要，开发者只能自制一个管理界面出来。
Why get rid of the visible file system? Quite frankly, because users make a mess of it. If someone asked me what my least favorite part of the computing experience is, I would say cleaning up my desktop and Downloads folder. I let them get overrun for weeks, until finally I can’t handle it anymore and go on a deleting rampage. Instead of a desktop covered with folders and files, we might see the iOS home screen with a grid of apps, emphasizing apps as the main focus of the user experience.
为什么要除掉文件系统？简单地说，因为用户会搞砸它，破坏文件和目录，甚至毁坏系统本身。我最讨厌的文件操作，就是清理电脑桌面和回收站，不得不做且没有意义的操作。因此我很喜欢iOS干净的桌面，不管使用多久依然整洁如新。用户可以专注于工作而不用分心管理文件。
No Need to Manage Windows
再见，窗口
Since the graphical user interface first appeared on computers, we have really only known them to have overlapping, resizable windows. And we often find ourselves fiddling with these windows. We adjust them to our desired size for the content, try to fit two or three windows side by side, and have to deal with a ton of windows after a busy day of work. I would like to think that 10 years from now, we will not spend nearly as much time or energy getting our windows the way we like them.
图形界面第一次现身以来，我们每天都在不断调整窗口大小和堆叠窗口。调整窗口令人不胜其烦。
With iOS, the user is never given the option of resizing, minimizing, or closing windows. Instead of having to deal with windows, every app takes up the entire screen, and you cannot create multiple windows of an application.
iOS根本就没有调整窗口的功能，因为每个窗口都是全屏的。
We know that fullscreen apps work well on the smaller screens of iPhones and iPads. However, Lion already has fullscreen functionality, and I don’t find myself, or many people I know, using it often. In order to make the best use of real estate on the larger screens of Macs, Apple needs to provide an intelligent way to let multiple windows share the screen space at once.
全屏的应用在小屏幕上工作得非常不错。桌面系统Lion也有全屏模式，但人们却并不经常使用这个模式，因为。要简化Mac的大屏幕的窗口操作并不是简单的事情。
As for the best way to do this, we may have seen a hint of what the future holds from one of Apple’s competitors: Microsoft. With Windows 8, Microsoft has similarly rethought window management. Rather than letting the user resize and overlap many windows, it instead lets you snap windows side by side, filling up the entire screen.
最好的办法，也许可以从苹果的老对手微软那里找到。windows8不允许堆叠窗口，只允许平铺。
This works particularly well if you are multitasking with two apps at once; say for example, working on a document in Pages and looking at a to do list, or browsing the web and chatting with a friend on the side.
这方法相当不错。特别是你需要同时使用两个应用程序的时候：比如一边写文档，一边看看待办事项，上上网或者聊天。
On larger screens, iOS could adopt a split-screen approach to window management.
大屏幕上，iOS完全可以做成分屏设计。就像上图一样。
Automatic Process Management
自动化处理
A common problem that new Mac users face is expecting OS X to function as Windows does, where closing all of the windows of an app will quit it. My parents, for example, make their Macs slow down to a crawl because they don’t know how to properly quit apps. But users can’t entirely be blamed; Apple doesn’t exactly make it easy, since you either need to go through the menu bar, right-click the Dock icon, or use a keyboard shortcut to quit an app.
windows用户切换到Mac以后，遇到的麻烦之一，就是不知道关闭应用的所有窗口并不会退出程序。我的父母就是这样的，结果电脑因为程序运行太多而变慢。苹果应该去适应用户，把关闭程序这样的事情变得更简单。
With iOS, this problem was remedied with automatic process management. In this system, the user never has to quit an app or decide which apps need to be running. The operating system takes care of this busy work, suspending apps when necessary to free up memory, and automatically resuming them when the user needs them. iOS’s multitasking system handles everything for the user, and generally keeps the device from running sluggishly.
iOS的办法是自动关闭程序。用户永远不需要手动退出程序，操作系统会帮你自动关掉它们。
If iOS is one day powering our Macs, there will be no more running lights under apps in the dock, and no more quitting applications. The user will simply switch between apps as needed, and the operating system will do the dirty work for them.
自动管理的程序应该被同样移植到台式机上，用户不用关心存盘，不用关闭程序，操作系统会包揽掉这些脏活杂活。
The End of the Menu Bar As We Know It
菜单的终结
Let’s face it, the menu bar probably doesn’t get used extensively. It is mostly there for overflow; to hold all of the features that developers couldn’t easily fit into the app’s interface. Menu items like “File” and “Edit” are vague terms that hold features that are either unused, or that users have learned to perform with keyboard shortcuts, like saving, copying and pasting, undoing and redoing, etc.
用户其实并不需要菜单。菜单诞生的原因，是程序设计者想不出应该把功能放到界面的什么位置，偷懒把它丢到菜单里面。“文件”，“编辑”这样的菜单意义含糊，某些菜单项可能从来没人用。
菜单，开放式的文件系统，以及窗口层叠，一切都开始于1983年的Lisa电脑，差不多已经三十年了。
Macs need to lose the menus that have been around since the days of the Apple Lisa, and embrace the sleek, black title bar of iOS. Granted, there are some features from the menus that will need to find a new home. For example, “Bookmarks” in browsers, like Safari, and “Filters” in Photoshop are frequently accessed, and will likely need to be relocated to the app’s interface. We can see this already in the iPad version of Safari, which has a button you can press to see a drop down of your bookmarks.
Mac应该去掉菜单。转而使用iOS那种漂亮的标题栏。没错，原来呆在菜单里面的功能可能需要找个新家。比如浏览器的书签，或者Photoshop的滤镜需要换个地方呆呆。iPad的浏览器很好地处理了书签应该去哪里的问题。
Developers will have to find places for functions that were previously stored in the menubar.
A Unified App Ecosystem
一体化的应用生态系统
If iOS comes to the Mac, will it run existing Mac apps, iOS apps, or both? The reason Macs can’t easily run iOS apps—and developers have to therefore rewrite a lot of code to port their iOS apps to the Mac—is because OS X does not support a framework provided to iOS developers called UIKit. In order for developers to easily port their iOS apps to the Mac, Apple would need to bring support for the UIKit framework to the Mac.
如果Mac采用iOS操作系统，那么Mac能运行哪些程序呢？原来的Mac程序？或者iOS的应用？或者两者都支持？苹果需要做很多工作才能让Mac支持iOS程序，可能还需要开发者重写部分代码。
If iOS apps could run on the Mac, there would no longer be two separate App Stores—the iOS App Store and Mac App Store—there would simply be the App Store, a grand unified ecosystem of apps for any of your Apple devices. Currently, you can buy Universal apps for iOS, which run on both iPhones and iPads. In the future, you could buy a Universal app that supports the iPhone, iPad, and Mac all at once.
如果Mac能够同时支持两类程序，那么iOS App Store和Mac App Store也会合二为一。
Once iOS apps can easily run on the Mac, it is hard to say how existing Mac apps will be supported. Users have spent a lot of money and become dependent on the vast body of software that has been created for the Mac the last 11 years, since the introduction of OS X. Some people could not live without 3rd party software such as Adobe’s creative apps, Microsoft’s Office Suite, and other big name and independently developed apps.
Mac无法抛弃对现有程序的支持。过去11年内，用户在Mac上花费了大量金钱购买软件。有些用户没有了第三方应用就无法生存，他们严重地依赖于Adobe的设计软件，微软的办公软件等等。
However, getting Mac apps to live side by side with iOS apps considering the aforementioned paradigm changes—no visible file system, no menu bar, drastically different window management, etc.—would be no easy task. Apple would need to announce the changes far in advance and give developers a transition period to get their Mac apps ready for the new frontier.
由于iOS的一些特性：没有可见的文件系统，没有菜单栏，没有窗口管理模式，因此同时运行Mac程序和iOS应用会产生很大的问题。要解决两者之间的差异问题，用户需要第三方开发者的配合，苹果做出系统上的调整的同时也要给与开发者足够的时间来改写他们的程序。
This unification of apps across devices would also be the perfect time for Apple to finally make a move that some long time users have been dreading: requiring developers to distribute all software through the App Store. Apple controls all app distribution on iOS devices, and likely plans on making the switch to this model on Macs one day. As more and more developers bring their apps to the Mac App Store, it becomes easier for Apple to one day pull the plug on downloading and installing apps from the web.
如果国共能够合作，错了，如果两类程序能够统一，苹果肯定会迈出让人恐惧的一步：所有的程序都必须从苹果app store购买，就和现在苹果在ios平台上干的一样：用户将无法使用光盘安装或从其他网站下载软件。
Still, some apps that have long existed for the Mac wouldn’t even be allowed in under current rules. People have tolerated the lack of torrent apps on current iOS devices, but would they be willing to give up torrent software on their Macs, or would Apple have to make some exceptions to the rules to prevent too much rebellion from users? There might be a day when people need to jailbreak their Macs in order to gain some of the freedoms that would be lost in this transition.
有些程序则会从此消失，举例来说，bt下载软件。而实际上，在ios平台上，这些软件已经被灭绝了。也许有一天，用户不得不给自己的mac越狱。
Let’s Talk About Hardware
最后一件事：硬件
So far, I have been painting a picture of iOS running on existing Mac hardware. After all, millions of people currently own iMacs and MacBooks, and it wouldn’t be a good idea to alienate these users by forcing them to upgrade hardware if they want the latest software.
到现在为止，我所说的一切都是基于现有硬件。用软件逼迫用户升级硬件并不是好事。
However, iOS has only appeared on touch devices so far, and it is possible that the Mac hardware may evolve to enable more touch interaction. Steve Jobs famously said of touchscreen Macs, “We’ve done tons of user testing on this, and it turns out it doesn’t work. Touch surfaces don’t want to be vertical.”
虽然触摸屏的趋势将势不可挡，但乔布斯断言过：我们做了成千上万次试验，结论是不行，要用触摸屏，你就必须平放屏幕。
I believe the key to that statement is “vertical”. If touch screens don’t work on vertical surfaces, it is possible that Apple is going to come out with laptops and desktops where the screen can be repositioned at more convenient angles. Indeed, the patent for such a design has already been filed for what is essentially a tiltable touchscreen iMac.
我注意到了平放这个关键词。苹果会不会造出一台平放屏幕的台式机或笔记本呢？实际上，苹果已经申请了这样的专利。
Apple filed a patent for a tilting, touchscreen iMac in 2010.
2010年，苹果申请了一个触摸屏imac专利。
This layout would easily allow the user to switch between touch and cursor-based interaction. Allowing both modes of input would be useful, because while touching a screen can feel more natural, it is not well suited for selecting specific parts of text or doing professional work that involves precision.
这一专利，让imac可以在触摸屏模式和鼠标模式之间切换。两种模式各有优劣，互补长短。
Interestingly, the company Lenovo recently released its IdeaCentre A720, which as many have pointed out, closely resembles Apple’s diagrams.
有趣的是，联想最近发布了一款新机器IdeaCentre a720，酷似苹果的设计。
Future iMacs might look similar to Lenovo’s Ideacentre A720.
未来的imac也许就是这副样子。
Lenovo also recently showed off its new IdeaPad Yoga, which combines the traditional laptop with a tablet through a flipping keyboard. While this is an intriguing design, flipping the entire keyboard back and forth might feel cumbersome, and leave the keyboard exposed to damage when in the tablet mode. Perhaps a better method would be having the keyboard slide out, as some mobile phones have long done.
联想最近展出了新款IdeaPad，取名Yoga，这是个平板和笔记本的结合体。设计十分粗燥，可以改进之处颇多。
The Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga design is interesting, but probably not ideal.
Time will tell if these alternate form factors appeal to users at all, but one thing is sure: Apple has undoubtably been testing many different prototypes over the years, and won’t release a product unless they are convinced it is the future.
时光会证明一切。唯有一件事可以确定：苹果一直在努力，总有一天，我们会见到未来。
Conclusion
结论
Apple got the chance to design an operating system UI from scratch with its touch devices, and they made many bold design choices that paid off. While users might fear drastic paradigm shifts coming to the Mac, a computer that has been so reliable so many years, I believe it is necessary in order for Apple’s technology to remain modern. If the speculations in this article are true, it will certainly be exciting to witness the transition to a radically different Mac experience.
苹果在iOS上重新发明了操作系统，好评如潮。虽然人总是害怕变革，但我相信只有变革才是计算机的未来。让我们拭目以待。
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