Re:The Book of Apple, Chapter 8...
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· Score: 3, Informative
Even if you were an ardent Apple developer, following Apple's instructions for engineering a well-behaved System 8 (aka Copland) application would have also re-engineered your code to make it easy to move to another platform or GUI. Apple was begging their developers to:
Refactor your code to do without quirks of Mac programming like interrupt handlers, most memory manager routines, cooperative threading, or assumptions about the underlying file system.
Rearchitect your code so that it separates function from interface and doesn't make any assumptions about the look or feel of the GUI. Pump all interface interaction through an abstraction layer.
Drop any custom hacks and re-implement things like inits as independent applications, servers, or shared libraries that don't rely on specifics about the OS.
Rewrite apps that use older Apple technologies like Powertalk with OpenTransport, Standard File dialogs with Navigation Services, and Postscript drawing with Quickdraw GX. Users won't notice a difference, but these are the new "officially blessed" technologies in System 8.
The big difference I see between Apple and Microsoft in these difficult development days is that Microsoft is firmly still "on message" and telling their developers to continue using old Microsoft technology. "There's no need to abstract your code to NOT rely on Microsoft intellectual property. Keep this leash on even though no one's holding it right now."
Copland was insane precisely because it wasn't a technical goal but a marketing attempt to say "We'll address every visible fault in our product all at once." Apple did actually salvage some ideas (like a color GUI, CHRP, and ATSUI) but those small changes were almost unnoticable when coupled with the big changes Apple was promising:
A kernel rewritten for speed and stability
Erasing application boundaries via OpenDoc.
Eliminating all init and "shared memory" problems
Backwards compatability.
Clearly Microsoft isn't in as much danger as Apple was by their slow delays because their changes don't encourage independence from their technology, but it might illustrate where some good Linux evangelists could take advantage of the delays.
Talk about the benefits of reworking your code to a good M-V-C paradigm.
Talk up things like Cygwin and APR and the ways shared libraries and background processes developed on these will be more forwards, backwards, and cross-platform compatible.
Talk about the security advantages of not relying on Microsoft IP for the data model of your app.
If the developer seems amenable to it, mention ways of abstracting a GUI to make things run on GnuStep or X/11.
Maybe even talk about Mono and Samba and the other Microsoft imitative tools out there.
Microsoft was crazy to tout specific technologies (like a database driven file system) rather than simple, visible functional changes (like better searching). It seems that right now they're getting back on track (probably with Chris Jones' return). They're fulfilling their cosmetic promises since that's the only thing that end users will notice. And developers will stick around even on the stinkiest of development platforms solely because of the presence of end-users.
I started hearing rumors of Blackcomb. Ideas that were daring and difficult. Rumors of amazing technical feats had me salivating, yet rumors of Orwellian levels of legal control and observation made me nervous. But back in 2001 the Microsoft OS train seemed unstoppable.
When news from Thurrott and Gartner (in 2001? 2002?) started leaking details of an interim "Longhorn" release that was aiming for 2003 things seemed very realistic and eminent. The heights Blackcomb attempted to scale seemed daunting and difficult. The fact that Microsoft realized this and decided to keep their OS gravy train moving at full speed with an easily reachable deadline seemed like a simple goal that benefited both the marketing and their tech development.
But in mid-2005, Longhorn's deadlines have come and gone over and over again. The feature set has been revealed and retracted numerous times. Huge discussions about minor changes have been made (Red screen of hardware death, removing "My" from user-owned data, etc). Spin tries to blame spectators for setting their expectations too high or reading too much into what was said. Attempts to knife a competitor or two in last minute technology revelations (an Adobe PDF killer in Metro, Firefox killing browser updates, etc) make these last minute updates seem more laughable and embarassing than like a scary, inevitable powerhouse that the Microsoft OS development team was.
But even though it sounds like nothing's gotten done, it would be silly to write off Longhorn. There have been impressive Longhorn demos. Some of the tech is being released ahead of schedule. And even though advances from Google, Apple, and Linux make it feel like Microsoft is just barely playing "catch-up" with what was their "big threat", it's probably much more likely that MS is just being coy with their features and setting low expectations right now. They will produce something to excite users and keep their big customers renewing their annual support aggreement.
I'm anxiously awaiting further info as to whether this looks more like a home run or a safe bunt made just to advance. We'll see.
Thanks for the clarification about what happened to Painter versus Expression. I would be curious who owns Fractal Designs patent portfolio; hopefully it's Corel, but I could also see Corel just buying a license to the necessary tech and the actual patents being sold to someone else.
My mention of Photoshop wasn't meant to imply that Expression had a similar purpose, but was intended as a description of the few GUI changes that Microsoft changed with Expression (e.g. Photoshop-like layers).
Fractal Design's Expression and Painter were touted as a revolutionary technologies that would allow a skilled artist to imitate the texture of the surface, the tool applying, and the virtual media being applied. Though I never saw their patents, these things were touted as having been patented and that it would give an artist the feel of a caligraphy brush or the interactivity of oil paints.
Of course, Microsoft now owns what's left of Fractal Design Expression. Their recent beta release indicates that they intend to release it to the public again, but they don't appear to know what to do with it other than try and imitate photoshop. The file extension even remains the same.xpr But of course we all know that Microsoft is very open to competition and will only use its patent portfolio as a last resort to compete with others.;-)
Personally, I was generally more impressed with Fractal Designs technology than I ever was with their apps. They had frustrating user interfaces that made it difficult to use unless you had a pressure sensitive tablet and a very fast machine. I certainly hope the MoXi makers succeed (we can always use good graphics tools) but I see some difficulties if their goal is really in marketing this tech just as a ultra-cool paint program.
The dashboard is the response to the "threat" that Microsoft was touting of the "sidebar" back in the 2003 PDC Longhorn debut. Apple saw the attention this bit of desktop polish was getting and looked for something to answer it. Once you ditch reviewers' major criticism that the sideboard was always visible and taking too much space on a user's desktop, the dashboard looks a lot like the sideboard.
Personally, I think the makers of Konfabulator went the wrong way in their cries of "Why didn't you give us lots of money! You've ripped us off!" The better way to have handled it would have been to take what you know about these types of widgets (knowledge that you have more of than even Apple) and come up with the definitive $35 pack-of-ten must have widgets that every Mac user will shell out money for. The Konfabulator guys took it as an attack rather than as a profit opportunity that did away with the headache of implementing the underlying widget engine. Apple changed their market, but it was Konfabulator that reacted poorly to the changes.
Personally, I don't mind the performance issues of the Dashboard even on a 400mhz G4. I get the most functionality out of using it as a quick, one-button, viewing device. The weather, comics, headlines, porn images are great to have at one's fingertip, but I don't really get into the more interactive widgets such as the dictionary, translator, or calculator. The magic of dashboard is that you can get so much info with just a keypress; I'm less impressed with the utility of the complex widgets that require interaction.
I think Apple's "dashboard" made a good, "Yikes!" response to the unexpected debut of Longhorn sideboard. It's sort of suprising that Microsoft dropped the sideboard in the WinHEC beta, but we'll supposedly see some of the hot new GUI tools that will replace it at the upcoming PDC.
Statler & Waldorf weren't bad, but they aren't quite cynical enough nor funny enough to think that this will go beyond a handful of episodes.
Personally, I didn't think Bewitched deserved the savaging reviews most reviewers gave it (there have been many, many worse movies lately). But it was odd that no nods were given to the large contingent of gay and lesbian actors in the original since it has a large gay fan-base and the whole premise of the show shares many "coming out" and "trying to go straight" themes. But for light humor the movie wasn't bad.
The word god (capitalized or not) is really a pronoun. It's just in a monotheistic culture where the only instance is a singleton, that you can equate the pronoun with the name. Need to distinguish between Athena and her high priestess? the term "god" is a a good way to do so, but it doesn't distinguish between Hades, Athena, and Jupiter.
The Canon Optura Pi isn't made anymore, but I got mine used on eBay for around $800 about three years ago. I do seem to find that older equipment (when profit margins were higher) seem to hold up longer. I've had no problems with the case or electronics.
There is one caution about the MiniDV marketplace and that is lubricants used on the tapes themselves. Different manufacturers use different ones. The MiniDV tape standard doesn't say what the lube on the tape is, so there are two popular kinds in common use. The three brands of tapes I prefer use the same kind, but recently on a trip out of the country I had to use a brand that was the wrong type because it was the only thing available. I've done this before and not experienced big problems, but this trip was different. The camcorder would record a little and then there was usually a tape error. Even in footage where the camera would keep recording (apparently okay) there would be subtle problems like breaks in the timecode that weren't visible but gave me lots of headaches in editing. Considering that I was recording under very rough conditions I would have suspected lots of things if I wasn't already warned about the lubricant issue. Rough conditions, old equipment, etc. Though I lost the footage for that day, I was able to get a tape cleaner, clean the camera, and record and play on my non-standard type of tapes that night. The next day I was able to record without significant problems. But at the soonest opportunity I went back to my usual brands when I got back to the US.
Which lube is better? Neither, just do what you can not to mix the two types.
Recently I had to buy a new x86 compatible machine to help out a friend who was doing some Visual Basic work. He said he'd load up the OS and software I needed on the coattails of his developer subscription, but I neeeded to buy the hardware.
I went to the Frys and Microcenter in Atlanta to buy the cheapest/fastest thing they had. For around $600 Microcenter had an Athlon 64 3ghz with XP Home but I'd fallen through the cracks and couldn't find anyone to help me buy it. I went to Frys and they had a refurbished 3ghz Intel PC with Linspire on it, but unlike Microcenter the woman sales rep was actively trying to talk me out of the purchase. She was telling me why Linspire was a bad choice and that it was much cheaper to buy Windows when I bought the PC than later. So while Fry's had Linspire PC's for sale, I'd be very suprised if they actually sold any of them. They seemed very hostile to actually allowing one of them actually go out the door. In the end I went back to MicroCenter and got the Manager himself to help me get the PowerSpec.
That's the first time I had a salesrep actually try to talk me out of a purchase I'd decided on, and use the lack of Windows as the justification. Oh well, I've learned my lesson there.
AppleWorks was pretty much ClarisWorks but carbonized.
Even today, the file extension on a saved AppleWorks file is.cwk which betrays even more of the ClarisWorks heritage. Beyond the splash screen it looks like very little with AppleWorks has changed since the ClarisWorks product. ClarisWorks wasn't even all that great of a "Works" package though for the Mac; it's Symantec competitor GreatWorks had a better set of tools and scripting dictionaries.
The spreadsheet module was supposedly based on the same math libraries behind Claris Resolve and the Wingz! spreadsheet. Rumors had it that their code bases atrophied during the migration from 68K to PowerPC and this was what killed Apple's math products. Arguably less powerful products such as FileMaker made the transition and survived because of their lack of features.
Didn't they recant and support that bill in the end? And how does MS's opinion on any bill "lower the rights of gays and lesbians"?
No, their "recanting" was clearly just a case of trying to have their cake and eat it too. If they were really more concerned about the rights of the business owner they would have not gotten involved in the legislation from the start. If they were really supportive of equal rights for gay and lesbian employees they wouldn't have withdrawn support at the last minute. Whatever was said after they "knifed the baby" by withdrawing from the bill they had promoted and supported was purely spin.
How does it lower the rights of gays and lesbians? Because they openly promote that this is a category of people is being hurt and needs explicit legal protection; then they kill that protection and say "Sorry, but we decided you really weren't worth it." Whether homosexuality is a behavior, sin, or handicap of birth, it should already be covered by the bill of rights and equal rights legislation. The fact that they have promoted the idea that it's not and needs explicit protection (and then abandonning support for that protection) does harm. Period.
This is a geek site, so let's frame their actions in another way. What if Microsoft argued strongly for adoption of open standards in all computer file formats. Businesses who don't know a thing about open standards and file formats have raised awareness that open formats may be worth considering. At the last minute, before major legislation demands government adoption of these standards, Microsoft changes its mind and declares the idea as being anti-business. The legislation dies and people following the debate now shy away from open standards.
Apple has said that Mac OS X will not run on generic x86 hardware. They've also said (perhaps not officially) that they will encourage x86 software use on their hardware (e.g. if the customer wants to install Windows in a dual boot or run via a virtual machine). This should be no threat to Apple. If someone's paid money to buy a Mac, they want to run Mac OS X. Having x86 compatability is a safety net for worried switchers.
IF Apple's hardware is hacked to run on generic hardware (and I think that's a very big IF), we may actually see bigger demands for people wanting to buy generic hardware without an OS installed or perhaps with Lindows or other OEM free option installed. Admittedly most of these people will be the "crazy ones" who want to experiment, but that's a great user base that may also "discover" Linux in this process.
Regardless of what headway Apple makes in the market, it's clear that they'll be calling into question the commercial judgement that there is only one computer operating system out there. That should make significant headway toward businesses considering the Linux options and demanding standards compliance in their apps and file formats.
These situations give significant boost to Linux on the desktop in my opinion. The biggest problem is that Microsoft is a monopoly in the minds of the consumer and no amount of coding is going to change this. Linux will benefit from Mac OS X moving to x86 hardware, but that doesn't mean a new GUI has to be engineered by the debut of Mac OS X on Intel or the release of Longhorn. It would hurt to have some though (if that's what you're interested in hacking on).
Recently, Microsoft already lowered the rights of gays and lesbians by dropping support for a major state anti-discrimination bill. Based on that wildly popular success (with right wingers at least) we'll be dropping the rights for everyone in the next release of Internet Explorer; trust us, we know what's good for you. And for those anxious about what the future holds, worry no more; coming with Longhorn, we'll offer new digital rights management features. Just remember, all your rights are belong to us.
Microsoft is building a hypervisor. They aren't building a product called Hypervisor
Microsoft has gone through marketing periods of trying to look like the originator and innovator of products by releasing the generic term as a Microsoft trademark. Things such as Windows, Word, and Project are the most blatant examples. They may have some legal troubles with generic terms, but as long as Joe User thinks Microsoft came up with the original or industry standard solution they seem willing to risk the possible confusion (or even profit from it).
Does that make the T. Rex backwards compatible with modern birds? or modern birds forward compatible with T. Rex eggs? Gaah, I've been following too much news spin on Longhorn.
There are a number of different programmer opportunities on Mac OS X. Some of the simpler ones are runtime software that's not really compiled and would be pretty trivial to transition to the x86 if Apple transition's the runtime engines (heck, they could move to an iPod if Apple did that!). These are things that completely rely on an Apple established runtimes like:
Some types of Dashboard widgets
AppleScripts
Automator actions
Some Sherlock plugins
Some Quicktime plugins
Apple's Help system
Shell scripts in the terminal
There are other development architectures that would require some work by the original developer. Going from easiest to hardest these would be:
Cocoa - is an Objective-C and Java API for what was the NeXT toolkit. Has a significant headstart in hardware and interface abstraction. Tools are included on OS X DVD's. If you stick with these API's you probably have a trivial transition process.
Core Foundation - A C API that gives access to the same functions as Cocoa. Because it's plain C it has no "object-oriented" paradigm so you have to do much more memory management (not a big deal for a C developer). The work you'll have to do here will be due to the higher exposure to hardware you have to account for in plain C. Not a huge deal if it's software you wrote yourself, but still a burden on your shoulder's rather than Apple's.
Carbon - This is the modern version of the Apple System 7 C++ codebase that's been cleaned up. You still use things like Pascal strings (which may be an advantage or burden depending on your viewpoint - but still something that's atypical in most C++ development). Still actively developed by Apple (with API's that probably go through CoreFoundation).
Classic - This is the OS 9 virtual environment to run software that was written for Macs but wasn't recompiled for Mac OS X. Though it uses the same conventions as Carbon, this branch is no longer developed by Apple. Apple might use an emulator for the old Motorolla instruction set, but more than likely they'll just declare this branch dead (they haven't brought back the Apple// line under Mac OS X even though it would be feasible to do so). If anything, they'd put their efforts into making a Windows virtual environment to let you run your old OS and software rather than try and appease angry Mac-heads. Still a lot of work though.
Packaging of Apps
Of course compiling is only one part of packaging your code, but one of the earliest changes on Mac OS X was the "bundle" system of packaging code so that you can put code that will run on different hardware in special places in the bundle (folders in a certain type of heirarchy) and Mac OS X will make certain the proper executable is called on the proper platform. This was developed back in the day when NeXT was selling it's app toolkit to run under Windows, so hardware, GUI, and localization differences had to be all sorted out. When the NeXT code went to a single OS and chip, most people sort of forgot that this organization still exists, but it would be very easy to start taking advantage of again.
Overall, the move to x86 from PPC would be much easier than the transition from the Motorolla 68K to PPC. But whether this makes commercial sense isn't clear at the moment.
Actually, what would be really suprising to me is if Apple moves to Intel chips rather than AMD after the recent blatant Apple-oriented attack by Intel with the Pandora PC (Mac Mini look-alike). It's the popularity of the x86 architecture that's attractive rather than Intel itself.
So unless this direct afront to Apple was mitigated with huge discounts, I doubt Intel will get the deal.
Of course none of this will be public except the choice of chip supplier. We'll have to read the spin from Apple, Intel, and makers of the Pandora like we were reading pig entrails for signs of what's really going on.
How will they make sure MacOSX doesn't run on cheap X86 machines? Or will they use a different chip family?
If Apple is smart, they won't do anything to preclude Mac OS X from running on other x86 compatible chips. They'll simply say that it's not an Apple box then it's an unsupported configuration and you're up a creek if you have problems.
I see three groups of people that a software version of OS X would attract:
Pirates - They'll want to toy with OS X and will "borrow" a copy from a Mac friend. Apple won't ever get any money from this group, ever, but they do set a lot of what's cool and popular on computers in the eyes of others.
Cheapskates - This group shys away from low quality things but doesn't like to spend money. They'll buy Mac OS X to try out on their Dell but don't want to "risk" buying high priced Apple hardware. Apple will get software sales from this group but won't get a hardware sale except once every five years (if that).
Zeta Dogs - These guys are the type that buys whatever is popular. Whether they're the computer support for their church or for their dad's small business, they'll often look at popularity as quality. If they see people with Mac OS X or iPods or other Apple gear, they'll likely buy real Apple hardware rather than just the OS (but the seemingly rising popularity of the software will be what sells them).
More than likely (if Apple does move to x86) they'll be aggressively testing and using all sorts of PC hardware to drive down supplier prices. While they'll only support an official Apple configuration which will be extremely controlled in terms of the hardware, they'll still benefit from these other groups who try to use Mac OS X on unsupported configurations.
My sports center requires a hand scan to enter the facility. It gives false or unreadable scans so often that most of the guards just wave you through if you look even vaguely trustworthy.
What about those with disabilities (severed limbs) or those with birth defects (extra fingers)? I bet the woman who started the whole "Finger found in Wendy's chili" scam won't be worried at all. She has an extra one she can use. (Okay, that's a bit too far. sorry)
While Ronald Reagan was visualizing the Soviet Union as "The Evil Empire", George W. doesn't have as easy a target to rail against: the vague threat of a terrorism.
So let's compare it to a movie that did extremely well financially despite a half baked idea behind it. Viola, we have "Star Wars, The Phantom Menace"
There was a similar wave of shock and disbelief among Apple fanatics back in August of 1997 when Steve Jobs announced at MacWorld that Microsoft would be buying a stake in Apple. His message of "The desktop wars are over. Microsoft won. Get over it." were not what the crowd was expecting.
The little $150 million of money dribbled into Apple to protect them from hostile take-over.
The mutual patent cross-licensing.
The sharing of code bases for Java.
The decision to make Internet Explorer the standard Mac browser.
The promise to continue to make Microsoft Office products for the Mac for at least a year.
These were huge unexpected changes, but none of these had the visceral impact of seeing Bill Gates on a huge screen over the auditorium and smiling and saying that we're chums with Apple now and that "Microsoft wants Apple to succeed." People were hissing and booing and making overt signs that the apocolypse for Apple had just arrived.
It turns out that either there were other unannounced benefits for Apple or these back room agreements with Microsoft had an even for significant impact because they had very positve results for Apple. But even today, Apple fans still cringe when they see their "resistence fighter" being chummy with one of the leaders of the "Microsoft establishment".
For Sun devotees, it's probably an equally unsettling bit of public relations. But lets hope that Microsoft gave up quite a bit more in those smokey back room deals that will benefit Sun, now that Sun appears to have come out of the closet at a full-blown "friend of Microsoft" now.
Gates has predicted a lot of things that have not come true. Some things (like the tablet PC) he insists still will come true, even if it's not happening the way he planned. Other things (like MSN and WebTV) he's basically given up on. But people often forget about these things when they read a new prediction, simply based on the fact that he has made a lot of money with Windows and Office.
These are ominous warning signs. Maybe we should expect something like the following from Didio, Scoble, and Thurott on the horizon:
Sign up for the new Microsoft Profet Sharing Plan
Nostradamus may have predicted the Intel Pentium bug but now even hotter air is available from the man whose legal agreements have kept billions of people enthralled around the world: Sir William Gates!
When interviewed specifically for this article, Gate's press release had these amazing words formulated, "Microsoft's new Profet plan isn't just another random quatrain generator, this is Microsoft we're talking about. I personally inspired the greedy algorithms behind this product's code to be the most realistic possible today. Now with the extra polish from Microsoft's engineers my predictions will be even better than reality."
Indeed, results of paid tests by independent research shills have shown that Microsoft Profet is always 100% right, but shockingly, reality can sometimes fail in the most surprising ways.
Requirements: $640K per year. Non disclosure agreement signed in blood. Half a brain (or less). Incompatible with Linux, Mac OS X, and certain reality distortion fields.
I like that 1970's American television ad with the cute girl who visually demonstrates exponential growth while trying to advertise something like Brek shampoo.
"I [infected] two friends. And they [infected] two friends. And so on. And so on. And so on."
Withe the screen splitting at each phrase and winding up with 32 versions of the cute girl, it's much more visually entertaining than this demo.
Slashdot Mirror
- Refactor your code to do without quirks of Mac programming like interrupt handlers, most memory manager routines, cooperative threading, or assumptions about the underlying file system.
- Rearchitect your code so that it separates function from interface and doesn't make any assumptions about the look or feel of the GUI. Pump all interface interaction through an abstraction layer.
- Drop any custom hacks and re-implement things like inits as independent applications, servers, or shared libraries that don't rely on specifics about the OS.
- Rewrite apps that use older Apple technologies like Powertalk with OpenTransport, Standard File dialogs with Navigation Services, and Postscript drawing with Quickdraw GX. Users won't notice a difference, but these are the new "officially blessed" technologies in System 8.
The big difference I see between Apple and Microsoft in these difficult development days is that Microsoft is firmly still "on message" and telling their developers to continue using old Microsoft technology. "There's no need to abstract your code to NOT rely on Microsoft intellectual property. Keep this leash on even though no one's holding it right now."Copland was insane precisely because it wasn't a technical goal but a marketing attempt to say "We'll address every visible fault in our product all at once." Apple did actually salvage some ideas (like a color GUI, CHRP, and ATSUI) but those small changes were almost unnoticable when coupled with the big changes Apple was promising:
- A kernel rewritten for speed and stability
- Erasing application boundaries via OpenDoc.
- Eliminating all init and "shared memory" problems
- Backwards compatability.
Clearly Microsoft isn't in as much danger as Apple was by their slow delays because their changes don't encourage independence from their technology, but it might illustrate where some good Linux evangelists could take advantage of the delays.- Talk about the benefits of reworking your code to a good M-V-C paradigm.
- Talk up things like Cygwin and APR and the ways shared libraries and background processes developed on these will be more forwards, backwards, and cross-platform compatible.
- Talk about the security advantages of not relying on Microsoft IP for the data model of your app.
- If the developer seems amenable to it, mention ways of abstracting a GUI to make things run on GnuStep or X/11.
- Maybe even talk about Mono and Samba and the other Microsoft imitative tools out there.
Microsoft was crazy to tout specific technologies (like a database driven file system) rather than simple, visible functional changes (like better searching). It seems that right now they're getting back on track (probably with Chris Jones' return). They're fulfilling their cosmetic promises since that's the only thing that end users will notice. And developers will stick around even on the stinkiest of development platforms solely because of the presence of end-users.Five Years? That's no big deal then. He'll be on parole before Longhorn actually ships :-)
I started hearing rumors of Blackcomb. Ideas that were daring and difficult. Rumors of amazing technical feats had me salivating, yet rumors of Orwellian levels of legal control and observation made me nervous. But back in 2001 the Microsoft OS train seemed unstoppable.
When news from Thurrott and Gartner (in 2001? 2002?) started leaking details of an interim "Longhorn" release that was aiming for 2003 things seemed very realistic and eminent. The heights Blackcomb attempted to scale seemed daunting and difficult. The fact that Microsoft realized this and decided to keep their OS gravy train moving at full speed with an easily reachable deadline seemed like a simple goal that benefited both the marketing and their tech development.
But in mid-2005, Longhorn's deadlines have come and gone over and over again. The feature set has been revealed and retracted numerous times. Huge discussions about minor changes have been made (Red screen of hardware death, removing "My" from user-owned data, etc). Spin tries to blame spectators for setting their expectations too high or reading too much into what was said. Attempts to knife a competitor or two in last minute technology revelations (an Adobe PDF killer in Metro, Firefox killing browser updates, etc) make these last minute updates seem more laughable and embarassing than like a scary, inevitable powerhouse that the Microsoft OS development team was.
But even though it sounds like nothing's gotten done, it would be silly to write off Longhorn. There have been impressive Longhorn demos. Some of the tech is being released ahead of schedule. And even though advances from Google, Apple, and Linux make it feel like Microsoft is just barely playing "catch-up" with what was their "big threat", it's probably much more likely that MS is just being coy with their features and setting low expectations right now. They will produce something to excite users and keep their big customers renewing their annual support aggreement.
I'm anxiously awaiting further info as to whether this looks more like a home run or a safe bunt made just to advance. We'll see.
Thanks for the clarification about what happened to Painter versus Expression. I would be curious who owns Fractal Designs patent portfolio; hopefully it's Corel, but I could also see Corel just buying a license to the necessary tech and the actual patents being sold to someone else.
My mention of Photoshop wasn't meant to imply that Expression had a similar purpose, but was intended as a description of the few GUI changes that Microsoft changed with Expression (e.g. Photoshop-like layers).
Of course, Microsoft now owns what's left of Fractal Design Expression. Their recent beta release indicates that they intend to release it to the public again, but they don't appear to know what to do with it other than try and imitate photoshop. The file extension even remains the same .xpr But of course we all know that Microsoft is very open to competition and will only use its patent portfolio as a last resort to compete with others. ;-)
Personally, I was generally more impressed with Fractal Designs technology than I ever was with their apps. They had frustrating user interfaces that made it difficult to use unless you had a pressure sensitive tablet and a very fast machine. I certainly hope the MoXi makers succeed (we can always use good graphics tools) but I see some difficulties if their goal is really in marketing this tech just as a ultra-cool paint program.
The dashboard is the response to the "threat" that Microsoft was touting of the "sidebar" back in the 2003 PDC Longhorn debut. Apple saw the attention this bit of desktop polish was getting and looked for something to answer it. Once you ditch reviewers' major criticism that the sideboard was always visible and taking too much space on a user's desktop, the dashboard looks a lot like the sideboard.
Personally, I think the makers of Konfabulator went the wrong way in their cries of "Why didn't you give us lots of money! You've ripped us off!" The better way to have handled it would have been to take what you know about these types of widgets (knowledge that you have more of than even Apple) and come up with the definitive $35 pack-of-ten must have widgets that every Mac user will shell out money for. The Konfabulator guys took it as an attack rather than as a profit opportunity that did away with the headache of implementing the underlying widget engine. Apple changed their market, but it was Konfabulator that reacted poorly to the changes.
Personally, I don't mind the performance issues of the Dashboard even on a 400mhz G4. I get the most functionality out of using it as a quick, one-button, viewing device. The weather, comics, headlines, porn images are great to have at one's fingertip, but I don't really get into the more interactive widgets such as the dictionary, translator, or calculator. The magic of dashboard is that you can get so much info with just a keypress; I'm less impressed with the utility of the complex widgets that require interaction.
I think Apple's "dashboard" made a good, "Yikes!" response to the unexpected debut of Longhorn sideboard. It's sort of suprising that Microsoft dropped the sideboard in the WinHEC beta, but we'll supposedly see some of the hot new GUI tools that will replace it at the upcoming PDC.
Statler & Waldorf weren't bad, but they aren't quite cynical enough nor funny enough to think that this will go beyond a handful of episodes.
Personally, I didn't think Bewitched deserved the savaging reviews most reviewers gave it (there have been many, many worse movies lately). But it was odd that no nods were given to the large contingent of gay and lesbian actors in the original since it has a large gay fan-base and the whole premise of the show shares many "coming out" and "trying to go straight" themes. But for light humor the movie wasn't bad.
The word god (capitalized or not) is really a pronoun. It's just in a monotheistic culture where the only instance is a singleton, that you can equate the pronoun with the name. Need to distinguish between Athena and her high priestess? the term "god" is a a good way to do so, but it doesn't distinguish between Hades, Athena, and Jupiter.
There is one caution about the MiniDV marketplace and that is lubricants used on the tapes themselves. Different manufacturers use different ones. The MiniDV tape standard doesn't say what the lube on the tape is, so there are two popular kinds in common use. The three brands of tapes I prefer use the same kind, but recently on a trip out of the country I had to use a brand that was the wrong type because it was the only thing available. I've done this before and not experienced big problems, but this trip was different. The camcorder would record a little and then there was usually a tape error. Even in footage where the camera would keep recording (apparently okay) there would be subtle problems like breaks in the timecode that weren't visible but gave me lots of headaches in editing. Considering that I was recording under very rough conditions I would have suspected lots of things if I wasn't already warned about the lubricant issue. Rough conditions, old equipment, etc. Though I lost the footage for that day, I was able to get a tape cleaner, clean the camera, and record and play on my non-standard type of tapes that night. The next day I was able to record without significant problems. But at the soonest opportunity I went back to my usual brands when I got back to the US.
Which lube is better? Neither, just do what you can not to mix the two types.
Recently I had to buy a new x86 compatible machine to help out a friend who was doing some Visual Basic work. He said he'd load up the OS and software I needed on the coattails of his developer subscription, but I neeeded to buy the hardware.
I went to the Frys and Microcenter in Atlanta to buy the cheapest/fastest thing they had. For around $600 Microcenter had an Athlon 64 3ghz with XP Home but I'd fallen through the cracks and couldn't find anyone to help me buy it. I went to Frys and they had a refurbished 3ghz Intel PC with Linspire on it, but unlike Microcenter the woman sales rep was actively trying to talk me out of the purchase. She was telling me why Linspire was a bad choice and that it was much cheaper to buy Windows when I bought the PC than later. So while Fry's had Linspire PC's for sale, I'd be very suprised if they actually sold any of them. They seemed very hostile to actually allowing one of them actually go out the door. In the end I went back to MicroCenter and got the Manager himself to help me get the PowerSpec.
That's the first time I had a salesrep actually try to talk me out of a purchase I'd decided on, and use the lack of Windows as the justification. Oh well, I've learned my lesson there.
Even today, the file extension on a saved AppleWorks file is
The spreadsheet module was supposedly based on the same math libraries behind Claris Resolve and the Wingz! spreadsheet. Rumors had it that their code bases atrophied during the migration from 68K to PowerPC and this was what killed Apple's math products. Arguably less powerful products such as FileMaker made the transition and survived because of their lack of features.
The phrase written in the back of the App window is "ABET" as in aiding and abetting a monopoly.
How does it lower the rights of gays and lesbians? Because they openly promote that this is a category of people is being hurt and needs explicit legal protection; then they kill that protection and say "Sorry, but we decided you really weren't worth it." Whether homosexuality is a behavior, sin, or handicap of birth, it should already be covered by the bill of rights and equal rights legislation. The fact that they have promoted the idea that it's not and needs explicit protection (and then abandonning support for that protection) does harm. Period.
This is a geek site, so let's frame their actions in another way. What if Microsoft argued strongly for adoption of open standards in all computer file formats. Businesses who don't know a thing about open standards and file formats have raised awareness that open formats may be worth considering. At the last minute, before major legislation demands government adoption of these standards, Microsoft changes its mind and declares the idea as being anti-business. The legislation dies and people following the debate now shy away from open standards.
Apple has said that Mac OS X will not run on generic x86 hardware. They've also said (perhaps not officially) that they will encourage x86 software use on their hardware (e.g. if the customer wants to install Windows in a dual boot or run via a virtual machine). This should be no threat to Apple. If someone's paid money to buy a Mac, they want to run Mac OS X. Having x86 compatability is a safety net for worried switchers.
IF Apple's hardware is hacked to run on generic hardware (and I think that's a very big IF), we may actually see bigger demands for people wanting to buy generic hardware without an OS installed or perhaps with Lindows or other OEM free option installed. Admittedly most of these people will be the "crazy ones" who want to experiment, but that's a great user base that may also "discover" Linux in this process.
Regardless of what headway Apple makes in the market, it's clear that they'll be calling into question the commercial judgement that there is only one computer operating system out there. That should make significant headway toward businesses considering the Linux options and demanding standards compliance in their apps and file formats.
These situations give significant boost to Linux on the desktop in my opinion. The biggest problem is that Microsoft is a monopoly in the minds of the consumer and no amount of coding is going to change this. Linux will benefit from Mac OS X moving to x86 hardware, but that doesn't mean a new GUI has to be engineered by the debut of Mac OS X on Intel or the release of Longhorn. It would hurt to have some though (if that's what you're interested in hacking on).
Recently, Microsoft already lowered the rights of gays and lesbians by dropping support for a major state anti-discrimination bill. Based on that wildly popular success (with right wingers at least) we'll be dropping the rights for everyone in the next release of Internet Explorer; trust us, we know what's good for you. And for those anxious about what the future holds, worry no more; coming with Longhorn, we'll offer new digital rights management features. Just remember, all your rights are belong to us.
Does that make the T. Rex backwards compatible with modern birds? or modern birds forward compatible with T. Rex eggs? Gaah, I've been following too much news spin on Longhorn.
- Some types of Dashboard widgets
- AppleScripts
- Automator actions
- Some Sherlock plugins
- Some Quicktime plugins
- Apple's Help system
- Shell scripts in the terminal
There are other development architectures that would require some work by the original developer. Going from easiest to hardest these would be:Cocoa - is an Objective-C and Java API for what was the NeXT toolkit. Has a significant headstart in hardware and interface abstraction. Tools are included on OS X DVD's. If you stick with these API's you probably have a trivial transition process.
Core Foundation - A C API that gives access to the same functions as Cocoa. Because it's plain C it has no "object-oriented" paradigm so you have to do much more memory management (not a big deal for a C developer). The work you'll have to do here will be due to the higher exposure to hardware you have to account for in plain C. Not a huge deal if it's software you wrote yourself, but still a burden on your shoulder's rather than Apple's.
Carbon - This is the modern version of the Apple System 7 C++ codebase that's been cleaned up. You still use things like Pascal strings (which may be an advantage or burden depending on your viewpoint - but still something that's atypical in most C++ development). Still actively developed by Apple (with API's that probably go through CoreFoundation).
Classic - This is the OS 9 virtual environment to run software that was written for Macs but wasn't recompiled for Mac OS X. Though it uses the same conventions as Carbon, this branch is no longer developed by Apple. Apple might use an emulator for the old Motorolla instruction set, but more than likely they'll just declare this branch dead (they haven't brought back the Apple // line under Mac OS X even though it would be feasible to do so). If anything, they'd put their efforts into making a Windows virtual environment to let you run your old OS and software rather than try and appease angry Mac-heads. Still a lot of work though.
Packaging of Apps
Of course compiling is only one part of packaging your code, but one of the earliest changes on Mac OS X was the "bundle" system of packaging code so that you can put code that will run on different hardware in special places in the bundle (folders in a certain type of heirarchy) and Mac OS X will make certain the proper executable is called on the proper platform. This was developed back in the day when NeXT was selling it's app toolkit to run under Windows, so hardware, GUI, and localization differences had to be all sorted out. When the NeXT code went to a single OS and chip, most people sort of forgot that this organization still exists, but it would be very easy to start taking advantage of again.
Overall, the move to x86 from PPC would be much easier than the transition from the Motorolla 68K to PPC. But whether this makes commercial sense isn't clear at the moment.
Actually, what would be really suprising to me is if Apple moves to Intel chips rather than AMD after the recent blatant Apple-oriented attack by Intel with the Pandora PC (Mac Mini look-alike). It's the popularity of the x86 architecture that's attractive rather than Intel itself.
So unless this direct afront to Apple was mitigated with huge discounts, I doubt Intel will get the deal.
Of course none of this will be public except the choice of chip supplier. We'll have to read the spin from Apple, Intel, and makers of the Pandora like we were reading pig entrails for signs of what's really going on.
I see three groups of people that a software version of OS X would attract:
- Pirates - They'll want to toy with OS X and will "borrow" a copy from a Mac friend. Apple won't ever get any money from this group, ever, but they do set a lot of what's cool and popular on computers in the eyes of others.
- Cheapskates - This group shys away from low quality things but doesn't like to spend money. They'll buy Mac OS X to try out on their Dell but don't want to "risk" buying high priced Apple hardware. Apple will get software sales from this group but won't get a hardware sale except once every five years (if that).
- Zeta Dogs - These guys are the type that buys whatever is popular. Whether they're the computer support for their church or for their dad's small business, they'll often look at popularity as quality. If they see people with Mac OS X or iPods or other Apple gear, they'll likely buy real Apple hardware rather than just the OS (but the seemingly rising popularity of the software will be what sells them).
More than likely (if Apple does move to x86) they'll be aggressively testing and using all sorts of PC hardware to drive down supplier prices. While they'll only support an official Apple configuration which will be extremely controlled in terms of the hardware, they'll still benefit from these other groups who try to use Mac OS X on unsupported configurations.My sports center requires a hand scan to enter the facility. It gives false or unreadable scans so often that most of the guards just wave you through if you look even vaguely trustworthy.
What about those with disabilities (severed limbs) or those with birth defects (extra fingers)? I bet the woman who started the whole "Finger found in Wendy's chili" scam won't be worried at all. She has an extra one she can use. (Okay, that's a bit too far. sorry)
While Ronald Reagan was visualizing the Soviet Union as "The Evil Empire", George W. doesn't have as easy a target to rail against: the vague threat of a terrorism.
So let's compare it to a movie that did extremely well financially despite a half baked idea behind it. Viola, we have "Star Wars, The Phantom Menace"
These were huge unexpected changes, but none of these had the visceral impact of seeing Bill Gates on a huge screen over the auditorium and smiling and saying that we're chums with Apple now and that "Microsoft wants Apple to succeed." People were hissing and booing and making overt signs that the apocolypse for Apple had just arrived.
It turns out that either there were other unannounced benefits for Apple or these back room agreements with Microsoft had an even for significant impact because they had very positve results for Apple. But even today, Apple fans still cringe when they see their "resistence fighter" being chummy with one of the leaders of the "Microsoft establishment".
For Sun devotees, it's probably an equally unsettling bit of public relations. But lets hope that Microsoft gave up quite a bit more in those smokey back room deals that will benefit Sun, now that Sun appears to have come out of the closet at a full-blown "friend of Microsoft" now.
Sign up for the new Microsoft Profet Sharing Plan
Nostradamus may have predicted the Intel Pentium bug but now even hotter air is available from the man whose legal agreements have kept billions of people enthralled around the world: Sir William Gates!
When interviewed specifically for this article, Gate's press release had these amazing words formulated, "Microsoft's new Profet plan isn't just another random quatrain generator, this is Microsoft we're talking about. I personally inspired the greedy algorithms behind this product's code to be the most realistic possible today. Now with the extra polish from Microsoft's engineers my predictions will be even better than reality."
Indeed, results of paid tests by independent research shills have shown that Microsoft Profet is always 100% right, but shockingly, reality can sometimes fail in the most surprising ways.
Requirements: $640K per year. Non disclosure agreement signed in blood. Half a brain (or less). Incompatible with Linux, Mac OS X, and certain reality distortion fields.
I like that 1970's American television ad with the cute girl who visually demonstrates exponential growth while trying to advertise something like Brek shampoo.
"I [infected] two friends.
And they [infected] two friends.
And so on.
And so on.
And so on."
Withe the screen splitting at each phrase and winding up with 32 versions of the cute girl, it's much more visually entertaining than this demo.