iLife ’11 Includes iOS Compatible Apps? But How Would That Work? I Have One Idea…

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Posted By: Dan Cohen

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A post over on 9to5 Mac points to a new book over on Amazon UK that suggests iLife ’11 is due in November and, surprise surprise… includes iOS compatible apps.

That’s all very interesting and would be a nice turn of events, especially since there are a number of tasks I much PREFER to for using an iOS app than on an iMac, but there is one problem… iOS apps are designed for multi-touch. I have to imagine that trying to make them mouse-enabled would be, at best, inelegant.

Then I got to thinking… I ALREADY HAVE a multi-touch device that I use with my iMac… my MagicTrackpad. Then I got to checking and… surprise surprise… would you look at this…

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Yup, the MagicTrackpad is almost exactly twice as large as my iPhone and iPod touch. I had always wondered how Apple came up with the specific size they chose for the MagicTrackpad. Apple doesn’t do things by accident so it makes sense for the trackpad to be twice the size of the iPhone or touch if they planned to have iOS apps running on an iMac. It would work perfectly- half the trackpad would be for iOS apps, the other for OS X applications… it could work… it really could. And then… there would be no need for a touchscreen iMac…

What do you think? Does it make sense or is it just a coincidence that the trackpad is almost perfectly sized for this??

UPDATED: As Joel explains in the comment below I likely misunderstood what “compatibility” will entail. BUMMER! I want to be able to run some iOS apps on my iMac!!!

Still, realizing that the MagicTrackpad is almost exactly the size of two iPhone or touches does make me wonder… hmmmm

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About the Author

Dan Cohen
Having a father who was heavily involved in early laser and fiber-optical research, Dan grew up surrounded by technology and gadgets. Dan’s father brought home one of the very first video games when he was young and Dan remembers seeing a “pre-release” touchtone phone. (When he asked his father what the “#” and “*” buttons were his dad said, “Some day, far in the future, we’ll have some use for them.”) Technology seemed to be in Dan’s blood but at some point he took a different path and ended up in the clergy. His passion for technology and gadgets never left him. Dan is married to Raina Goldberg who is also an avid user of Apple products. They live in New Jersey with their golden doodle Nava.

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4 Comments on "iLife ’11 Includes iOS Compatible Apps? But How Would That Work? I Have One Idea…"

  1. Joel McLaughlin | October 4, 2010 at 12:17 pm |

    Me thinks you are a bit confused Dan. I think they mean that there will be tight integration with iOS devices and iLife ’11. For example, a video you shot on the iPhone 4 would be automatically be available in iMovie could be edited with more transitions and other effects that you just can’t do on iOS. Think about using your iPad as a way to sort clips or edit videos on your Mac or on the iPad (the iPad SCREAMS for this kind of app!). How about using your iPad to work the controls in Garage Band? You could even do that wirelessly! I don’t think they’d run iOS versions on Mac OS X, but I think they will enable iOS devices as both sources and tools to use with iLife to make things even easier and to do things noone really thought of before.

    Since leaving my Mac behind, I miss iLife dearly. It was and still is one of my favorite suite of applications on any platform. Sadly, Linux doesn’t really have anything like it. Oh there are imitators and there are also many professional apps that can do what iLife did and more but for simple editing of family movies, iLife is king in my opnion. (yeah I said it).

  2. Dan Cohen | October 4, 2010 at 12:23 pm |

    Damn! Me thinks you are right and I may well be confused Joel…

    BUT…

    I WANT TO BE ABLE TO RUN SOME OF MY iOS APPS ON MY MAC and I want it NOW!!!!!! Pretty please?????

  3. Michael Anderson | October 4, 2010 at 12:47 pm |

    It is funny, Dan … I know it said ‘iLife’ but I was thinking iWork and how we already have the Pages/Numbers/Keynote iPad apps, so I was thinking ‘just better integration, and a free copy of the iApps included’.

    But for iLife … well, we now have iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iWeb, and iDVD in the current one (whatever version that is). There is an iOS iMovie, no need for iWeb or iDVD (which is supposedly getting folded into iMovie anyway). iPhoto is more or less there as well. Garageband would be a cool addition to iOS, and I think could be great based on what the GrooveMaker apps can do. And then there is the ‘mystery app’ supposedly coming.

    Should be interesting … seems like Apple is trying to balance adding stuff while leaving the field open for 3rd party apps.

  4. Joel McLaughlin | October 4, 2010 at 1:50 pm |

    Do they have a emulator in the SDK? You COULD do that if they had that. There has to be SOME way to test them other than on a actual device! 😀

    It’s funny you say this too. There is a X86 version of Android that runs on some netbooks. Theoretically, I should be able to run some Android apps on a regular PC. The last time I tried this though, they did not have the Market in the image. They can do this since all that has to be recompiled would be the Dalvik VM that the apps run on. IE: Anything on the marketplace should run.

    I agree though it would be cool and there really hasn’t been innovation on the desktop for a long time.

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