No More Mac Tweaking?

Apples Target Market by coene · 2002-10-01 06:04 · Score: 4, Insightful

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...

Re:Apples Target Market by dconder · 2002-10-01 06:10 · Score: 4, Insightful

Yes, but this is the same company looking to make itself accessable to artist, etc, who want to display their creativity. Now they are going to lock it down so that everyone's Apple looks the same?
A lot of the standard computer interfaces -- hierarchical menus, contextual menus, even Aqua itself -- were dreamed up by people working in bedrooms or back offices, now they want to curtail this?
Re:Apples Target Market by foobar104 · 2002-10-01 06:19 · Score: 5, Insightful

Yes, but this is the same company looking to make itself accessable to artist, etc, who want to display their creativity. Now they are going to lock it down so that everyone's Apple looks the same?

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.

See, to the creative person, a Mac is just a tool. It's like a paintbrush or a typewriter or a videotape deck. Nobody wastes time and energy rearranging the buttons on their tape deck, or changing the way their pencil works. It's a tool, and you use it so you can get the real art done.

The tool should be effective, simple, and reliable, in that order.
Re:Apples Target Market by Anonvmous+Coward · 2002-10-01 06:27 · Score: 5, Interesting

"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'm not sure I agree with that. I had an artist friend that was always monopolizing the Mac in art class. Much to our dismay, he set the system font to a font he created by hand. Unfortunately, I don't know many people with Macs so I can't really comment on more than that one guy. [i]"One example doesn't reflect the whole world"[/i]. The thing is, his art was his passion. He found an avenue to express himself on that machine and he did. I know quite a few non-Mac artists that have done all kinds of fun graphic stuff to their computers. (i.e. customized Winamp Skins, etc...)

Am I right and you're wrong? No, I'm not saying that. In composing this post I realized that there may be a difference between your artists and mine: Are your Mac friends using Macs where they work? If so, I'd say there's a big difference.

The computer you use for work benefits from not being messed with too much. You never know when you'll get a new computer and have to start over. You never know when somebody else will want to use your computer. And you [i]certainly[/i] never know when a tweak could corrupt and endanger your machine.

Apple may have a point. If they're smart, though, they'll leave the door open so that people who want to sweep in and do their tweaks can do so easily. I've done lots of UI tweaking on my machine (heh it's fun watching other people use my computer) and the benefits have been enormous. I'd hate to have my workflow disrupted.
Re:Apples Target Market by Speare · 2002-10-01 06:33 · Score: 4, Insightful

The best of the artists I've met love to tweak the tools, whether it's a new pencil, brush, table, welding iron, or computer. That's how new techniques are developed, how inspirations become expressions.
Who said, "The reasonable person adapts to his environment. The unreasonable person tries to make their environment adapt to themselves. Thus, all progress is made by unreasonable people."

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[ .sig file not found ]
Re:Apples Target Market by Dirk+Pitt · 2002-10-01 06:57 · Score: 5, Funny

Who said, "The reasonable person adapts..."
George Bernard Shaw, and I don't think he had turning all of your Mac icons into pictures of Ellen Feiss in mind.
Re:Apples Target Market by mttlg · 2002-10-01 07:10 · Score: 4, Insightful

Nobody wastes time and energy rearranging the buttons on their tape deck, or changing the way their pencil works. It's a tool, and you use it so you can get the real art done.

And just what are you supposed to do when the tool has a slight problem that makes it a pain to use? Think of how simple a pencil is, and now think of how many different kinds of pencils there are. If an artist doesn't like the way a pencil works, he can get a pencil that works better or change the one he has. Now scale that up to the complexity of an OS (much more complexity, very few choices). If I don't like having my screenshots come out as PDFs in 10.2 (TinkerTool could change this in 10.1), what are my options (besides going back to 10.1)? The truth of the matter is that nothing will be the best choice for everyone. I want my tools to be customized for how I work; I don't want some idiot in Cupertino deciding how I want to get things done. It seems like Apple is aiming for the market share of Linux and the user satisfaction of Windows, but still falling short on both counts...

(Note to moderators with the reading comprehension skills of a turnip (no offense to turnips): the above is not a troll or flamebait, it is just an honest description of the frustration that comes from watching your favorite tool do little things that really piss you off sometimes.)
Re:Apples Target Market by Tenebrious1 · 2002-10-01 07:28 · Score: 3, Insightful

What kind of artists do you know? According to your thinking, all artists should be buying brushes at Wal-Mart, since a brush is a brush, just a tool. They'd all buy #2 Ticonderoga pencils there as well since sketches are always done with the point of the pencil. That's all there is to art, right? Fine line drawings and paintings done with a 4" nylon brush?

Every painter I've met spends time tweaking their brushes before use. After buying a new brush, they shape it, trim it, thin it out, whatever they think they need to make that generic tool a specialized tool.

Sketch artists have a variety of pencils of different hardnesses and thicknesses. Most carry around sandpaper or knife to shape the points to suit their needs.

Photographers are probably the best example of tweakers- they have a half dozen lenses and a slew of filters. Half of photography is the subject material, the other half is getting the camera set up properly. Ever heard of breathing on the lense to soften the image? There's a pretty good tweak.

Mac users tweak just as much as anyone else. Any graphic artist using MacPaint? Or do they have PS and a couple hundred plugins? Where did those plugins come from? From tweakers of course. Why is PS the premiere graphics program? Because Mac users have been prodding Adobe along, asking for tweaks to the program they couldn't make themselves.

Zen artists were known for dipping their hair into ink, slopping it on a sheet of paper, and turning that slop into an image of a flowing river. Dipped a chicken's feet in ink, let it walk across paper, and turned those prints into falling leaves. Can you call a chicken effective, reliable, or simple? It produced art nonetheless, because the ARTIST knew how to create. Art doesn't create itself if you have the right tools, the Artist creates with or without the right tools.

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-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Re:Apples Target Market by emil · 2002-10-01 08:16 · Score: 3, Insightful

And you [i]certainly[/i] never know when a tweak could corrupt and endanger your machine.

While I've never used it, Mac OS X is based on BSD UNIX, and enjoys protected memory and filesystem permissions when configured properly. Any GUI tweaks that do not involve root authority should not impact other accounts or system hardware. It is quite common for UNIX users to create separate accounts to run untrusted apps, and this can be done with moderate to high confidence on patched systems. Unless a root exploit is involved, the worst a rogue app can do is trash your account (fork bombs excluded).

I realize the fear that many Mac users have of applications that crash the system. Under UNIX, this propensity is greatly reduced if not eliminated.
Re:Apples Target Market by dbrutus · 2002-10-01 08:46 · Score: 3, Informative

I suggest that you look inside some program bundles. There's a great deal *more* tweaking capability available than previous versions of the Mac OS allowed.

Speaking as an admin whose first mac was an original SE in 1987, I can tell you that Apple has always had people messing around with their undocumented internals and they've always punished them. They don't want people to get the idea that it's safe to muck around in the internals because if any significant dependencies develop, they lose their portability.

Why was the 68k->PPC transition so smooth? Because for the several years prior, Apple was doing exactly the same thing, changing their undocumented code around so that people wouldn't create a large installed base of code using undocumented APIs. Or, if they persisted in that foolishness, to create the expectation that every major OS upgrade was likely to cause a temporary break in this code until they re-did the reverse engineering to make it work again.

With Interface builder and the package standard for software, software is becoming more, not less modifiable. You used to have to download ResEdit to mess around with a dialog in an app, now you can open up the nib in Interface Builder and fairly easily add options, menus and commands. You can even add entirely new languages as the strings are supposed to be kept seperate. That creates an entirely new category of software tweaking as people can add Romanian or Urdu whether the original app maker has a clue about these languages or not.
Re:Apples Target Market by foobar104 · 2002-10-01 08:54 · Score: 3, Insightful

No, the tool should be COST effective, versatile, and reliable, in THAT order.

Wrong. The tools pay for themselves. If they don't, then you aren't using them right.

In other words, if you don't need a Mac to get the job done, don't use one. This says nothing about Macs; it does, however, say something about your own needs, talents, and abilities.
Re:Apples Target Market by foobar104 · 2002-10-01 10:10 · Score: 3, Informative

Well, since you asked - Apple's DVI implementation is non-standard.

No, it isn't. The connector is unusual, but it's documented, and adapters that break out the USB and power signals are available. This is no different from when some vendors use four-pin FireWire cables instead of six-pin cables. You simply need an adapter cable.

They do support the standard physical and electrical connections, but that doesn't mean you can take just any generic PCI or AGP card meant for a PC, and use it in a Mac.

Sounds to me like some vendors' PCI cards are non-standard. This says nothing about Apple's PCI implementation.

Apple has come a long, long way since the "skinny Mac," in which every single component was proprietary, right down to the nonstandard screws used to fasten the top to the chassis.

Okay, I'm starting to understand your point of view now. When you say "non-standard," you really mean, "I've never heard of it." Torx T-10 and T-15 screws are very much standards; they're just different standards from the ones you're familiar with.

UI != OS by Anonymous Coward · 2002-10-01 06:07 · Score: 5, Insightful

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like Apple is trying to close access to UI tweaking, not the OS.

This isn't tweaking.... by word+munger · 2002-10-01 06:07 · Score: 5, Insightful

What the article talks about isn't tweaking... It's cosmetic changes to the user interface. Apple isn't preventing users from doing useful things like modifying printer drivers, or creating time-saving macros.

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....

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ScienceSeeker.org

Re:This isn't tweaking.... by trb · 2002-10-01 06:32 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.

If a GUI is flexible enough to allow the user to have a Salvador Dali melting widgets look and feel, it should also be able to provide a way to get the standard look and feel back with a simple command.

Yet more speculation running as news. by BitGeek · 2002-10-01 06:07 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/ 1816257

Re:Yet more speculation running as news. by CaseyB · 2002-10-01 06:23 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.
Why? These people aren't modifiying the shrink-wrapped boxes Apples sells in the store. They're modifying their own machine as they see fit.
This has nothing to do with stability. It's all about dictating to people how they can use a product they own by adding arbitrary restrictions.
Standardized controls are what makes OS X much easier for newbies to use than other operating systems.
Newbies aren't the ones doing this. Give your head a shake.
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.
Why is it reasonable for a company to restrict the way we use the product? This isn't Apple designing a product to be consistent, this is Apple locking down an existing product that people are using is a way that they didn't anticipate, because the creativity these users are demonstrating angers them.
"Think Different" indeed. Try "Think the way we want you to think.".
Re:Yet more speculation running as news. by MaxVlast · 2002-10-01 06:51 · Score: 3, Funny

"Maybe Apple should have looked at the flame wars RedHat provoked with their attempt to create a "common" user look-and-feel between KDE and Gnome."

I think they did and happily realized that they just didn't need to bother with such fuss. They already have a common look and feel and are quite happy with it, thank-you-very-much.

--
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
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Misleading Crap Reporting! by ErnstKompressor · 2002-10-01 06:09 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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Re:Misleading Crap Reporting! by PythonOrRuby · 2002-10-01 06:20 · Score: 3, Informative

I think what this refers to is that third party apps that use the toolbar are relegated to something of a second class citizen status, and lack some of the capabilities of Apple-sponsored toolbar items.

For instance, my Proteus icon doesn't stay on the toolbar if Proteus isn't running, and I can't easily rearrange it on the toolbar by dragging while holding the Apple key down. I can do this(or remove the icon entirely) with the system-related icons approved by Apple(modem status, volume, resolution).

As a disclaimer, I am still using 10.1.5, so I can't speak for 10.2.

Enough already by Golias · 2002-10-01 06:13 · Score: 5, Insightful

Damn, I am so sick of so many people, especially on /. say "I would totally buy a Mac if it weren't for nitpick $FOO."

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.

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Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

Re:Enough already by the_rev_matt · 2002-10-01 06:31 · Score: 3, Insightful

I would argue that most of the web journalists who whine about tech issues (or most issues) are overpaid, rather than underpaid. Even if they don't get paid.

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Re:Enough already by xtal · 2002-10-01 07:47 · Score: 5, Interesting

I resent that. I used to be a hardcore linux zealot. Hell, I ran linux througout university and sometime thereafter, from about 1996 until 2001. Something happened once I graduated and got experience though, all of a sudden, my time wasn't free, and messing with linux to get it "just right" started to get EXPENSIVE. A day or two of playing to get a digital camera or mp3 player working all of a sudden costs me more than the gadget in question.

Now, I use a tibook for my primary machine, along with Solaris, linux, BSD and Windows 2000. Most of the EDA industry - designers of the toys we love - runs on Windows 2000. With the latest releases from Mentor Graphics, we've completely swtiched to Windows 2000 and Linux in the lab. But those machines do one thing, they are TOOLS. Just like the mac is a tool. It just happens to be a better tool (for me) to do most computing chores. Project builder is really nice. If something new that's even better comes along, I'll switch to that.

It really does just work. Apple has themselves a real winner here, but luck or design. The perfect home for open source software, oh, the irony.

Of course, that's just because I don't have time to be a zealot anymore. So maybe you're right. :-)

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..don't panic

Double standard? by Osty · 2002-10-01 06:13 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.

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.

Re:Double standard? by BitGeek · 2002-10-01 06:25 · Score: 4, Insightful

You're talking about two different situations. Just go to your mac in /System/Library/PrivateFRameworks and you can see all the private frameworks.

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.

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Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/ 1816257
Re:Double standard? by ivan256 · 2002-10-01 06:28 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.
Re:Double standard? by Dolly_Llama · 2002-10-01 06:40 · Score: 4, Funny

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.
But I thought MSIE was internal to the OS.... oh it's all so confusing...

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Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
Re:Double standard? by MaxVlast · 2002-10-01 06:44 · Score: 4, Funny

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks really makes me think of a mobster's hideout with "Secret Hideout" written over the door in the old Batman TV series.

Yea, offtopic, but I wanted to share.

--
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
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My take by Auckerman · 2002-10-01 06:14 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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Burn Hollywood Burn

Re:And Apple isn't a monopoly ? by reallocate · 2002-10-01 06:14 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"

Many of the old Mac hacks were really evil by Mars+Saxman · 2002-10-01 06:14 · Score: 5, Insightful

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

interface tweaking closed only by SirSlud · 2002-10-01 06:14 · Score: 5, Interesting

Thats a misleading article.

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 .. right?), you still have choice.

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."?

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"Old man yells at systemd"

Re:Doesn't seem like a problem to me... by bcrowell · 2002-10-01 06:14 · Score: 5, Insightful

Yep, sounds like a good decision. Customizability is the enemy of stability and usability. A case in point was extensions in pre-X versions of MacOS. Everybody had different extensions, and extensions would conflict with each other and with various apps. You'd get a buggy app that would crash all the time, and tech support would try to blame it on extension conflicts, even if that was BS. (Adobe tried to tell me PageMaker was crashing because of extension conflicts, even though I wasn't running any extensions except for Apple extensions and Adobe extensions that were required in order for the software to run!) I've heard some people complain because X no longer has extensions, but personally I'm blissfully happy. It was a mess.

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.

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redesign by carpe_noctem · 2002-10-01 06:15 · Score: 5, Funny

You know, apple.slashdot.org should redesign the graphics on their site, just for spite. ;)

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"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K

Re:Easy console access, plugins, hacks by foobar104 · 2002-10-01 06:15 · Score: 5, Funny

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."

you almost forgot by commodoresloat · 2002-10-01 06:18 · Score: 3, Funny

to whine about how many buttons the mouse has.

OS 6-9 vs OS X by Sargent1 · 2002-10-01 06:20 · Score: 5, Interesting

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.

Re:Apple shows it's true colors by foobar104 · 2002-10-01 06:21 · Score: 3, Funny

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.)

There is no problem here. by Have+Blue · 2002-10-01 06:21 · Score: 3, Insightful

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?

Big Deal by wazzzup · 2002-10-01 06:22 · Score: 4, Insightful

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?

Re:Apple... by Golias · 2002-10-01 06:22 · Score: 5, Informative

This whole story is BS.

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.

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Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

Huh? by Wyatt+Earp · 2002-10-01 06:23 · Score: 4, Informative

"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.

Not quite. by InThane · 2002-10-01 06:25 · Score: 3, Interesting

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

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InThane

Not closed to tweaking. by udecker · 2002-10-01 06:30 · Score: 5, Informative

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.

Christ by Jobe_br · 2002-10-01 06:32 · Score: 3, Insightful

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!

Apple's lawyers may turn the other cheek, but its engineers have taken a more active approach. To prevent interface changes in OS 10.2, known as Jaguar, the software prevents programs from taking up certain bits of screen real estate. 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.

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.

Re:Easy console access, plugins, hacks by Dr+Slump99 · 2002-10-01 06:33 · Score: 3, Informative

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...

Steve Jobs's anality--some good, some bad results by hyacinthus · 2002-10-01 06:34 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.

Re:Apple... by Rader · 2002-10-01 06:38 · Score: 3, Funny

Wow, removing that stupid favorites heart and changing scroll arrows is really some serious tweaking.

Zexplain zis drag and drop you zpeak of...

This article is total FUD. by SensitiveMale · 2002-10-01 06:43 · Score: 3, Informative

There are dozens of themes out and more are released every week.

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.

What I wrote to the author of the article: by al3x · 2002-10-01 06:53 · Score: 5, Interesting

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.

Total speculation by cryptochrome · 2002-10-01 07:07 · Score: 5, Interesting

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.

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---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?

Re:Yes and No. by Lazaru5 · 2002-10-01 07:15 · Score: 3, Insightful

The fact is also that for most users and Apple's target market, they neither care that some unknown UI hacker won't be able to change her interface anymore, or make such such changes available for others. What this means is:

They won't be turned off of Macs because of some rebellious "fight the power" attitude (a reference to the submitter's not switching to a mac because of this).
They won't be interested in, or even be aware of, any such mods.

And the AC whom you responded to was talking to the Slashdot audience in general (and the submitter in particular) and not the typical Apple user. And the /. audience is quick (sometimes too quick) to get riled up over a misunderstanding of issues. I applaud them for trying to stop it before it started. (Course, 5:Insightful is a bit over the top for something that's obvious.)

I dunno, maybe the original submission wasn't well thought out. The article is clearly about UI changes but they responded as if Apple had said they were tossing out the APSL and ceasing all further open source projects.

Having said that, I don't really think that UI changes affect Apple negatively. As you said, Apple has a target market. That target market expects the OS to look and work a certain way. That target market isn't GOING to change their UI. That target market will continue to Perceive the Reality that Apple puts forth unto them.

It can be argued even (and the Wired article touches on this) that UI hacking by those who care actually _help_ Apple. Many changes to MacOS over the years came from someone a hack. Even MacTCP (though not a UI hack) was a hack for a long time before Apple took it as their own.

--

--
My comments and opinions completely reflect those of anyone and anything I am remotely associated with.

Re:Ok Everybuddy!!!!! by BitGeek · 2002-10-01 07:28 · Score: 3, Funny

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/ 1816257

Actually, Apple was interested in hearing... by ColdForged · 2002-10-01 07:43 · Score: 3, Informative

... 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

Themes vs. Usability by fsck! · 2002-10-01 07:53 · Score: 3, Interesting

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)

Lack of concensus amoung the developers about what looks "pretty."
Users who want different packages from different vendors to have the same look and feel (although themes don't usually bring a "feel" with the "look").

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!

Re:Themes vs. Usability by Arker · 2002-10-01 09:40 · Score: 3, Interesting

But, developers who spend weeks making their apps themable instead of making them easier to use in the first place should really take a moment to think about their goals. Themes (within free software at least) are mostly a bandaid measure for bad UI design and poor cooperation.

Ironically, I really do agree with you there. Themable apps are a pretty horrible idea. That said, themes for the whole system are a whole different ball of wax.

Apples efforts against theming quite piss this basically happy G4 owner off, and I'm not the only one. They want a consistent interface on Mac, and I can certainly understand that, but it's still my machine, they got their money, and if I loan it to anyone I'll create a new user for them anyway. Apples concern with it really shouldn't go any further than making sure that new users start with the default theme. And it's not just themes they are doing this with, countless other minor utilities keep getting broken every time they upgrade OSX, and it seems most of it is deliberate. None of which improves goodwill towards Apple among the users who like these utilities, and none of which makes any sense except from exactly the sort of snooty, we-know-better-shut-up-and-eat-your-spam attitude that Apple should be avoiding like the plague. Think different - but only the same different we have prepared for you, don't you dare tweak anything. Anyway, read the article, it is really worth it, it explains some of the actual changes which I'm not going to duplicate.

I think what's going on is a backlash by certain sections within Apple against the expanded user freedom implied with the command line and the Unix base. They're overcompensating against the perceived 'complexity' introduced (even though they've done a good job of making sure the user doesn't even need to know about it, which is where they should have stopped) and so now they are clamping down on personalisation and customisability traits that have long been Apple hallmarks. A very very poor reaction. I certainly hope whoever is behind it gets straightened out or sacked soon, because I really do love these new Macs, and I don't want to see Apple shoot itself in the foot like this anymore.

--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.

Comment removed by account_deleted · 2002-10-01 07:58 · Score: 3, Interesting

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I knew a 'tweaker more than artist' before.. by angelo · 2002-10-01 08:06 · Score: 3, Insightful

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'

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Lowmag.net

Re:I too know a lot of artists by Spyky · 2002-10-01 08:13 · Score: 5, Insightful

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

Misses The Point by johnos · 2002-10-01 08:16 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

It should be pointed out that... by dutky · 2002-10-01 08:31 · Score: 5, Interesting

the article is pure, sesational, bullshit. While life is a bit harder for the tweakers who were counting on the Appearance Manager API (which got 'Steved', along with lots of othe crap from the darkest days of Apple), there is still lots of themeing and tweaking going on: at least as much as there was in the early days of classic MacOS (back around 1984-1986). Things will get more interesting as the Cocoa APIs mature and folks get more familiar with them.

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.

Which is it? Customizability--good or bad? by g4dget · 2002-10-01 08:42 · Score: 3, Insightful

"Whereas Apple pioneered the completely customizable system, they are now headed in the other direction, trying to close most APIs that deal with the interface,"

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".

Typical fake conflict journalism by ianscot · 2002-10-01 08:53 · Score: 4, Insightful

Pretty classic bit of modern journalism. Our news channels cast anything as a radical conflict. If a reporter gets an assignment, job one is to identify a conflict, and job two is to categorize all sources in terms of which artificially-polarized side the source belongs to.

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 Had Something of a dialogue with Apple on this by guttentag · 2002-10-01 09:19 · Score: 3, Interesting

A few weeks ago I received an email from an Apple exec in response to my Apple essay (see my sig). The exec (no, it's probably no one you've heard of) also asked what I thought of Mac OS X, so I sent a rather long reply which included:

I love the stability and degree of control the underlying Unix provides. Looking back, I can't imagine how I got by without shell scripts, and I try to encourage others to discover them as well. Mac users like an easy-to-use interface, but they're also adventurous. They'll tackle any steep learning curve if the rewards are great enough, as long as they have their safe Macintosh UI on which to fall back.
I also like the clean interface, though it would be nice if Apple supported the third-party themes users have been waiting to create since 8.5 whet their appetites. In some ways, it seems almost too clean, like a college dorm without posters or christmas lights.

Over the weekend I received a response which included:

many thanks for responding in such detail! i share many of your opinions and you mentioned a couple of things i wasn't aware of- much appreciation for that.

So perhaps there's hope. :o)

Is tweaking the GUI tweaking the OS? by imacosx · 2002-10-01 09:23 · Score: 3, Informative

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.

Re:Easy console access, plugins, hacks by hysterion · 2002-10-01 09:26 · Score: 3, Informative

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.

Thank you, Apple, for ridding the world of the `Homeland Alert' menu item and attendant stock tickers. It's always the same two or three lame things anyway.

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

Re:A step backwards... by geek · 2002-10-01 10:28 · Score: 3, Funny

"according to people I have talked to OS X doesn't cut it."

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 /. macintosh biggots right?

Re:I too know a lot of artists by DavidRavenMoon · 2002-10-01 13:36 · Score: 3, Funny

In fact I'm hard pressed to think of a single proprietary protocol or otherwise that is in use in any modern mac.

<sarcasm>

I know one. The single button mouse!

</sarcasm>

(reality distortion field cost extra)

--
-- if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic - Lewis Carrol

Apple Menu by Draoi · 2002-10-02 02:54 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.

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

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