The root display system of Quartz, MacOS X's imaging system, just manages screen areas. Different of these areas can then be associated with different imaging models. Display PDF is just one of these models, along with direct screen region access, and other models are possible. (It would also be possible to create a driver based on say GhostScript to support Display PostScript.) Yes, PDF is an Adobe specification. But the reason Apple is doing this is because the spec is open, relatively clean to implement, and they don't have to pay any licensing fees to Adobe, particularly since Apple is doing the implementation in house. (It is for reasons of lack of control and exorbitant license fees to Adobe that Apple is going away from DPS.)
There's probably be a bit more to it than keeping processor upgrade makers from beating Apple to the punch. It's worth keeping in mind that at the present time there isn't a release OS for the PowerPC that is AltiVec aware. And if applications are AltiVec aware and the OS isn't, we have a bit of a problem on context switches. This may partly have been a ploy on Apple's part to keep the world simpler for application writers, and a little less freaking weird for users.
But the conspiracy theories are of course more interesting. Of course, time will tell.
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Oops. That should be Quartz.
The root display system of Quartz, MacOS X's imaging system, just manages screen areas. Different of these areas can then be associated with different imaging models. Display PDF is just one of these models, along with direct screen region access, and other models are possible. (It would also be possible to create a driver based on say GhostScript to support Display PostScript.) Yes, PDF is an Adobe specification. But the reason Apple is doing this is because the spec is open, relatively clean to implement, and they don't have to pay any licensing fees to Adobe, particularly since Apple is doing the implementation in house. (It is for reasons of lack of control and exorbitant license fees to Adobe that Apple is going away from DPS.)
There's probably be a bit more to it than keeping processor upgrade makers from beating Apple to the punch. It's worth keeping in mind that at the present time there isn't a release OS for the PowerPC that is AltiVec aware. And if applications are AltiVec aware and the OS isn't, we have a bit of a problem on context switches. This may partly have been a ploy on Apple's part to keep the world simpler for application writers, and a little less freaking weird for users.
But the conspiracy theories are of course more interesting. Of course, time will tell.