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Comment by nilsbunger | Hacker News Reader

Actually, it is true. In particular, profit-wise the Mac business is tiny, less than 10% of profits. They could shut down Mac and you would barely notice in their next earnings statement.

I wish it weren't so, because I love my Mac. But Apple's future is iOS, not Mac OS. Maybe someday they'll merge and it'll all be one thing?

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Actually it would hurt their iOS market greatly. iOS devices are worthless without their third party apps. And these apps can only be produced on a Mac. In fact, I bought my Mac so that I could build iOS apps. If not for 3rd party apps, it would simply boil down to the device, the software that Apple ships with and the browser. Android devices will clearly win hands down in such a scenario. Initially it would be the case of worse is better but over time it would overtake iOS devices in terms of features and sales.

iOS apps can only be produced on a Mac because that's how Apple wants it. In the unlikely event that Apple did decide to ditch the Mac, they'd port their iOS developer tools to another platform.

I think Apple's Mac roadmap is:

* Mac continues to evolve slowly, not have major innovations. Innovations that do occur will be on things that are aligned with iOS-like devices (like Launchpad, Mac App Store, Macbook Air's).

* Someday they will ditch Mac, when an iOS device can be used to (1) create new iOS apps, and (2) be a productivity machine (e.g. w/ keyboard / etc).

Those of us who like to poke under the hood will have to move back to Linux or something else.

I love my Mac because it's NOT iOS. I just can't see how all-software-from-the-app-store would be able to support the beautiful mess of tools I use every single day.

I agree. The day that happens is the day I (sadly) go back to Linux for my dev environment.

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