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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."
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 lot of things still don't work as well as 9.x yet. For example, a USB laser printer I got for my G4 Cube. It takes longer for it to print under OS X than in 9.2.
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).
Well the biggest incentive for a developer to port their software to Mac OS X is that Mac OS 9 isn't going to be developed in the future. So their revnue streams dry up if they don't make the leap to the new OS. I'm sure this move is primarily aimed at getting more third party software to X, so it should address your concern.
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.
Apple haven't announced they will stop supporting 9. I would guess (no inside info) that they'll support it for years to come. They've just announced they won't be developing it any further. That means no more releases of 9.x except for bug fixes. This is exactly what happened with the shift from 7.x to 8.x: they continued to support 7.x but didn't release any version after 7.6 (if that's the right number).
What is the big rush Steve?
Don't forget this was announced at the developer's conference. The venue is significant. It's Apple's way of telling its third party developers that it is time to port your software to Mac OS X.
Sailing over the event horizon
Apple will continue to update OS 9 a little, but no new features should be expected, only the occational bugfix and updates to CarbonLib so that OS 9/X compatibility will be maintained.
I expect that classic will become an optional install (not by default) sometime in 2003 and it will probably be wiped out all together by 2005.
Also, FWIW, OS 8 was going to be OS 7.7 but Apple decided to call it OS 8. There were not that many changes. It was certainly nowhere near the OS 9 to OS X shift.
--
The internet is the greatest source of biased information in the history of mankind.
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!
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.
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.