Much has been said about Apple’s attempts to weld bits of iOS to OS X. Generally, I’d argue that system-wide functionality like autosave is a boon to the desktop, but the iOS-like launcher called Launchpad is just awful. Still, despite nods to iOS, it’s pretty clear Apple still has two operating systems. They are distinct and separate and apps are designed for each, even if they share a name. For example, Numbers exists for Mac and iOS, but the spreadsheet app is hugely tailored for each environment.

Now take a look at PC Pro’s Windows 8 gallery. If you had no idea about Microsoft’s plans for Windows 8, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a gallery of two different operating systems—and that’s because it sort of is. Microsoft has smashed its lovely mobile UI into Windows with a brick. The net result is a touch system that will in many cases reveal ‘standard Windows’ underneath. Microsoft argues this is about choice, providing people with the ‘power’ of Windows on tablets, but also a touch UI. It argues it’s a no-compromise approach. I say it’s the result of a company that didn’t have the balls to bet the farm on something truly new, unique and suitable for the future of computing.

Apple got things right with iOS, even if it took a while. Amazingly, Microsoft’s Windows Phone team then not only created something that didn’t rip off iOS, but also sometimes bettered it. But once again a lack of vision and a desire to ‘respect’ legacy is holding Redmond back. What a pity.

AllThingsD:

Apple scored another victory in its patent battle against Samsung today when a German court upheld the preliminary injunction banning sales of the company’s Galaxy 10.1 tablet computer in the country.

“The court is of the opinion that Apple’s minimalistic design isn’t the only technical solution to make a tablet computer, other designs are possible,” Presiding Judge Johanna Brueckner-Hofmann said in her verdict. “For the informed customer there remains the predominant overall impression that the device looks [like the iPad].”

Among my chums on Twitter, opinion is split on the Apple/Samsung spat. Some argue that Samsung is being bullied and that Apple’s design is ‘obvious’ and therefore suing Samsung isn’t fair. I agree with the German court: tablets didn’t look like the iPad before Apple’s device appeared, and now they all do. In the case of Samsung, a bunch of other stuff, such as icons, is almost identical too. I’m not sure Samsung has been trying to ‘trick’ people, but if I had any respect for Samsung I’d have lost it on hearing the company’s statement:

[We] believe that by imposing an injunction based on this very generic design right, this ruling restricts design innovation and progress in the industry.

Copying a successful competitor is not innovation; and if the design is ‘very generic’ why didn’t other companies do it first or simultaneously, rather than many months after Apple?

Mark Bernstein writes that there are always problems. He thinks the Mac and tech press is trying to drum up traffic by running articles critical of Lion. But he thinks the operating system isn’t to blame, and other factors cloud people’s judgment.

Whenever an operating system ships, everybody always runs around in circles to complain about it. Operating systems are big. They interact with everything. And they’re new, so they are a blame magnet. If you have an application bug, people will blame the operating system. If their disk is wearing out, odds are the operating system installation will push it over the edge and they’ll blame the operating system. If their network is wonky, what sort-of worked before might not work how – or might still sort-of work – and either way, some of them will blame the operating system.

And he also blames the press:

I blame a corrupt trade press. The way you get attention and make money – not much money – in this game is to start flame wars, and so “Apple ships lousy operating system! Scroll bars backwards! Apple doomed!” gets links and traffic and sells ads for off-brand iPad cases. And of course some of the financial press try to launch memes to manipulate stock prices – either because they play the market or simply to show what big lever-pullers they are.

I have some sympathy with that viewpoint; too many tech blogs are clamouring for hits rather than offering quality writing, and much of this comes from Apple rumours and anti-Apple sentiment. But there’s a nugget of truth in the Lion blame game. I cannot remember an Apple OS so buggy since the very early days of Mac OS X. I’ve certainly had way more problems in OS X Lion than in Snow Leopard, Leopard and Tiger. Apps crash far more regularly (mostly those that utilise the new auto-save feature), my Wi-Fi network that was fine under Snow Leopard absolutely refused to work using the same settings under Lion, and I’ve seen a ton of interface glitches, most notably with Save dialogs randomly getting really messed up and printing buttons and menus in the wrong place.

Of course, as Bernstein states, other factors could be at play here. For the first time, I installed a new OS over an old one, so perhaps there are clashes; although in my defence, this is how Apple wants people to install Lion by default. Perhaps my Wi-Fi network was screwy anyway, and Lion merely finally broke it. But I’m seeing too many issues, too many bugs, to suggest this is anything more than an OS that doesn’t have quite the same level of care that Apple usually enforces. None of the bugs have stopped me from using Lion and I certainly don’t plan to revert. But when TextEdit and Numbers crash for the nth time—despite neither app having crashed even once during my using them with Snow Leopard—that sets off alarm bells about the state of the system itself, rather than the state of tech journalism.

Hat tip: Daring Fireball.

I’m pretty sure some analysts spend their days lobbing darts at a dartboard and then applying whatever number they hit to the current piece of analysis, especially when it comes to marketshare. However, it takes a truly special company to consider outlandish reports conservative. And so it goes with Bloomberg’s report:

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) said its Windows Phone operating system may capture more than 20 percent of the smartphone market over the next two to three years with the help of hardware manufacturers and increased marketing efforts.

So, here we have an analyst firm—Gartner—who thinks Android will lead forever in smartphones, growing from a 23 to 49 per cent share, and that iOS will struggle onwards, growing its share from 16 to 17 per cent. Windows Phone? Naturally, that will skyrocket from 4.2 per cent to 19.5 per cent, blazing past iOS in the process. And yet Microsoft thinks that’s conservative. Presumably by 2020, every single smartphone will run Windows Phone and will directly jack your brain into Steve Ballmer’s PC.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be too quick to judge. People thought Apple didn’t have a chance, and it took a fair chunk of the market. But then Apple did that by innovating and creating a new type of personal computer/smartphone hybrid that took Apple users and everyone else by storm. I fail to see how Microsoft will have such meteoric marketshare rise, even with its Nokia tie-up, when most people either remain infatuated with the iPhone or happy with the cheaper/more expandable Android alternatives. Still, maybe Microsoft knows something I don’t—perhaps Tim Cook in his new CEO role is hastily remaking all iPhone 5 cases out of fish scales.

A post by ‘ghostinthecomputer’ says Apple should kill off the iPod touch. It’s an interesting idea, which Daring Fireball’s John Gruber largely agreed with, but I’m unconvinced.

The iPod Touch has always been a bit of a strange device, basically a stripped down iPhone, without any phone or cell data capability. It was called an iPod, but was completely different from Apple’s older iPods that focused almost solely on music.

This much I agree with, but I wouldn’t call the iPod touch ‘strange’, since it’s essentially a small, wireless computer; its name is perhaps troubling, but understandably leveraged the insanely popular iPod brand. But it’s no more an iPod than an iPhone is a phone.

With the coming fall event, this is Apple’s opportunity to make a trademark dramatic move and kill off the iPod Touch from their product line. However, they shouldn’t just leave a void where the iPod Touch once was, they should replace it with the much rumored low-end iPhone. The low-end iPhone would fit perfectly into the market where the iPod Touch was, and in many ways would be better than the iPod Touch for most consumers.

First, if the low end iPhone sold, without a contract, for around $200-300, it would be in the same price range as the iPod Touch, and would draw the same buyers.

This is where the argument starts to fall apart. Apple will have to be extraordinarily aggressive in terms of pricing to meet that target. Right now, the previous generation iPhone is £428 in the UK. The low-end iPod is £193, but that also, unlike the low-end iPhone 3GS, includes FaceTime, a Retina display and HD video recording. At present, then, the iPod touch at the low end is a generation ahead of the closest equivalent iPhone and still under half its price. I’m sceptical Apple will suddenly bring all its iPhones into line and scrap the iPod touch and reduce its profit-margin sufficiently for the low-end device to remain competitive. Additionally, Apple would have to fight a perception battle: people still shop for iPods, notably for kids; they don’t want their kids to have an iPhone. Others are happy with their smartphone but still want a device that’s capable of playing music and running iOS apps. This sales and marketing shift alone could cost Apple a ton of sales.

I don’t disagree that there are benefits to the iPhone-only approach. You’d end up with an ‘iPad mini’, to which you could add 3G; you’d stop people questioning whether to go for an iPod or iPhone and then buying neither, due to confusion; and you’d—potentially—finally end up with a low-end device that had a half-decent stills camera. But you’d remove Apple’s most ‘throwaway’ iOS device; you’d have no option but to ditch the iPod’s super-thin form-factor; and you’d have people paying for the phone components, whether they used them or not. To me, I’m not sure that sounds like an Apple strategy, and I’m guessing within the next few weeks we’ll hear announcements about the new iPhone 5, an 8 GB iPhone 4 becoming the low-end model, and a new iPod touch line.