Apple Announces iCloud and iWork For iOS

iONiUM writes "Through a press release ahead of WWDC, Apple has revealed that it will be releasing its own cloud service to rival Google and Amazon's. In addition, they will unveil the new iOS, and the latest desktop OS." Apple also announced the release of the iWork suite for iOS devices.

Comments

Looking forward to Lion

[hackertourist]

Autosave, Version and Resume are major improvements, and long overdue for desktop OSes.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[betterunixthanunix]

I have seen all of them on other OSes, just not dressed up to look as pretty...

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[hackertourist]

Sure, versioning has been around forever.
But autosave, and preserving system state through a restart? I've seen both done on a per-application basis, but not systemwide.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[betterunixthanunix]

That depends on your definition of "systemwide." I doubt that every program that runs on Mac OS X will have autosave or resume functionality; it will probably involve some sort of hook into the system. Such a framework existed in KDE3, where KDE applications could all resume after KDE was restarted (and this probably exists in KDE4), and all KDE applications had autosave (as far as I know).

Now, if Apple has written an operating system that enables autosave and resume for any application, even X11 applications, I will be very impressed.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[hackertourist]

How is this modded Offtopic? These are features of Lion, aka OS X 10.7, the new OS that will be shown off at the WWDC as per TFS.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[hackertourist]

Hibernate preserves system state through a power-down. It does not preserve system state through a reboot.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[lennier1]

Except for regular hibernation mode.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[macs4all]

Sure, versioning has been around forever. But autosave, and preserving system state through a restart? I've seen both done on a per-application basis, but not systemwide.

Then I guess you missed Lisa 7/7 (also the world's first integrated office application(s)). That lighted power switch on the front of the Lisa? If it was running the LisaOS (instead of MacOS), pressing that button performed a system save and shutdown, and pressing it again did a restart and reboot. This two-part video here and here shows just how advanced the Lisa was. In fact, that (and the hideous price) was (were) the two main reasons the Lisas became landfill, instead of a household name. And there's no denying that it paved the way for the desktop/windowing metaphor.

BTW, notice that even in the first incarnation of the Lisa OS, it allowed for heirachical folders. That feature didn't appear in Windows until Windows 95. Amazing.

Designed starting in 1978. Released in 1983. I think they won.

And before someone starts all that bullshit about "Apple stole Xerox PARC's work", let me say this: 1) Apple PAID Xerox for to use their work. And 2) Without the improvements (not the least of which was pulldown menus!) that some very talented engineers made, that preliminary GUI work would not have become really useable, let alone nearly ubiquitious.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[TheCouchPotatoFamine]

NOTE: Resume requires the application support it and be written specifically for it! It does NOT magically restart everything (networks, files, god, every resource needs to be reworked, i bet, so there are no deadlocks on the next start. Think about it!)

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[node 3]

I have seen all of them on other OSes

No, you haven't. Not desktop OSs at any rate.

Autosave: I don't know a single OS that has it. Programs, sure, but not OSs.
Versions: Aside from some snapshotting filesystems, I am unaware of any OS which has this either, although snapshots are similar enough. VSS is also similar, but much cruder. This is significantly more than having RCS (or similar) installed.
Resume: The only consumer OS I'm aware of with this is iOS. I assume there must be some mainframe systems which have something similar.

just not dressed up to look as pretty...

They aren't merely "dressed up". They are implemented in such a way that every. single. person. who uses a computer can make use of them. This is why "oh, this other OS has done this for decades" falls on deaf ears. What good is a feature to someone if they can't use it?

This is far from simply making them visually appealing. Of the three, only Versions has a "dressed up" UI. The other two just happen. For normal people, this is huge. For geeks who don't want to fuck around with every little detail on their computer, this is huge. For tinker-nerds who would rather spend time setting up their computer rather than using their computer, this is 'meh'.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[node 3]

It's a bit disingenuous to compare Cocoa with KDE. KDE is just one of many user-facing layers on an OS, while Cocoa is *the* user-facing layer. There are a few others around for compatibility, and games bypass even these altogether, but adding a feature to Cocoa has much wider system benefits than adding a feature to KDE does.

And Resume isn't just restarting the same apps you had open when you restart your computer. This is apps not even having to "restart" in the first place. Their entire state is saved, so restarting a program just reloads the memory. This makes opening previously "closed" apps much quicker, and makes restarting your computer much less jarring. Aside from checking uptime or pagefile usage (or other tallied metrics, like network traffic), you can't tell the difference from a computer that was just restarted and one that has been heavily used for months.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[pandrijeczko]

I own an Asus EEE PC netbook that's a couple of years old now and I run Linux on it.

The other day, I accidentally closed the lid while it was powered on and I was quite surprised to discover that Hibernate seemed to work quite well on it - up to that point, I'd never given Hibernate a second thought.

After I sat down and thought about it for a while, I decided that if my life was so chock full of shit to do that 30 seconds to wait for my netbook to boot fully from a power on was far too long, then I probably need to go do some serious time management in my life overall.

The point I'm trying to make is that despite the fact that the Hibernate feature works okay, I don't use it - let alone a Hibernation that also survives a reboot.

People seem to place such importance on useless features that are only there because those same people don't organise themselves better - a bit of a paradox if you think about it.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[NatasRevol]

Wondering if this is on/because of zfs or some other filesystem change from HFS+.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[sehgalanuj]

It's amazes me when people comment without knowing what they talk about. Hibernate is not what this resume function is since that is already in OS X and has been around since Tiger days (at least that is since when I've used macs). In fact, unlike the Windows and Linux variants which try to save state before battery runs out and mostly fail, this actually does manage to save state, always. What is even more impressive (it is sad that this is impressive) is that upon a subsequent power on, the state resumes successfully!

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[betterunixthanunix]

First of all, I strongly doubt that Apple has written an OS that adds autosave or resume to every running application. If they did, I will be impressed; more likely, applications must use specific OS hooks to get these features. That being said:

• Resume was in KDE3, and to the best of my knowledge KDE4 supports it; all KDE programs benefited from it, and even a few non-KDE programs. Considering how broad KDE was, KDE/GNU/Linux should qualify as an "operating system." You may disagree, but then the argument boils down to "what constitutes an OS?"
• Autosave -- again, the KDE example, but not as extensive as resume. All KDE applications for which autosave was relevant had autosave.
• Versioning -- this goes all the way back to ITS, so do not even try to claim that no OS before OS X had it. We are not talking about revision control; this was built into the filesystem and it was automatic.

Again, if autosave and resume are truly available in every application, even applications that are not specific written for OS X (e.g. X11 applications), I will be impressed. I doubt that this is the case, because of the technical complexity involved in creating such a system, but I am open to the possibility of being wrong here.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the point of a reboot to reset system state? If I wanted to preserve it, I'd use hibernate.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[MaskedSlacker]

So...they reinvented hibernate?

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[betterunixthanunix]

It's a bit disingenuous to compare Cocoa with KDE. KDE is just one of many user-facing layers on an OS, while Cocoa is *the* user-facing layer. There are a few others around for compatibility, and games bypass even these altogether, but adding a feature to Cocoa has much wider system benefits than adding a feature to KDE does.

Except that the use-case for KDE is exactly that: you are using KDE, and nothing else (with the possible exception of Firefox). Yes, an educated user might be running non-KDE applications, but I can say the same about Cocoa: an educated user might be running X11 applications. Adding a feature to KDE would have a pretty wide impact for KDE users, and I would argue that this is comparable to Cocoa. The whole point of a desktop environment is be exactly that: your environment.

Their entire state is saved, so restarting a program just reloads the memory

Can you cite a source here? That is a very complex thing for an OS to do, on the level of a live kernel upgrade (i.e. upgrading a kernel without having to reboot). If this is what the OS is doing, and if the OS is doing it without requiring the application to make any special system calls to enable that functionality, it would be impressive.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[pandrijeczko]

I could throw the same accusation at you - you have a good understanding of what Hibernate is on an Apple device but not on devices outside of that. I cannot comment on how good it works on Apple devices because I don't use them, mine is more of general statement on its usefulness as a feature in the first place.

I can only describe what I have witnessed with my own eyes in that I was intrigued that Hibernate seemed to work fine on my Linux EEE PC.

I tested it out for about a half hour until I got bored with it, I tried a few different programs running (admittedly no games) and shut the lid. In each case it came out of Hibernate fine, though took a few seconds more than I would have hoped to come back but then there's maybe a few kernel options or ACPI configuration I could do if I was that bothered about getting it working better.

As for save state before battery fail, I cannot answer that for Linux. I assume it would require some configuration of the acpid daemon but assuming that the platform ACPI chipset is fully supported, there's no reason I could think of why it wouldn't work, although admittedly it might be a bit fiddly to set up.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[EastCoastSurfer]

So...they reinvented hibernate?

No, just one that works :p

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[TheCouchPotatoFamine]

The apple configuration is useful because it uses both the condition RAM sleep - which is MUCH faster to wake up from - in addition to hibernate. When they detect RAM sleep is about to exhaust the battery it starts the computer just enough to go into hibernation so no matter how you slice it you have your state stored.

It's best of both worlds approach. Most computers merely go to hibernate, when instructed by the user and not automatically upon need, just fine.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[Ixokai]

You have? Name one.

You may have seen applications that implemented the features in question -- but that's a very different thing then an OS (including desktop environments, like Gnome or KDE) providing it as a part of their API/frameworks for everything to make use of, in a consistent way across all of their apps.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[betterunixthanunix]

• Resume and Autosave? In KDE.
• Versioning? Dates all the way back to ITS.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[Ixokai]

Let's see.

Resume? Where? If you're going to point at Hibernate, that's not resume as far as I'm aware. Resume is a per-application thing (though surely you can restart all) -- its less about dumping RAM to disk then letting each app suspend/restore its state automatically: its more like the iOS suspend/resume / fast application restart/switching then anything else.

Cuz, if I load up my Kubuntu and start messing around, and I can't find a single application that sports any kind of state resuming besides the calculator. Granted, this is an old-ish version of Kubuntu. I should upgrade to 11.04.

But, now looking at Kate, it has options that lets you save your session on exit, and automatically load your last session on start. That's sorta like resume, except I can't find similar options in a few other apps I randomly selected to look around. Not counting random third-party things, but stuff bundled into KDE.

Autosave and versioning? Where? Let's see, looking over at kate -- I can set it up to save backups. If you're calling that backups "versioning", you're... not getting it. And setting up say, RCS or SVN or whatever doesn't count either.

I see certain programs in KDE have implemented similar features. That's kinda nothing like it being implemented in the core KDE libs and available to all applications with minimal effort (though surely, some).

Now, sure. Maybe I'm totally off base, and 11.04 has done all of this in core KDE. Or maybe a more recent version then is shipping in kubuntu. But your claims don't seem to pan out for even casual testing of basic, core apps...

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[betterunixthanunix]

Well, I should be more clear: I am thinking back to KDE3 (you might be using KDE4?). When I was using KDE3, I could get resume functionality with kedit/kate, konqueror, koffice, quanta, and even a few non-KDE applications that had opened files through KIO. Likewise, relevant KDE3 applications -- kedit/kate, koffice, quanta, etc. -- all had autosave functionality.

As I said, versioning in the filesystem itself was a feature of ITS before Apple was even incorporated as a company. Theoretically you could download ITS and try this for yourself, but why not save yourself the trouble and look it up on Wikipedia, along with the list of other versioning filesystems:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versioning_filesystem

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[jo42]

Autosave, Version and Resume are major improvements, and long overdue for desktop OSes.

Do not want. Do not need.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[eggnoglatte]

First of all, I strongly doubt that Apple has written an OS that adds autosave or resume to every running application. If they did, I will be impressed; more likely, applications must use specific OS hooks to get these features.

Why? Autosave is something you could implement today for any given OS X application using AppleScript. All you need is to do is write a 3 linear script that calls the "Save" hook every couple of minutes. Of course that isn't all that desirable, since the user should be able to control when the original gets overwritten. But as soon as you have a versioning file system, that concern no longer exists. Just automatically send call the save function of all applications every couple of minutes. For resume, you just get asked on program start whether you want to load the latest snapshot or the explicitly saved previous version. Very simple.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[SanityInAnarchy]

They are implemented in such a way that every. single. person. who uses a computer can make use of them.

You simultaneously underestimate and overestimate the human race, which is a bit odd.

You overestimate them in that you've actually (with emphasis) said that every person who uses a computer can use this -- trivially false. Aside from people who cannot practically justify having a Mac (and thus cannot run the OS, let alone use it), there are the people who learn this stuff by rote, who will refuse to learn a new interface, no matter how shiny, if there is any possible way they can hang on to their old interface and habits.

You underestimate them in that the ones who are actually willing to try out a new OS, and don't have to go through the pain of installing it themselves, don't really seem to have too much trouble using at least some of these concepts on other OSes. For example, I actually can't remember a desktop Linux that didn't support some form of Resume, and I'm a bit confused as to how "Would you like to save your session?" isn't something people could figure out, once the idea was presented to them.

This is why "oh, this other OS has done this for decades" falls on deaf ears. What good is a feature to someone if they can't use it?

First, it irks people to no end to see Apple claiming credit for these things as "innovations" and bashing everyone else for being so far behind, when, in fact, the majority of these "new" features have been elsewhere for decades, and that elsewhere would maybe like a bit of credit.

Second, you would hope these people would then be curious about what other features have been in other OSes for decades. If these things really are so great when Apple does them, isn't it worth a little bit of effort to see what Apple will be claiming as "new" in another ten years?

For geeks who don't want to fuck around with every little detail on their computer, this is huge. For tinker-nerds who would rather spend time setting up their computer rather than using their computer, this is 'meh'.

I'm fairly sure this is not only a false dichotomy, but I'm guessing it leaves out a majority of geeks. I don't want to fuck around with every little detail on my computer, which is why I use an Ubuntu variant, instead of fucking around with Gentoo and kernel compilation like I used to. At the same time, I do like to know what's actually going on inside my machine, and have a bit more control available when I need it, which is actually my biggest problem with Macs in general.

For example: Autosave. If they're billing this as a feature of the OS, how are they hooking that in to my apps? How do I know what does and doesn't support it? If I can't, how is it at all useful to me? I'd then be hitting cmd+s every few minutes anyway, whether or not autosave is enabled -- and I'd probably do that anyway unless the majority of my apps support it. It's also unclear how this is an OS feature when it still needs app-specific support, since apps on all platforms have supported autosave for decades now, and people don't seem to have issues figuring it out. Not sexy and new apps, not obscure and geeky apps -- Intuit Quicken comes to mind.

And how does Versions decide how much to save? Does it expire old versions when I'm low on disk space, or by wall time? If by wall time, am I going to run out of disk space and have to manually delete old versions? If by disk space, how does it prioritize what to delete when it's time? Can I tweak this at all? Can I mark specific versions to be saved, or do I need to copy them as new files themselves? How are exclusions managed -- can I have it automagically ignore every Git repository on the system? Or, conversely, can I have it not do that?

FileVault -- if I'm going to use this, clearly I care about crypto, so I think I have a right to ask: How in the hell are they doing this live? Will

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[betterunixthanunix]

...and all your X11 applications or terminal applications will be excluded from your very simple solution. If you are restricting the discussion to "only Cocoa applications," then I will respond by noting that restricting the discussion to other frameworks -- "only KDE3 applications, only LibreOffice/Uno applications, etc." leads us to the conclusion that this has been implemented before. Yes, if your framework forces applications to use a well-define "save" function, rather than something like POSIX API functions (open, write, etc.), this is a simple thing to implement -- that is why it has been done before. However, Mac OS X does not require all applications to use such a convenient API, and being a Unix is one of the Mac OS X selling points.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[guruevi]

I have tested Lion and it's only for Cocoa applications, not X11 or shell scripts just like KDE's feature only works for QT apps. For their Cocoa apps it's very simple to do, just change the underlying framework that handle the memory allocations and window drawings.

And it's not really a hibernate feature either. Hibernate takes a snapshot of all the system's memory and puts in on the hard drive. Lion actually restarts the kernel fresh as well as most other core services (such as background services) however applications with a user interface get 'hibernated'.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[eggnoglatte]

Well, we are getting into semantics here, but on OS X, "application" != "program". An application is everything packaged into a ".app" directory. By and in large the described method will work for these applications. The method will not work for all "programs", i.e. stuff started on the command line etc.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[betterunixthanunix]

Well if we can just redefine words like that...

The point is that this feature is not an Apple original, it has been done before.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[node 3]

They are implemented in such a way that every. single. person. who uses a computer can make use of them.

You simultaneously underestimate and overestimate the human race, which is a bit odd.

You overestimate them in that you've actually (with emphasis) said that every person who uses a computer can use this -- trivially false. Aside from people who cannot practically justify having a Mac (and thus cannot run the OS, let alone use it), there are the people who learn this stuff by rote, who will refuse to learn a new interface, no matter how shiny, if there is any possible way they can hang on to their old interface and habits.

I'm not sure what you are reading, but I'm stating that these features are implemented in such a way that anyone can use them. Your first "point" is just plain stupid. Of course you have to have a computer that runs Lion to use features of Lion. I find it impossible to believe you actually think I meant that even people on Windows, or without a computer at all, can use these features.

Your second point shows no understanding of how these features work. Two of them require no alteration in interaction whatsoever. They just happen. The only one with a reasonable amount of change in workflow is versions.

If you can use a Mac *AT ALL*, you can use Resume and Autosave. Versions is an extra button, and is presented in a way that anyone can pick up with virtually no effort. And *NONE* of the three involve changing habits or changing from their old interfaces.

You underestimate them in that the ones who are actually willing to try out a new OS, and don't have to go through the pain of installing it themselves, don't really seem to have too much trouble using at least some of these concepts on other OSes. For example, I actually can't remember a desktop Linux that didn't support some form of Resume, and I'm a bit confused as to how "Would you like to save your session?" isn't something people could figure out, once the idea was presented to them.

You don't understand AT ALL how this works.

You don't get a prompt.
You don't hit a button.
You don't set an option.

You don't do ANYTHING different AT ALL. When you quit a program (whether directly, or by logging out or shutting down), the next time you start it, it is in the exact same state that you left it in. This goes much further than "saving your session". For example, if you save your session in Safari or Firefox, it reloads the pages you had open. With Resume, it doesn't reload them from the web, it reloads the memory from the program exactly as it was when it quit.

This is why "oh, this other OS has done this for decades" falls on deaf ears. What good is a feature to someone if they can't use it?

First, it irks people to no end to see Apple claiming credit for these things as "innovations" and bashing everyone else for being so far behind, when, in fact, the majority of these "new" features have been elsewhere for decades, and that elsewhere would maybe like a bit of credit.

Apple almost NEVER claims to be the first to come up with these features. They do often call them innovations, and quite simply, they often are. The main innovations aren't "a system that can autosave files" or "a backup system built into the OS" or anything so vague. The innovation is in the implementation. If you have any grasp of how Resume works given my description, you'll understand how much of an innovation this really is in terms of making it a feature for a consumer OS. Nothing out there comes close other than iOS.

For geeks who don't want to fuck around with every little detail on their computer, this is huge. For tinker-nerds who would rather spend time setting up their computer rather than using their computer, this is 'meh'.

I'm fairly sure this is not only a false dichotomy,

It wasn't a dichotom

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[node 3]

First of all, I strongly doubt that Apple has written an OS that adds autosave or resume to every running application. If they did, I will be impressed; more likely, applications must use specific OS hooks to get these features.

Just every Cocoa application that is recompiled for 10.7. You don't have to do anything to take advantage of it, it's part of the OS. However, you can disable it if it doesn't make sense for your program.

Resume was in KDE3, and to the best of my knowledge KDE4 supports it; all KDE programs benefited from it, and even a few non-KDE programs. Considering how broad KDE was, KDE/GNU/Linux should qualify as an "operating system." You may disagree, but then the argument boils down to "what constitutes an OS?"

No, it doesn't. You can't handwave away the differences by playing word games. It doesn't matter if you want to call it an OS or a Desktop Environment (hmm... I wonder what the two letters after "K" originally stood for?), the point is simple:

1. KDE does not have the same resume feature that Lion has. Not even close.
2. In actual use, KDE tends to be much more of a mixed environment than Mac OS X. Even if it was the same as the Resume feature in Lion (it's not), there would be much more in the way of rough edges. This is not a trivial distinction, and is in fact one of the reasons Linux is such a poor choice for a consumer desktop OS.

Autosave -- again, the KDE example, but not as extensive as resume. All KDE applications for which autosave was relevant had autosave.

No one ever claimed applications do not have the ability to autosave. In Lion, this just happens.

Versioning -- this goes all the way back to ITS, so do not even try to claim that no OS before OS X had it. We are not talking about revision control; this was built into the filesystem and it was automatic.

Hmm... You must have missed the part where I wrote:

"Aside from some snapshotting filesystems"

Anyway, this is not something has ever been in a consumer OS, and the front-end to it is LIGHT YEARS beyond anything that has ever existed in any OS, other than Time Machine in OS X.

As for it being built into ITS, that's interesting, I honestly would like to hear more about it. But if it's just a form of filesystem snapshotting, it's cool (especially for such an old OS), but still quite different from how Versions works.

Again, if autosave and resume are truly available in every application, even applications that are not specific written for OS X (e.g. X11 applications), I will be impressed.

No one is claiming this, just you. And if you aren't impressed by how these features work in Lion, you either don't know how these features work in Lion, or you're just being deliberately obtuse in a fanboy sense. These are fantastic for a desktop OS, they are unparalleled by any other desktop OS, and they are implemented in such a way that anyone can easily use them (hell, TWO of the three don't even require the user to do anything differently!).

I doubt that this is the case, because of the technical complexity involved in creating such a system, but I am open to the possibility of being wrong here.

Yes, there is a lot of technical complexity involved. That's why these things haven't been implemented before in such user-friendly fashions (and in the case of Resume, I don't know of any OS outside of iOS that has this, although I'm sure there must be something, either an experimental OS like Plan 9, or a mainframe OS, etc.).

Using the most mundane example of the three, Autosave is something that can be part of the OS because of how Cocoa works. It's all objects. Apple can change how their Frameworks work, and all applications suddenly gain new capabilities. It's much more difficult to add to something like Windows or Linux (or KDE), because of how saving is done on those sy

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[node 3]

No, Hibernate (which already exists in OS X) is a full memory dump to disk. This is serializing the objects in individual running programs. In terms of restarting the computer, it's almost exactly like restoring from hibernate, but without the long delay in shutting down and a similarly long delay in booting.

This also means that whenever you quit a program, when you start it again, it will be just as you left off. This can dramatically speed up application launching, as well as making it appear to the user similar to as if the program had never been quit in the first place.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[node 3]

It's a bit disingenuous to compare Cocoa with KDE. KDE is just one of many user-facing layers on an OS, while Cocoa is *the* user-facing layer. There are a few others around for compatibility, and games bypass even these altogether, but adding a feature to Cocoa has much wider system benefits than adding a feature to KDE does.

Except that the use-case for KDE is exactly that: you are using KDE, and nothing else (with the possible exception of Firefox). Yes, an educated user might be running non-KDE applications, but I can say the same about Cocoa: an educated user might be running X11 applications. Adding a feature to KDE would have a pretty wide impact for KDE users, and I would argue that this is comparable to Cocoa. The whole point of a desktop environment is be exactly that: your environment.

Linux distros install all sorts of apps that aren't part of the particular desktop environment of choice and put them into the default menus, and aside from the cases where a program starts with an oddly-placed K or G, it's not generally clear whether an app is native to the current environment or not.

I do agree that it's similar (and I tried to make this point in my original post), but it's not comparable in terms of impact to the user. The main reason for this is that in Linux, "choice" permeates every part of the system. This is good in many ways, but very poor when it comes to making system-wide advances.

Or put differently, to the user Cocoa *IS* Mac OS X. There are a handful of other built-in APIs, but they are all in the process of being deprecated (Carbon) or are part of the Unix underpinnings that few users will ever see (X11). On Linux, KDE is *NOT* the system, it's just an optional part of the system (that's even true of KDE-oriented systems, like kubuntu).

Their entire state is saved, so restarting a program just reloads the memory

Can you cite a source here?

Apple's Lion page. Also, the keynote where this was announced, as well as that's exactly what iOS does. Cocoa apps are just objects. Resume simply serializes them, and then reloads them when you start the program again. Mac OS X (and Nextstep before it) did exactly this with many parts of a program. For example, the user interface is usually built in Interface Builder, where you load a bunch of actual objects, customize them, then save them to a file to include in your Xcode project.

That is a very complex thing for an OS to do, on the level of a live kernel upgrade (i.e. upgrading a kernel without having to reboot). If this is what the OS is doing, and if the OS is doing it without requiring the application to make any special system calls to enable that functionality, it would be impressive.

Yes, it is both complex and impressive.

These three features stand to basically make normal people's lives better. Two of them help against "oh shit" moments (Versions and Autosave) and the third pretty much invisibly makes the computer work more like a person would expect as a persistent system, even across reboots. You might notice that Lion does away with the light that indicates running vs not running apps (a toggle-able option for those that really care).

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[weicco]

Hi. I would be very interested if you had any more informative source about Resume. This is kind of functionality I've thought about for some time and I'd be very happy to read how Apple does it "under the hood". Unfortunately the link you provided contained mainly market speech with no technical details.

It's rather easy to serialize program onto the disk (or whatever). All you need to have is well defined interface with Serialize(some stream) and Deserialize(some stream) kinds of methods. Application does all the heavy work, environment just provides the stream. In fact, Symbian had such functionality over ten years ago. But if the Operating System goes and probes process's memory and stores it, without any assistance from the application itself, and later writes it back to the process's memory when the application is started, then it's a totally different thing. Unfortunately it could be a security problem also.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[amliebsch]

This is the default in newer versions of Windows, as well.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[bennomatic]

So I could swear that I had a situation not that long ago where my MacBook's battery died. When I replaced it and plugged the machine in, it booted to a snap-shot state with all my programs running as I'd left them when the battery went south. Is the new Resume feature different from the state-save already built in?

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[hackertourist]

That's Hibernate, not resume. Look elsewhere in this thread for the difference.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[node 3]

The technical details are, as far as I know, still under NDA. However, it's the same as what iOS does, so you could look into that if you are interested.

All Cocoa apps are collections of objects. For this feature, the OS just serializes them and writes them to disk. This has been done for parts of programs since Nextstep (primarily, the UI). Also, you can serialize and deserialize your own objects from within a Cocoa app. The Resume feature is just the OS itself serializing and deserializing the entire program, it seems (based on how it's described).

That's one of the ways "multitasking" works on iOS, and is now being brought over to Mac OS X as an additional feature.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[Richard_at_work]

And why should Apple give a shit about X11 or terminal apps?

X11 on OSX needs to die anyway.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[Enry]

So they invented checkpointing?

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[betterunixthanunix]

Except that resume does not seem to work for non-cocoa applications -- like X11 applications, terminal programs, etc. That is essentially what KDE3 had -- KDE applications could be resumed, but other programs could not (actually, some non-KDE programs could be resumed, because of KIO).

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[betterunixthanunix]

In actual use, KDE tends to be much more of a mixed environment than Mac OS X. Even if it was the same as the Resume feature in Lion (it's not), there would be much more in the way of rough edges. This is not a trivial distinction, and is in fact one of the reasons Linux is such a poor choice for a consumer desktop OS.

Except that this is not relevant at all: KDE is supposed to serve the same purpose that Aqua/Cocoa serve in Mac OS X. It is a complete desktop environment, and your entire OS could be KDE/GNU/Linux plus some libraries. The fact that people do not typically use it this way is not important, it just means that either KDE is not good enough or that its userbase needs more than KDE can provide -- the same users would have been running terminals and X11 applications on Mac OS X.

As for resume, again, let me be clear that I am talking about KDE3. In KDE3, this was automatic for any application that had opened a file through KIO (this is any KDE application, and possibly others) -- in effect, it was KIO that was being resumed, which would then respawn your applications and hand them the files you were working on (this included things like HTTP connections, SSH/SFTP/etc.). I can concede that this is a little less clean than what Cocoa will be doing (at least as far as I can tell), but I do not think it is wrong to say that the feature was there. I do think it is a stretch to claim the Cocoa will have this revolutionary, completely unheard of feature give than KDE3 was doing some very similar.

As for it being built into ITS, that's interesting, I honestly would like to hear more about it. But if it's just a form of filesystem snapshotting, it's cool (especially for such an old OS), but still quite different from how Versions works.

It was not snapshotting. In ITS, a file was identified by a pair; the first part of the pair was a number that indicated the file's version, and the second part was a unique identifier (the filename). You could open any version of the file that you were interested in, or you could use the ">" character to indicate that you just wanted the latest version (in the case of a write, this meant creating a new "latest version" by incrementing the version number).

Apple can change how their Frameworks work, and all applications suddenly gain new capabilities.

All applications written for that framework. You can run X11 applications in Mac OS X, and every computer literate Mac OS X user I have ever encountered has done so. You can run terminal applications, and again I have seen people do so. None of these applications are going to benefit from changes to Cocoa, any more than GNOME applications benefit from changes to KDE.

acting like these aren't great strides for a consumer OS is a bit odd.

Perhaps I just do away with distinctions like "consumer OS." I would say that GNU/Linux, even back in the KDE3 days, could be used by consumers. That it is vastly overshadowed by Windows and Mac OS X in the market for personal computers is not something that I consider to be very relevant. To be fair, I was not exactly drawing examples from mainframe OSes; even ITS had been designed by people who wanted to have their own personal computer (the term "PC" did not exist at the time, but the ITS hackers wanted exactly that: a computer all to themselves. ITS was only written because they were told to either enable timesharing on their computer, or they would lose the computer and it would run CTSS. ITS did have a mode that allowed the user to gain complete control over the system and not use the timesharing features, which I understand was the mode used during late nights).

It might be fair to say that this will be a great stride for consumers, in which case things like market share are very much relevant. Yes, the people who buy Apple's desktops and laptops will benefit from these features in ways that they probably never imagined were possible. I think that says more about consumers and consumerism than it does about technology.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[SanityInAnarchy]

Your first "point" is just plain stupid. Of course you have to have a computer that runs Lion to use features of Lion. I find it impossible to believe you actually think I meant that even people on Windows, or without a computer at all, can use these features.

Then how about you say "So that most people can use them," or "So that everyone is skilled enough to use them." Then it'd actually be true. As it is, I'm calling you on your hyperbole.

Your second point shows no understanding of how these features work. Two of them require no alteration in interaction whatsoever.

I'm sorry, but that's not an automatic win. Consider the number of people for whom Macs are a non-starter if they don't have anti-virus, not because they actually understand how anti-virus works, but because that's what happens on Windows. They will look for the interaction.

And assuming you're correct, they've now converted rebooting, a way a user knows to get into a known state, into not-quite-rebooting. Any user who's ever rebooted to solve a problem must now figure out where the "reboot without resume" option is.

anyone can pick up with virtually no effort.

You're again overestimating "anyone". "Anyone" doesn't just press random buttons. "Anyone" would have to be taught that this exists, and how to use it, and if Apple ever moved the button or changed what it looked like, "anyone" would have to relearn it from scratch.

This goes much further than "saving your session". For example, if you save your session in Safari or Firefox, it reloads the pages you had open. With Resume, it doesn't reload them from the web, it reloads the memory from the program exactly as it was when it quit.

In other words, if an application gets itself into a screwy state, quit and reopen is no longer a viable option, as it has been on every desktop OS for decades.

And how do you know this is how it works? The Apple website isn't entirely clear about that, though it is clear about one thing: You can only Resume applications which are written with Lion in mind. That sounds suspiciously like saving a session -- and that Firefox saves URLs or maybe HTML contents, rather than entire memory dumps, is a design decision of Firefox, there's no reason a session-saving API like KDE's would require such a thing.

Apple almost NEVER claims to be the first to come up with these features.

That's a distinction without a difference. Apple does claim to be innovative, or that these are innovations. They don't cite where these ideas are actually coming from.

My god man, most of that is simply "HOW DOES IT WORK?".

Or, more relevantly, questions about how the design of it is going to affect my use. For instance, from Apple's website and from what you've told me, I can infer that Resume is going to be exactly like saving a session, only more reliable, less efficient, and as always, only for supported applications. That tells me a lot about how useful it's going to be.

And yes, this makes you a tinker-nerd, that you want to get your fingers into each and every little detail.

I'm a "tinker-nerd" because I'd like to know how old versions of my documents are maintained? Really? That never occurs to normal people who have been burned by, say, losing old versions of their documents?

I may have asked it in a more technical way, and I may be asking for more technical depth, but the motivation isn't that I want my fingers in everything. It's that I don't want old files to evaporate because I'm relying on Versions -- or I'd like to know to what extent I can rely on Versions.

I guess it does make me less of a "normal person" in that normal people are just going to save the filename with a date when they care, but if this is your definition of "tinker-nerd", I'm not su

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[node 3]

Then how about you say "So that most people can use them," or "So that everyone is skilled enough to use them." Then it'd actually be true. As it is, I'm calling you on your hyperbole.

You're just being obtuse. The very point is you don't have to be high up on the "skilled" list to use them. AND TWO OF THE FEATURES REQUIRE ABSOLUTELY NO KNOWLEDGE WHATSOEVER TO USE. The only feature that requires any sort of interaction is Versions, and it's very intuitive. It's even easier than the normal Open/Save idea. Silly me for only meaning "people who know how to open or save a file" when I say "everyone"!

I'm sorry, but that's not an automatic win. Consider the number of people for whom Macs are a non-starter if they don't have anti-virus, not because they actually understand how anti-virus works, but because that's what happens on Windows. They will look for the interaction.

Two points here:

1. I really did think you couldn't possibly think I meant that Windows users will get to use Mac features on Windows. When I say "anyone can use these features", I mean it like, "anyone can use a pair of scissors". By which I mean they are simple enough for anyone to use. Obviously if you don't have any scissors around, you can't use them, but that isn't relevant to the claim that the person in question would be able to were they available.
2. That's the single-dumbest argument I've ever heard for not buying a Mac. I've never heard a single person say, "Macs don't have antivirus? Then I won't buy one!" (in fact, there are antivirus software for the Mac, but that doesn't detract from the absurdity of your argument)

And assuming you're correct, they've now converted rebooting, a way a user knows to get into a known state, into not-quite-rebooting. Any user who's ever rebooted to solve a problem must now figure out where the "reboot without resume" option is.

Tinker-nerd talk. People don't reboot to put a computer "into a known state". Those few that do will know how to do that on Lion.

In other words, if an application gets itself into a screwy state, quit and reopen is no longer a viable option, as it has been on every desktop OS for decades.

It most certainly is an option. For a tinker-nerd, you sure are obtuse.

And how do you know this is how it works? The Apple website isn't entirely clear about that, though it is clear about one thing: You can only Resume applications which are written with Lion in mind. That sounds suspiciously like saving a session -- and that Firefox saves URLs or maybe HTML contents, rather than entire memory dumps, is a design decision of Firefox, there's no reason a session-saving API like KDE's would require such a thing.

It's saving the actual objects that make up the application to disk. It's not "saving a session". When you restart such an app, it restarts EXACTLY the same objects (which is to say, the exact program as it was running before).

Saving a session means reinitializing an app just like normal, then loading a bunch of saved documents and windows. Firefox, for example, will start up just like normal, initialize all the plugins and such, then reload any windows and tabs from before by loading them again from the internet.

Safari on Lion will, instead, just reload every single object it had, including every web page, and Safari itself. Nothing initializes, it doesn't go through the normal startup methods, it doesn't re-request the pages. Everything is exactly as it was, including any partially typed in text fields. Everything. It's as though you never quit the app in the first place.

Apple almost NEVER claims to be the first to come up with these features.

That's a distinction without a difference. Apple does claim to be innovative, or that these are innovations. They don't cite where these ideas are actually coming from.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[node 3]

No. They didn't invent shit, and no one is saying they did. It's only the trolls who keep acting like that's what Apple (or anyone else) is claiming.

They implemented a feature that has been available in a much more limited scope all the way back to Nextstep and, I'm sure, before in a much more impressive and useful manner.

And it's quite innovative to find a feature like this in a consumer OS. The only other consumer OS I'm aware of with this feature is iOS. Care to cite any examples of another consumer OS that does this automatically across the board?

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[node 3]

Except that resume does not seem to work for non-cocoa applications -- like X11 applications, terminal programs, etc. That is essentially what KDE3 had -- KDE applications could be resumed, but other programs could not (actually, some non-KDE programs could be resumed, because of KIO).

First off, I don't believe KDE does this. It saves sessions, but does not save the actual running applications themselves. This is significantly more difficult to do in KDE than it is in Mac OS X due to the design of the two systems. I'll be glad to be proven wrong however.

Second, "X11 applications, terminal programs, etc."? Do you really think these make up even 0.1% of running user apps at any given moment? That's why I'm saying KDE is not like Cocoa in practical terms.

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[SanityInAnarchy]

The very point is you don't have to be high up on the "skilled" list to use them.

Which would've been easy enough to state, instead of "every. single. person."

Nor is it entirely irrelevant. You don't have to be high up on the "skilled" list, but you do have to be above and beyond the typical office drone. You also need motivation. And if you've got the skill and motivation to handle these things, it's not adding much to the equation to add, say, a prompt.

I mean, people understand prompts. They've dealt with them before. Much less common is, "I wanted to get back to the beginning, so I quit the app and restarted it, but I wasn't back at the beginning! Help!"

AND TWO OF THE FEATURES REQUIRE ABSOLUTELY NO KNOWLEDGE WHATSOEVER TO USE.

Bullshit, and I've addressed this. In the loosest sense, yes, you will be "using" them whether you intended to or not, unless you deliberately disable them -- assuming that's an option. This is a Mac, after all. But since you're not counting auto-save here, let's look at that: You need to learn the concept of "locking" a file, or creating a copy, rather than "saving" it. You're going to have to give up the idea of reverting to a saved version, and learn to use Versions instead if you screw something up too profoundly -- whereas ordinarily, your instinct would be to close without saving, then open again. These may be improvements, but they are also fundamental changes to the workflow, and we know how much the typical user loves change.

It may have been a mistake, but "save" has been a poor-man's version control for at least as long as it's been, well, saving. No, people generally don't call it that, but that is often what they're doing.

I really did think you couldn't possibly think I meant that Windows users will get to use Mac features on Windows.

What changed your mind? It certainly wasn't anything I said. I've never claimed such a thing.

That's the single-dumbest argument I've ever heard for not buying a Mac. I've never heard a single person say, "Macs don't have antivirus? Then I won't buy one!" (in fact, there are antivirus software for the Mac, but that doesn't detract from the absurdity of your argument)

Then I should mention that it's not my argument -- I have heard exactly this. I've also had people dislike Macs for other reasons of unfamiliarity -- "Where's the start button? How do I turn it off?" And even through to the point of "How do I defrag?"

Now, to be fair, it's not generally one thing which is going to turn a person off from using a Mac. But everything a Mac does differently than Windows is another argument for Joe Sixpack and Rosie the Receptionist to keep using what they're used to.

Maybe Mac users are different. Maybe they are genuinely smarter. But most of the time, when someone asks me how to do something with a computer, I honestly don't know. I just figure it out, and I do that very quickly. Why? Because when they can't figure it out, it's because they memorize, by rote, which menus to click, where the option is, etc. These are the reasons organizations are reluctant to upgrade to new versions of Windows -- because even before The Ribbon, you needed a training program for a new version of Office. Seriously.

So not only are you incorrect in a literal sense that seems to offend you greatly when you suggest that every single person can use these features, I suspect you're also wrong about it being "simple" enough for every single person to use. For most people, simplicity is irrelevant -- the more relevant question is, do they already know how to do this?

Tinker-nerd talk. People don't reboot to put a computer "into a known state".

Now you're the one being obtuse.

They may not call it that, but that is exactly what they do. "Something's wrong? Let's reboot and try to fix it." Or, every morning, boot up their

Re:Looking forward to Lion

[bennomatic]

Ah, OK. All I know is that it was frickin' awesome.

When will there be too many "i"s?

[gilgongo]

I'm a huge Apple fan, but even I think this stuff with the "i" branding is just stupid and faintly embarrassing. Every Apple product has a fraeking "i" before it's otherwise utterly unimaginative name? "iCloud" - FFS.

Re:When will there be too many "i"s?

[InsertWittyNameHere]

They should call it "Apple Mac OS X Cloud 2011 Premium Home Edition R2 SP1"

Re:When will there be too many "i"s?

[Anonymous Coward]

iDunno, iLikeit.

Re:When will there be too many "i"s?

[ArcherB]

I'm a huge Apple fan, but even I think this stuff with the "i" branding is just stupid and faintly embarrassing. Every Apple product has a fraeking "i" before it's otherwise utterly unimaginative name? "iCloud" - FFS.

Well, they used to start everything with "Mac", but too many people would be saying "there can be only one" if they called it MacCloud.

Re:When will there be too many "i"s?

[Obfuscant]

Well, they used to start everything with "Mac", but too many people would be saying "there can be only one" if they called it MacCloud.

Dennis Weaver would be proud that you remember him.

Re:When will there be too many "i"s?

[slackzilly]

iCloud will get lots of coverage in the press, because media loves Apple.
Soon, the non-geeks will believe that Apple invented cloud computing.

Re:When will there be too many "i"s?

[NameIsDavid]

If you ran the company, would you throw away the brand value of "i" just for the sake of being imaginative? When you here "i" anything, you know the product is Apple. Most companies would kill for that level of brand recognition.

Re:When will there be too many "i"s?

[Americano]

Never heard of a product. Hear that it's named "iSomething".

Realize, due to naming convention, it's probably an Apple product.

React accordingly: the faithful swoon, the haters hate. It's a well-known, stable, and easy-to-apply branding technique. Should McDonald's do away with the golden arches because it's faintly embarrassing and played out?

Re:When will there be too many "i"s?

[Hijacked Public]

I would prefer everything be named with a version number, an animal name, and an adjective. That way when I look for software some people will list compatibility by the version number, some by the animal name, and some by adjective.

If the adjective starts with the same letter as the animal name and an acronym is appended to the version number that is doubly awesome. Also if the OS would take pains to hide some or all of the descriptors...like that too.

Re:When will there be too many "i"s?

[Duradin]

Better than having a freaking water buffalo in front of everything.

Re:When will there be too many "i"s?

[shutdown -p now]

Surely you meant to write "Cloud Live"?

Re:When will there be too many "i"s?

[dzfoo]

I am Juan MacCloud from the clan MacCloud. I am El Hilandero... There can be only Juan.

Re:When will there be too many "i"s?

[dogmatixpsych]

The "i..." started when Steve Jobs came back as the interim CEO in the late 90s (he was referred to as the iCEO). It wasn't long before the iMac came out and the "i" stuck.

Here's part of the press release: "CUPERTINO, Calif.--Sept. 16, 1997--At its first regularly scheduled meeting last week, Apple's new Board of Directors formalized the role of Steve Jobs by naming him interim Chief Executive Officer of the Company until a new CEO is named.
"At this meeting, the Board of Directors also met with its executive recruiter, John Thompson of Heidrick & Struggles, to review the status of its search for a CEO. The Board expects that a new CEO will be named before the end of the year." Source: http://www.apple.com/ca/press/1997/09/InterimCEO.html

Re:When will there be too many "i"s?

[shking]

ROTFLMAO

Re:When will there be too many "i"s?

[Tharsman]

Only if they want to please the Microsoft fans. Here, for /. Fans it would be best for it to be called AMOSXCLD.

Re:When will there be too many "i"s?

[SeaFox]

Even at +5 this comment is underrated.

Re:When will there be too many "i"s?

[teh kurisu]

Apple used the name in their press release. It's not speculation.

Re:What are the odds

[knotprawn]

Don't piss him off. He knows i-kido

In the words of B. Simpson

[SvetBeard]

iCarumba!

Re:In the words of B. Simpson

[Abreu]

It would actually be iCaramba!

Let me be the first to foresee...

[nicholas22]

"iCloud... When it is down, that is actually a feature."

Re:Let me be the first to foresee...

[Anonymous Coward]

"iCloud... When it is down, that is actually a feature."

When it's down, it's called iFog.

Re:Let me be the first to foresee...

[DigiShaman]

So then it would be iFog?

Re:Let me be the first to foresee...

[KingMotley]

You are accessing it wrong.

A guy can dream

[redemtionboy]

My biggest hope is that they'll finally announce their back to school sale and it will be a free iPad instead of an iPod this time around, as to one up Microsoft with the free Xbox360.

Re:A guy can dream

[dogmatixpsych]

I've been checking every day for that back to school sale. I'm finally cutting Microsoft off after 30 too many blue screens in Windows 7 (but Ubuntu manages to run just fine); yeah, I know, it's a driver issue (probably) but after many hours of working on the computer, it's not worth my time to figure out the issue. Apple will not give away iPads but they might give $200 discounts on them.

Re:A guy can dream

[redemtionboy]

Considering they have previously given out iPods over the $200 ticket price, I'd hope they'd do more. Granted, this may also just be an example of they weren't sure they could handle the supply side issue and delayed the program to better meet the iPad demand, but I'd hope they'd do more than just their standard affairs. Otherwise I might be taking microsoft up on their offer. I have a macbook pro, and it's lasted me 5 years, and I love it, but it's hard to drop 2 grand on a system (after warranty and screen upgrades) that I can get from Asus for $700-1000. Free iPad that I can sell helps out a lot.

Re:A guy can dream

[dogmatixpsych]

If it's just a hardware issue, then why does the same hardware work perfectly in Ubuntu? I can run it for days under heavy use and it will be rock solid. If I try the same thing under Windows, it crashes. All my drivers are up to date too. It's a hardware/driver/OS issue, not just a hardware issue. I'd just go with Ubuntu but I also need to be able to run Windows for games and a few other programs. If my computer is stable with Ubuntu but unstable with Windows on it, that's not a viable solution. Yes, I could buy another PC and run Windows but the only use I have for Windows is playing games. All of my other computer use requires either OS X or Linux. I prefer Macs.

Re:A guy can dream

[dogmatixpsych]

I have the same view. I've been eying some nice Asus or Samsung laptops but I'm tired of dealing with Windows. I enjoy using OS X while I merely tolerate Windows. I'd rather put a little extra money in something that I enjoy using.

Re:What are the odds

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy is a survivor of a kind of cancer that has a 95%+ mortality rate. If pancreatic cancer you had, look as good you probably would not.

Is that all ?

[obarthelemy]

Given how Apple likes to actually announce stuff at their shindigs, either they are priming us for a relatively empty one, or they have big news that will overshadow all that. Apart from them taking over Sony, I don't see what could be THAT big, though.

Re:Is that all ?

[betterunixthanunix]

The iNotebook, of course: an iPad which has a foldable keyboard, thus giving you all the benefits of a laptop while still allowing you to run iOS. It will have the ability to swivel the screen around, and fold it over the keyboard to give you a convenient tablet form factor, so you can just use the touch screen if you want. A historic first!

</sarcasm>

Re:Is that all ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect they are setting the expectations low because traditionally they announce the new iPhone at WWDC... and they won't this year. Rumor mill has it launching in September.

Re:Is that all ?

[node 3]

Given how Apple likes to actually announce stuff at their shindigs, either they are priming us for a relatively empty one, or they have big news that will overshadow all that. Apart from them taking over Sony, I don't see what could be THAT big, though.

Um... They outlined exactly what they are going to show off.

iOS 5
iCloud
Lion

These are all big, newsworthy things. The only thing that can be disappointing is if none of these will be available during June.

Re:Is that all ?

[Ixokai]

Relatively empty one? I doubt it -- because for the first time that I can remember, they also made a point to reach out to reporters of the non-tech-blog sort and suggest they would be interested in attending.

But, they've also been saying pretty firmly there won't be any new hardware released at WWDC, which is unusual. (Not unprecedented, but unusual). I think the extremely unusual (and I think unprecedented, but I don't feel like fact-checking) announcement of some of the stuff that will be there -- and that Jobs will be doing the keynote -- is meant to shape expectations.

There's not going to be a super-secret new hardware thing to blow everyone's socks off. Its all software and services: but I think it will be a major move on both fronts. I'm not entirely sure what, but we'll see. We have no idea what iCloud is, except there's music streaming deals apparently involved -- but if that's it, and with what's already been announced about Lion, then that means IOS 5 has to be one seriously _seriously_ kick-ass update, or I'll probably be bored.

But I don't really think that's all iCloud will be. My guess? iDisk/Mobile Me evolve into a Dropbox framework for any app, which gets deeply integrated into Lion and iOS5, and includes Smarts for various content types. (Like, you don't have to actually sync any of your music that already exists on Apple's servers). That, to me, would be seriously cool. Moving "files" around apps and getting them on/off devices is a pain. Dropbox is practically the defacto iOS filesystem as a result, and really it could be done a lot better.

But, here's hoping.

But all? No, there'll almost certainly be some stuff we haven't heard of yet. That's just the broad strokes.

Re:Is that all ?

[obarthelemy]

You are delusional. MS actually lets you install and watch whatever you want on their OS. Nokia actually encourages you to root your N900 and try out OSes. Comcast actually lets you download pretty much anything... and so on. All of those being taken over by Apple would be a catastrophe ! One bad Apple is enough.

Re:What are the odds

[hackertourist]

Apple has generally run their internet services on whatever was available. Sometimes that was Macs (I remember using their FTP server ca 1993, it was run on a Mac IIci), other times it wasn't. ISTR they used a Sun cluster at one point, and around the time of the NeXT acquisition they used Macs again with a server package (WebObjects?) that came from NeXT.

Apple terms

[Animats]

Given Apple's track record, the terms for their "cloud" will probably be something like this:

• All cloud apps have to be from the Apple App Store.
• Apple gets 30% of the revenue for anything you run in their "cloud".
• You have to use Apple's payment system for transactions.
• Apple will remove any app which competes with anything Apple is doing.
• Apple has the right to market to your customer base.
• Apple is not responsible for loss of data or downtime.

Re:Apple terms

[Anonymous Coward]

It's their initiative called "iPaid"

Re:Apple terms

[Nethemas the Great]

How'd you get an advance copy of their EULA? Best be careful lest they sic their lawyers onto you.

Re:Apple terms

[BabyDuckHat]

No, no, you're doing it wrong. You open it up at the beginning to get users then tighten the screws and change the terms once everyone is locked it. Bait and switch.

Re:Apple terms

[node 3]

Only in the eyes of brain-damaged nerds who base their opinions of Apple on something other than reality. A special species of nerd uniquely attracted to Slashdot.

Re:Apple terms

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Apple still ends up paying the developers more than the competition.

Re:What are the odds

[leamanc]

Typically, Apple uses BSD boxen when they are not using OS X Server. Since OS X's kernel has some BSD heritage, that doesn't seem too out of line. I think they only time Apple stuff has been identified as being served up from Linux has been on third-party hosting services like Akamai.

To be fair...

[SuperKendall]

Is "iCloud" any less stupid than just "cloud"?

Plenty of Cloud going around these days from all quarters, not just Apple.

To the Cloud!

Re:/^i[A-Z][a-z]+$/

[flimflammer]

It is getting a bit worn out.

Re:What are the odds

[ajo_arctus]

Could well be running on OS X -- I believe iTunes and the Apple store is running on WebObjects. They may well be running some custom version of Darwin/BSD based on the Mach kernel that they use underneath OS X. It's all guess work though.

damn narcisists!

[Thud457]

It's always " I ! I ! I ! Me ! Me ! Me ! "

selfish bastards.

Re:What are the odds

[macs4all]

What are the odds that this iCloud service isn't run OSX server at it's core?

Well, some is OS X. But certainly not all.

Hint: It ain't HP or Dell, neither. Nor is it running a "free" (as in beer) Linux distro; so no snarky comments about OS X Server. Those to Linuces are know for their superior load-balancing software, and I would imagine that's what they are being used for.

Bigger stuff ?

[oneiros27]

Bringing back the XServe ? No one expects it to happen, so that'd be pretty big.

They're about due for refresh on both the Mini and MacPro, so they might have something else there. I'd personally be happy with an i5 or i7 Mini ... or a smaller chassis for the MacPro and redundant power, so we have something that's not crap for using as a server.

Re:What are the odds

[iluvcapra]

If it works who cares? There are a lot of people who need OS X servers, but OS X servers aren't really meant for data centers. They're more for SOHO and on-site 50-100 OS X user situations where people want the the netboot, sharing and workgroup features to "just work." None of these applies to the iCloud backend. There's eating your own dogfood, but what if you all you have are cats?

Except for some awkward lurches in the first half of the decade, I've never seen Apple make the claim that OS X was a massive cloud data center operating system...

Re:What are the odds

[Thud457]

Steve Job's only superpower is super-wealth.
Oh, wait, that's Bruce Wayne...

Anyhow, I suspect Hank Scorpio is a better boss as far as supervillians go

Re:What are the odds

[Coward Anonymous]

Considering it looks and feels a lot like BSD at its core and it is free for Apple, probably not as low as you think.

Re:What are the odds

[Jarik C-Bol]

Honestly, I absolutely detest people like you. Based on your personal opinion of a few products, and the way a company is run by its upper >10%, you hope that a company that employs thousands of people around the world just up and fails? Sure, their products may not be the flavor you like, and you may disagree with their business model, but your sentiment, wether meant that way or not, Insinuates that you hope that thousands of people suddenly find themselves out of work, many of those in what amount to 3rd world countries, where the shitty pay they get from that business is still better than sitting in the gutter eating dog shit. Capitalism creates jobs, even if they are terrible jobs. But a terrible job may mean the difference between eating, and starving to death. No company is perfect, especially Apple, but in the real world, your sentiment that they just up and vanish is a wretched thing. So go take your 'anti-fanboiism' bullshit elsewhere.

MacOS X Server

[ecotax]

I doubt we'll see the XServe (or similar) back. But the announcement did mention that, basically, MacOS X Lion is the server version of MacOS X. It doesn't explicitly say so, but this must mean that there is no longer a separate server version of MacOS. Which is good news, because the server tools were already pretty decent (but too expensive) when I last used them, two versions ago.

iLine

[man_the_king]

iWorkInIT

i-Caramba! (eom)

[ukemike]

i-Caramba!

Re:What are the odds

[node 3]

And Solaris.

Re:What are the odds

[pandrijeczko]

Worshipping the leader of a large corporation is not capitalism but smacks more of religious funtamentalism, similar to when Ayatollah Khomeni came to power in Iran.

Re:iCloud for Education?

[Dog-Cow]

Either you are just a parent of one of the students, or your district is already fucked beyond redemption by having you on board.

Just read TFA for once and you'll find out that OS X Server isn't going away.

Re:What are the odds

[jcr]

The online store and the iTMS are both implemented on WebObjects, still.

-jcr

Re:What are the odds

[magarity]

I believe that if everyone had the resources Steve has, then that mortality rate would be very different.

What special resources might that be, anyway; that he lives in the USA where chemotherapy centers are plentiful and treatment is highly successful compared to other countries?

Re:What are the odds

[Kalriath]

That also means it could be running NT 4 though. Wouldn't that be a lark?

What has Apple actually revealed?

[mr_lizard13]

They've cleverly given everything away, without actually giving anything away. The music streaming service was known about anyway, and every site had reported on the music labels being signed up. So on the one hand, confirming iCloud exists has given nothing further away than what the public knew already.

But at the same time we still have no idea just now big iCloud will be. Could it be more than just music (I reckon yes). Will it be a replacement for MobileMe (fair chance). Might it include some iWork comparability (I wouldn't put it past them).

These are questions which were being asked last year, last month, and last week - and following this announcement today they are still questions we don't know the answers to.

Re:Press release for a press release

[node 3]

"People who like something I don't like? Must call them 'fanbois'!"

Anyway, Apple isn't going to be showing off any new physical products next week (maybe updated Airs and/or other computers, but nothing that will generate lines). iOS, iCloud, and Lion will be online offerings (Lion will also be available in physical form, but it's not like people are going to need a sleeping bag to get a copy). iPhone 5 isn't likely to be shown, and is definitely not part of the "advance warning" Apple gave out today.

For the non-asshat, actually-founded-on-reality, interpretation of the announcement, it's pretty obvious: Apple is asking everyone (especially the press) to pay attention to next Monday's keynote. They want to have everyone listening, so they are giving them reason to.

Re:What are the odds

[d3vi1]

Actually, MobileMe mail service is running on the Oracle Communications Suite formerly known as iPlanet/Java Messaging Server:
Mac Web Server:Apache/1.3.33 (Darwin)
Solaris or Linux IMAP Server: OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4 IMAP4rev1 ACL QUOTA LITERAL+ NAMESPACE UIDPLUS CHILDREN BINARY UNSELECT SORT CATENATE URLAUTH LANGUAGE ESEARCH ESORT THREAD=ORDEREDSUBJECT THREAD=REFERENCES CONDSTORE ENABLE CONTEXT=SEARCH CONTEXT=SORT WITHIN SASL-IR SEARCHRES XSENDER X-NETSCAPE XSERVERINFO X-SUN-SORT ANNOTATE-EXPERIMENT-1 X-UNAUTHENTICATE X-SUN-IMAP X-ANNOTATEMORE XUM1 IDLE AUTH=PLAIN AUTH=PLAIN] Messaging Multiplexor (Oracle Communications Messaging Exchange Server 7.4-20.01 (built Nov 21 2010))
Solaris SMTP Server: asmtpout027.mac.com -- Server ESMTP (Oracle Communications Messaging Exchange Server 7u4-18.01 64bit (built Jul 15 2010))

I am guessing that we are talking about SPARC Solaris, at least for the IMAP server. On Solaris SPARC, UltraSPARC is a requirement. I am going on a limb and guessing that they are not using Solaris on intel. While they might even run RHEL, I would be very surprised.

Re:What are the odds

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

"I don't know Karate, But I know C'-razy!"
-- James Brown

Re:Perhaps a new server product

[pandrijeczko]

You are clearly deluded if you believe this.

1. You do not need pretty GUIs on corporate servers like you do on corporate desktops. OS X without the GUI is essentially just BSD UNIX - in which case, why would you not just run BSD UNIX on HP, IBM, Dell x86 servers where those companies have been selling servers with good things like RAID and redundancy for years & who have to compete with each other for best value and price? Otherwise you would have to pay Apple a higher premium price for custom servers from a company new to server business.

2. Linux is free and, with education, is perfectly possible to support in-house. Yet the majority of traditionally Microsoft-based organisations have not adopted Linux much in their core infrastructure - they like MS Exchange, Sharepoint and the other MS products and already have the in-house Microsoft support people to manage them. So why would they retrain and rollout Apple products that will not be as feature-rich and pay more money for. (I'm by no means an MS fanboi, I'm mainly a Linux guy but I say stuff like I see it.)

3. Corporate governance (like PCI) makes it considerably more complicated to maintain PCI compliance with stuff hosted in the Cloud rather than within the organisation itself. This is why corporations moving to hosted/Cloud solutions is very slow and likely to be for the foreseeable future. Microsoft already has a foot in the door with this because they can tie in Cloud features to their applications already running in the Enterprise - but Apple starting this afresh has no chance, they are YEARS behind Microsoft and Google in that area.

4. Based on the above, the only people who will be interested in using Apple's cloud solutions will be their existing user base. The only Apple device I have ever owned is an iPod Touch my missus gave me when she upgraded to iPhone, it's a neat device but sits in my pocket for times when I run out of storage space on my Android phone. Otherwise, I've no interest in Apple's products, far too controlled and locked-down for my tastes, so I'm hardly going to be interested in using their Cloud solution, especially as I'm already using Google's.

In summary, the Cloud solution can and will only be for existing Apple users as an additional add-on service to the products they already own and for which they will obviously pay a cost for.

VMS ROLLOUT/ROLLIN may have been even earlier

[EdwinFreed]

I don't recall the exact dates, but it was around 1982 that these utilities were created. ROLLOUT saved the entire VMS system state to disk and ROLLIN brought it back, not only restoring any long-running batch jobs and so on but also dropping the boot time down from 5-10 minutes to less than 30 seconds.

Although it was easy to get ahold of ROLLIN/ROLLOUT if you wanted them Digital would never condone their use. The reason for that was simple: It depended on disk state not changing whlie the system was down, and not only was that too fragile for Digital's taste, the clustering system Digital was busy designing at the time was going to make that a practical impossibility. So this capability was never used all that time, and then clusters came out and made it unworkable.

Re:What are the odds

[pandrijeczko]

I wish that were the case.

I have no idea where you are in the world but if you're not in the UK (where you can watch it now on iPlayer on the BBC 3 web site), look out for the first in a series of documentaries called "The Secrets Of The Superbrands".

The first one is about technology companies and Apple feature heavily in it.

One particular disturbing scene (to me at least) shows fanbois sleeping rough outside of an Apple store in London overnight, not because of a new product launch the next day but because it was a NEW APPLE STORE opening the next day. Amongst the people queuing were fanbois who had flown in especially from Turkey, China and California.

If that is not the behaviour of disturbed religious cultists then I don't know what is.

iWork for iOS (summary clarification)

[FunnyStrange]

Not seeing this upthread, but might be redundant by now: The iWork announcement was for the "small" iOS devices (iPhone and iPod Touch). Those apps have been available for iPad (also iOS) for over a year. The update makes them universal. If you own them for iPad, they'll now work on the other devices (it's a free upgrade).

Re:iWork for iOS (summary clarification)

[am 2k]

I already tried it and it works fine, but I'm a bit stumped at why the hell I'd want to create a presentation on an iPhone??? It's already a bit of a kludge on the iPad.

The biggest new feature in Keynote is that you can connect an Keynote Remote to it now. That means you can remote control your iPad from your iPhone in presentations! Even better, the reverse also works, you can remote control your iPhone that's hooked to a beamer via an iPad (or another iPhone/iPod touch). WHY????

Re:iWork for iOS (summary clarification)

[theurge14]

I wouldn't exactly call it "universal" if I have to re-purchase Numbers for my iPhone when I already bought it on my Mac.

Re:iWork for iOS (summary clarification)

[FunnyStrange]

OK, "universal" in the iOS sense.

I suspect the issue here is that iWork is *only* available on Mac and iOS, but lots of people who have iDevices are not Mac owners. Since the iOS App Store (TM, may it burn in Hell, etc) doesn't really allow convenient price discrimination, it's not clear how they would make it so that iWork Mac owners got it free for iOS while charging for non-Mac users or Mac users who have some other office suite. Seems like many free companion-to-desktop-application apps don't have a lot of independent functionality--that is, they require some kind of sync with the desktop app. The iWork apps for iOS can work independently, though I've read mixed reviews about how well they do that--I don't have them, so I can't speak from experience.

Not saying it wouldn't be nice if the Mac and iOS versions were bundled, just that it seems to be outside the limitations of the App Store ecosystem (may it die a thousand horrible deaths, etc, etc).

Re:iWork for iOS (summary clarification)

[Radiophobic]

Making a presentation on an iphone isn't a good idea at all, but if you end up needing to make some minor adjustments right before a meeting it makes a lot of sense.

Re:What are the odds

[ubrgeek]

When MS bought Hotmail didn't they do just that by spending a ton of time and money trying to port it to some version of Windows server (whichever one they had out at the time)?

Re:What are the odds

[Chris Tucker]

They just wanted to get the free t-shirt,

Re:What are the odds

[pandrijeczko]

It's usual to end a comment or statement with a summation of the point one is trying to make.

Yep, it's definitely there, last line of my comment also.

I have no intention of repeating it here again just because you're wearing Apple-branded mirror shades with the mirrors on the inside - please go find it yourself.

As for stuff I like to do, probably too many and too boring to list here - but somewhat surprisingly, I'd sum them all up with the phrase "Think Differently" in that I try my best to stay well-informed and remain as unswayed as possible by marketing and hype.

I find that before making any decision about any purchase, starting off with the basic premise that "All corporations are evil entities who want to suck as much money from me as possible whilst giving me as little as possible" is a great starting premise.

Oh, and not forgetting that because I'm a confident person with many good friends, I have no need to open display logos of brand loyalty in order to impress them.

Re:What are the odds

[pandrijeczko]

With all respect, my imagination is not stunted enough to the point where I cannot at least partially understand why a materialistic person queues overnight for a concert ticket or pretty gadget. I recognise there are people in this world who lack confidence and are therefore constantly attention seeking by striving to get an advantage over their peers by being "the first on the block".

And if it helps your damaged ego a little, then rest assured I consider people queuing at midnight for the latest Call Of Duty game or Harry Potter book as lacking equal confidence to those who queue for iPads or iPhones.

But I do find that a person who puts themselves at the inconvenience of sleeping on a pavement just because a new shop is opening as highly disturbing, even if he/she gets rewarded with a T-Shirt for such discomfort.

Incidentally, nobody would deny that the Westboro Baptist Church isn't a cult and whilst they have extreme views on homosexuality and military personnel (views to which I in no way subscribe incidentally, before you try to get me on that one), I am not aware that they have committed any acts of violence or endured any group suicides.

If anything, having witnessed some of their members interviewed on British TV where they were ranting on incoherently with spittle forming at the sides of their mouths, I'm very much reminded of the rampant Apple fanboi-ism on here as a reasonable comparison.

Re:What are the odds

[pandrijeczko]

Incidentally, I do thoroughly recommend you watching the documentary, part one is on YouTube here.

The part I found of particular interest was when the fanboi was placed in the MRI scanner and changes in his brain activity were monitored when he was shown pictures of Apple products. It was proven that the parts of the brain that were stimulated by the pictures are the same parts that are stimulated during sex.

I view that as conclusive proof that since fanbois get their "jollies" from their Apple gadgets, this explains why so many of them are therefore virgins.

Re:Perhaps a new server product

[drinkypoo]

You do not need pretty GUIs on corporate servers like you do on corporate desktops.

Windows gained its foothold on the server because it looked like the desktop and would run [most of] the same applications.

Re:Apple isn't dogmatic about dogfooding

[mattack2]

Ballmer still doesn't allow iPhones or Google services in his household

[citation needed]

I thought this rumor was about Gates...

iDon't know...

[LongearedBat]

iSuppose that it can go on for a bit longer. Though iHave no iDea, really.

Re:iSmell a trademark issue

[toriver]

Was the rock you slept under comfortable? Apple licensed the use of the iOS name form Cisco years ago.

Re:What are the odds

[bipedalhominid]

Thank You. We use both MS and Apple products. They are tools people, just like a hammer or a screwdriver. If ya dont like one brand or if it does not do the job, use a different one. I wish these anonymous cowards would find something else to do. Or post using a name so we could mod them down.

Re:What are the odds

[bipedalhominid]

Rich kids with time on their hands?

Re:What are the odds

[bipedalhominid]

Come on, if you're going to start throwing zingers like this around at least use a login name. Hysteric Jackass, good one, ;)

Re:What are the odds

[bipedalhominid]

Money magarity, it's all about the money. The more you got the better treatment you can buy for yourself. Steve gots the bank to get Dr.s to come see him. Or build his own cancer center. Or buy/fund one of the ones already in existence. If the whole place is focusing on you you will get better treatment.

Now announcing Puddle(TM)

[TheLoneGundam]

I am announcing that I would prefer to use Puddle(TM), which will keep my data right here in my yard, thank you very much,