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Mac OS X Officially Previewed
bonaldi writes "Steve Jobs publicly announced the new face of Mac OS yesterday, the *nix based Mac OS X. The server-side system has been about for a while, but the client side has some nasty surprises. The worst could well be the all new too-bloody-big icons (which is a failing of a lot of *nix systems). I didn't buy a 21" screen so my icons could look like 640*480. " Check out the screenshot: I've got a challenge: How long before someone creates E and GTK themes that mimic this? It really does make me wish we had better support for anti-aliased support under X.
Just a small comment regarding icon sizes. During the keynote, Steve showed a control panel that allowed you to adjust the icon sizes. Apparently the application icon's are stored as 128x128 pixel images, and the OS will scale the icons to whatever size the user wants them to appear.
So if you want them smaller, all you need to do is adjust a slider. Neat huh?
If you want to see huge icons that go overboard, one word: WORKBENCH. I believe Workbench(for the amiga) let you have icons as big as you wanted, and its GUI was 10 times as uglier as X Windows.
Check out this little tidbit from the MacOS rumors coverage of SF2000
http://macosrumors.com/?powerexpress=mwsf2K
At the bottom they claim John Carmack said that
the next id software game will be exclusively for MacOS X!!!
I can't believe that would mean no Windows or Linux version??
Or does he mean that it will be developed on MacOS X as the primary dev platform? Quite likely as JohnC is a big fan of NeXTStep and there's still a lot of nextishness underneath MacOS X Doom was developed first under NeXTStep for example.
Must admit the user interface looks damn nice, lets hope they leave an accessable CLI in the consumer version.
The only thing that I'm concerned about is the amount of 'chrome effects' (not the chrome look, just anything above and beyond functionality). As long as one can turn them off or design their own, I'd be happy with that interface.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
the most interesting thing about the situation is that steve jobs didn't speak 5 words of a CLI, or a Unix core (aside from a brief mention of darwin) during his keynote yesterday. It's almost like they're denying the fact that they're masking unix with a UI more user-friendly to new users than any UI on the planet--and the users won't even have a clue.
People can rant about Apple making a bad product... but I think delivering unix to the mainstream consumer is brilliant. I mean, when's the last time you could buy a completely-configured unix box at compusa? sign me up.
It's about time mac woke up to the world of protected memory and pre-emptive multi-tasking.
As crappy as M$ Win XX is, at least it has pre-emptive multi-tasking.
I am a dedicated [U/Li]n[i/u]x and Xwindows user, but would still rather use Win XXXX than deal with Mac's crappy co-operative multi-tasking.
Now maybe Macs will finally enter into the realm of serious computers and take advantage of all that yummy hardware.
The difference between Theory and Practice is greater in Practice than in Theory.
There was some talk on the Objective C newsgroups about Apple dropping ObjC for C++. I also heard that they had reversed this decision. Does anyone out there know how closely Mac OS X is tied to NeXTSTEP and the OpenSTEP API's?
Chris Wareham
I think he means that the only Apple platform that they will support will be OS X. Which makes sense because by the time the release their game the Transition to Mac OS X should have begun. So what support the old system that is being phased out?
Looks are one thing, but is there a one-button-mouse-mac-HOWTO? Its like chopping off all fingers and your opposable thumb, but one, and trying to navigate one menu that controls everything. I like how macs look, but I like my mouse buttons.
Note:
Long and short is that it may be quite appropriate to have antialiasing managed within application libraries as opposed to directly in X.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
So if your dock has tiny 4x4 icons, they'll zoom up to a readable size when you pass the mouse over -- I believe that this is the effect being shown in the screenshot.
I don't know how well that will actually work, but it'll be interesting to see how it all turns out . . .
I have no
I know i will get flamed for this, but...
I think that the Mac interface is proably the best GUI around (unless you count CLI as a GUI...)
It is neat, efficient, and has a paradigm that is only broken a few times by certain developers. In general, it is consistent and slick.
I think the reason people like Macs is not because they are faster or more stable or whatever, it is because Apple has always worried about its machine-human interfaces. MS just wants money, *nix just wants a good server running, but Mac has always been about interface.
So i think it is great that apple is trying new ideas (even if they really aren't that new) in their interface.
Use of color as a paradigm, use of transparency now that machine can handle it, use of sizable icons, the dock, several ways of using the finder, etc. etc.
However, there is one thing i DO NOT like about the Mac interface, and what i LOVE about GNOME/Enlightenment: G/E is TOTALLY configurable to my speciifications. As of yetr, there has been no setting that i wanted to change that i have been unable to change. Virtual Windows, mouse behavior, background colors/themes for easier vierwing, etc. etc
The problem with the Mac interface, now, is not going to be whether it is a GOOD interface, it is whether or not you can configure it to YOUR work environment. Most geeks don't like the mac interface because it follows ONE paradigm and they happen to not like that paradigm.
So if Apple were REALLY interested in human-machine interface instead of branding and marketing, they would make slick interfaces with the uber-configurability of G/E and beyond...
THERE IS MORE THAN ONE WAY TO DO IT!
It's interesting to ponder about the (perceived) graphics performance in Mac OS X, something Steve made a big point about, versus the separation of kernel and user space code as is common in Unix OS design... What I'm saying is that if Mac OS has such great graphics performance, that should come at the same cost as it would in e.g. Linux. As everyone no doubt knows, graphics drivers are kept out of the kernel in Linux because of fears of lessened stability (among other things, no doubt, but that is a major thing). I wonder how the Apple people solved this.
One interesting, related, thing was that during the keynote, they should demo Quake 3 Arena running under Mac OS X, and it crashed... OK, no big deal, but then they just abandoned the demo instead of showing us how Mac OS recovers from a crashed full-screen OpenGL app. Makes we wonder...
main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
As far as multitasking, Mac OS X is based on Unix. Unix is a true multitasking environment. Thus, Mac OS X must also be true multitasking, if they've kept even a smidgen of the Unix source.
Desktop style - I like. It looks nice, seems cleaner than Windows (and definitely crisper), and has a much better layout. Personally, I -still- think RiscOS blows all other desktops away, but whether we'll ever see a "real" RiscOS-style front-end for anything other than a dying PC that Acorn murdered in cold blood is yet to be seen.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
In the press release they said that Mac OS X is a Linux like OS. Things have really changed. Not long ago we said that Linux was a Unix-like os, but now it is changing at instead the Unix-based OS are Linux like :-) On the other hand I have problems seeing how Apple hopes to come out ahead with this. Having a nice GUI isn't a real competitive advantage for long, with the progress being made in GNOME and X-windows, the advantages of Mac OS X will not last many months. AFAIK anti-aliasing is beeing added as part of XFree 4.0 and is already part of the GNOME canvas. The scalable icons is also something planned for the next release of GNOME, and AFAIK it is already at least partially implemented in the CVS version.
Its like living in a room where all the walls are black. I change my desktop theme quite often to keep my eyes from being bored. VIsual ergonomics as well as the interface's design are VERY important.
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
I'm not the greatest Apple fan (I have 3 running computers and only 1 runs MacOS), but seeing Apple take these steps is good for everyone, even if you don't own a Mac and never would because you don't know how to install your own floppy drive ;)
Thanks to Loki, Linux is getting some games support. To that I both say 'about time' *and' 'already??' (didn't YOU think it would take 2 more years?).
The Linux software suite and the MacOS software suite have a lot to offer, and a lot of people I think are like me and would like them both on the same OS. For all the talk, NT still does not achieve this and is only good for single-tasks, plus NT only resembles UNIX, with none of the openness, none of the legacy of fine-tuned applications and no freaking compiler of any kind.
Yes, the Mac has no floppy drive and yes it's a proprietary UNIX with some non-core technologies open sourced. So what. Apple COULD have rebuilt their next-gen OS on top of the NT kernel, which is what Bill Gates pressured Apple to select. And yes, M$ would have licensed it.
By selecting UNIX - and a well-respected kernel at that - Apple leapfrogs NT in technology, even if it will take years to convince the skeptics. Skeptics still don't support Linux, so screw 'em.
With the MacOS becoming an API on top of BSD, it's far more likely we will see great Mac applications ported to Linux because most of the code will have to be cleaned up for this anyhow. This means a few more games, and lots of applications SOME of us can't leave Windows/Mac for.
Ignoring the people who bitch that the QuickTime client isn't GPL'd or NPL'd or whatever, we'll probably get QT for Linux soon afterwards. Although it seems like APple doesn't listen, they do now, and it would be stupid of them to release QT/Linux BEFORE MacOS was out, and lose all that PR.
I'm very glad Apple's doing this. Everyone wants a version of Linux/UNIX that runs all the major applications - well here it is. AND, it runs on a 21st century CPU not some rickety Intel CPU that requires a 4"x4" heat sink cube with 3 fans.
(My G3 MacOS/LinuxPPC system has a tiny heat sink and no CPU fan)
Well, if you want to run linux apps, there's a reason... Most linux apps will run on OSX, but if they use Posix threads, OSX has to emulate that which will slow it down a hair. You might also want to use X. XNext has been ported to OSXServer, but isn't overly stable in my playing. Oh, don't forget the camp who will use linux because non-free software is a mortal sin.
I think if you have a mac, OSX is a clear winner, mainly cuz no matter what they say, all the mac linux distros do wierd things on my powerbook... Maybe a desktop is better, but MacOS is too damn pretty and well thought out to leave for long...
Every OS has it's merit. I don't use linux on my daily desktop machine (because netscape is so ugly and there is no decent gui mail client) and I don't use MacOS on my server... Use what fits your needs.
Ask and ye shall receive:
1. Go to CompUSA or visit your fave online catalog.
2. Order a 5 button scrolling mouse.
3. Wait a bit, receive shipment.
4. Open the box, upack the materials.
5. Install and/or download the drivers.
6. Plug in the mouse.
7. Use the mouse.
8. Quit whining about the state of the mac 10 years ago. Stuff changes.
I think you are right.
/etc and stick it all in a nice organised directory), it is basically a good unix base with a GUI that leaves KDE and GNOME looking like two bit shareware projects, frankly.
I believe that Mac OS X is by far the most serious challenge to Linux, and on purely practical grounds it is probably a superior OS.
It remains to be seen whether Apple can get the OS into the mainstream in a sensible way. If an intel version is released (I'm not sure why they appeared to halt it, since early betas were released for Intel) I would consider it a very serious choice.
My experience with version of the server product were positive, and although they have done some semi-radical stuff (like rip out the config files from
So, we'll wait and see.
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My first impression is that it looks like Apple finished the Berlin project. (Just had to say that. ;)
:-)
Regarding anti-aliased fonts: There's actually a simple way to do that, but it eats RAM like a wumpus. The simple way is not to use fonts at all, but instead to create pixmaps (e.g. XPM format) that have anti-aliased text. This would only be useful on a system with lots(lots) of RAM and then only useful for largely static content like menus, dialogs etc.
Regaring themes: (By Jove, I'm getting sick of that word!) There's more involved in emulating the Mac interface than drawing pretty pictures, even if you manage to get the translucency. One of the best features of the Mac is its respect of screen real-estate. For starters, you'd have to code an app to place it's menubar at the top of the screen, but then the inconsistency across various apps would defeat this.
Themes look nice, but there's more to a GUI than looks. (Beauty is only skin deep, eh? Why do I feel compelled to say this to geeks? Geeks my age (I won't say) certainly appreciated that. Maybe the difference is that 'geekness' is now the 'cool' thing, whereas it used to be the 'right' thing?)
Well, I've got a library to write; "Next workspace!"
Actually, they're not useless. Apple has for a long time offered hooks to make multiple buttons work universally. They've simply been careful to ensure that more than one button isn't required.
If you get a good multi-button mouse, the right button should work. The middle button may perform no function, but you could always assign a macro of some sort to it (ie. map it to command-C, which copies text).
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
LinuxPPC (latest version) run fine on current Powerbooks (mine is a Lombard).
There are a few minor issues, but those are pretty minor. Check out the web site for more details:
http://www.linuxppc.org
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
To be honest, I have just one big problem with Apple's Open-source policy... They have this quicktime standard, which is being embraced by everyone, but I think it would explode within the Linux and Free software community if they would release source to a quicktime client.
Even if they would release a couple of unix QT clients, it would really make my day.
If they have it running under MacOSX, std MacOS, and windows, I would imagine it wouldn't be too terribly hard to make other unix ports.
As far as open-sourcing the whole thing -- there may be code in there (i.e. the particular codecs) that they can't open up due to copyrights, and/or perhaps couldn't truly be free because of patents, but if they at least gave us the unencumbered parts, perhaps arrangements could be made, a-la xanim, to incorporate binary "plugins" for the encumbered parts.
Two things immediately come to mind after reading reports of the keynote speech yesterday.
1. I like most of the interface changes and eye candy in OS X, as long as the operating system is fast enough to implement them smoothly. From what I hear, this is the first Apple product to fully take advatange of the PowerPC chips inside almost all Macintoshes so that shouldn't be a problem.
But what happens if we're all overexposed to the "make everything translucent and multicolored" fad during the next few years? Will Aqua (Apple's name for the new interface style) suddenly seem dated or too cute? I sincerely hope Apple has added some hooks to Aqua's API to make the style customizable.
2. What a shrewd move Apple made by giving all Mac users 20MB of web space on their servers. (See http://itools.mac.com/itoolsmainpc.html or http://itools.mac.com/itoolsmain.html if you're on a Mac.) Suddenly, the iMac's galling lack of external storage doesn't seem as important anymore. I still need a way to make backups, but some people may be happy with the small amount of public space that lets them store and share stuff.
Mike
I've got a challenge: How long before someone creates E and GTK themes that mimic this?
Mimic is the right word, X Window environments tend to adopt the look of a particular OS without coming close to the functionality. This one will be hard to beat. I give 'em about 15 years!
(Seriously, the PDF, antialiasing and media support along with the required consistancy in the interface would be hard as hell to engineer)
I think the fact that it only runs on PowerPC iron is going to kill Apple's chances of destroying Linux. If they went cross-platform, things might get very scary indeed (for Microsoft in particular - Linux might be immune to some degree due to its userbase).
Right now, it makes no sense from a business perspective for Apple to offer it to X86. They make their profits on hardware, and the R&D required to support the wild world of drivers in that area wouldn't be worth it. I guess that's where Darwin could come in, though.
I'd like to see Apple open up cloning again. Keep better control over it (sorry folks, pulling an IBM is - rightfully so - not in Apple's interests), but don't kill it outright. This won't happen for a while yet, but it's something to think about in the future.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Did anyone else notice that at the bottom of the page, under Developer Pledge Support, it says:
Not surprisingly, Mac OS X debuts with public pledges of support from more than 100 developers, including Adobe Systems, Microsoft, Quark, Macromedia, Palm Computing, id Software and many others. Together, we're taking everything you love about the Mac and making it better.
does this mean that those companies are going to be making software for the MacOSX? and as it is a unix based system, would those then be portable to the other unix based systems? could we finally be seeing support from these major companies in software design for non-windows/mac based machines?
-freakinPsycho
----------------
"All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal, or fattening."
"All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal, or fattening."
- Alexandar Woolcot
Easy to spot the linux folk
Not necessarily...I for one am not convinced that the AC is a Linux user (he/she very well may be, but not necessarily). I know longtime Mac users (read, MacOS, who don't run linux because they don't like the UI) who bitch about the sole mouse button thing. The reason being this:
Sure, MacOS will work with just one mouse button. It was designed such that one mouse button is all that is *necessary*. But for contextual menus, this requires the pressing of a key while clicking. This is the sort of thing *better* done with a second mouse button, rather than requiring the user to reach for the keyboard and perform two tasks at once. That way, ppl with one button can still do it the old way, but those with two buttons don't have to.
So, yes, you only *need* one button, but two makes life (or at least, MacOS) a little easier.
As a bonus, two buttons make it a little easier on converts from Windows or other multi-button environments. However, this is just a bonus, not the reason for thinking Macs should come with a second mouse button.
So does someone want to tell me how to change the menus in Enlightenment? Or sawmill, for that matter. Seems I can change just about everything else...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
The operative term is 'reasserts'. To Mac fans at least, Apple has always had the lead in usable operating systems (the foundation is another matter - I don't think anyone is seriously contesting that). Back in the early 80's people were playing catch-up with Apple, in the early 90's Windows took the lead. Not by doing anything particularly interesting, but it was 'good enough' to justify the cost. Now, Apple is attempting to wow the audiences again and shoot well past Windows.
Don't take it too seriously though, it's just marketting-speak. There's more than a kernel of truth to it, though.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
John said that if OS X lived up to its promise, he would adopt it as his primary OS for development and general use.
It appears it has. He is obviously very happy with it and the next id game will be written for the Cocca API and will only run under OS X with no backwards compatibility.
This is not a good thing for Windows, but great news for 'nix users and Mac gamers everywhere.
Actually, the deal is that the future id games will still support Windows, Linux, etc. The difference is that the only *Mac* operating system that will be supported is OS X (so OS8/9 users would have to upgrade to run the next id game).
Think about it: id isn't going to throw away its primary source of revenues - Windows games.
I realize things will be different at the interface level, but does Apple's use of a BSD-like kernel mean that the meat of device drivers for Mac OS X will be similar enough to the needs of Linux/BSD/Unices that porting drivers between them will be fairly easy? Anyone have any idea?
At work we do a Mac/Windows application, and I've got to say, OS X has me tempted to switch from doing most of my work in Windows...
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Even if a shell is not distributed initially, it certianly will be possible to add tcsh, bsh, or any particular shell you care for.
As we all know, OS X Server already had several shells included by default. No reason whatsoever that the same shells wouldn't work in OS X Consumer.
Now, what Apple MIGHT do, is not include them in the default installation, but perhaps have them available on the CD, or as a free download. Or perhaps make you enable them through a control panel.
Apple has done things like this before, they have a history of hiding advanced tools from the novice user. A perfect example of this is ResEdit. ResEdit is a very powerful tool for the advanced user who knows what he's doing, but a novice could seriously fsck his system if he did something wrong. ResEdit is, therefore, not included in the default installations of MacOS, but is available as a free ftp download, as are quite a few other advanced tools. Apple might treat tcsh, bash, or other UNIX shells the same way.
You might also consider that it's possile to write a CLI shell for ANY GUI OS. I've even seen CLI's for PalmOS. There have, in the past, been various CLI interfaces written for MacOS by third parties, some made to look like DOS, some to look like Unix. None, to my knowledge, ever caught on.
Oh, and one last thing many people don't know about the traditional Macintosh. It comes with TWO CLI's already. You just have to know what you're doing to access or use them.
With a push of the programmers switch, you can put a Mac into debugger mode. This freezes the GUI and opens a large text window. From here, you can directly access the system's memory, usually for debugging and programming purposes. You also use this to do firmware updates and the like.
And speaking of firmware.... If you reboot with command-option-o-f, you boot not into MacOS, but into openfirmware. Basically a FROTH intrepeter, this lets you add or delete devices, and (it's most common use, so far as I can tell) set the default boot partition (say, for booting into Linux PPC without using BootX).
The whole point of Macintosh is not to create a non-complex system. That's impossible with the nature of today's advances computers. The point is to hide that complexity from the AVERAGE, and NOVICE users. Advanced users can still access the full complexity(subject to the limitations of any closed-source OS that is) of the system though, if they want to.
john
Imagine all the people...
Here's how OS X handles multitasking, as compared to the "classic" MacOS:
OS X is, as we all know, Mach/BSD based. Applications that are written to the OS X API will premptively multitask. Life is good.
Then there's the "bridge" API, Carbon. Carbon is essentially the bulk of the old Mac Toolbox calls, cleaned up and rebuilt to allow reentrant code and to be clean in a preemptive environment. Carbonized apps have had the old, icky Mac code cleaned out and can run on the old Mac OS (OS 9 now, I think OS 8.5 and 8.6 later) through a CarbonLib shared library that allows the app to run. Carbonized applications are kind of a "best of both worlds" solution, and Carbonizing an application is supposedly very easy in most cases.
Finally, there's "classic" Mac applications, which run in a compatibility environment. Basically, OS X spawns a full Mac OS 9 VM as a subtask, and applications run in it without the ability to access hardware directly (it's walled off by OS X). The classic environment can crash just like a Mac today, but if it does it doesn't take down the whole machine.
Classic Mac OS (OS 9.x and below) only supports a very limited form of preemptive multitasking, using the Thread Manager. And the mouse will interrupt the whole system while it is depressed - only a handful of background tasks can continue to function, and then only if they use Thread Manager. The classic Mac multitasking model has always been a cooperative one, like Win16 apps. This is not a problem on OS X, though the OS 9 subsystem will have the same limitations that MacOS has today, only within that subsystem. A depressed mousebutton in the classic environment will still halt processing in classic without affecting the rest of OS X.
In Windows 9X, only 32-bit applications can be preemptive. Win16 apps still can run amok and take over the system - there's no compatibility "sandbox". The good point of this is that almost all 16-bit applications work with Windows 9X - the bad news is that Win16 apps and drivers probably cause more Windows crashes than any other single cause (crappy software aside). Since Windows NT and Win2K keep Win16 apps isolated, a lot of Win16 software doesn't run under NT systems but the system is far more stable as a result. The model NT uses (kind of a Win16 VM emulation deal) is somewhat similar to Apple's, though Apple has the advantage of running on a Mach/BSD kernel instead of the Windows cruft.
I am a crappy coder, and haven't even tried to seriously write an app in years, so I may be a little off (and I tried on purpose to over-simplify, too), so don't kick me too hard, but that's my general picture of things.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I have a 1.5 year old Pbook G3 that runs Linux and MacOS. Linuxppc isn't as nice as I would like (the development stuff sucks in my experience, although I could have screwed up the install) I've had great luck with yellow dog linux though. My only complaint is the lack of accelerated video drivers. Again, that may be my inexperience. I have found linuxppc and YDL a little more difficult to get up and running than INTEL or SPARC, but in general things run great.
--
Mike Mangino Consultant, Analysts International
Mike Mangino
mmangino@acm.org
No. That's what Apple is about. Not just a high quality server platform, like Sun. Not just a mainstream so-so consumer platform, like Microsoft. But a real quality, high value, usuable interface. They did it again, and they did it well. Apple has the most defined most usable interfaces in existance.
-BrentIsin't there something in the Bible about people appolgising on /. after flaming eachother...and after makine Apple related comments?
I think it's the sign of the 2nd seal being broken, the 3rd seal is people not flaming eachother in a KDE vs Gnome debate.
Note - I've got that danged Sydney Flu real bad...am on inhalers and vikadan cough syrup, please moderate this down to...oh a -6
How many times have you heard a Macintosh zealot give Windows users a hard time because nearly every Windows user-interface feature appeared in MacOS first? It is just me, or does the new Finder look a lot like the hideously-slow Microsoft "Active Desktop"? Everything's contained in one window (that looks strangely like a web browser). Big, hideous buttons/icons for everything. Lots of extraneous eye candy. As an ex-Mac user, I always loved the way Apple kept their UI clean. Things were kept simple (IE: fast and well thought-out) yet elegant. Even the idea of "exploding" windows was a great UI clue to the user to answer "What made that pop up?". But this? Have they any idea how many long-time Mac users they will alienate by tearing up the user interface that was even present on the old Lisa and Apple (not Mac) IIgs? The site mentions extending the "one window" metaphor to the entire operating system because "you can only interact with one application at a time". Doesn't this sound a lot like the days before the Multifinder? Wasn't one of System 7's greatest achievements the ability to multitask visually? The idea of BSD running behind it all sounds excellent, as Apple's OS has had a lot of holes in its design (seeming inability to use the hardware MMUs correctly, for one thing). However, they've taken what seems to be an obvious leap backwards in UI design by eliminating the clarity of pupose that every visible item in the Mac UI used to have. As a user, and as someone who has to provide support for users, I certainly hope there's an "Old Finder Look-and-Feel" option in "General Controls". I mean, come on. Apple's incarnation of the "Desktop" metaphor has propogated to OS/2, Windows, and who-knows-how-many window managers. Isn't tossing all this out the window just "thinking" a bit "too different"?
Pining for the days when The Glorious MEEPT!!! graced SlapDash with his wisdom.
Summer, 2000.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
The Keynote yesterday was extreemly cool. And the User interface for mac os X will set standards.
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the coolness ocares when you minimze and maxime windows.. the window just liquifies and funnels it self into the icon doc window smoothly when being minimized you simply have to see this happening to fathom the whole coolness of the UI..
checkout the real Video stream here (start from about 1/3 into the stream to see the UI demo)
It really is extreemly cool.
This perticular story submision pisses me off. I hate it when cluless people write FUD about stuff they know nothing about whether it's about apple, linux, or what ever.
It's obvious that the guy who wrote the submission to slashdot did NOT see the keynote and does not understand the importance of what Jobs showed yesturday.
And the Icons size can be resized, they can be extreemly small, and then you can magnify them.. that magnification thing is also total coolness.
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watch that realvideo stream, it's damn cool! **********************************************
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Well, a lot of these things are optional. For example, the icon size and window style issues are all options. The dock is admittedly new, though.
The way the new control panel functions is actually a throwback to old-school MacOS, where the control panel actually was a single app with a list of items in it.
I'd personally like to see the Apple menu come back. It is so heavily ingrained in the Mac user psyche, it should stick.
As for the drive icons on the desktop, I believe that's going to be 'fixed' in the final. I kind of hope so, in this case. It fits the desktop metaphor much better.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
I have been asking myself the same question.
I run Mac OS 9 at home, and I have a dual boot 95 and CalderaOpen Linux PeeCee. Oh I have another box running RedHat 5.2 also. At work I have OS 9 and a MacOS X Server running on an iMac C.
I'm not really sure what I want to use as a Server. OS X's installer is a dream, even compared to Caldera. I've tried YellowDog Linux PPC and it kept crashing and burning on my "Beige" G3. I'm really trying to decide if I want to slap all my time and effort into Linux, or do I want to work more with OS X Server and WebObjects?
I've horsed around with KDE and I'm not sure how much I like it compared to MacOS and OS X Server, theres just something lacking to me in the UI.
As for OS X Server, I really like it as a Server. I'd use it as a desktop OS, but I can't play my OpenGL games under it.
People bitch when Apple doesn't update their OS forever, then bitch when they do. Innovation doesn't mean doing things differently just for the sake of doing things differently. Apple has in the past, frankly, hurt itself by ignoring other technologies. Finally Apple gets something damn near out the door, and still receives flak.
Face it, Apple is doing the best thing for itself and its customers. I love the MacOS interface, but I don't want to be stuck with its foundation for much longer....
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
I suppose that any console based applications / daemons .. servers would be fairly portable because of the BSD Kernel, but what about the interface? Is it going to be possible to port (easily) X-apps?
:)
Maybe this is the reason that Apple has delayed (or Sun?) a Jdk 2. Hopefully they will have it for OS-X.
If the UI is anything close to X, hopefully this will mean that with industry efforts in porting software to the Mac, it will be no big deal to port it to Linux.
I am just happy to have more choices!
Man this is cool. From flamefest to lovefest in just a few posts. :>
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
I wouldn't say its linux's first real competition. MAC OS X doesn't even run on x86 much less SPARC, ALPHA, IA64, ... and if MACOS X is POSIX compliant, you could possibly run LinuxPPC applications on it. You have to remember... Windows NT is POSIX, that doesn't mean that I can run my x86 linux apps on it (although MACOS X is BSD based and linux binaries will run in BSD, oh well... don't expect them to compile easily.)
15 years later, both users and developers can handle the 2nd button. Ge t a 2+ button scroll mouse instead
I don't see how that can be much of a problem. You just always use positioning instead of colours. Does you friend drive?
:)
Same problem, same solution. It's all a case of just getting used to hitting the right location. Think about all those god-awful Kaleidoscope themes out there! Some change the location and colour of the grow and close boxes, so again it's a case of position, not colour.
PS about new hardware, don't forget there's supposed to be an Apple Days thing in February(?)
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Ummm. Can I laugh? Linux's first real competition??? What about Windows, *BSD, Solaris, Irix, HP-UX, AIX, BeOS, etc??? I'd say Linux was Windows NT's first real competition... But Linux is also leaps and bounds away from competing with Apple/Mac OS-X.
They have completely different markets, and anyone that says that Linux can take on Apple at the desktop is living in a different universe... KDE and GNOME are still awefully far out from the Mac's interface, instead emulating Windows which in turn attempts to lift the best from the Mac and X and really just missing the whole point of both.
And further, dare I say the "A" word? Applications? No MS Office. No AOL. No Adobe Apps (aside from distiller, reader, and possibly framemaker). The list goes on.
No, Mac OS-X is NOT Linux's first real competition. If it were, Linux would be dead in the water right now... Apples a desktop company. Linux is basically doing what NT did... Starting on the server and migrating towards the desktop. And it's still got leaps and bounds to go, sorrry.
I guess so! :>
I was saying it in the context of the post I was replying to. Right now I don't think Apple is even really competing against Linux (and yes, if Linux were a threat to their market, they WOULD compete). They're more worried about Windows and keeping current Mac users at this point.
The AC should read more carefully. I said "kill Apple's chances of destroying Linux", not "kill Apple's efforts in destroying Linux". Seems subtle, but there's a big difference. Then again, it is comon with ACs to not read carefully, so I shouldn't be too surprised...
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Firstly, icons in the dock can be re-arranged on the fly- they can be simply dragged from one spot to another and if you drag them off the dock, they maxamize. As you add more icons to the dock, the size of the icons shrinks. This at first disturbed me because the icons can get pretty small and Jobs mentioned something about the dock handling 128 icons. Then he showed the magnify feature and stunned everyone. Yes, it works and yes, it is really slick. I think you have to see it in action to appreciate it.
Another slick feature that nobody has mentioned yet (I think) is the system wide "genie" effect. I'm not sure if I can explain this, but I'll try: Basically, when a window is mazimized or minimized, you don't just see the outline of the window move. Rather, the window looks like it is being sucked into a smaller size by a black hole (at least to me :). It looks very liquid and very slick. Steve actually demonstrated this with a playing quicktime movie and it didn't miss a beat! I am sure that this type of effect (and the systemwide transparency too) is only possible because of openGL.
2^5
Supposedly, current OSX builds run just fine on PCI-based 604s. Don't expect Apple to 'officially' support them, however.
If they do, it'll be well after official hardware support is complete on the G3/G4 platforms.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Supposedly, "power users" will have full access to the BSD layer, including shells and anything else you would typically find in /usr/bin and the like.
Word is that OS X is *not* POSIX compliant merely because they haven't bothered to have it certified as such, and that anything designed to compile on a POSIX compliant system should compile with only the typical hassle involved with porting from any number of *nix systems to any number of other *nix systems. (i.e. if it's a properly designed package, it should work fine).
I've successfully compiled eggdrop, mysql, and a few other things... I've not tried, but I'd be willing to be that the authors of some libs might have to exert a little elbow grease, especially graphics libraries that access hardware directly... but it shouldn't be too hard.
woof!
Okay, I can see where you are coming from. This is definately late in coming.
:>
However, it's worth noting that most of the idiots responsible for the multiple failed OS strategies ( specifically those in management) are now working elswhere. The first thing Jobs did upon his return was boot most of the old Apple 'cruft', bringing in a lot of NeXT influence as well.
If Apple hadn't been purged 2.5 years ago, this Expo's keynote probably would have been Yet Another OS Strategy announcement - assuming Apple would be in business at all. While Apple has kept a number of its better engineers, management has been all but replaced. The people to blame aren't even there any more.
Anyhow, it sounds like you have a fairly decent philosophy, and should use whatever works (many Macs users stuck with Apple because, in their/our view, there wasn't an alternative to what Apple offered). Now that things are changing, you'd be doing yourself a favor by looking at Apple again...
(note: this is coming from a macos, beos, linux user)
Just a thought...
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
What intrigues me is the way it does desktop rendering. You'll notice that on the larger screenshot the menus are transparent to the windows beneath them, which is no big deal if its part of the application (this is in the quick time window and the image window) and the finder menu is semi-transparent to the desktop. But what is cool is that where the finder menu comes down and bonks on the quick time window.
This means that they must do rendering in layers. So why does this matter. IIRC, people were saying that it would be far to inefficient to render a desktop in layers, well obviously it isn't. However, how this works over X is still up in the air because X has the network export option and all.
Hmm...I only wish I was up to X11 hacking.
My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...
They've updates the developer site since the last time I looked at it. The excellent Objective C docment that dates from the NeXTSTEP era is included under the Cocoa section, whereas last time I looked I'm sure it was under the 'Legacy' section. That bodes really well for the future. It's a shame that Apple don't either:
1) GPL the OpenSTEP API so more apps are written in a cross platform manner (imagine stripping down MacOSX and installing WindowMaker).
2) Help the GNUstep guys to acheive the same things as outlined in point one.
Chris Wareham
Bad: the OS-X window controls, which put these buttons all beside each other.
Everyone who's encountered this crammed-together style has suffered data loss by accidently clicking the wrong button... not by way of momentary braindeath, but because the mouse overshot the button that was supposed to be clicked.
Here's a call to action: the default GUIs for Linux should be designed by Human-Computer Interface experts. Go find a friendly grad student or six, and convince them that they should contribute to the open community through a donation of their expert interface design skills.
The GUI can be done better! Emphasize lower error rates and higher throughput, and it'll be a superior product. Otherwise, it's just an also-ran, a clone of poor ideas and useless glitz.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
You want to know how come kernelspace drivers don't decrease OSX's stability? The answer is actually simple. They're done right.
That's what Linux and company are afraid of. Buggy drivers in kernelspace can totally trash a system. Currently, the Linux community doesn't seem to have the resources to produce video drivers of the same quality as you get from the company that makes the cards. This is mainly the fault of the corporations, mind you; they don't provide the documentation that the Linux community needs.
I do hope that when KGI becomes stable enough (and it will, given enough time) it is incorporated into the kernel. Speed isn't the only issue with kernelspace drivers, after all; there's security issues too (any program that has to directly access hardware, such as X, has to run as root under the current system, because there's no kernelspace video functionallity). This both leads to potential exploits and puts the system at risk stability-wise, since a root process can still take down the whole system in the event of a crash.
Just what I've always wanted! Transparent dialog boxes so I can clutter my screen up with windows in front of *and* behind what I'm working on! Great! Clearly a giant stride forwards in technology and interface design!
This does answer one question, though. When the G4 was released, I wondered: "Well, Apple has an incredibly powerful CPU, and they're working on an operating system that can actually use it (instead of blocking everything to poll the network card, for example). Now, it would be un-Apple to actually make this available to the user. Wonder how they'll burn all those extra cycles? Chrome, I bet." And I was right!
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
All this chatter about the shortcomings of OS X, and how many of you have done more than just browse at the pretty pictures and actually read up on OS X? Above that, how many of you have even used OS X Server, much less been in the same room as an OS X Consumer machine? Reading your posts on /., I get the feeling that the answer to both questions is "very few".
The preview of OS X on wednesday was a fleeting glimpse at what OS X has in store. It wasn't a detailed, fine-tuned, in-depth demo, nor was it a finished product being shown. The incessent bitching about the GUI shows that very few of you know enough about Apple in general, nor OS X specifically, to know that "flexibility" is one of the things they're touting in the new OS... Virtually everything you've seen comes with enough options to (hopefully) make just about everyone happy.
As for Open Sourcing key parts of the OS... those of you that want all of this Open Sourced want it so that you can port it to Linux, not so that you can support Apple. What incentive is there for Apple (or Microsoft, or any number of other software giants) to Open Source their work, if the Open Source community isn't interested in working to better the project on the intended platform? Honestly... how many Open Source developers do you know that will get their hands on something like the Quicktime source and develop something for the MacOS? The long answer is "none".
woof!
If you want to turn off the 3-blink thing, just go to General Controls and set "Menu Blinking" to Off.
.25 seconds it takes for the menus to blink makes. Then again, I also use keyboard shortcuts when possible.
Personally, I don't see what difference the
was just at MacWorld Expo yesterday and saw the
demo of it... The icons can be scaled
realtime with the drag of the mouse... It
was kinda nifty... I believe the big versions
were used to make it easily viewable when doing
the demos on the super wall sized screens...
Another nifty feature was a back button like on
your browser as you traverse the directory
structure.... that one I liked...
On a funny note, the demo-dude was showing how
M$ IE worked on MacOS X. Looked fairly good
for what it's worth, but the real point was
that he was demonstrating how the separate
processes won't crash when one goes bad. IE
was the process that crashed - and the rest of
the OS kept on chugging along... it was
kinda ironic considering M$ booth is not
that far away from Apple's...
Oh, the coolest thing was Apple's Cinema display.
22" viewable area and it's sharp... I really
wnat one of these!
And what's the deal with pushing the V-Mail crap?
If you look at the demo (on tv) and what not,
the resolution and stuff sucks... sigh...
peace. JOe...
Hey, before that vein in your forehead bursts, chill the **** out!
NT is competition for linux... or rather vice versa. When Linux surpasses NT marketshare, then it'll be the other way... And plenty of companies run only Microsoft software, so obviously the requirement for a GUI isn't that hard on them...
And so far as applications go... I was talking in reference to CONSUMER USE... And in general, the Mac market. No imaging professional is going to drop Photoshop for the GIMP, sorry! And no matter how good you think Star Office may be, people will DEMAND microsoft applications for some time to come... And AOL... well, that happens to be the worlds largest ISP... People like AOL... You're right... I do have an AOL account i can't seem to get rid of, but it's been long since relegated to email...
And sorry, most imaging is not done on Unix... It's done on Mac's... Unix gets the high-end of 3D and Film production, with NT taking the mid-range of 3D and creeping into the film and video world due to the microsoft investment in Avid... But just about every poster you see, magazine you read, they're all done with Macs...
But mostly, I don't see Mac OS X going after much of Linux's market as a whole... Maybe LinuxPPC, but not really, because OS-X Consumer is just that - a consumer OS. And Linux is nowhere near them in that market. VA Linux even said so.
- uid == 0b00: "root"
- uid == 0b01: "daemon"
- uid == 0b10: "luser"
- uid == 0b11: "nobody"
The humor-impaired should please insert smileys. I'm not arguing with anybody, just applying levity.Well, they got rid of the ridiculous thumb wheel, but the player still sports acres of simulated brushed alumninum. The idea that people want to see sythetic textures is passé. Would a Ferrari look better if they bolted on some simulated "wood grain" paneling? Better to exploit the natural aesthetic properties of your medium.
It seems to me Apple is moving further away from a sophisticated aesthetic sense based on authenticity and function with every new bit of software, and towards a kind of cheesiness. Whe will they figure out that sometimes less is more? Why do people love the Palm Pilot? I recently flabbergasted a graphic artist friend of mine by pointing out what is in retrospect totally obvious: the Palm Pilot is in effect a handheld Mac Plus with twice the memory.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
For some reason, everyone is always the smallest of the big guys. I just watched the keynote, and Jobs said MacOS is the second most widely used OS. In fact, he said, it's one of only two widely used OSs. I'm guessing the difference between NT and MacOS, or between Unix and MacOS is a lot smaller than the difference between MacOS and Windows.
Everyone else who is doing open source development (netscape, sun, red hat) isn't a "major computer company", I guess.
--Kevin
I recently installed Mac OSX (server) on a blue and white G3, and as a long time Mac and Unix user, it was not the long hoped for uniting of my left and right brain hemispheres. The GUI stuff didn't feel right -- it looked kind of Mac-ish, but it felt a bit off -- not quite right, like watching a movie that was dubbed badly.
Of course the Carbon system will mean that true Mac binaries will run under the workstation, which will be very cool; maybe that will be the ticket. In any case, I found the server OSX to be a disappointment.
The server management was irritating; it didn't support either mode of finding things out that I usually use (hunting through the UI on the Mac and hunting through the Man pages or source code on Unix). To top it off, the GUI applications you were suppose to use to manage the thing crashed frequently. After a day of futzing around, I hunted up a copy of yellowdoglinux and was off and running in an hour or so.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If you're referring to the red-yellow-green buttons, those are respectively Close-Minimize-Maximize buttons. The purple one on the right I'm not sure about, but that may be the new button for the Windowshade option (where the whole window 'rolls up' to be just the bar at the top).
Well, you can't say that would byte... Seriously, you could argue that's two bits more than they've traditionally had, so Steve Jobs could definitely sell that as an amazing innovation. :-)
I mean, hey, the last time Jobs introduced a big new OS (on the original NeXT cube), the big breakthrough was that the interface wasn't a one-bit monochrome like a Mac; nosiree, we had a full, luxurious 2-bit grayscale...
Babar
What are the "natural aesthetic properties" of my monitor?
Well not to be picky, I'm not talking about your montitor, but the UI as an aesthetic medium. And, it clearly has natural aesthetic properties. Examples:
Balance - an interface should to draw the eye were it needs to.
Manifestness - things which are functional should clearly be functional, things that are decorative should clearly be just decorations.
Deference - this covers several kinds of things, but generally is an attitude that the user is in charge and has important things to do other than to enjoy the cleverness of the designer.
(1) Elements in the UI that draw attention to themselves should be functional controls; and those should do so only to the degree necessary to identify their existence and function. A UI shouldnot produce effects like moire patterns that scream for the user's attention but provide no functionality.
(2) A program should not presume that it is the only thing, or even the most important thing the user works on. Visually, programs that violate this pop up dialogs while the user is working in other programs, litter the screen with ways to launch themselves or their web sites (e.g. Netscape putting a link at the top level of the Windows start menu to their update web site).
Apple, more than anyone else, is able to follow Frank Loyd Wright and let form follow function.
That's more legacy right now than anything else. Their recent software tends to be as bad as anyone's. The Quicktime player is just the worst offender.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Perhaps you'd like to read a little before going off half cocked? http://www.apple.com/macosx/inside.html > (second paragraph of the "Mac OS X is Unix-savvy" section) clearly states that the Mac OS X kernel "is based on Mach 3.0 from Carnegie-Mellon University and FreeBSD 3.2 (derived from the University of California at Berkeley's BSD 4.4-Lite), the most highly regarded core technologies from two of the most widely acclaimed OS projects of the modern era."
Sounds an awful lot like FreeBSD to me.
- A.P. (I find them extremely confusing too, for what it's worth. Disappointing.)
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Its for single window mode. If it is active you can only have open window open at a time. Opening a new window will close the current one.
The window attribute icons are only color reactive for background windows. Background windows have their buttons greyed until moused over. Then they color and grow.
The foreground buttons will expand slightly and have the following symbols appear on them "x - +"
I disagree about the close box; at least in the Mac OS the finder has so many windows that you end up using the close box an awful lot. :) (Yeah, I know -- that's why they're updating the finder! Still, some people like having lots of windows.)
On the issue of the left-side stuff -- have you ever used a NeXT/OpenStep machine? You'll note that the scroll bars were on the left! Although it might be a bit disconcerting at first, it's a definite advantage when in Miller Column mode -- you can move continuously accross columns, selecting and scrolling, without having to backtrack with the mouse. There was a forum post at appleinsider a few weeks ago in which the poster had a number of screenshots of the NeXTStep GUI. Here's the link: http://forum.appleinsider .com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000725.html The pictures are about halfway down the page. That GUI was a work of ART and I'm glad the MacOS X GUI maintains the level of gorgeousity, even though the two are of distinctly different styles. (Dark, industrial-looking grey and black vs. candy-coated robitussin liqui-gels!)
There are three Objective C compilers I know of. The GCC frontend resulted from work by NeXTSTEP to add ObjC support. Stepstone had the original compiler, (Brad Cox, the creator of Objective C, owned Stepstone). Finally, there is the portable objective compiler (POC), which many on comp.lang.objective-c seem to use. I haven't used Stepstone's compiler, but the POC seems to stick to Brad Cox's book on Objective C more closely than GCC's Objc frontend.
Chris Wareham