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Apple Drops Mac OS 9
Eugenia Loli writes "MacCentral has the up-to-the-minute updates on the Apple WorldWide Developer Conference. The first big news is that Apple drops Mac OS 9. 'It's time to drop OS 9,' Steve Jobs said. 'We can do things in X that we just can't do in 9... a hundred percent of what we're doing is X only. [...] Mac OS 9 isn't dead for our customers, but it is for developers. Today we say goodbye to Mac OS 9 for all future development,' said Jobs." We all expected this to happen sooner or later, more sooner than later. There's been no new Apple development for Mac OS 9 in some time; only maintenance updates. But I won't stop Mac OS 9 development. You can't stop me! Muahahahaha! Update: 05/06 18:31 GMT by P : More news from WWDC continues to roll in.
Eugenia Loli writes "Probably the really big news is with Jaguar, the codename for Mac OS X 10.2. There is handwriting recognition technology that will be recognized by any application that uses text. Apple also introduced Quartz Extreme, which takes the compositing engine in Quartz, and accelerates it in graphics cards, and combines 2D, 3D and video in one hardware pipeline via OpenGL. 'Everything on the screen is being drawn in hardware by OpenGL.' It requires AGP 2x and 32MB of video RAM. It is not possible on older graphics cards like RAGE 128 cards, said Jobs -- that means it'll work on newer iMacs and eMacs, but not on older machines, he emphasized. Jobs said this puts Apple two years ahead of 'the other guys.'"
Update: 05/06 18:46 GMT by P : An anonymous user writes: "Apple is releasing Mac OS X Rackmount Servers. Also releasing AIM-compatible messaging called iChat; you can create buddy lists of anyone on the local network, and you can use your mac.com username to log in to it."
Then there are programs I used everyday, MUSIC programs, like Finale and Digital Performer, that don't work (Performer) in OS X or are buggy (Finale).
I mean, it's great that they want to move to OS X. It's a great OS. I love running it. I just can't get all the things I need to work on it yet. And, if memory serves me, didn't Apple support System 7.X for a long time after System 8 came out? And when they switched to Power PC Chips from Motorola 680XX chips. We had FAT (68K/PPC) programs for like years.
What is the big rush Steve?
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Some Apple users may feel abandoned by this news, but it is obviously not unexpected. I suggest a little grief-counseling for the truly bereaved, but I'd bet that there are a lot of people out there who would actually consider buying a Mac now that wouldn't have dreamed it a year or so ago.
OS X brings Apple into a larger community and out of isolation. It may take some time for all of this to become apparent, but I think it is pretty obvious that everyone involved (Apple evangelists, *nix evangelists) will be better off with this move.
Guac-foo.
Lots of petrified grits
All he said is whats been happening since 9.1 came out, Apple has stopped devloping the OS 7-8-9 code base and are going to move everything to OS X.
Since Oct 2000, there were only 2 minor updates to OS 9 anyway.
Just because they arn't going to develop for OS 9 anymore doesn't mean OS 9 that's installed is going to stop working.
I knew a lot of Windows users who said the same thing when Win95 came out. I knew a few who held onto Win 3.11 like some sort of retarded obsessive high-school crush until it simply no longer worked anymore. They whined, they complained, but, eventually, they were forced to run Win9x. And, guess what? They found out what everyone else did: Win 3.11 sucked. Win95 was better. Win98 was even better.
MacOS 9 sucked. MacOS X is better. The next release should suck even less. That's how these things work. You can whine about it all you want, but whining never turned the tides of progress (if it did, slashdot would be trend-setting.)
- A.P.
"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?"
A. Next time, wait till the keynote is over, dont just post the first thing that happens and then have to go back and keep updating the article. There is always lots of interesting stuff said in the keynotes, no point jumping the gun.
B. Thanks for getting the maccentral.com link hammered halfway through the keynote. I always enjoy having my keynote newspage refreshing session destroyed by a few million of the unwashed slashdot masses, half of whom are probably just trying to read the article to find trolling material. This ties back to A. in that if you had waited to post this till after the keynote, those of us that *really* care would have been able to finish getting updates about the keynote before the link was trampled.
Mod me down, I don't care. I'm frustrated.
Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
OK, I've got Karma to burn.
.Net and the company has been saying this for some time. I'm glad they are making the cut now, still relatively early in .Net's life cycle. This will help push developers onto the new platform; in turn this is good for end users because the applications they need to run are more likely to appear on .Net.
.Net vs. traditional COM applications, this is the kind of bleeding-edge decision making that Microsoft needs if it is to differentiate itself from the other platforms.
As a fun experiment I replaced "Apple" with "Microsoft" and "OS X" with ".Net". The result shows just how hypocritical slashdot visitors are when it comes to Microsoft vs how much they praise Apple/Linux/Whoever for the same thing...
This makes huge sense for Microsoft: their future is
And again it shows that Microsoft are able to make gutsey decisions and lead the market rather than follow it. Whatever you think of the relative merits of
I Heart Sorting Networks
Since when does it make sense for "Shut Down" to be classified under a little picture of an Apple?
Yeah! What kind of fool thinks that the action "shutting down your Apple computer" should be under Apple -> Shut Down!
The nerve!
iChat: AIM-compatible messaging built in to Jaguar. Can create buddy list of anyone on the local network, as well. You can use your Mac.com name and don't need AOL account. Sorting. "First time AOL has let anyone under the tent," said Jobs (although others have reversed-engineered AIM compatible chat apps).
I think this is a huge announcement from Apple. With AOL taking Netscape/Mozilla and using it as its Web App replacing IE, we saw the first shot across the Microsoft bow by Case. Now Jobs and Case are teaming up to make AOL IM a bundled part of Mac OS X. Taking Microsoft's game and shoving it right back them. I assume this is why MSN has finally started supporting Mac OS with their service. They are reading the writing on the wall.
We have been seeing Apple getting more aggressive in dealing with Microsoft. Jobs balked at the Microsoft/DOJ "Give the Kiddies Windows" settlement, Apple's website now shows you that Mac OS X kicks XP's butt, the famous Photoshop "bakeoffs" and now the AOL IM in Jaguar. What next?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Couldn't you just do the test once and set some function pointers which all subsequent code would use?
DNA just wants to be free...
(IANAMU - I am not a mac user)
The only thing I have to say about this is that Microsoft is doing the exact same thing with their next windows release - dubbed "Longhorn". The gui is going to be accelerated by your graphics card using the 3d features of your card. This will (no doubt) use Direct3d instead of OpenGL but it serves the same purpose.
So your argument is invalidated because both sides are doing the same thing - Apple just happened to beat them to the punch, and I , for one, applaud them for it.
Derek
This isn't going to "force" anybody to do anything. I am typing this from my 4-year-old Mac running OS X. It's slower to respond than OS 9, but I like the OS so much better that I put up with it. (The developer tools alone are simply wonderful, and worth the switch.) There's nothing I have to "go without" in using my old computer, I just have to wait longer for it to happen. Same deal here. Don't want to upgrade? Then deal with it -- it won't suddenly get worse than it was, just because of Apple's decision.
they are dead last in Legacy Support
I can't agree with this. Yes, there have been many times when Apple said, "We've decided to ditch this old technology, and move to something far superior". Every time it happens, people whine and moan. But they always have plenty of time to upgrade (years, usually), and backwards compatilibily has always been excellent (68k to PPC, for example).
Your computer doesn't become less productive when Apple decides to put in a new feature. This is ridiculous. I can understand some frustration when your 1337 new computer isn't the hottest thing on the market anymore... but it really is silly. Apple says, "Buy a new iBook tomorrow and you'll get [feature]!!" And everyone who bought an iBook last month complains that Apple isn't selling the same product for 5 years. Look at the big picture, people.
The streets shall flow with the blood of the Guberminky.
Another poster already covered this sort of, but... how is shutting down your computer "special"?
I personally think the way they have menu layouts now make more sense - all system stuff (shutdown and restart) under one easy to find and always availiable apple menu. Then really common app things like preferences or services (and YES that is an app specific menu, read the UI development guidelines) or Quit belong under an app menu, followed by all the other menu items an app might need.
Just because you are used to doing something a certain way does not make it more "intuitive" for new users. I herald the approach of systems with a whole new level of rationally thought out intuitive and powerful interfaces - sure there will be missteps but it's time for a breath of fresh air in something that has been written in stone for fifteen years without question. Do you really think that ideas for UI's developed on computers that long ago need no more rethinking? Even the constitution has amendments, and the way you govern people doesn't change as fast as computers do.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sorry I was being a smart a$$.
--"Karma is justice without the satisfaction"
how hypocritical slashdot visitors are when it comes to Microsoft vs how much they praise Apple/Linux/Whoever for the same thing
No. I'm a rabid Mac addict. Nevertheless, Apple's current behavior would be totally unacceptable if they were in charge. But. They're. Not. And that makes all the difference in the world.
If Apple and Microsoft magically traded places, and Steve Jobs controlled 90% of the computer industry, the world would be much worse off. Lord Steve is a brilliant visionary, but he's also a vicious tyrant (when he gets the chance to do so). Imagine the alternate universe from Treehouse of Horror where Ned Flanders ruled the world. It would be like that, only with lickable widgets.
Restatement: the rules are supposed to be different for a convicted monopolist.
Sorry, this doesn't make sense. If you generally stand FOR open values and standards and AGAINST corporate secrecy, it's definitely not hypocritical to applaud Apple/OSX while bashing Microsoft/.Net. Your "fun experiment" merely shows what you'll get if you replace a couple of words in piece of text.
--Bud
The first and biggest misunderstanding in your post is that all slashdot visitors share a common viewpoint. If one person rails against MS, and another person cheers on Apple, that's not hypocrisy. It might be hypocrisy if it were the same person in each case, but you haven't shown that. And even if you did, that would only suggest that that one person was hypocritical, not all slashdot visitors.
Or, to put it another way, it's as if I accused you of hypocrisy because slashdot visitors criticise Microsoft, and here you are, defending them. That's every bit as hypocritical as what you're accusing others of. (Zero is equal to zero.)
The second, and more egregious, mistake is assuming that Microsoft and Apple are equivalent. Here's a clue for ya: Microsoft has been found guilty of anti-competitive behavior in a court of law. Apple hasn't. I'm not really a fan of Apple, but to assume that people should judge these two companies by the same standards is just plain foolish.
Which leads to the conclusion that even if you could find some specific individuals to accuse of hypocrisy, your accusations might not stand up too well.
My god man, I remember the IBM and AT&T cases, and MS makes both of those companies (who were pretty foul in their day) look like saints!
For everyone wondering whether their video card will be able to use the hardware-accelerated Quartz, I quote from Apple's website (at the bottom of the page):
"Supported cards: nVidia: GeForce2MX, GeForce3, GeForce4 Ti, GeForce4 or GeForce4MX. ATI: any AGP Radeon card. 32MB VRAM recommended for optimum performance."
Also note that they say 32 MB of RAM is recommended but theoretically not required. So I don't think this is quite as much of a debacle as some posters have made it out to be. Besides, Quartz should be improved and faster in 10.2 whether you're using hardware acceleration or not; you just won't get the max performance if it isn't hardware-accelerated.
"95% of all Slashdot
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
... Jobs said this puts Apple two years ahead of 'the other guys.'
Is it just me or is Mac OS X not ahead at all? Windows has had hardware-accelerated GUI redrawing since, like, forever, mostly provided by drivers. 2000/XP extended that even further. And if I remember right, I thought some of the *nix UI stuff like KDE/GNOME supported hardware acceleration? BeOS supported hardware acceleration for the GUI, using VESA, as well. I don't know about any other OSes though, I haven't used most of them much. I really don't see how Mac OS X is 'ahead' at all, considering that their current versions aren't very accelerated at all (even though their speed is impressive considering what they do.)
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
Apple has and always will be (at least partialy) a pirate company (their first flag over the apple HQ was a skull and cross-bones). Apple really does want to see what the maximum limits of technology are and want to see technology be part of your life. As has been noted here before, they aren't very keen on making sure everyone else is happy. They really just do what they think is the best for the industry. If Apple pisses off the RIAA it really doesn't matter to them. In fact, I think it could be really good for "fair use advocates". If the RIAA specificaly starts targeting computer companies (such as Apple) they will be visciously attacked by users, more so than currently.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984