MacWorld Expo Report, Part II

As promised chrisd back with his report from the expo floor at MacWorld and a brief note about what Linux can learn from the Macintosh. Walking the show floor at MacWorld, I'm beginning to feel a little sorry for people who are Windows boosters. Where do they go for their community? The Mac folks have MacWorld and WWDC, we have LinuxWorld, O'Reilly and Usenix, but they have what? Comdex? There is no MicrosoftWorld. Whether this is a result of their size or what, I couldn't tell you. But there is a similar feel that the "Linux Faithful" and "Apple Faithful" share and that is that we are clearly part of a user and developer community.

Yesterday, I reported on the Jobs keynote and his ability to expand his reality field to encompass and entire ballroom. Today, do people still feel energized by his talk? Some were still pumped just to a part of the show, gasping and oo'ing and enjoying the melodrama of it all, but the next day there was a collective vibe of "well, was that it?". This is not to say that they were disappointed by it, but they perhaps wanted something more. The rumors had been flying for months about a flat screen iMac, and since that was what Apple brought forward, it was going to been seen as an evolutional, and thus anti-climactic, step, even if it was daringly packaged.

Many noted that they were expecting a speed bump for the G4 towers, but with Seybold coming up in February, many expect Apple to announce their tower update then to a more professional audience.

At the Tuesday keynote "The Power of X", Phil Shiller and Avie Tevanian talked about OS X and what it means to apple and to the future of the Macintosh platform. Apple is stressing how stable and crash proof OS X is and what this can means to the "Apple Faithful". They discussed the kernel, the media layers, security and the user interface and how it all works together. What they've done with their BSD derived core is really impressive. As part of the keynote, Tweak Films showed off an OS X based deep ocean wave visualization app that they assert they ported from Unix in weeks, with significant functionality gains.

The show floor itself was bouncy fun. For me it was a nice change from the austerity of a Linux exposition and it's focus on sheer functionality, capability and commerce. Large exhibitors included Alias|WaveFront, Adobe (not having anyone at this conference arrested, I noted), FileMaker pro, Microsoft and a number of other software development houses. As I walked the floor, I made a mental note of applications that were available for both Windows and the Macintosh. The reality is that there isn't much that is specifically for the Mac intosh, with the obvious exception of the hardware from apple, with all the vendors one ends up asking, what is unique here?

What Apple has that is unique, and sadly Windows and Linux both lack, is cohesion. Everyone with devices and software for the Mac seem to work so well with each other and the OS. We should strive to emulate that cohesion whenever practical for open source software. Before, the apple story was cohesion without stability or power. Now, with BSD at it's core, you can bet that Apple will be able to attack Windows, SUN and Linux on the power front. A year from now it will be interesting to see how many people are running apache to serve pages from their Apple machines, and I will be unsurprised if someone is giving an apache serving presentation at the next Apple WWDC.

Please note that I have posted some pictures of my trip to MacWorld, with some pictures of the new iMac and of the keynote.

Comments

Best of both worlds

[mirko]

A colleague of mine just traded his win2k/linux laptop for a 12" white iBook with MacOSX.
Though reluctant at first I have to say I was impressed.
In short, this is quite faster than what I expected after reading many comments, it is also cheap, has 5 hour battery life, an included DVD/CDRW drive, MSIE (like it or not, it is quite more functional as most other browsers and its only cons are : -1- it's Microsoft -2- it may still have backdoors)...
Now with Virtual PC or OfficeX it becomes an obvious choice for the hardcore multi-environment worker.
Mass-Porting Geek know they may quickly get some of their predilection Free Software up and running on this machine.
My personal favourite is Interface Builder which I have known for years...
So, this is both sexy looking and a seriously tempting alternative to other worl.
But no, it has nothing to do with a community but rather with a unique feeling/identity. The community is the consequence.

Warm Fuzzy

[mmarlett]

I have to say, as the owner of a Duel 800 MHz G4 Tower, that I'm happy that I've stayed on top of the Mac heap since my July purchase. Of course, it's a little disapointing to see the chips not bumping up -- I'd like to see my machine left in the dust just for the sake of the company. But how many people on other hardware platforms would say that? Not many, I don't think.

Being Mac faithful has been a hard thing. It's so hard to justify a company locking down it's software to just use its hardware. It's so difficult to watch Apple make silly little choices like the dock and know that it will latch on to that choice until the next complete revision of the OS.

But, hey, it does cool stuff. I mean, just putting my machine to sleep is cool -- the power button pulsates in a white glow to let me know that it's on but down. It looks alive ... like it is breathing.

And since I've been running 10.1, I haven't crashed. I've had to restart about four times in four months -- three times for system upgrades and once because I shut the computer down because I was going to be out of the house for a week -- and every time I realize that I've left my startup preferences all wrong, that I haven't been keeping up with my changes in my work flow. I'm still learning how I use it.

OS X is so rediculously stable (compared to all of my previous Mac/Win9X experiences). And it is so easy to use (compaired to my previous Linux/BeOS/BSD eperiences). Sure, there are imperfections -- the dock sucks when compaired to the ease-of-use of the Apple menu, etc, but it's not as confusing as any random X Windows client nor as difficult as and version of Microsoft's ... thing.

I'm a satisfied customer, and everything that I've seen so far has just made me want to be more of a customer. And that can't be all bad, can it?

--Mike

Re:Silly and shallow thinking by chrisd

[Bud]

See, there's no need to seek out fellow Windows users when practically anybody can give 10 friends a call and 9 of them will have some Windows experience. C'mon chrisd, do try harder next time.

Oh, come on Zico! You are assuming that Mac users cluster together for TECHNICAL support, like Windows users do.

It's just amazing to see how much freezes and crashes and almost-working peripherals Windows people are willing to endure. Eventually, you learn how to avoid specific problems. You don't burn CD's after you've used the printer, for example. This is the kind of experience of Windows people typically will have. They also know how to reinstall drivers, and sometimes even WHAT to reinstall.

Windows can fsck itself up in an incredible number of ways, and "some" Windows experience will not get you anywhere. Any of your friends is just likely to spend several hours sweating over the computer and then announce the problem impossible to solve and requiring a reinstall of Windows. As if that would solve anything permanently.

Mac users meet for MORAL support. When 95% of the world looks wryly at you because you've got the wrong brand of shoes... errr, a friendly and working computer, you need someone to say: hey, you made a smart choice.

--Bud

haven't i seen this before?

[jon_c]

same post, about a month ago

-Jon

Re:See modern-day religion at work...

[medcalf]

The Task Switcher - requires 2 clicks to switch application, compared to 1 click with a Windows-style taskbar. This is one of the disadvantages of having a single top-level menubar, as there isn't enough screen real estate to have a taskbar as well. Of course OS X has both a panel and a top-level menubar, which is great. Except that now about a third of your screen is unavailable for application windows.

Of course, you can tear off the application menu and have one-click switching. And in OS X, you can configure your panel to autohide, and/or configure it with small icons that magnify fully as the cursor passes over them.

The Finder - yes, Finder has usability problems. People crow about the Finder being 'spatial', meaning that directory windows and the icons contained within retain the same size and position as when they were previously opened. This is good, as the human brain is very good at remembering sizes and positions. What isn't mentioned is the side effect this causes - when every directory is opened in a new window, the screen rapidly fills up with windows, overwhelming the user. It is possible to tell the Finder to close the previous directory window when opening a new one, but only with a non-obvious keyboard modifier when double-clicking.

All interfaces are learned. MacOS 7.x-9.x is easier to learn, and more consistent, than most other OS interfaces.

Also, if the previous directory window has been closed, it is now impossible to navigate backwards. Other systems (Windows included) have found solutions to this problem - why hasn't the Mac?

Command click the title of the window, and you will get a pop-down of the full path to the current folder. I certainly prefer that to having a button bar with a web-like interface.

Context Menus - The lack of a second button on the standard Mac mouse is for some a boon in terms of simplicity. However, for anyone past beginner level it is a serious usability handicap.

Then get a two-button mouse and plug it in. My father knows not of context menus. I use them extensively. He has the original mouse, while I use a Logitech optical mouse. I have no interest in teaching him the difference between right and left clicking, and he has no interest in learning, since he can do everything he needs to do with one button.

Context menus have been shown to be a major enhancement to mousing efficiency, but by and large, Mac apps ignore them as they require use of a keyboard modifier or a non-standard mouse. It is amusing to note that the Mac, the most mouse-centric of all desktops, requires the keyboard for something as simple as a context menu.

I don't see this as a major weakness. Context menus are important to Windows and Linux users (and I use both) because the UI is so poorly designed that they actually help. On Mac, the context menus are a minor assistance at best - in fact I mainly use them to quickly eject disks.

Keyboard navigation - or the lack of it. You're stuffed on a Mac if you can't use the mouse. The menubar is totally off limits to you, which makes the computer all but useless. The Finder allows a certain amount of keyboard navigation, but again, without access to the menubar you have a problem. Remember, not everyone has the faculties to use a mouse, and if this is the case for you, forget every other question about usability - a Mac just isn't usable.

Or you could buy a tablet, or one of the many input devices designed for the disabled, and supported by the Mac, or just install one of several shareware or freeware programs which add full keyboard navigation to the Mac.

Note also that both Windows and the Linux GUIs have avoided all these problems,

While adding their own far more crippling problems and inefficiencies.

Don't even get me started on OS X, right now it's an ill thought-out usability nightmare. I'm sure it will get better, but right now it's the last place to be looking for usability ideas. It's pretty, yes, but pretty does not equal easy to use.

I find it quite easy to use, though not as easy or seamless as the classic interface. The multicolumn directory browser is growing on me. At first, it annoyed me, but it is actually turning out to provide a faster move through directories in depth. Plus, being a long-time UNIX type, I like having the underlying BSD layer with a standard UNIX command line - it means that I will be able to consolidate my mix of Linux and Mac boxes into all OS X boxes, which will save me time administering my home net. If you like, you can always just run FFree86 and Gnome on OS X and work that way.

Blindly following anyone is a seriously poor idea.

No truer thing was ever said.