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Apple is looking to make the desktop Mac OS X more like the mobile operating system iOS including integration of the iPhone-maker’s iCloud service.
Apple chief Tim Cook showed the Wall Street Journal a sneak peak of the upcoming "Mountain Lion" version of OS X, telling the Journal that since customers loved the iPhone, software features "are going to move over to Mac."
Mac OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion" will arrive later in the summer and include a new iOS-like Messaging app, notifications (a feature borrowed from Android) and AirPlay Mirroring.
AirPlay Mirroring is a software feature which will allow Mac owners to view the screen of their iOS device on their Mac, including the iPhone and iPad. Cook said that the Mac had benefited from the success of Apple’s mobile products, adding that customers "search out and look for the Mac."
Apple is virtually alone in the PC industry in the developed world as experiencing significant growth of desktops and notebooks but so far the market share remains small.
Analysts have long expected an eventual convergence of OS X and iOS as Apple seeks to use the mass market appeal of the iPhone and iPad to build greater share in the PC and notebook space. Microsoft, by contrast, has been seen to be in the reverse position of attempting to use Windows and other popular services such as the Xbox to build a better case for Windows Phone 7, albeit with far less success.
Cook wouldn’t be drawn on future hardware plans but appeared to fire a shot at Intel and the Apple-rival’s ultrabook strategy by saying that the "industry at large" is trying to copy the Macbook Air.
"They will find that it is not so easy," he said.
