This morning, I was reading a rumor about the possibility of a touch screen iMac. Whether or not this rumor is true, it emphasises a possibilty that I’ve been concerned about: What if Apple is slowly migrating the iPhone OS over to all of it’s Macintosh product line?

I know you may be thinking that iPhone OS is already a scaled down version of OSX but that’s not all it is. iPhone OS makes the UI much simpler and from what I understand the API’s are under much stricter control than in standard OSX. As any iPhone developer knows, these controls mean that no application can be installed on an iphone without Apple’s explicit blessing in the form of being available on the iTunes App Store.

So now that there is wide speculation that the Apple’s mystery tablet will be essentially a much larger iPod Touch, it implies that the same iPhone OS will run on it. So is it not possible or even likely that Apple is slowly moving towards all of it’s computers being giant iPod touches?

I hope this isn’t so because I for one would bail from the platform. Apple in its technical achievements seems to be expressing more and more hubris. Apple, as a single entity, is quite possibly becoming more egotistical. Egotism often twists ones perception.

Apple’s design decisions are based on what’s best for the user (except for certain Jobsian hangups such as built-in batteries), but its business decisions are based solely on what’s best for Apple. I believe that is why Apple expresses so much control over the platform, iTunes, and the app store.

It would be a mistake to stretch the iPhone OS past the realm of lightweight consumer devices. Perhaps it will not go past this point, but who knows. Apple, while being technologically more innovative that pretty much anyone, tends to be fairly predictable in its corporate strategy.

I use a Mac because I enjoy the OSX experience which makes the work I do about the work and not about the computer. But, it would be easy for me to switch to Windows at any time: The only application I use which is not available on Windows is Final Cut Pro, one which I would gladly replace with Avid Media Composer if my clients would agree to it.