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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.
I closed my apartment to tweakers, and suddenly my stuff stopped disappearing!
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
I wonder if this is in response to the recent tweaks to change the put back the Smiley Mac at boot?
This from the company who's motto is "Think Different". How can we think different if they are forcing us to all be the same?
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.
Can you say "double standard"? When Microsoft has undocumented, private, internal APIs, everyone cries "Foul!" and accuses them of hiding these APIs from developers. When they then change those internal APIs, everyone again cries "Foul!" and accuses them of breaking these internal APIs intentionally. But when Apple does this, it's okay? I guess I just don't get it.
Well, Macs do call themselves "addicts," so it's no surprise that amphetamines have become more popular...
Wait, that's tweeking, not tweaking. Nevermind.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
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
Thats a misleading article.
.. right?), you still have choice.
They don't want you messing around with the functionality of the widgets. You know what? I agree with them.
Esp. since you can run other window managers under Darwin (uh
And this article says nothing about them trying to prevent the kind of 'tweaking' most Wintel users use - namely, performance, setup, etc.
I don't have any problems with Apple trying to kill utilities that tweak the UI. There's still choice, and there wasn't in OS9.
As for Jobs saying, "Themes are dead", is he on crack? Or by dead, does he mean, "They're dead, because I killed them on this platform."?
"Old man yells at systemd"
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.
You know, apple.slashdot.org should redesign the graphics on their site, just for spite. ;)
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
Hardware tweaks are very difficult though - no conventional changable BIOS. How are hardware upgrades done on Macs?
They're tough. You have to do a really complex installation process known in Mac circles as "plugging the fucking thing in."
No thank you!
-Kevin
Sure, technically you are correct. The UI is not the OS.
However, as the saying goes; "Perception is reality." The fact is that for most users and certainly for Apple's tageted users, the UI *IS* the OS. They have no concept of the distinction and their ignorance is furthered by articles like this in the media.
In fairness to these users, they are bombarded with mis-information for so long that the mis-information becomes reality.
I'll bet you call them "cable modems" or "xDSL modems", dispite the fact that they aren't modems at all. But they have been incorrectly categorized for so long that even the manufacturers now go with the flow and label their products as "modems".
Because thinking different, contrary to the opinions of your 'rebel' 19 year old, is not wearing a different T-Shirt.
/really/ wanna Rage Against the Machine, you can use another WM. ;)
Think different means solve your problems creatively; it does not mean dress yourself creatively.
And guess what? You can use other window managers on OSX, so whats the problem? If you
"Old man yells at systemd"
to whine about how many buttons the mouse has.
Both GNOME and KDE are already available on OSX via fink.
I've used computers running MacOS from 6 through X. One thing that always made me cringe when I started up a pre-OS-X Mac was the sight of all those little extensions loading away, piling one on top of the other into a giant pyramid. Sometimes things worked okay, but often they didn't. The MacOS extensions were reminiscent of the old TSR programs under DOS -- when you had a bunch of them, things became flaky.
Given Apple's desire to have a more stable OS, not to mention their rigid UI approach, is it really that surprising that they don't want to go down the old Extensions road?
While I'm sympathetic to those who want to tweak OS X, my teeth are set on edge by the phrases chosen by those who are reverse-engineering the hidden APIs. "They're stifling innovation!" Translation: "They're not letting me do what I want to do!"
Were Apple breaking documented and open APIs, then you'd really have something to get up in arms about. As it is, if you're using undocumented APIs, expect them to change. You're going to be in the same land that all of us TSR writers of the 1980s were in: you'll have to modify your code each and every time a new OS version ships.
He should stick to marketing, which he is very good at, and let the users decide what to do with their own computers.
The reason that the apple was such a huge success in the first place was because of openness. Woz made it a point that the apple manual include a schematic diagram of the early Apple II, because he knew it would encourage third party development.
Jobs also forgets he doesn't have the "mindshare" among commercial software developers and users, M$ does. This means that most commercial developers/software companies will put up with MS because they have too, because their clients for the most part use windows.
So all of this essentially means that he is pissing off the few(er) remaining MAC OS developers left, and not to troll (I have a MAC), and they are becoming rarer and rarer.
Can somebody tell me the difference between Apple and Microsoft other than the fact that Apple has less market share?
Apple has taste.
(Apologies to Steve J.)
Apple has always tried to maintain control of the GUI; they publish the HI guidelines and provide standard controls to keep the UI uniform, standardized, and consistent across apps and machines. Of course they aren't happy about utilities that change this interface around. Remember, one of the biggest pieces of criticism leveled at Linux and one of the biggest reasons commercial development hasn't taken off is that the GUI is a moving target: There are too many different window managers, versions of window managers, and theme options to present a stable platform for interface design. Apple knows that have exactly ONE gui is a very good thing; look especially at the mention of tech support issues. You may not care about that but Apple's target audience does and therefore Apple has to.
And besides, we're making mountains out of molehills here. Apple gives you a built-in shell and a free IDE, and you bitch about not being able to put icons in the menu bar?
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?
I have 10.2 on my iBook, and I am able to tweak many, many functions to my heart's content. The first thing I did was get rid of that stupid "favorites" heart in the top of the finder window. Removing that button (and adding other finder tools to the top bar) was as simple as drag and drop. Resizing or relocating the dock, and changing its behavior is also simplicity itself. Don't like the funky way Macs have the scroll arrows grouped at the bottom-right corner? You can set it to the traditional layout with a few quick mouse-clicks.
What is really going on in this article is the owner of the company that makes Kaleidoscope (a third-party UI tweaking program for older flavors of Mac OS) has been rendered obsolete, not by Mac breaking Kali's tools with updates... which often happened with versions 7-9 of MacOS, but because OS X is already tweakable enough withough their app.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I have lots of suggestions-- but the one thing I can use is a way to make the dock "double-clickable" -- I don't know how many times I've launched a document and/or application accidentally while reaching for the scroll bar next to or above the dock (depending on placement).
It's just too touchy. A double-click rather than click will solve this.
Anyone know of a 3rd party tweak to fix this? Some how I'm guessing it's hard to do because it deals with the dock's basic functionality.
(Oh and native windowshade would be nice. In the meanwhile, there's this "haxie".)
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
"Before 10.2, the API had been reverse engineered and was being widely used by shareware developers. WeatherPop, for example, used it to show the current weather, while Homeland Alert shows the U.S. government's level of terrorist alert. These utilities were broken by the Jaguar update. Unsanity recently released a utility, Menu Extra Enabler, to restore them. "
Not true.
I've got both WeatherPop and Homeland Alert running on 10.2 and 10.2.1 without Menu Extra Enabler.
You could sell your Mac on eBay, too. That would eliminate the problem of being unable to "customize" it.
A Mac without Mac OS (9, X, whichever) isn't a Mac. It's a PC with a Motorola CPU and a really nice case.
I have GNU/Linux installed on my Powerbook, and G4 at home and they both work better than Mac OS X!
Yeah, I'm sure Linux is great for running applications like MS Office, Toast, Photoshop, and VirtualPC.
Your lies make baby Jesus cry.
If Apple was selling a skinning program that allowed users to change their desktop appearance, and there were skinning apps in direct competition with Apple's apps, then yes, this would be a similar situation, especially if Apple's skinner continued to work, and the third party apps didn't.
However, Apple isn't in competition with the 3rd party developers - it's just not supporting them, either. It's a choice that I personally think will end up shooting Apple in the foot - but in no way is it the same as the "hidden API" stuff that was going on at Microsoft
InThane
Yeah and then you can boot OS X 10.2 in a window under Mac-on-linux.
No you can buy aftermarket Ford parts from several companies. By the strictest definition Apple is not a monopoly but certainly uses monopolistic tactics, but then name a corp. besides the corporation for public broadcasting that doesn't ?
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Have you ever heard the expression that evolution is done with you once you have kids? It's used to explain things like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer that typically affect people in middle or late-middle age, after they've had children. Because these diseases don't affect people's ability to reproduce, they're irrelevant in terms of natural selection. By the time you hit 45 or so, natural selection doesn't care about you.
Dude, Apple doesn't care about you. You claim not to like the Aqua interface-- which is distinctly a minority opinion, by the way. You say you don't own a Mac. You say you will never buy a Mac. You know what? Apple doesn't care. If you were a customer or a potential customer, Apple might care. But since you aren't, neither Apple nor natural selection (in the economic sense) have any use for you.
This article is all fluff. You've got the one guy who wrote kaleidoscope complaining that the UI now has closed API's. In fact, if a user wanted to change their interface, the pxm resources can be easily edited with resources available.
Not only this, there are several themes available.
The complaint here is that although Darwin is open source, (with most of the core components of the OS), the window server is not. Being a UNIX system, however, you can make a new one if you cared to. Simply running strings from the command line can pull most API functions out of a binary, so emulating them would be a tast, but not an impossible one.
From the beginning, Apple has discouraged used from using elements in the Aqua theme file (extras.rsrc) which are copyrighted by them. However, a full replacement of that resource file that contains no Apple IP can't be pulled by Apple.
Please don't listen to this argument that the OS is closed to tweakers. It's different now to tweak things, but you certainly can.
See? A Titanium theme, a Rhodium theme, a Gunther theme, a Totally Aqua theme.
Hey, even a tool to make them.
Quit complaining.
Are they trying to close it to tweakers or is that just a bi-product of the new OS?
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Some slap-happy journalist at Wired interviews a few folks and makes a broad statement about Apple being anti-tweaking. Talking about APIs not being open - hell, many of the OS 9 APIs weren't open, people just had ResEdit to tweak the hell outta things - big difference!
Aww, c'mon. Let's not rehash this. What the hell is an "Apple approved" menu item?!? Its not like a developer has to get an "Official Apple Menu Item" seal for his app or anything - just that previously there were multiple APIs for placing something in the menubar, now there is one definitive API. Big deal!
Apple isn't losing any users, at least not ones that will spend $$ (after all, Apple's a business - they care about the Mac culture, yes, but they care more about the $$). Professionals that use Macs want stability. So many of the hacks for OS 9 would demote the stability of the OS to the ranks of Win9x or worse. Combining hacks would be even worse. Heck, even legit plugins for things like Photoshop could wreck your system. Apple knows this, so they're trying real hard to develop a system that provides what will hopefully become 'legendary' stability.
Keep in mind, also, that Apple may be keeping its private-APIs private, not only to prevent instability from encroaching on the system, but also to prevent competitors (read: Microsoft) from easily stealing enhancements made to OS X. Obviously Microsoft can also steal an idea and reimplement it, but Apple doesn't have to make that easy on them. I understand that having the API isn't equivalent to having the source, but defining an API isn't exactly a piece-of-cake, either. It takes a lot of careful thought and a tremendous amount of time to develop a stable API and corresponding documentation.
Musta been a slow news day at Wired.
yes; you can install X Windows on OS X, and put whatever WM you like on it instead of the delicious huggable Aqua.
They already have. Its called "Finder".
Just right click and choose "Show package contents" on any application.
You can then change the pictures or nibs to your hearts delight.
Just don't be upset if you render the program inoperable.
But under OS X its easier than the resedit days.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Troll, my ass.
Seems that Apple has a 100% monopoly on the Macintosh operating system
Yeah, and Chevy has a monopoly on Corvettes. Go get out a dictionary, and look up what the word "monopoly" means. Go ahead, we'll wait.
Every company has a monopoly on its own products. MS has a monopoly on computer operating systems - a whole class of products. Even that, in and of itself, would not have been illegal. MS went to court, not because they had a monopoly, but because they abused their monopolistic position in order to gain market share in other markets.
Oh wait, this is an anti-Mac article, not an anti-M$ article, guess my karma is headed down now
If your post gets modded down, it will be because it's idiotic bullshit, not because it's anti-Mac.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
Shouldn't you be Using Linux anyway? The majority of people who use macs don't want to tweak, they want hardware that looks good to impress their yuppie friends and software that is eye catching and easy to use.
Mac uses OpenFirmware (http://www.openfirmware.org/) which is much more standard than all the crappy PC bios... And Sun's OpenBoot PROM is also derived from OpenFirmware BTW...
There's an irony in the Wired article praising the alterable nature of old System 7; one of the reasons why using System 7 was such a pleasure was that nearly all of the applications looked much the same and used the same interface elements. The readily available tools for constructing interfaces, notably ResEdit, tended to enforce uniformity as well. Yet appearance and behavior _were_ alterable, although it wasn't easy. I wasted a few months playing with custom WDEFs and CDEFs myself--with effort and trickery, you could do almost anything, but it was a great way to crash the system too.
The main thing about System 7, though, was that it didn't really _need_ much modification. Oh, there were some useful little add-ons--toolbars like the Control Strip which floated above all other windows, menubar additions, Apple Menu tweaks. But mostly, the system was just fine the way it was, until Apple started fucking with it--the introduction of the "Platinum" (or Copland, or "Aaron", or whatever) look is when Apple jumped the shark, in my opinion. I played with Kaleidoscope for a bit, but I never used it for more than a few days, partly because it rendered the behavior of the system somewhat unpredictable (you never knew when some application's interface might not look really strange with Kaleidoscope enabled), partly because making the system look _pretty_, as in "ain't this a wonderful screenshot?" pretty, also makes it more difficult to use.
But for whatever reason, many people think that the ability to set your system font to 48-point Wingdings and your window frame colors to be yellow and purple is the ultimate freedom. Hence the Enlightenment window manager, for example. Lots of fun to play with, great for amassing an album of pictures of people's desktops, but good and useful? Not really.
Having a locked-down interface isn't necessarily bad. The BeOS interface (remember BeOS?) was even more closed than Apple's (either System 7 or MacOS X), but since it was spare, functional, and worked reasonably well, most BeOS users, including myself, didn't really mind.
The trouble with Steve Jobs's obsession with preserving the Aqua look is that the Aqua look stinks. Not as badly as it used to, but the Dock is still an abomination, everything still takes up too much room, and if you're running a system at all limited in capacity (a 2nd-generation iBook in my case), the GUI's performance is irksome and slow. The beauty of System 7 was that it looked good whether you ran it on a Mac Classic or a PowerMac 8500. But Jobs's attitude seems to be, "Well, you should just buy a faster computer if it's slow, and a bigger monitor if it takes up too much room. Get with the program." (Ironic, considering that Apple is notorious for providing packaged systems with not enough built-in memory and small monitors.)
hyacinthus.
how the hell else am i supposed to stay up writing all this Darwin code without a dime of crystal?
oh
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
The only thing I cry about is how stupid I was for buying something that some undereducated corner cutting developers product.
The only thing I yell at the developers of a platform about are depricated fucntions, and even then not loudly. I get so mad when a function I start to rely on gets depricated. Then, as soon as I find out it was depricated, I have to do the math, do I go replace it now, costing my clients money up front, or do I wait until the depreciated function is actually removed, and then charge on the backend. Justify it now, or have a crunch situation that I can obviously blame on someone else later.
But I have never heard anyone complain about MS undocumented API's that I gave credence to. It definitly isn't a mainstream complaint. And if anyone (MS propoent or opponent) complains about an undocumented API changing, they deserve a swift kick in the pants, and whatever else they get.
...now Steve, just point that gun down a little farther...there ya go!
BANG
Seriously though, why are so many companies failing to realize that any perceived benefit short-term that they gain by closing their products is ultimately offset by the goodwill they lose among the enthusiasts circle--the community that will do more for their advertising than even the best "1984" commercial. It's called "word of mouth" - you'd think these people would have heard about it in marketing school...
"I may be quite wrong." - Socrates
I don't blame them, I used to replace the 'error' icons and such with one-finger wave icons, "fuck you" messages, etc. and I'd leave machines in the computer labs running after I'd retrieved my startup disk with all the hacks on it. Of course the sounds for inserting/ejecting a disk would all be Ozzy Osbourne clips, vomiting, money shots, etc. (this was in junior high school)
For some reason I don't see this as being a bad idea. Mac OS X is a lovely OS and works great. Why not have it be a little more resistant to defacing than good ol' System?
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
Wow, removing that stupid favorites heart and changing scroll arrows is really some serious tweaking.
Zexplain zis drag and drop you zpeak of...
http://www.sunrem.com/c om/
http://www.shrevesystems.
http://www.smalldog.com/
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
There are at least 3 different programs to change themes; Duality4, MetamorphX, Chameleon.
There already is a program to change system icons, Candy Bar.
There is another coming, Xpression.
There are a myriad of menu items, dock enhancements, window enhancers, custom menu builders, and just great all around utilites that enhance and extend the OS.
The thing to remember, and what everyone forgets, it that Classic Mac OS was a mature OS that people had years to hack and discover. OS X is new enough that Apple is still changing APIs.
Mac OS X is a very customizable OS and Wired is showing very little research and fact checking in thier article.
Most Kaleidoscope interfaces were ugly as sin...
but they weren't all. I remember some, you-could-almost-say-beautiful, kaleidoscope themes. When I lived in Japan there were clubs where people would design clever and attractive ones. Floral patterns, space patterns, favourite cartoon characters, whatever...
It's hard thing to explain to someone whose idea of 'themes' comes from the microsoft default 'options', but the immediate and powerful impression you got when you saw a mac really decked-out with customizations like kaleidoscope was real. It was one of those things non-geeks could do that bullt a relationship with their machine. Sure, it sounds corny and belonging to the 'get-a-life' category, but it was one of those things that made people love their macs the way windows users rarely did.
Furthermore, they (kaleidoscope ultra-themes) were the one feature of the Mac I have never seen even remotely equalled outside the mac world. (I don't discount that it may have been done in the multi-window-manager world of the unices, but i've personally never seen the equivalents, and as far as windows? forget about it.)
Being able to customize their their interfaces, right down to the shapes and design of the scroll bars, the location of the close/windowshade buttons, the title bars... it let you feel your mac was truly yours. (And the smilely mac face gave a bit of personality, too.)
I think apple's new policy sucks. IMHO.
Seems that Apple has a 100% monopoly on the Macintosh operating system
Of course they do. And Microsoft has a 100% monopoly on the MS-Windows operating system, and Disney has a 100% monopoly on Mickey Mouse, and Linus Torvalds has a 100% monopoly on what is or isn't Linux.
Copyright grants a limited-scope monopoly for a product; this is not a bad thing, legally speaking (morality aside for the moment, 'lest we get a flame war going.)
What MS got in trouble for was monpolizing a marketplace. They used relativly shady business practices to get to a monopoly position in the PC industry, and then continued to use those practicies to maintain a monopoly.
If MS adjusted the market so that Linux and Be were commonly shipping OS options for PCs, they wouldn't have a monopoly and could go back to their shady tricks without reproach, happilly ruling windows-land while people who didn't like MS could simply play nicely in one of the other OS-lands without feeling like a metalhead in graceland.
Apple is the only company that makes Apple computers and Apple software. Ford is the only company that makes Ford automobiles and parts.
Ford Motor Co. doesn't sue anybody for copying the car's user interface.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I'd be happy if there was a control panel with a set of HSV sliders so I could change the Aqua-blue into the color of my choice. Sort of like what iChat lets you do for the talk bubbles, but more flexible. This, of course, leads to more features; a seperate color setting for widgets, the highlighted menu item, a different color setting for each app...
Which is probably why Apple wants to avoid the whole issue. 98% of the skins I've seen for window managers or things like winamp are awful. Murky, and unintuitive. Somebody spent a lot of time to make a skin they think is bitchen but I'm rarely impressed. I think this shows that effective GUI design is difficult and might best be left to experts. Besides, don't we have better things to do? Then again, if you want to paint your computer, or desktop, or house, or car, or fingernails a different color each week, knock yourself out.
Discussions of interface issues often make for hot news items and even hotter discussion, but are they really relevant?
I appreciate the even-handed approach of your article, balancing the frustration of tweakers with the reality of developing a stable, attractive, and easy-to-use operating system. But, as a student looking towards Human Computer Interaction as a specialization and immersed in the literature of the field, it's safe to say that no interface will please 100% of the audience. Those out to tweak endlessly fall into a minority that no interface designer can possibly account for without going insane, just as a scientist can't possibly account for all the potential variables and random factors in an experiment.
In the artificial, "closed system" of interface design, the people with the free time and inclination to endlessly modify are always going to be unsatisfied. Is this newsworthy? A number of application developers have put out tools that enhance and work with OS X to rave reviews. There are a number of successful interface tweaks out there (my iBook has a fully transparent dock, for example). And, as someone who used to theme and skin, figuring out how to modify a closed program is part of the fun.
I won't stick by Apple 100% on all of their decisions like some Mac users (after all, I've spent the last 6 years in Linux/*nix). But I will say that if you're going to do an article that more than suggests to Apple what to do and where to go, there are far more pressing issues than letting skinning nuts with too much free time make Aqua look like rusted clockwork, or whathaveyou.
Just my $.02.
I know a lot of artists; I sort of move in a circle of friends who are all artists of one kind or another. Know how many of them like tweaking their Macs? None.
I too know a lot of artists, and am related to several. My experience does not mirror yours at all. My cousin tweaks the hell out of her Apple (she even installed Red Hat GNU/Linux on it at one time, even though her computer savviness, such as it is, comes strictly from using it as a tool for doing her graphic design work, creating websites, etc.). Come to think of it, so does my other cousin (who is not an artist, but rather a medical doctor), as do several other artists I know. In fact, I can't think of one artist I know who hasn't tweaked the hell out of how their computer, be it an Apple or a Wintel PC, looks.
I should point out (and anyone reading my posting history here and elsewhere will confirm) that I am quite often very critical of Apple, their approach, their marketing, and their often "shoot myself in the foot and ask questions later" attitude, be it closing the source to parts of their derivative FreeBSDesque operating system, or deliberately making the hardware they are trying to sell as incompatible with PCs as possible (23" LCD monitor anyone? Thanks to Apple's idiocy I ended up buying a Samsung 24" instead. That's about $4,000 that would have gone to Apple, were it not for their inability to resist making everything they can proprietary, non-standard, and incompatible, but I digress), thereby losing a potential market orders of magnitude larger than the one they are trying to target. I make no apology, nor bones about criticizing the hell out of Apple for such stupidity when I see it, so I think it is clear I am not an Apple apologist by any measure.
All that having been said, Apple is not trying to close off the operating system, they are trying to prevent application developers and third parties from modifying how their core API and widgets work, in order to insure their "consistent" interface remains consistent. Unlike many here I find nothing of value in a consistent interface vs. a collection of choices, but neither do I find anything wrong with Apple persuing such a policy, so long as they do not extend it beyond their core GUI objects and leave the remainder of the operating system and its libraries open to those who wish to tweak.
Which is exactly what it appears they are doing, misleading WiReD articles notwithstanding.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
> Why should Apple be the only company allowed to design software that hooks into certain parts of the interface or is part of the interface itself?
.. the market will vet their strategy, I suppose. I consider the kind of protocal-hiding/format-hiding tactics MS is known for to be fare more abusive than preventing 3rd party software makers from hooking into the interface behaviour layer. But thats just me. When it comes to data and communication that my computer is able to do with the outside world, don't fuck. If you wanna limit what I can do with the OS itself, thats fair game, and people will either buy or not buy the OS because of it.
Nobody is saying they are allowed or not allowed to do it
I'm not loosing any sleep; Apple has consistantly demonstrated that its UI design is heads and tails above Windows. Windows needs fixing, as it OS9 to various degrees. This might not please everybody with respect to OSX, but I have no personal qualms about it. It's not really inteference with the market on the same scale that MS limits their users.
"Old man yells at systemd"
I've got Windows, Linux and a Mac machine in the house. They all know their roles, and they do them reasonably well. I wouldn't trade any of them for any of them, if that makes sense to you. Cats meow and dogs bark. SFW. Point is, I care about getting the job done, not the tool I use to do it. Computers are just machines, not religions worthy of jihad.
The means is irrelevant to the ends. Do you edit a digital picture to make it more aesthetic, or to make it look like a MAc edited it? Do you type a letter into Word to show off your word processor or to convey your thoughts to the recipient? Do you serve web docs to the world to demonstrate Apache or to share your idiotic blogs to all who care to waste time reading it? You get the point.
Maybe I am old now, and remember life before all three of the aforementioned OS's, but the fact is that each have their place and do certain things better than the other -- no matter what zealots, evangalists or underinformed Luddites would like you to believe.
I want my OS to boot to a command line
Disclaimer: I haven't used a Macintosh computer since Mac OS 8. Then, I could make an "alias" (i.e. what is called a "shortcut" on Windows) to an application and toss it in the Startup Items folder in the System Folder, and the app would start whenever I start the computer. Does an alias to the Terminal app work on Mac OS X?
Or you could install bare-bones Darwin without the Mac OS X desktop environment, and it'll almost feel like FreeBSD.
Will I retire or break 10K?
"All these features are yours
except Aqua."
"Make no attempt at tweaking there.
"Use it together with XDarwin,"
"Use it in peace."
Hugs and kisses,
Apple
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
"Apple is trying to "close the operating system to tweakers"
If I were in charge I wouldn't let them damn, dirty meth-heads use my OS either!
Yep. Like the 180,000 .Mac users who are leaving the platform like rats from a sinking ship?
Get over it.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
Exactly. OS X is still very much under construction - many regard 10.2 as the first version that is truly ready for primetime. I think the code behind the interface may actually be in a stronger state of flux than the rest of the system - consider the changes necessary to get to an incredible interface enhancement like Quartz Extreme from the intolerably slow one in 10.0! Nor is Apple's tweaking likely to stop here. I've heard at least one rumor that they are working on another iDevice (not a pda, but not a computer apparently) capable of running cocoa apps with only a simple recompile. Such a device would certainly involve substantially altered interface code, which could use standard or stripped down .nib files.
Obviously I can't verify the veracity of the rumor, but I can make these observations: 1) By keeping those APIs private, Apple is quietly trying to keep people from messing with what they consider low-level code that they probably have plans for, and 2) based on that assumption Apple is probably not concerned about themers like Kaliedescope, but major commercial programs messing with that code within an application a) thus shooting themselves in the foot with major revisions to/new versions of those APIs and potentially abandoning the platform b) lazily foisting distinctly counter-intuitive non-apple interfaces designed for another platform, or c) interfering with the proper functioning of other programs.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Of course you could continue to use the free tweaks and the old operating system. But then you couldn't bitch so much, eh?
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
This has got to be the most ignorant one yet. Really, do you think that the "tweakability" of the interface is what draws us zealots to the Macintosh? Not even close. So, get over yourself here. This has got to be the silliest argument yet.
Most of what Apple produces is proprietary,just like most manufacturers of goods (unless you're making things like 'Equate'-brand clones for Wal-Mart).
But I wouldn't call them a monopoly.
If somebody is looking for something completly "open", there's plenty of generic boxes out there. A plain box with the word "computer" on it. If Apple did that, they would no longer be Apple and it's moot.
I'm just glad they're around. There's lots of choices out there. I've tried almost everything over the years.
I've done my best work on a Mac. For me, nothing comes close to working as well. (Even if I can't change GUI background textures).
Actually if you look Microsoft was determined to have a monopoly on the Winodws operating system, not operating systems in general... And yes they abused their monopoly just like every other company tries to create a monopoly and abuse it to the benefit of themselves and their custommers... It was really fun reading RMS's posting on GNU/Linux saying that an operating system was a kernel and all of the programs that made the computer useful... I need a browser for my computer to be useful, might as well include that, oh wait, that is illegal bundling, oh wait.
oh never mind
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
1.2mhz != 2.8ghz *EVER*
Thus I remain steadfast in my conviction that anti-apple idiots don't understand the basics of computers operation or architecture.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
There is an entire world of hardware hacking out there made possible by the open architecture of the PC. Go down to your local electronics jobber ( or Radio Shack if that's all your town has) and you will find everything you need to make your own interface cards from scratch.
Of course this takes a bit more skill and training than writing a "Hello World" program in VB or cutting a hole in the side of your case, but nonetheless, true hardware hacking is alive and well, even if not high profile in these days when widgets that feign transparency are mistaken for technology.
KFG
... about what developers wanted/needed access to in new versions of the operating system (yes, I know that this article is really about UI tweaks, but figured I'd offer a perspective on what the topic of the post implied). I attended one of the Apple WWDCs (World Wide Developers' Conference) when I worked for the now defunct (well, "assimilated into the NAI universe") Dr. Solomon's Software on Virex, an anti-virus application for the Mac. When OS X was announced, we were decidedly worried about how we were going to get access to the file system areas that we needed to hook in to to intercept file opens and closes, along with other similar things. During a particular mixer, where Apple engineers and architects were around to sip beer and eat free food, we talked to the main architect and engineers of the file system team and had a great dialogue about what we needed and how best we could get it. They were interested to hear how we had worked around so many disgusting parts of the OS 7, 8 and 9 systems, and were honestly quite horrified to hear what was required in certain circumstances :). But, customers want to be protected from viruses in every possible way they can access files, so we had to do it.
Traditionally this is a pretty tough thing to do, even in the best of times. Under OS 8 and 9, we had a hell of a time keeping the on-access scanning parts working with each new release of the OS... they would change behavior in AppleTalk functionality, asynchronous hooks, or whatever and POOF!, what used to work just fine now times out on accesses to remote volumes.
The Apple guys were very open to trying to give us more reliable, sanctioned access to the file system hooks that we needed to have. Unfortunately, Dr. Solly's was soon thereafter assimilated by NAI and I was not able to work on the product anymore, so I don't know what they eventually did with the OS X product.
-"I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle." - Arthur Dent
No, I can't agree with that. Customizability is essential to usability. People tend to forget that usability is not this set in stone set of rules that everybody must follow and then magically we all become more productive.
Usability/ease of use is essentially a completely personal thing. Yes, there is such a thing as bad UI. There are UIs that simply make no sense, are hard to use etc. However, this doesn't not mean customizability is bad. That would imply that a) we are all the same and b) Apple is perfect.
A good example of this was Eclipse. For those who don't know Eclipse is an IDE, that can be used amongst other things for Java development (which is what I do in my day job). I decided to try it out. It was abandoned within a few hours.... the reason? I couldn't customize the keybindings. That's a feature they class as "nice to have, but not essential". I was used to my set of keybindings, hardly anything bizarre, I just wanted Ctrl-Backspace to kill the last word. No can do. I found the experience very frustrating because I had to adapt myself to the software, rather than the other way around. A shame, otherwise Eclipse is really nice.
I dislike the Mac philsophy for exactly this reason. It assumes there is one way, Steves way. Anybody who doesn't like that way, should get out of the way.
Anyway, this isn't exactly surprising. The Mac is these days defined if anything not by its technology (which the target market doesn't care about anyway) but by the brand. Witness the colour coordination between hardware/software/website. Witness the massive amounts of marketing they are engaged in. Witness the huge effort put into how it looks. If people go to a friends house and see a Mac that's no longer got the Aqua interface, the brand is diluted, which might make the user happy but sells fewer Macs overall. With the Mac, you really do get what you pay for - take it or leave it.
Yep Yep.
I am actually quoting Neil Stephenson, from his insightful essay: "In the beginning was the commandline". Been re-reading it. It is quite good. He is an ex-Apple zealot. As am I.
Don't get me wrong, OS X is cool. What I am trying to point out is, Apple is *not* the goodguy everyone blindly believes. They do all sorts of stuff to protect their monopoly. Some of it good, some of it bad.
Yes very true. And this is the niche they occupy. I like that niche, its very cool. But frankly, I am sick of Apple zealots disregarding free*nixes on account of the fact that they think Apple is the only revolutionary kid on the block. It just isnt true.
I am sorry, but a globally located, community oriented software creation project is far more radical then a "Think Different" ad campaign. (I say as my Jaguar based G4 stalls while rendering the very text I write)
I deal with Macintosh folks all day long at work and in my personal life. They are a cool bunch, but the idea if it is not Apple branded hardware its the devil incarnate is just plain ludacris.
I am too. Like I said, one more Macintosh users is one less Windows user. Thats a good thing. I work pretty well too in a Mac, when my glowy beachball aint spinning trying to figure out how come I clicked the mouse button a few too many times.
sudo nvram boot-args=-s
(For those of you who just want to see the messages as OS X boots, change the -s to a -v.)
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
I also use all three OS's, and don't really consider myself zealot of any of them, although I find my iBook to be downright spiffy.
Also, as for calling me a Luddite... I don't think it means what you think it means.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
If anyone out there has a good explanation as to why a themable interface is more powerfull or easy to use than a consistent, static interface, I would love to read it.
Personally, I think themed interfaces are the worst idea since... well I can't think of anything that comes close. For an interface to be usefull, and trusted by it's audience, it has to be predictable.
Why does my music player look completely different than my web browser or my word processor? I guess it kinda looks cool in a screenshot by itself. But I embrace computers in my life to get stuff done, rather than to post slick screen shots. Exploring and customising a new computer or software package can be fun, but for most people it's not the end goal of having a computer.
I can see how some OSX users on older hardware would like to be able to turn off text smoothing and gain a little speed. UI options for hardware compatibility or for people with low vision are fine, but "themes" as we think of them today have to go.
Themes basically exist for two reasons (warning: opinions)
In other words, UI designers lack leadership, and users crave consistency.
A few years ago, it was practically impossible to sit down at a friends X11 workstation and know what any of the keymappings were or how the menus worked, or even start a program. It's gotten much better now with most people using either KDE or Gnome, but massive improvements are needed before free software will be as easy to pick up and use as OSX and Windows are.
RH's choise to theme KDE and Gnome similarly was inspired, as are Steve Jobs' comments on themes. Thanks guys, keep it up!
I think that the PC folks tend to overrate the amount of hardware tweaking they can actually do that makes any difference, other than putting some new video card in.
I take that statement to mean that you've never heard of memory interleaving
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
He had his mac tweaked out, and tried constantly to change something about its configuration, that he never got his 'art' done.. his 'art' consisted at throwing filter after filter in photoshop onto a photo (usually something along the porn lines) at low res until it 'became' art or something. I called it crap. You can tweak all you want, but you are missing the point of 'just works'
Lowmag.net
Ok, maybe I need a detailed explanation.
I'll be over here reading while you write:
P4 and G4
Macintoshian Achaia
Thanks...
What MS got in trouble for was monpolizing a marketplace. They used relativly shady business practices to get to a monopoly position in the PC industry, and then continued to use those practicies to maintain a monopoly.
I feel compelled to point out that saying "monopolize a marketplace" is a bit redudant (what else does a company monopolize?) and not what got MS into trouble. (That's a bit pedantic I realize and I apologize in advance for pointing that out as I have. I don't mean to be insulting)
Specifically MS got in trouble over the practice of predatory bundling. Bundling is a common business practice used daily by a wide variety of businesses. Think of it as the practice of creating a combo platter at a resturant. They put together a few separate food items and sell them to you for less money than the whole. This entices some price sensitive customers who might not have one of the products individually to purchase the bundle. Increases revenue for the company and increases value to the customer. Everyone is happy. Normal, common, legal and even good.
The problem is that it is illegal to bundle in some cases (in the US) if a company is a monopoly. This is because for a monopoly one major purpose of bundling is to leverage into new markets. Everyone needs an operating system on their computer and most folks use Windows. MS had/has a monopoly in operating systems. They did not have a monopoly on web browsers and competed with Netscape. Suddenly MS bundles their browser with the OS (without increasing the price accordingly or offering an alternative OS without a browser for less) and most rational consumers decided that it was better to not pay for a browser. Netscapes revenues dried up quickly afterwards. As a monopolist MS used predatory bundling to enter and dominate a market. This practice is clearly illegal under US law and MS was subsequently convicted in federal court. Interestingly had Netscape bundled an operating system with their browser (say their own version of linux) that would have been perfectly legal because Netscape was not a monopoly.
There is nothing wrong (legally speaking) with MS having a monopoly and acting to maintain that monopoly. But being a monopoly does restrict them from certain business (predatory bundling being one) which tend to hurt consumer choice. I don't like MS as a company any more than most folks here but their monopoly power isn't by itself illegal, nor should it be. Monopolies aren't inherently bad, just dangerous and need to be controlled in certain ways.
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.
Then the solution is to require an admin password to make those changes, not to make them impossible. This solution wasn't possible before OS X in Macs, but it should be now.
Memory interleaving is a feature of my old (early 1996) PowerMac 7600's motherboard.... and it accepts up to 1GB of ram. Currently this ancient box has the following hardware upgrades: G3, 560mb ram, 18gb scsi, 60gb ata-133, usb1, 32x CD-RW. It boots into MacOS 9, OS X orLinuxPPC. I occasionally program in MS Access using VirtualPC to emulate a Win98 box. Nope, no expandability or versatility here!
-- "At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1" -- PC Magazine, Nov. 1994
"(once you get past 10, calling it OS X is kind of odd)."
Yeah, but then they could call it OS Xi, and make all kinds of neat puns about how it's an Xi-book. Hey, Pentium means five, and last time I looked Intel's way beyond the 586 architecture. Just what exactly DOES "Pentium 4" mean? Not to mention the jump from Roman to Arabic numerals, the opposite of what Apple did. Could it be they were afraid nobody would know what IV meant? Or were they afraid somebody would quip that Intel was now on IV life support? There's a point when it becomes a trademark and ceases to mean very much at all.
Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus.
Actually, Ford is a monopoly, or was. Notice that you cannot buy a canopy for you Ford from Ford? This is because they were injuncted from doing so.
It was an issue very much like browser integration: Ford decided to integrate a canopy with thier pick-ups, but that would make the aftermarked canopy business obsolete. They sued and won.
For the moment, however, there are a few malcontents that had a lot invested in the old way of doing things (the Kaliedescope folks) and just want to raise a stink because their sacred cow has been gored. The fact that Wired is giving them an audience simply underscores their journalistic calibre.
Anyone who really wants to customize the appearance of their OS X windows and controls can still do so. In fact, it is far easier in OS X than it was in classic Mac OS: In OS X, many of the window and control theme elements are stored as simple PDFs or TIFFs, somewhere in the /System hierarchy. All it takes to modify the appearance of things is to replace those PDFs or TIFFs, and, possibly, edit a .plist or two. Compare this to classic, where you had to write a bunch of code to insert your custom PICTs, MDEFs, CDEFs, and WDEFs into the system at runtime, and it's hard to see what anyone is griping about.
This sounds like making lemonade out of lemons. The Macintosh was "completely customizable" because it was a real-mode operating system. People could hack into its data structures from user programs whether Apple wanted them to or not. To bring at least some order to the madness, Apple added some APIs.
For Apple, opening up the APIs that "control the placement, function and look of windows and menus" was a necessity. It wasn't something they "pioneered" either: X11 had those APIs designed into it from the ground up. That's why, for better or for worse, you can use dozens of toolkits seamlessly on the same screen, pick your window manager and lots of accessories on X11 as you like.
For years, one of the big attractions of the Mac was the ability to customize the operating system. Users could completely overhaul the machine's interface, sometimes to the point where it was entirely idiosyncratic.
Mac evangelists can't have it both ways. Either they like end-user customization or they don't.
Out of the box, X11 desktops like Gnome, KDE, or Motif are as consistent as Macintosh, but X11 allows extensive end-user customization, it allows applications written with completely different toolkits to work together, and that's designed in, easy to use, and open.
But that's not Apple's philosophy: Apple wants to bring a standard, simple user experience to the Macintosh, and having people "tweak" the UI interferes with that. That's another possible point in the GUI design space, and there is nothing wrong with that philosophy.
But you can't have a GUI that offers both the possibility of, and support for, tweaking and simultaneously doesn't offer it. Apple has made the valid choice of trying to prohibit tweaking in OS X. That will appeal to many schools, universities, and IT managers. But it will also not appeal to many other users.
Ultimately, Mac zealots have to learn the painful lesson that engineering and design consists of tradeoffs: it's impossible for a single product to be the best at everything. A company can design products that are bad at everything, but here is no "best personal computer", "best user interface", or "best operating system".
It warns potential Mac buyers of a serious problem with Macs. I like my iBook, but I definitely know things now about it, like the inability to change basic GUI properties like font or font size, that had I know probably would have moved me towards wintel instead. Telling potential buyers about this puts pressure on Apple to change it.
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.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I think that the PC folks tend to overrate the amount of hardware tweaking they can actually do that makes any difference...
Memory interleaving is a feature of my old (early 1996) PowerMac 7600's motherboard....
Well, if memory interleaving doesn't "make any difference", why include it as a feature? Oh, that's right, because you have no idea what you're talking about.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
ResExcellence has some skins for MacOS X, and plenty of other customisations too.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Wired, I'm afraid, is looking for a conspiracy where none exist. The team at Kaleidoscope is working on an OS X version of their classic (and Classic) appearance app.
As a former Kaleidoscope user, I can tell you that it, and just about any other "tweak" or "hack" app broke after most any update (from the System 7 days right up to the latest Classic). This isn't anything new. Apple is constantly updating the interface (Jaguar has quite a few interface changes, behind the scenes).
No conspiracy, sorry!
jrbd
The story on Wired reports that changing the appearance of the GUI has become more difficult with Mac OS X. Isn't it a little extreme to conclude that the whole OS can not be tweaked. If Aqua may not be reconfigured as easily as some wish it to be, Mac OS X is a UNIX operating system, that runs many open source programs, including XFree86, Gnome or KDE. And I have as much fun tweaking Mac OS X than I have tweaking Linux that run on the same iMac, even if I haven't changed the appearance of Aqua yet.
Can't tweak the interface? What a joke. For Pete's sake, we have the hooks to put rootless XFree86 on top of Aqua and run every Window manager under the sun.
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes
all that reseach and then you go and make the wrong decision.
Can't tweak the interface? What a joke. For Pete's sake, we have the hooks to put rootless XFree86 on top of Aqua and run every Window manager under the sun.
You don't have to do that. You can type ">console" at the login prompt, in place of a user name, to get a terminal login to the machine. From there, you can "startx" if you want.
And yeah, you can quote me on that.
Bowie J. Poag
What's the advantage of having a monolithic kernel tacked onto a microkernel?
That's easy. Chicks dig it!
"according to people I have talked to OS X doesn't cut it."
/. macintosh biggots right?
Word of mouth doesn't constitute research. You will learn this in college thankfully. So you are excused for the time being.
These people were? Let me guess, the typical
Actually, you can. I've seen some projects that add windowshade capability to all windows system-wide by updating some of the frameworks. I imagine you could do a similar thing for just about any UI feature you would want to add.
One thing that isn't being noted here is that you can run X at the same time as Aqua. If you feel like tweeking do that. If Apple can't make good on a claim that OSX - Including Aqua - isn't secure and stable they've got nothing to compete with.
It is more stable and secure than Windows - with a better tought out UI.
It is more clean and consistant than Linux - with a better thought out UI
So it has the best of both without the worst of either.
It you allow people to muck arround with the guts of Aqua without a clue then you get the worst of both instead.
iChat for one, puts a menu next to the clock in the menu bar, which is one of the un-documented APIs that people are complaining about.
Go out and get sailing!
Apple has never supported changing basic interface elements. I've had many utilities that tweaked basic elements of Apple's OS6-9. Many of them broke with major operating system upgrades, because they used undocumented or unsupported hooks. It doesn't seem like much has changed.
Is it just me, or is apple's on-screen font smoothing really terrible? On windows, only really small or really big fonts are smothed, so most 'regular sized' (8-12 point) take their bitmapped form. On macs, the characters just look blurry. It drives me nuts.
I'd have to see the modern implementation, but if you can't turn off font smoothing, I probably wouldn't get a mac. (not that I would anyway, but still)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Wired is running an article about Apple's recent actions to disallow OS tweaking. I'd like to congratulate Apple for taking a move to completely alienate a market they have worked for years to please.
To see why Apple's move is wrong, you have to do some thinking on your own. Why did Apple open source their system? They wanted code monkeys to "go ape" with the source, right? They must have wanted that, because their other markets (graphic designers and internet surfing grandmas) don't care.
Now ask yourself this. What do code monkeys want? They want things open. They want things they can change. Code monkeys are never happy with what's given to them. If they were, they wouldn't have bothered to learn a programming language, and they wouldn't spend hours upon hours looking through source code.
So why would you make a invitation gesture with one hand, and push people away with the other?
Apple claims to do it for our own good. They hold the opinion that they know what's best for interface related issues, and that code monkeys should only concern themselves with boring subjects such as how the OS handles virtual memory, how to patch security issues, and why audio sometimes skips on certain multiprocessor machines.
But for God's sake, even Apple can't follow their own guidelines. If you read them, you'll see things saying to only use the brushed steel interface for programs dealing directly with media or hardware. That makes sense. Apple uses it for iPhoto, QuickTime, and Final Cut Pro. They also use it for iChat. Does iChat have anything to do with media or hardware? Absolutely not.
Even a code monkey wouldn't make a stupid mistake like that.
So Apple. I'm begging you. Please don't shoot yourself in the foot like this. You spent so much time creating an open system, and wasting your time closing it again is absurd. Not only is it absurd, but it's driving away the very customers you worked incredibly hard to earn.
I'd prefer to look at deliberate and unethical atempts tp eliminate competition, rather than ability to set price in an industry, as a mark of a monopoly. (Note that it is, obviously, possible to attempt to eliminate competition by ethical means.) By that standard, I don't consider Apple a monopoly.
Apple doesn't determine the price for personal computers. They only determine the price for their brand of PC. Same as tomato sellers. If you think tomatoes cost too much in the Apple store, go somewhere else.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
How do you figure that? First of all, a whole lot of the Aqua spec IS available. It's called Openstep. Secondly how is having a clone of an OS with about 8% marketshare on an OS with less than 8% market share going to put ANYBODY out of business? It's not as though the PowerPC applications are just going to run on the x86 CPUs because the API is the same. And getting Mac developers to recompile for Linux isn't very likely since Windows developers can practically do the same thing with Winelib, but aren't.
arstechnica?
A site run by a bunch of high school freshman who don't even know the basics of computer architecture, let alone microprocessor design?
Don't believe everything you read, especially from sources as ignorant as that one.
There's nothing of value there-- unless you want to feel better about buying a PC.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Who forced you to buy the mac in the first place?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Ummm, to remove an apple bundled product, drag it to the trash, empty the trash. Not that hard to me. Boot into another OS? Install second OS, install boot manager, restart.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Even basic things like . . . turning off on-screen font smoothing -- a resource hog on older machines -- can't be done.
Not so, this can be done to a great extent even by novices. Go to the General panel of Preferences. At the bottom panel, select the font smoothing style to suit, and turn off font-smoothing for fonts "smaller than" the size to suit your taste. Learning how requires no more technical gravitas than a visit to the help page and searching for "font smoothing." Much more granularity and control can be accomplished with just a little actual "tweaking."
But here's why we know this article is insane:
And because the APIs are closed, hackers have to go to great lengths to get their tweaks to work. . . . But to do so, their programmers had to delve into Darwin, the open-source version of OS X, to figure out how to do it.
This remark is insane, for reasons obvious to any meaningful programmer with a clue. According to the author, hackers have trouble tweaking MacOSX because of the need to use open source Unix code.
Yeah, right.
It is true that a new generation of "tweaker" is necessary for the next generation of Apple OS code. Those whose primary expertise lied with knowing deep undocumented subtleties of MacOS9 rather than general tech skills will find themselves disadvantaged. But the population of BSD hackers is far greater -- and the massively better documented open source code and free development software makes life looking forward far better, not worse, IMHO, for the next generation of OS tweakers.
Difference is, Apple isn't preventing people from doing this. Note one of the comments in the article was something to the effect of (and I'm paraphrasing here) "We've neither recieved greif nor help from Apple" Meaning, they aren't going to crush you, but they're not going to ensure that your app works next time arround.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Two different posts by two different authors, genius.
And? You don't think I noticed? It doesn't matter because he was arguing the previous author's point, so the quotes were relevant given the discussion as a whole, to which you've contributed nothing.
I bet your mother's proud to have spawned such a vacuous wastrel such as yourself.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Actually, Microsoft is a monopoly because they own the lion's share of the PC market. They became an illegal monopoly because of what they do. A monopoly is not always bad or illegal.
Ironically for the company that once portrayed itself as the rebellious liberator in a 1984-ish PC world, the emerging new design philosophy is fantastically overbearing. Apple loves to play the meddlesome know-it-all. Not totalitarian, exactly, just super fussy -- the corporate equivalent of, say, Felix Unger. Let's call it Prig Brother.
Want an upgradeable system? In a world of fast-changing hardware, you just might. Sorry: the $2000 models on the "lower" end simply aren't. When I complained about bilking consumers for underpowered GeForce 4 MX video subsystems on a mailing list recently, an Apple proselytizer peeped, "What do you want? They're not upgradeable." And that sort of servile response is why they aren't.
Want to modify the UI? Hands off, please, it's perfect. As with the white keyboards whose preternatural cleanliness suggests nothing so much as neurotically wrapping furniture in plastic, Apple can't have you getting your UI dirty. By this time, the new Mac owner begins to understand why the "i" in iMac and iBook is in miniature; you're as nothing next to the Product or the Company.
Surely the "Switch" ads promised something else. Or did they? Look again. You are instructed to turn to a suite of applications that "just work," as if no other software anywhere else ever works. And probably, for the geniuses in the ads who can't turn on a PC without needing shock therapy, their PC software *didn't* just work. These are ads that posit computer users as helpless victims needing rescue. And as everyone remembers from swimming class, your friendly rescuer may just have to bop you over the head if you struggle. The subtext of the "Switch" campaign is in keeping with the anal approach to hardware and the GUI: you, the emancipated peon, are encouraged to weep your tears of gladness that Prig Brother will come to your rescue by reducing the number of buttons on your mouse and ensuring that your scroll bars are forever blue. Or gray. You have a choice!
OS X looked like a nice change of pace and allowed me to avoid giving any money to Microsoft. That's why I got an iBook. It's working just fine, thanks. Maybe it's asking too much if, since I've paid for it, Apple couldn't just mind it's own business?
You response is so typical.
I am still waiting for your glorious explanation of processor design. Can I have it now please? Or are you simply going to weasel your way out of it like you have just done.
Thanks..
Of course Apple is a monopoly under any sensible definition of the word. If the only requirement for not being a monopoly in the OS vending market was to have at least 2 other people willing to sell you an OS, Microsoft would not be a monopoly - but the DOJ has found that they are, and rightfully so. Ford is not a monopoly, but not because there are other car vendors. Ford is not a monopoly because you can buy a car from another vendor which will run on all the same roads, on the same unleaded fuel, etc., and Ford can't say anything about it.
In a lot of ways Apple's monopoly is worse than Microsoft's. If the DOJ case against Microsoft is successful (i.e., MS is punished with something more severe than "fines"), and the politics of the DOJ move in the direction of less conservative (note: I don't predict this will happen in the near future), Apple will be up next for investigation and prosecution for its monopolistic practices. However, it's certainly arguable that Apple is not nearly as malicious with it's monopoly as Microsoft has been, and therefore does not need as strict a punishment.
Let's say that a monopoly is "exclusive or near-exclusive control of a market, service, or commodity by a single group". This seems like a reasonable definition to me. Microsoft has a monopoly on OSes that run on x86-based personal computer systems. They use this monopoly to leverage to their advantage:
- Pricing and availability of x86 OSes
- Selection and licensing of OSes shipped on new x86 PCs
- Selection and licensing of applications shipped on new x86s PCs
Just as certainly as Microsoft, Apple has a monopoly on:- PowerPC-based personal computer systems
- OSes that run on PowerPCs
- Computers that run MacOS and MacOS X
Apple uses this monopoly to leverage to their advantage:Still don't believe it? Microsoft abused their monopoly and as a result it became very difficult to compete in the web browser market. It wasn't enough to beat them on quality or value, because Microsoft controlled the market, and they could throw their weight around and crush you. Same with office applications and x86 desktop operating systems. Imagine the fun you'd have if you decided you wanted to make a mp3 player app for MacOS. How could you compete with iTunes? Or if you wanted to build and sell PPC-7400 (G4) systems. Apple could make sure you can't get any if they perceived you as a threat to their market. Or if you wanted to make a desktop OS which would compete directly with MacOS X. Do you think Apple would let you bundle it on new Macs? Do you think you'd have any recourse if they didn't?
I'm not a smorgasbord.
Really? Then what about ASM, which I cannot get by without ...?? BTW, yeah it works with Jag.
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
But is that the result of apple purposely trying to prevent you or simply differences in makes? I never bothered with YD, I worked on getting MkLinux to run, but if the problems are the same, I would assume it has more to do with hardware changes from model to model as compared to an actual attempt on Apple's part to stop you.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
By my definition. a "monopoly" only exists if no competition exists. I.e., if no alternative sources are available. Obviously, by that definition, Microsoft is not a monopoly because alternative X86 operating systems and software are available.
However, Microsoft has engaged in illegal monopolistic practices intended to increase their market share by damaging and eliminating the ability of their competition to market their products.
Like all businesses, both Microsoft and Apple engage in legal practices intended to increase their market share.
Apple is the only business that markets a line of personal computers called "Apple". Apple is the only business that markets operating systems called MacOS and MacOS X. They protect that by trademark and copyright, and are not adverse to taking legal action, if necessary. The fact that Apple has a "monopoly" on the sales of PC's and software carrying the "Apple" brand does not make Apple a monopoly vendor of pesonal computer products. Consumers have many alternative sources. Likewise, anyone is free to market any kind of PC. If they slap an "Apple" label on it, that s illegal and Apple will send lawyers. As would Ford if somone started putting the "Ford" logo on a new line of cars, or as OSDN would if someone opened up a new discussion web site and called it "Slashdot".
Now, if you decide to market an MP3 player to the Mac market and Apple pays off software distributors to keep you out of the game, that's illegal and it's monopolistic. If you try to market a new PPC machine that happens to run OS X and Apple pays off Motorola and IBM to keep them from selling you chips, that's illegal and it's monopolistic. If Apple does nothing and no one wants to buy your MP3 player or your new box, you're just out of luck. If Apple simply buys up all available chip production for the forseeable future, I don't call that illegal, but lawyers would likely be able to buy more timeshares.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Dude, I simply don't know how to say it more clearly. You're fucking wrong.
A computer monitor is an emissive source; it emits light straight into your eye. The printed page is a reflective medium that reflects light. This means a computer monitor is an additive source-- it adds different color components together in various combinations to make specific colors-- while paper is a subtractive source-- it removes wavelengths from the ambient light to reflect specific colors. These are two completely different sources of color.
The results are myriad, and they range from the subtle to the gross. At the gross end, computer monitors and the printed page have different color spectra, which can reproduce different color gamuts. A monitor combines red, green, and blue to produce the RGB color gamut. A printer or printing press subtracts red, green, and blue through the use of cyan (the opposite of red), magenta (the opposite of green), and yellow (the opposite of blue). This results in a completely different color gamut.
At the more subtle end, the amount of light coming off of a computer monitor affects the eye's perception of color. This has to do with the physiology of the eye itself. The cells that are sensitive to color light (the cones) are located almost entirely within the fovea centralis, which is a tiny dimple in the retina that's directly behind the pupil. Most of the light from a computer monitor is emitted perpendicular to the screen, meaning it comes splashing into your eyes to land entirely within the fovea centralis. Because that's where all your cones are, colors on a TV or computer screen appear much more rich and vivid than colors on paper can. Light reflected from paper is scattered in all directions, so less of it lands on the fovea centralis, meaning less of it is absorbed by the cones of the eye. Reflective colors appear less saturated and less vivid than emissive colors, particularly in the low-middle part of the luminance spectrum.
I don't care how close you think your computer monitor is to the printed page. It's not the same. A trained eye can see this. Hell, an untrained eye can see this, if one only looks.
Dude, I simply don't know how to say it more clearly. You'll never convince him.
I don't care how much physics and biology you throw at some people, they're not going to see beyond their closed systems.
Betcha dollars to doughnuts this guy has spend a lot of time and money - well, they're the same thing, no? - developing his own "color manglement" system that works in his own shop. Every photograph he snaps off with his digital camera looks just *so* on his screen and prints just *so* on his inkjet. And it all looks pretty good because he re-adjusts when the monitor starts to go green or the cyan in the inkjet starts to to out or he changes light bulbs in the room once a month whether he needs to or not. He's got a system, y'know. He has experience.
More dollars to more doughnuts if he sends that nice digital pic off to his local lithographer, he doesn't get nearly what he wants. And he blames them. Bunch o'fuckups. I know, I am one.
OR...he's smart. He really does check all the CMYK values. He knows that when he sees that "certain shade of purple" that he's really going to get a "certain shade of blue" when he has posters or sales materials made at, again - his local lithographer. Folks like that *think* they're "going by the screen," but what they're really doing is making the adjustments in their heads.
Or he's holding up a matchprint to the screen and saying: "Yeah, that looks pretty good, doesn't it" and those of us who know the difference between additive and subtractive color but who are also his *supplier* are being polite and not laughing out loud so that he actually pays us later when he gets his bill. (Have I told the story of the patio pavers I had to hold up to my monitor while the customer stood over my shoulder? Ah...those were the days...)
Part of the job description we have for being a photo retoucher includes the ability to parrot this line: "Yes Mr. Customer. You're correct. Somehow your work defies the laws of physics and those two color spaces match exactly. We can do that."
Consigned to flames of woe.
saying "monopolize a marketplace" is a bit redudant...
Apple has a "monopoly" on Apple Computers, but not in the legal/antitrust meaning of the word, like MS.
Good point but that is a marketplace, albeit not in the sense it usually is used. I think my pedantic point stands. Reductionist to the point of absurdity, but true.
and I quote what I wrote and you replied to:
"(the new plugins require FCP 3 and FCP 3 requires OS X.1.1 on the OS X side)"
No problem...we crack heads need to stick together...
You try to get MkLinux running on a 5400/180, with a G3 upgrade card and installing it to an external SCSI removable drive. Factor in downloading it via a 33.6 modem through an AOL connection, installing it on unsupported hardware and not being able to get the CD ROM drive to mount and you will find that Linux is indeed more trouble than it was worth. On the other hand, OS 9 installed without a hitch. OS X will not run on the machine, nor do I have the patience to make it run on it. However, OS X does install flawlessly on my iBook and runs without any of the problems I experienced in getting MkLinux to run. And by the way, I did get Mk to run, however, once the GUI was loaded it became so unstable, that something as simple as changing settings could cause a kernel panic. To linux's credit however, it was the only OS (Mac OS 9, Windows 98 both tried) which would recognize and format the WesternDigital HD which was eventualy dropped into the 5400
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Because of course people are holding a gun to your head to force you to come here, take the time to look up my name, take the time to find my comments, and then take the time to reply. Yes, my self and my hoards of evil mind control spies are forcing you to do this.
And by your post, I can take it to mean that any distro of linux that doesn't require you to recompile the kernel at least 3 times before the GUI starts working is fo average lazy zealots that don't know anything? Tell that to the RedHat people. Tell that to the SuSE people. Tell that to the QNX people (not real Linux, but same idea). The goal of computers is to make our world easier. Part of that means that it should be easy to put something on the computer. Linux will not gain consumer market share untill it becomes easier to install and add programs. Tinkering is not something that should be required in a computer. It should be something you can do if you so choose, but it should not be required. You never even read my post, or you would have found that I did get it to run. But the GUI made it unstable. It's not my fault Linux couldn't handle the hardware.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
I used Linux for most of the period from 96 to now, though I haven't for a few months now. For my relatively mundane unix needs OS 10 may not be perfect, but it's good enough, and it's a lot handier than dual booting Linux/Windows. So anyway, I do know where you're coming from firsthand, but I've got to point something out. What you have on Linux is a lot of freedom. If you really must have a consistent system, you can do it with X - just pick one toolkit and make sure every app you run uses it. Of course, that narrows the applications you have to choose from quite a bit, but if that consistency was more important than the variety of applications then you would do it.
I managed to get a fairly consistent interface on Linux, far from perfect, but close enough it didn't drive me utterly crazy... it required in my case four custom themes, one for WindowMaker, one for GTK, one for Gnome, one for KDE... I could have made it more consistent by dropping apps, but that was the trade-off I made. Mozilla... well if you search a bit you can probably dig up some nasty flames I've posted on the subject... XUL is a wrongheaded monstrosity, I agree on all that. That said, I'm using Mozilla right now. Because I'd rather have it than IE, even though IE is native and it is not, for other reasons. I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't lose sight of the fact that, even though the interface crappiness is a bad thing, no one is forcing you to use these things, you've weighed the good and the bad points at least subconsciously and decided the good outweighs the bad... else you would not be using them, right?
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.