Slashdot Mirror

There will never be an OS X for x86, for all the reasons explained here.

Of course, Slapdick won't post this hard look at the crap that is Slash.

I know this is a little offtopic, but other big news are: Today, Apple will bring out a new device that is not a Mac and that it calls "ground-braking". Every Mac Newssite is talking about it: MacOSRumors, Go2Mac, MacEdition, MacNN.

I would be very interested what Slashdot readers' guesses would be what it is.

see also soup

Oh, like stylesheets. Or ... stylesheets. In fact, a search for "hate netscape" in Google turns up 159,000 entries. Go read some of them.

I really hope that Mozilla will be a web browser panacea someday. Until then, I'll be sticking with IE... on my Solaris box, even. ;)

I have a hard time understanding what Jeff is complaining about. Mac OS X is doing exactly what he wants. In fact, others have written about it.

What's up with Steve's drawers?
By Michael Gemar, 30 January 2001

...

"It's like, reality, man..."

And this seems to be the point of drawers, and image wells, and banning group boxes - moving the interface closer to a physical analogue. In a recent Ars Technica article, John Siracusa pointed out that Aqua moves away from the explicit "desktop" metaphor to something more abstract. That's true, but as the author also notes, iMovie and iDVD (along with QT Player) seem to involve a much more physical metaphor. Siracusa argued that these brushed-aluminum, single-pane interfaces were rather independent of the principles of Aqua, but I think it should now be clear that, on the contrary, Aqua very much moves the Mac OS toward an appliance model of applications - one "console"; a pane in which any documents appear (as opposed to separate windows for documents); documents from which trays slide out for frequently-used controls; and with little required use of any control elements that aren't physically attached to the main console (remember, "Favorites" and "Bookmarks" can just as easily go into a fixed-location menu).

It's not just that the interface appears more realistic - sure, Aqua has some powerful graphics processing behind it, can do all sorts of fancy tricks and can present more detailed UI elements. But that could have been done with the traditional elements of the Mac OS. What is striking here, and what we have seen with QT Player, iMovie and iDVD, is that Apple is moving toward a vision of appliance-like applications that are perceived and and used as physical objects, with little contact with the rest of the OS UI. These applications don't spawn window after window across your screen but instead appear to contain almost all the interaction in one physical object. (Also consider that this single-pane mode was, until recently, how the OS X Finder was to operate as well.)

Components everywhere, OS nowhere

Now in a sense, this conclusion is not news, as many folks had similar speculations following the release of QT Player and the similar-looking Sherlock. But with Steve proclaiming that the "Digital Hub" is the strategic direction of the Mac, these interface changes make much more sense. While Mac pros may be comfortable with a gazillion windows and palettes sprayed across their screen, regular folks who just want to edit their home movies, rip some CDs or send some email don't want or need such complexity. What they require instead is an interface that is simple, intuitive and much like the kind of things they interact with in the real world. In the Digital Hub model, Apple is not appealing to people who are necessarily computer savvy or who want to learn a new metaphor, even one as seemingly intuitive as a "desktop." Heck, Steve pretty much spilled the beans at the MWSF keynote when he said that the Finder itself will in principle be replaceable by other, simpler ways of interacting with the OS, ways that didn't involve the necessity of full-blown file access - and an e-mail application was explicitly mentioned. (Now which OS X app from Apple uses drawers and a single-pane?) In other words, a user wouldn't interact with the OS, but would interact with various stand-alone apps. The OS would become invisible, and the apps would be all the user sees.

...

If this doesn't make sense, reread those last two sentences.

imho apple is already experimenting with this. the new itunes software contains a single window that does everything, with connections to mp3 players occuring transparently in the background. idvd and quicktime are the same. it seems apple is moving its consumer apps to one gigantic window that require no interaction with the os or other apps

pro apps continues to add multiple windows and palettes, and require interaction with other apps

i think there is room for both, depending on skill level and use. the computer is general enough that interactions with other apps will continue to be useful, though for simpler use it can simulate a single device

scroll this article down to: the plot thickens

microsoft can stop apple dead by ceasing production of office and leaning on other developers. why isnt office on linux? because linux is on x86

remember, sgi lost their (percieved) advantage when they went x86. sun continues to hold its advantage

a very good discussion here

Tossing X Into the Seething Sharkpit of x86

Caveat: Some unkind words about Linux and Free Software are said therein to make a point... I do have some positive views on Linux and Free Software put to print here, if it makes you feel any better.

Tossing X Into the Seething Sharkpit of x86

Caveat: Some unkind words about Linux and Free Software are said therein to make a point... I do have some positive views on Linux and Free Software put to print here, if it makes you feel any better.