It’s All About the Experience, Baby

There’s been a lot of talk about if Apple is making OS X more like iOS or not. It’s gone from a debate to a philosophical battle, but I think everyone’s missing a big point:

Mountain Lion is all about the features, baby.[1]

Just look at the new apps Apple is adding to OS X:

(And that’s without talking about AirPlay mirroring, Gatekeeper or other features that aren’t stand-alone apps.)

It’s obvious the iOS/OS X question comes up when looking at all of this, but instead of the what, what if we looked at the why.

John Gruber recently said that Apple is an experience company. I think he’s right, and I think Mountain Lion proves it.

Thanks to these new apps and the magical glue that is iCloud, users can move between the Mac and iOS easier then ever, with less friction than ever.[^2]

That’s what Apple cares about. No one in Cupertino is thinking, “How do we make OS X more like iOS?” right now. There are lots of smart people thinking how to make the Apple experience better, though.

And that’s what matters about Mountain Lion. The rest of it is just noise.


  1. So you don’t email me, here’s the original.
    [^2]: It kind of reminds me of Microsoft’s Three Screens and a Cloud saying from a few years back.  ↩