I'm no programmer, but if there's one area where Apple hasn't screwed up then it's WebObjects. They put a lot of work into it - it's definately not languishing - and they are still pushing it. The languising thing hasn't happened at Apple for a while now. They've changed. And most of the NeXT guys who worked on WebObjects are now at Apple, still working on that and Mac OS 10.
LinuxPPC already has both LinuxxPPC Lite and LinuxPPC Live installers in order to easily download, install and run Linux on a Powermac. They'll probably have something like that when they get Release 5 out.
I totally agree about the keyboard and mouse from a usage point of view... ak. Brutal.
But they look great on a poster - the whole iMac package was designed to look great. And the users who buy them don't use them enough to care.
They don't sell iMacs on specs, any more than they sell microwaves by specs - it's a matter of how they sell them. I don't see Compaq (currently Apple's main competitor) putting this sort of thought or effort into their hardware design.
I think people need to recognise that for Linux to be the operating system on the systems of normal non-technical users - the world-domination scenario - there is inevitably going to be a money issue. Whether or not the system is open source isn't terribly relevant, because the amount of people who have the know-how to download such a system and assemble it is only a fraction of the amount that would be far happier to pay for it and not have to worry about it. Most people are less concerned about the politics of what they are using, just does it get the job done or does it get in my way when I'm working/playing/surfing? Whatever else you might think of Windows or Mac OS they get the job done for the average user.
The distributors such as Redhat will make money out of support and packaging and use that to differentiate themselves, maybe go for niche-markets; web-serving, homeuser OS, graphics, 3D... and more. If one of those niches (probably homeuser) proves to have even a slight margin of profit potential then all hell could conceivably break loose, there'll be a lot of competition and there's always a looser in these situations. Hopefully that won't happen, but... And what if one of the established Big Players decides to back a distribution? Even if they didn't make money on it then at least it wouldn't be in the hands of the wrong people - that's how those guys think, and they'll throw big marketting bucks at it. Didn't Intel recently give support to Redhat? It's always in the interests of these big guys to have less players rather than more. It gets messy otherwise.
If people make a lot of noise about Linux and it gets even more mindshare than it has now (so that The Man In The Street knows about it and wants it on his PC) then as Jeremy Lee says it's going to come down to money in a big way - it has to. People will see it and want to make money on it, open source or not. He is absolutely right. Less noise the better.
Linux is not immune to market forces. If you give away something for free then someone is losing money on it, and they'll do something about it.
On a very much related note, very recently I noticed that there was some concern in the Linux community that Sun/AOL are very likely to see Linux as a problem, same as MS is. But while everyone is carefully watching MS, the other guys are probably scheming as well. If anyone has any comment on that I think it would make for an interesting discussion.
Why my next Macintosh WILL be a Macintosh - maybe.
on
Apple Announcements
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· Score: 1
I too was a little dissapointed with the new cases, and raging about the way they used the iMac kybd and mouse. I've decided I like the box - it takes getting used to but I daresay that if you see it in the flesh with one of those monitors... whoa. Nice.
But that mouse is brutal. It is worse than brutal. How the FUCK do they expect a profesional designer using his/her mouse up to 6 - 8 hours a day to use that thing? New USB mice cost money - luckily they left the ADB port, but it's not good enough. That's the one thing that put me off. They decided to save a bit of money and use those shite parts on the part of the machine that you use most (after the monitor).
If I'm working fast I can't afford to make mistakes by hitting the wrong keys and that keyboard is built for it. It's too small, way too small. Whatever happened to the Apple Extended Keyboard II? I have one and it is something else. And the mouse is horrendous to use - weren't they going to bring out an new mouse with two buttons? Come on, guys! It's an anti-photoshop combo from hell.
Sorry. Had to get that out of my system. Yeah, I like that box...
In a year's time this kind of comment will still show up. While a year and a half ago I would have said yeah, you're right, and not bought my mac, I did anyway. And I'm still happy with it. And Apple is still here, doing nicely, and unlike some other companies it's not trying to stiff Linux.
As for that proprietary hardware, I guess Apple and Motorola should move to an open standard like, say, Slot 1 maybe... ?
And damn those PCI slots, SCSI, USB, Firewire, ATA, zip drives, etc.
I think grok is about the only standard they don't support. You were right about that. But I never use it except to hook up beezkels.
I notice here as I have before in previous stories that Linux/Open source fans focus on the player.
The Movie Player application is unimportant. It just accesses the Quicktime layer - many applications can play quicktime movies, since all they do is call on the Quicktime extensions. This is one of the reasons that so much video work is done on macs: it's part of the system. In theory you could edit video using MS Word (but I wouldn't advise it; you always get those messy cuts;-)).
And having support like this for video on Linux would be crucial in getting it accepted in video editing work, which Linux would in theory be very good for (good video editing software and a stable user interface wouldn't hurt either).
So what gets in the way of having Quicktime support on Linux is Apple porting it. They aren't going to make it Open Source, because the patents on it are crucial to Apple (witness the lawsuits against MS - it may have been with AVI) and they want to have control over it. And they do make money with it. It doesn't need to be Open Source for Linux users to get the benefits from it. That's just a control thing.
And as someone noted above, Apple doesn't own the patents on a lot of the codecs and file formats (and it supports a lot of those) that are part of Quicktime - it's too complicated to try to make it open source software. Just having the libraries available on Linux is enough, and they will do it if there is a need for it, and when that happens some high end commercial video editing software might be ported in a couple of years time, which would be great.
Even if the streaming server software is open source the quicktime libraries (if they are needed) won't be, but it would be great for Linux if they were ported anyhow. Bringing standards like this to Linux is good for Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm no programmer, but if there's one area where Apple hasn't screwed up then it's WebObjects. They put a lot of work into it - it's definately not languishing - and they are still pushing it. The languising thing hasn't happened at Apple for a while now. They've changed. And most of the NeXT guys who worked on WebObjects are now at Apple, still working on that and Mac OS 10.
Best analogy yet.
Nice one.
LinuxPPC already has both LinuxxPPC Lite and LinuxPPC Live installers in order to easily download, install and run Linux on a Powermac. They'll probably have something like that when they get Release 5 out.
It would be good for macs and PCs alike.
I don't think this is a cheapness issue.
I totally agree about the keyboard and mouse from a usage point of view... ak. Brutal.
But they look great on a poster - the whole iMac package was designed to look great. And the users who buy them don't use them enough to care.
They don't sell iMacs on specs, any more than they sell microwaves by specs - it's a matter of how they sell them. I don't see Compaq (currently Apple's main competitor) putting this sort of thought or effort into their hardware design.
Kev.
That's a damn good article needed saying.
/surfing? Whatever else you might think of Windows or Mac OS they get the job done for the average user.
I think people need to recognise that for Linux to be the operating system on the systems of normal non-technical users - the world-domination scenario - there is inevitably going to be a money issue. Whether or not the system is open source isn't terribly relevant, because the amount of people who have the know-how to download such a system and assemble it is only a fraction of the amount that would be far happier to pay for it and not have to worry about it. Most people are less concerned about the politics of what they are using, just does it get the job done or does it get in my way when I'm working/playing
The distributors such as Redhat will make money out of support and packaging and use that to differentiate themselves, maybe go for niche-markets; web-serving, homeuser OS, graphics, 3D... and more. If one of those niches (probably homeuser) proves to have even a slight margin of profit potential then all hell could conceivably break loose, there'll be a lot of competition and there's always a looser in these situations. Hopefully that won't happen, but...
And what if one of the established Big Players decides to back a distribution? Even if they didn't make money on it then at least it wouldn't be in the hands of the wrong people - that's how those guys think, and they'll throw big marketting bucks at it. Didn't Intel recently give support to Redhat? It's always in the interests of these big guys to have less players rather than more. It gets messy otherwise.
If people make a lot of noise about Linux and it gets even more mindshare than it has now (so that The Man In The Street knows about it and wants it on his PC) then as Jeremy Lee says it's going to come down to money in a big way - it has to. People will see it and want to make money on it, open source or not. He is absolutely right. Less noise the better.
Linux is not immune to market forces. If you give away something for free then someone is losing money on it, and they'll do something about it.
On a very much related note, very recently I noticed that there was some concern in the Linux community that Sun/AOL are very likely to see Linux as a problem, same as MS is. But while everyone is carefully watching MS, the other guys are probably scheming as well. If anyone has any comment on that I think it would make for an interesting discussion.
I too was a little dissapointed with the new cases, and raging about the way they used the iMac kybd and mouse. I've decided I like the box - it takes getting used to but I daresay that if you see it in the flesh with one of those monitors... whoa. Nice.
But that mouse is brutal. It is worse than brutal. How the FUCK do they expect a profesional designer using his/her mouse up to 6 - 8 hours a day to use that thing? New USB mice cost money - luckily they left the ADB port, but it's not good enough. That's the one thing that put me off. They decided to save a bit of money and use those shite parts on the part of the machine that you use most (after the monitor).
If I'm working fast I can't afford to make mistakes by hitting the wrong keys and that keyboard is built for it. It's too small, way too small. Whatever happened to the Apple Extended Keyboard II? I have one and it is something else. And the mouse is horrendous to use - weren't they going to bring out an new mouse with two buttons? Come on, guys! It's an anti-photoshop combo from hell.
Sorry. Had to get that out of my system. Yeah, I like that box...
and yet...
they are still here.
In a year's time this kind of comment will still show up. While a year and a half ago I would have said yeah, you're right, and not bought my mac, I did anyway. And I'm still happy with it. And Apple is still here, doing nicely, and unlike some other companies it's not trying to stiff Linux.
As for that proprietary hardware, I guess Apple and Motorola should move to an open standard like, say, Slot 1 maybe... ?
And damn those PCI slots, SCSI, USB, Firewire, ATA, zip drives, etc.
I think grok is about the only standard they don't support. You were right about that. But I never use it except to hook up beezkels.
as I say, yawn
I notice here as I have before in previous stories that Linux/Open source fans focus on the player.
;-)).
The Movie Player application is unimportant. It just accesses the Quicktime layer - many applications can play quicktime movies, since all they do is call on the Quicktime extensions. This is one of the reasons that so much video work is done on macs: it's part of the system. In theory you could edit video using MS Word (but I wouldn't advise it; you always get those messy cuts
And having support like this for video on Linux would be crucial in getting it accepted in video editing work, which Linux would in theory be very good for (good video editing software and a stable user interface wouldn't hurt either).
So what gets in the way of having Quicktime support on Linux is Apple porting it. They aren't going to make it Open Source, because the patents on it are crucial to Apple (witness the lawsuits against MS - it may have been with AVI) and they want to have control over it. And they do make money with it. It doesn't need to be Open Source for Linux users to get the benefits from it. That's just a control thing.
And as someone noted above, Apple doesn't own the patents on a lot of the codecs and file formats (and it supports a lot of those) that are part of Quicktime - it's too complicated to try to make it open source software. Just having the libraries available on Linux is enough, and they will do it if there is a need for it, and when that happens some high end commercial video editing software might be ported in a couple of years time, which would be great.
Even if the streaming server software is open source the quicktime libraries (if they are needed) won't be, but it would be great for Linux if they were ported anyhow. Bringing standards like this to Linux is good for Linux.
And again...
Quicktime is more than a movie player.