Dvorak: Discontinue the Mac

paradesign writes "In an 'E-Mac, i-Mac, No Mac', John C. Dvorak makes the claim that the Macintosh should be discontinued. He adds, 'I'm not writing this column as a Mac basher to get attention, although plenty of people will accuse me of doing that.' Worth a read, but keep in mind where its published." I am not posting this as a Dvorak basher to make people realize he is clueless, although plenty of people will accuse me of that.

Comments

Misleading description.

[jasamaman]

The article didn't bash the Macintosh system itself, rather, it critisized the company's decision to release "sleeker" computers, instead of making more software and better hardware.

Re:Misleading description.

[garren_bagley]

I for one like the "sleeker" computers. I put the iMac in the kitchen. The iceburg white goes with the white formica and with the airport card the only chords I need to worry about are power and keyboard. It just looks nice. Industrial design is VERY important. This alone makes it better hardware.

Plus, I think the hardware is great from a performance point of view and I dropped all my other un*x platforms for OS X.

Dvorak is a pussy.

Re:Misleading description.

[baka_boy]

Actually, Dvorak did mostly the opposite; he singled out the Mac, and Apple, for failing to bring about some mythical "new thing" (i.e., a 'talking computer') that brought about a revolution in computing. His descriptions of OS X were pretty positive, despite the overall tone of the article being highly critical of Apple's technology.

Personally, I find this kind of whining, psuedo-advocacy bullshit extremely annoying. It's far too easy for media pundits with no programming or interface design experience to complain endlessly about how operating systems and applications haven't advanced since the late 80's, without offering any concrete evidence to the contrary.

Even the hallow Amiga, BeOS, and other ill-fated "visionary" platforms have failed to move beyond slightly improved versions of the WIMP model for user interfaces, and yet people seem content to deal with their mediocre systems.

I wonder: is it possible that the general public (random columnists included, of course) are not able to conjure up some immensely more effective model for human/computer interaction? I suppose not; Dvorak obviously has much greater plans for the personal computer, and is simply biding his time until he can unveil the great revolution in computing technology locked inside his massively effective cranuim.

Give me a break. This isn't news; it's a random thrust for publicity by a mediocre, middle-aged technology columnist whose popularity has waned since he left the safety of the Mac fanatic world.

My only question is, why didn't he target Microsoft, or IBM, or any of the other massive corporations that seem perfectly content to release year after year of forgettable upgrades and minor enhancements to software and hardware that adheres strictly to the status quo? Apple, of all companies, hardly deserves to be singled out for failing to take heroic measures to innovate in the arena of personal computing...why not put the pressure on the real market leaders (i.e., the folks pulling in the most money)?

Re:Misleading description.

[Anonymous Coward]

isnt it obvious? he knows hwo to yank mac users chains to get hits for his trash. Thats the only reason to take such a obtuse and ignorant focus on Apple. He may have had a point if he wrote this in 1996.

They did; it was called `NeXT'.

[yandros]

Unfortunately, it turns out that it was kinda too expensive to ever really catch on. Good chunks of it live on underneath MacOSX, of course, but it's a bit dated now.

The real answer to ``why don't they give up?'' is because ``people still want to buy their products''. Doesn't seem so hard to understand. Shrug.

Re:They did; it was called `NeXT'.

[baka_boy]

I read a great Macworld article about the second generation of NeXT boxes, which compared their performance, functionality, and quality to the high-end Macs of the same era (Quadras, for those who remember the 68040).

The general outcome was that the NeXT boxes were faster, prettier, had better bundled software, and generally kicked the asses of equivalent Mac systems at the time. Of course, there were only a few dozen NeXT-compatible applications at the time, but that was just a matter of time, right?

IMHO, what really killed the NeXT systems was lack of software, which was in turn driven by their use of Objective-C. Obj-C was a great language, but it wasn't what anyone else used: Mac and Windows folks were committed to C and C++ by that time, and the UNIX world was (as always) all about C, Tcl, Perl, and the like.

Re:They did; it was called `NeXT'.

[rworne]

Consider also that the programming environment was way beyond it's time. In 1988, you had a programming environment that has a lot of aspects found in tools that came much later, like drag & drop GUI elements. Hit a button, and you have your UI prototype/skeleton.

The problem aside from lack of apps, was the price, Cubes were going for $8K, AFAIR, and that was pricey. Some of the killer apps were the first WYSIWYG Wordperfect, and Lotus Improv. Other great apps like Mathematica and Framemaker were also released.

This isn't to say there wasn't any problems with design, the optical drives were expensive, slow and clunky. Jobs had the right idea to carry your whole environment with you (OS, Apps, Data) on an optical disk. Now that I think of it, the same thing lives on today in a different way on the iPod. Anyhow, the optical was later an option, and a floppy was added to the cube.

I cut my teeth on one of these in the early 90's. I rescued a Cube from my college and used it as my Unix workstation for all my programming classes. It made life more pleasant working at home rather than fight for lab machines.

Re:They did; it was called `NeXT'.

[melatonin]

Um, this is off-topic, but I guess I'm in a ranting mood.

IMHO, what really killed the NeXT systems was lack of software, which was in turn driven by their use of Objective-C. Obj-C was a great language, but it wasn't what anyone else used: Mac and Windows folks were committed to C and C++ by that time

That's a horrible argument. At this point in my reply, I'll just say it's wrong.

NeXT failed* for the same reason that Be failed. Well, Be failed ultimately because they engaged themselves with a war with MS, instead of trying to make their technology work. They're technology failed (was not adopted) because the only API they had was C++. And that API was just a knock-off of OpenStep anyway (try comparing them sometime). Be was too stupid to learn from NeXT's mistakes; they just copied them outright (Wee, a wonderful new gui, an object oriented api. That's what NeXT brought to the table). For some reason, they thought C++ was a good idea. C++ is never a good idea :) They did worse than NeXT did; at least enterprise found NeXT's Objective-C-based software tools useful.

NeXT and Be failed because they didn't bring procedural APIs to the table. It's like those dorks on slashdot who keep saying 'Office is on OS X! It can come to Linux now!!'. OS X has apps coming to the table because of Carbon, a procedural API. It has nothing to do with BSD or Cocoa (or NeXT).

It's a pain in the ass, if not impossible, to graft one object oriented API on top of another. Try porting some Java code to the BeOS, or to Cocoa (without using Cocoa's Java support). Java receives button clicks differently than the other frameworks. You need to be able to tell Java (or whatever OOP framework your code came from) that you got a button click. This is easy to do with a procedural API like Carbon. In Cocoa, you'd have to let NSButton tell you it's been pressed, and somehow pass that off to... whatever replacement you have for Java's event stuff; because you won't have that Java button anymore (any code that wanted to access that Java button is garbage; with Carbon you can simulate that Java button).

The main diff is that OO-frameworks give you already built objects. Procedural APIs give you raw materials. You can rebuild your car with raw materials, but you can't rebuild your inline-6 engine from an inline-4 that someone handed you.

This is why the original Rhapsody project was killed. It was f'n stupid. Office, Illustrator, Photoshop, etc would have to be rewritten from scratch. From scratch, not a port. I remember reading a MacTech article about bringing your apps to the Be OS. The main tip was, "if you're app is already factored into back-end, and front-end parts, it's easy to port to the BeOS! Just throw out your front-end code and write it again! Otherwise you're SOL."

*NeXT probably would not have failed if they had pursued WebObjects. But that didn't happen. Apple didn't pursue it either, which was really stupid.

What an idio.... well maybe not

[zenyu]

As a fresh young undergrad I worked on a zooming user interface (Pad++). It was pretty neat, eventually Sony got bought the right to use it when developing the PS2, but at some point killed the project. (Their version could put any Java app into a zoomable window. Though they never did X11 apps.)

There's all those wearable computing folks too, talking to their computers all day.

And I'm sure there are a few other good WIMP replacements out there too, but they never seem to be adopted by the big boys into shipping products. What gives?

It seems like Apple has the kind of user that would try a new UI, like say telling your mp3 player what you want to listen too. But they are too focused on little improvents, just like their PC Bretheren. It may make for a profitable company but there's something wrong with our industry if only mediocre products can be profitable.

I'm not blaming Apple per say, Jobs had to save them from early death. But I don't the Dvorak is either (ignoring the Slashdot headline and reading the article, oh /. I have sinned.)

Easy answer

[tm2b]

There's an easy answer to the question, "Why not come out with a new computer?" This applies to anybody else in the industry as well as Apple.

Software is why most people buy and use computers - not many outside the geek community are interested in playing with a machine with no applications.

It's the software, stupid. A new system that was substantially different from the old ones (in a way that Dvorak, who pooh-poohs the substantial 680x0 -> PPC and Mac OS -> NeXT/Mac OS X transitions - the most radical transformations you can get while maintaining compatability, means) would not be able to seamlessly run old software.

BeOS was the last platform that looked like a major contender, and it didn't get anywhere. Why? As well as having no name recognition, there simply wasn't the body of applications for it.

Wow, what a piece of complete BS

[GrandCow]

Why, exactly, does Apple maintain this line of machines instead of starting fresh or at least introducing something new with fresh legs. The Mac has become the AS/400 of desktop computing, except for the fact that it's prettier. Of course, if Apple never moves forward, what happens to the copycat Windows platform?

For people who read the article, they'll notice that what I quoted is the intro paragraph. That's all I had to read to realize that the author is full of it. Macs aren't ready to die. On the contrary, they are blooming. Macs are one of the few computer brands that are actually profitable right now. Look at the computers that are being sold. Most people buying systems want to spend $800 or less. People will then go ahead and drop $1500 on a Mac system. Why is this? Because a Mac is a niche market system. There is special hardware and software that people are paying for. It's never going to explode onto the desktop (again) and take over the Windows community, even though the Mac zealots would really like it to.

The Mac exists for a small group of people, and also in my opinion as a testing ground for new technology. Would your PC have a USB port on it right now if it wern't put onto a Mac first for B. Gates to notice and snap up? How bout IEEE 1394? In a year or two you'll have a DVD burner on your system (many people already do). What systems did they originate on? The Mac.

Apple never moves forward? Riiiiight. On the contrary... Apple moves EVERYONE ELSE forward. Linux/Unix/BSD can't move the market. On the X86 systems there is not enough pull from those communities to get hardware like USB or IEEE put in as standard, so the job falls to the Mac systems to get the attention of the rest of the world when newer technology comes out.

I'm not a Mac person. I have many P3 and P4 systems in my house and like it that way. I'm also one of the few /.'ers that will actually admit that I like WinXP. It does everything I need it to, and is rather stable. In fact I don't even know how to use linux very well. Anyways, I'm not a Mac person... but I can see that it has a place in the market and will have a place for a very long time to come.

Re:I like Dvorak

[garren_bagley]

I actually like Dvorak too. He's pretty funny sometimes. I think he coined the term "porn storm" to describe those sites that will never let you out of their grasp.

However, he gets WAY to much credit as a visionary or pundit. I heard him say on his Silicon Spin show several times (quote, unquote) "People don't want to edit their videos." I personally know three first time Mac buyers who bought Macs mostly for that very reason.

One paragraphed idea stretched so he can get paid

[SandSpider]

As near as I can tell, he's saying that Apple is the only innovator in the entire computer industry, and that computers are only worth using if they from how they work currently. He's using your basic Shock Jock technique of yellow journalism to generate controversy (Oooh, I'll pick on Apple and people will yap for days about this one!). And, look, it's worked. I've subbed some words in the article to try to put things in perspective:

-----
Isn't it about time the Personal Computer was simply discontinued--put down like an old dog? Why, exactly, does everyone maintain this type of machine instead of starting fresh or at least introducing something new with fresh legs. The computer has become the horse of electronics, except for the fact that it's prettier. Of course, if nobody ever moves forward, what happens to the television?

I'm not writing this column as a computer basher to get attention, although plenty of people will accuse me of doing that. I recently noticed a lull in the computer buzz, however, and I'm now beginning to see the personal computer as an old hound that can't hunt.

Let's look at the recent computer offerings. The industry made the PC available to the public after initially saying nobody would ever buy it. The PC is the desktop version of the mainframe, and similar to the original mini-computer, built with a display in a small package. The company also rolled out some beefy computers for tech-heads who like running massive Web sites with PC technology. The obvious next iteration of the computer will be the current l33t-looking PC with a bigger screen and probably new colors. After that, what is the industry going to do?

Remember that in 80's the PC arrived amidst a flurry of experimental activity, much of which was triggered by the Commodore Pet. IBM PC-Jr was designed with ideas lifted from the Eniac. The PC-AT was an improvement, but apparently there hasn't been a new idea since.

[...] [Getting lazy]

Having said that, why can't the industry take its genius to the next level and bring out a completely new machine that is not a Personal Computer? The answer is obvious if we look at recent history and compare it to the era when the PC was invented. Here's the problem. This supposedly creative business of high technology has invented nothing that compares with the IBM PC-AT in over 20 years. All the R&D money has been diverted, mismanaged, killed by zealous bean counters, or simply wasted. Most of the big R&D labs have been closed or cut back. All the R&D seems to be in semiconductor technologies, which is because that particular business is more of a psychopathic rat-race than anything else and you get eaten by the rats if you miss a step.

So perhaps I have answered my own question regarding putting down the old dog called PC. The industry has nothing it could possibly replace it with. There is no new idea out there short of a talking computer. And the technology for the talking computer is decades away.

In fact, the old dog will not be shot, but up with hormones, and patched with reconstructive surgery, instead. The PC will go in the only direction possible: big design. The next era will be like the car business in the 1950's. Lots of chrome, big fins, and a new model every year. Form over substance.
---

=Brian

Does he understand computers?

[gbooker]

OS X, with its underlying Unix kernel, an update.

That is an understatement.

The new kernel was necessary to better manage today's networked multimedia.

More like to handle crashing apps without taking out the whole system.

Apparently Apple has done the impossible [in creating a user friendly unix].

Well, at least he gives Apple some credit.

Having said that, why can't Apple take its genius to the next level and bring out a completely new machine that is not a Macintosh?

They have, it is just under the same name.

There is no new idea out there short of a talking computer.

Well, Apple has the idea of a digital hub, and they are implementing it quite well.

Apple has done many new thing with their computers; it just happens to retain the name "Macintosh." They now have the option of dual processor (OS 9 just couldn't do it well), better perefereal connections, different processor than they had a decade ago, rack mounting, and many others.

The professional has gained a lot from these advances. Could you imagine editing a movie on your computer a decade ago. What about a hollywood level movie (Anyone else see the thanks to Final Cut Pro at the end of SW ep2?).

But, what about the consumer:
They can create their own movies quite easily with iMovie and the Firewire connection (another Apple invention).
There are also Digital Cameras, MP3 players, and a whole list of others that I am forgetting right now..

Just about the only thing that is the same about the Mac is that it is still a computer. The OS has changed, and so has a lot of the hardware. The Mac has more life left in it that Dvorak would like to admit. Part of it will change; that is inevitable, but it will likely be a Macintosh as long as Apple is in business.

I don't get his point at all

[Leimy]

Yes the G4 PPC technology is kinda old but so is Dvorak :). Shouldn't he also be replaced. I am tired of hearing the same old shit.

Sadly enough he makes a decent point... what next? Of course he has turned a blind eye to the XServe and the potential for the G5 and G6. Not to mention all the really good software technology present in OS X.

What the hell more could he want? The all-digital flat panel monitors are second to none IMO for the price. [I was skeptical of the price/value of them until I bought one... holy cow is it cool].

I have to disagree with this... Perhaps he hasn't noticed that Apple has been doing new things because they are doing new things in software and not hardware so much [except the XServe of course].

Oh... and it wasn't the Xerox "star" it was the Alto. Oh yeah... and Xerox was notorious for developing stuff they didn't market and basically invited Apple to come look at all of it. That story has been told so many times no one knows what the hell happened anymore. *sigh*.

I think this article was written from a completely different perspective than the one I see. I generally like Dvorak but this article just makes me think he is blind.

What you need to realize about Dvorak..

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically, the dude has a major issue about his masculinity. Remember when he got all that attention for saying that the clamshell iBook was for girls? Well, guess what: he said it about the original Mac, too.

Market not important

[extrasolar]

You say that GNU/Linux won't move the market. Free Software transends the market. Apple moves the market. Free Software moves the world.

Re:Market not important

[TWR]

Free Software is almost invariably copycat software. They are clones of existing products. Sure, sometimes they become better than the original (Apache has passed the original HTTPd), but there's no innovation there. Linux users complaining about Microsoft's lack of innovation are the pot calling the kettle black.

You can make loony rantings about "transcending" the market, but the market isn't the issue. Pushing the state of art is. Free Software, by and large, does not push the state of the art.

-jon

Re:haha

[DavidRavenMoon]

John C. Dvorak has been saying this for like 15 years.

Well since he got fired from MacUser magazine anyway... Anyone remember when he used to write a Mac column? He was very pro Mac, but didn't like Apple too much.

Re:haha

[Anonymous Coward]

A long time ago, Dvorak was a HUGE Mac and Amiga fan.

He used to write for MacUser, and got fired for (rightfully) saying that the company was going to shit. A few years later, in the depths of Apple's despair, guys like Guy Kawazaki got praised for saying the exact same stuff as Dvorak.

Re:Mac is the preferred digital file format of PC

[Pronoun54]

Yes, they are, however Quark and inDesign are available for the windows PC and some magazines are layed out with a windows PC. I just thought it was strange to see a writer bash Apple, when the magazine he writes for uses the computers he says should be dicontinued.

Now this is proof that art directors don't always read the content of the magazine they work for(myself included sometimes)!

Fetishism

[kalidasa]

Seems to me that if Apple just called the iBook the NeXTBook, and called it a NeXT computer rather than a Macintosh, they've have answered all of Dvorak's objections in one fell swoop.

And immediately have lost 99+% of their market.

Apple computers are called Macintoshes for the same reason that Microsoft's XP operating system is called Windows: Windows XP has little in common with Windows 3.1, but MS wants to market to loyal Windows customers. If they had called it Whistler, would it have sold so quickly? Not likely.

Same with the Mac: Apple is basically fooling long time Mac customers into buying a PPC-based NeXT box by falsely calling it a Macintosh and including a few pretty graphics. When you've got a fiercely loyal customer base, you do incremental changes, or disguise sea changes as incremental changes (Carbon, anyone?).

I lusted after the first NeXT box I ever saw, but couldn't afford the $4K price tag. I snapped up the first NeXT computer I could afford. I don't care that it has an Apple on the lid, I don't care that it still has OS 9 in it (though I'll admit I like such technologies as Firewire, 802.11b, and the like, all of which seem to work better, and to arrive sooner, on the Mac than on Wintel machines), and the Aqua finder is an improvement over the old window manager. There are what, 2,000 people in the world like me? And 2M who'll buy anything with the word Mac on it.

Re:Hardly even worth a reply

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple's moving to a more UNIX-centric OS. So is Sun (embracing Linux, they already had Solaris), IBM (embracing Linux over AS400/AIX/etc.)

You make good points but, erm, how are (Solaris --> Linux) or (AIX --> Linux) moves to "more UNIX-centric" OSes ?!?

Misinterpretation

[cappadocius]

It seems like the description of the article gives a misleading picture of the article (not that the first few paragraphs of the article don't as well).

He's not saying that the mac is the worst thing out there and should be discontinued, he's saying that it is the best thing out there and should be discontinued. Though breifly, he states clearly enough that MacOS is better than copycat Windows or too-difficult-for-the-desktop-user-GUI Linux.

My interpretation is that Dvorak expects that because Apple claims innovator status (I would agree with Apple) it should be coming out with some revolutionary new thing. The modern computer in general is obsolete and Apple should abandon the Mac for this "new thing."

Problem is this: Dvorak never even hints at what this revolutionary new product should do. He seems to forget that it is necessity (or at least desire) that leads to innovation. The Mac provided something people needed -- a GUI that a home user could handle. Dvorak doesn't even address what void exists now and how Mac does not fill it.

In my way of thinking, what people want now is stability and streamlined use of the web. OS X has those features in mind. Dvorak discounts the new OS as merely eye-candy and beautification akin to fancy chrome on a car. My experience is contradictory, though. OS X has provided better stability and a better internet experience for me.