What does "Back to the Mac" really mean?

In last week's Back to the Mac event, Apple explained that they were bringing some features from iOS back to the Mac, since iOS actually originated from Mac OS X.  Some of the specific features coming back to the Mac are the new Mac App Store, which will be like the iOS App Store and allow users to easily purchase new applications for the Mac; a LaunchPad Application launcher, complete with pages and groups; and full screen applications to name a few.  These are all elements of Mac OS X Lion (10.7), but there were some other things brought from iDevices back to the Mac in the form of the MacBook Air.  This model may serve as a sign of things to come for the Macintosh.  Two new features of the Air are the new instant on feature and flash based storage instead of hard drives.

Apple has been selling way more iDevices than Macs, and they are selling them to users who do not already own a Mac.  One of the key benefits to making iDevices for Apple was the "halo effect", or the hope that people who bought an iDevice would later buy a Macintosh as well.  This seems to be working as Mac sales are up while the PC market as whole seems to be trending down.  Therefore, if you take the features your users know and love in their iDevices, and bring them back to the Mac, they will be more familiar to those users when they go shopping for a new laptop or desktop computer.  When they see a new Mac, that works more like the iDevice that they have been using than they do to a traditional PC, they will be more likely to choose the Mac, thus bringing more users "Back to the Mac"!