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No More Mac Tweaking?
netphilter writes "Apple is trying to "close the operating system to tweakers" according to this story on Wired. The addition of the BSD kernel and the command line left me thinking that they were trying to open the OS a bit more to tweakers, not close it. I'm not a Mac user, but I have been thinking about trying out OS X. However, if Apple is trying to CLOSE the OS (contrary to the impression that I had) then I'm not going to waste my time."
Jamie adds: life may be harder for them, I guess, but many developers are
still tweaking Mac OS X.
You've seen the commercials and all the marketing dollars they are putting into this campaign...
Apple wants people who are looking for a computer that just plain works. They are going after the "as long as it works I dont care about X, Y, or Z" crowd, which is (for the most part) completely opposite the Slashdot crowd.
As always, the real tweakers will find a way to do what they want with their computer. Its not a big deal...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like Apple is trying to close access to UI tweaking, not the OS.
Keeping a standard user interface makes it easier for people to move from computer to computer. There's nothing that irks me more than working on a different computer at the office, and some wiseacre has removed the menus from MSIE.
Besides, most Kaleidoscope interfaces were ugly as sin....
ScienceSeeker.org
Ok here's the deal: There are private APIs in OSX. They are undocumented and marked that way- these frameworks are in the private- frameworks folder.
Apple isn't deliberately breaking peoples products, it is changing internal APIs.
Many of these APIs start out internal and when they are ready for prime time, become public, supported, documented, standard APIs.
Until then, you use one and it doesn't work in the next rev, its your own damn fault.
And this is the right way for things to be- OS X is far more theme friendly than any other OS- hell the graphical eliments are all easily accessible pdf or tiff files and easy to replace. Want a different looking dock? Trivial. Want a different looking login window? no problem.
But the areas where things can cause instability in the OS should not be left wide open for people to change in an uncontrolled manner.
Quicktime has an API for skinning it. MAYBE Apple will release one for OS X, but if they are smart, they won't.
Standardized controls are what makes OS X much easier for newbies to use than other operating systems.
Let people change the look of their computer, but not the feel. That's the right strategy and the one apple seems to be following.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Wired has truely become a worthless source of factual information...
"For example, the API that allows for custom menus and icons on the right side of the top menu bar, next to the clock, prohibits all but Apple-approved menu items. "
Funny, I'm running Jaguar and have both LaunchBar and FuzzyClock running just fine in my menu bar...
I can't speak for all menu-apps but I don't think this article really speaks the truth.
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
Nearly everybody must realize by now that such statements are usually a load of shit. Most of you will never buy a Mac, or switch to a Linux desktop, no matter what, because Windows is all you know, and all you care to know. You don't want to invest the added cost of a Mac (or the added effort of Linux) to discover if their virtues are worth it. You are lazy and groping for excuses.
Just fess up. You don't like Macs, you don't want a Mac, you will not buy a Mac. That's fine. Use whatever the fuck you want, just stop with the constant whining about features that you (or some underpaid web journalist) think are missing from the platform.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I'm sorry, but this is rubbish. The skin resource file for OS X (even 10.2) is understood and people continute to "skin" 10.2 (Keildoscope author not with standing). The same 3rd GUI apps for OS 9 are available for for 10.2. I've talked to people who hide their dock and use OTHER apps with other functionality. So there is no Apple sanctioned "Appearance Manager" in 10.2. Frankly, I would say, Apple only grudging supported the Appearance Manager, after pulling their own skins from 8.x after the beta process.
The problem is that no developer has steped up to plate to make a good PreferencePane for Skining and Icon changing. There is a difference between saying it's not possible and noone has bother to make a good app to do it.
I would go with the latter.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Apple is the only company that makes Apple computers and Apple software. Ford is the only company that makes Ford automobiles and parts. Neither is a monopoly in their industries. There are lots of other people willing to sell you PC's, operating systems, and cars.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
It's easy to customize the interface when the system provides a mechanism for patching any system call and offers no memory protection. You can hook yourself right into the UI code and do whatever you want. Of course Apple doesn't want to support this sort of thing anymore: it practically guarantees instability. INITs were always hard to do correctly, and I'm glad to see them go even if it does mean it's harder to customize the UI.
I don't blame Apple for messing with internal API calls. If I were in their shoes, I'd deliberately break anything that used undocumented calls in every release. This keeps hack developers on their toes, as they are forced to upgrade their OS and re-test their hacks for every release; there's no more of this "well, it worked back in 1987 on my Mac SE, so it should run fine on my G3 using OS 9.1" crap Mac users have been living with for so many years. It also preserves Apple's ability to change the OS implementation internally; if they leave undocumented APIs static for too long, developers will start to take them for granted and users will complain when Apple breaks them. Better to break them on purpose and prevent anyone from getting too comfortable.
-Mars
Anyhow, if the Slashdot crowd wants to get under the hood and tinker, they can run BSD with Darwin, and not run MacOS or Aqua. Apple never pretended that Aqua was going to be anything but a proprietary piece of software.
Find free books.
The only people worried about this are the ones that like skins on media players so you have no freaking clue where the minimize button is. They are also the ones that code web pages that change the color and style of your browser widgets for no apparent reason other that the fact that they can. They also bitch when companies like RedHat take the next step in unifying the desktop experience to help Linux move forward to greater acceptance.
A consistent UI is a good thing people.
Besides, why is everybody aping about how pretty Aqua is if all they want to do is change it and muck it up?
You're talking about two different situations. Just go to your mac in
Private is a lable-- it means "Don't use this, it may well change".
What microsoft did was make the OS react different ly to different programs that were accessing published APIs. Microsoft was making its APIs not fit the specification, and it was providing hidden hooks into its OS.
The private framworks are there for everyone to see-- you're just told that they will change. When they do, you don't get to cry foul.
When microsoft releases a new product that breaks your own product that was using the public apis, then its legitimate to cry foul.
The difference is microsoft was making it so products could only work if they approved them.
Apple is merely saying "you're responsible if you use these, they will change".
Yeah, that's a double standard. Nope.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Can you say "double standard"? When Microsoft has undocumented, private, internal APIs, everyone cries "Foul!" and accuses them of hiding these APIs from developers.
You're right, you don't get it. The difference is that Microsoft uses undocumented APIs in their products that are sold outside of windows, while other application vendors don't get the benifit of those APIs. Apple's undocumented APIs are internal to the OS, and they don't use them in software that they sell in competition with third party application vendors. If an API is undocumented because it's internal to the OS it's OK, but if it's undocumented to give you an edge over other application vendors then it's wrong.
The Apple monitors are *not* incompatable with the rest of the PC world. The connector is based on a basic DVI connection and adds power and USB. You can get an adaptor from Apple themselves. And if you are considering spending $3500 certainly $150 is hardly a problem, as the entire package is still cheaper than most other LCD monitors.
Apple in recent years has gone to great lengths to use standards, realizing that they cannot make Apple Bus and AppleTalk etc. and expect companies to design hardware that works with their proprietary protocol.
In fact I'm hard pressed to think of a single proprietary protocol or otherwise that is in use in any modern mac. USB, Firewire, ATA, standard SDRAM, DVI, TCP/IP, 10/100/1000 Ethernet, 802.11b, etc.
Not trying to say that Apple doesn't do dumb things, but I think they've gotten a lot smarter in the last few years, and I think its worth giving them credit where credit is due.
Spyky
The thing is that Apple has done something remarkable here. They have put Unix on the desktop of ordinary users. The flexibility and extensibility of this OS is beyond belief. They haven't dumbed down Unix, they have transformed it. My kids can set up an Apache server in about five minutes. They can't do that with any other OS.
I use Windows, Linux and Mac every day, and like them all. But objectively, OSX is light years ahead of anything else. IMHO, that is. It will take another year or two before this becomes clearly apparent.
Look at our primary sources here:
"Apple is uptight about (changes to the interface)," said Brian Wilson, business manager at Unsanity, which has created a number of OS X interface utilities. "But at the same time they haven't given us any grief. We've had neither help nor hassle."
Sounds like a draconian regime of not caring much, doesn't it?
"It's the end of an era," said Greg Landweber, co-developer of Kaleidoscope, one of the most popular Mac customization tools ever created. "Under the old Mac system, doing these little interface tweaks was really easy. You could change almost anything. Now, you can't change the way they work, only their appearance."
Greg Landweber's take, then, is that you can change the appearance, you just can't move the functional elements to completely different locations. Did anyone really use the Kaleidoscope themes that had the window buttons on the side? Those are the ones that just hit the rocks.
I took delivery on my 17" iMac last Friday. Believe me, there's no shortage of tweaks to the UI. I'm running a handful now. If Apple's making noise just now, it's just to emphasize that tweakers are there only at Apple's discretion -- always the case, right?
Just another overstated conflict story where there really isn't much of a conflict, if you ask me.
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