Since the bulk of macOS and iOS actually falls into/bin/sbin/usr/var and so on, can you explain what separating/System would gain anyone? Unless Apple decides to completely rewrite the folder locations of the BSD subsystem, this would never work.
LOL. Steve Jobs was "fired" in 1985, a full decade before the internet ever became even remotely a mainstream thing, and when Microsoft made it's "substantial monetary investment" in 1997 ($150 million), it was a PR stunt in conjunction with a pledge from Microsoft that it was committed to continuing Office for Mac for the next 5 years. This investment was in the form of non-voting shares, and Microsoft subsequently sold all of them for a huge profit. At the time, Apple was already on the rebound, and even though it was certainly low on cash, it still had roughly $600 million. Apple never needed Microsoft's money, they never came remotely close to running out of money. They certainly COULD have, but they didn't, and claiming that Microsoft rescued them is ludicrous. What saved them was buying NeXT and getting Steve Jobs back in the bargain.
I had to wade through 100+ posts debating capitalism vs libertarianism vs communism vs socialism before finding even one post mentioning the lawsuit this topic is supposed to be about. Why do I even bother reading this site anymore?
Honestly, in case it wasn't apparent on casual reading, I was being just slightly sarcastic in my previous post. I'm not in any position to say what will end up happening, either with the overall success of iPhones, in general or in any specific market segment (such as enterprise), or in how Apple will or will not address the needs of certain markets by, for example, allowing for the extension of iPhones with third-party applications. I'm merely a 15 year IT professional, Macintosh system engineer, longtime Apple enthusiast who has been around long enough that I think I have intuition about these things that might be just slightly better than the average bear.
I'm not claiming the iPhone will be an unqualified smash success, including or especially in the enterprise market. My sarcastic smart ass post was mainly aimed at those people who take a pessimistic view, but apparently just KNOW that they are absolutely correct in their views and predictions, and state their thoughts unequivocally. I'd like to know where they get their information, because while they may have legitimate points to make and have valid opinions about things, I don't know where they get off acting like they just know everything there is to know, they have factored in every variable, envisioned every future scenario, and can state their OPINIONS with absolutely no trace of humility or acknowledgement of the fact that they, like myself, are going on limited information and the widespread inability of the majority of human beings to know future events ahead of time. I'm much less annoyed by opposing views than I am by people who argue from the position that they are utterly and infallibly correct. I would be the first to qualify a statement as being just an opinion, based on limited information, subject to factors I may not be aware of and thus fail to take into consideration, etc. Everything out of my mouth should be taken with a grain of salt, as is generally the case for almost everybody. It just bugs me when other people either don't realize, or just fail to acknowledge, the limits of their own knowledge and experience and the fact that their views are just as subject to unknown factors, missing or incorrectly understood details, etc.
People, People! Predictions of the failure of the iPhone are comically off-base and premature. Writing it off as an enterprise-worthy smart phone is also absurdly based on nothing more than the conventional wisdom and cliches of people who couldn't think outside the box if their life depended on it. Let's review:
(1) Between Dashboard widgets, Cocoa running on a more or less full version of OS X, and a desktop-class browser capable of displaying everything that Safari can display on Macs today, with Javascript support, that's three fairly robust ways to implement any kind of application on an iPhone. Apple (i.e. Steve Jobs) would have to be colossally stupid to build off of a foundation like that and then MARKET the device as "running OS X" and mentioning Cocoa as one benefit of same, and then declare that there would be no ability to add third-party applications, ever. That would be monumentally stupid, and a giant waste of all the stuff that comes with any system running an OS as mature and capable as OS X is. There would be almost no benefit to using OS X, and certainly nothing to gain from referring to OS X as a bullet point in your marketing, unless that technology was being leveraged across the board. To stop at an email app, a browser, and google maps, is just not even in the realm of believable. This phone was designed expressly to further the mobile phone paradigm in every possible way, and the ability to produce desktop-calibre sophisticated software for almost any imaginable type of task was surely a key design goal. So, yes there will be third-party software on iPhones. Duh!
(2) Can we all get a grip already? It is an unreleased first generation product, the very first product of its kind designed by Apple. Obviously, it will not do everything anybody ever imagined using a mobile phone / PDA for, or thought of doing while on an acid trip, or saw someone else doing on some mythical superphone commonly found in Asia but nowhere to be seen in the pathetic US mobile phone market. Did somebody hear about the iPhone, watch the webcast where Steve Jobs thoroughly demo'd it, and then read up on it on Apple's web site, and walk away from that with the idea that the only thing iPhones can't do is your kid's trig homework, cleaning your gutters or baking a wedding cake from scratch? Get real! Yeah, Apple announced the iPhone. It is a phone, with a very advanced GUI, a browser, email client, google maps, SMS "iChat-like" texting, and Apple couldn't come up with a single idea for even one additional use for this phone. They fully expect this to be the full feature set of all iPhones for all time, and have never for a single second entertained the idea that they, or someone else, might have a task that they would like to be able to use their iPhone to perform, much as they can already do on a variety of other products from Palm and RIM and so forth. Those Apple people, see, they aren't very forward thinking or creative, not a bright bunch at all, really, and the features publicly announced for the very first iPhone model were all they could come up with. Whatever.
After the very first iPhone model, you can expect Apple to release ADDITIONAL models, at a variety of price-points and with varying features. They could have a camera-free model for people who have no-camera restrictions at their workplace, or to offer a lower priced model. They could have a model that ditches the iPod features and is just a phone/PDA. They could have different form factors, cuz, like, some people like flip phones and some people like slider phones and so on. Just imagine the possibilities!!
Oh yeah, I forgot. Apple is SO stupid they will never think of any of this. Too bad they have such brain dead people working for them. If only.......
(3) the iPhone may or may not initially or eventually support direct communication with Exchange over MAPI. And what if it does not? Oh no! If only you could somehow use a third party program instead, something that DID speak to Excha
Before everybody goes and gets hysterical about whether or not the iPhone runs OS X, or whether or not it will be able to run third-party applications, I think everybody should try to remember a few things:
First, when the iPod was first introduced, it was FireWire-based and only marketed for Macs. It was very purposefully NOT aimed at the much larger PC market. There was no iTunes Music Store, just plain ordinary iTunes. It took two years and several revisions to bring us a music store and a PC version. It took several more years still to bring us TV shows and movies and games, and to move from FireWIre to USB. The point here is that this is a 1.0 product, and in all probablity it is merely the first in what will be a FAMILY of phones that will have overlapping features and come in a range of sizes and price points. In other words, just because Apple didn't announce it today does not mean they haven't got all kinds of plans for things. Why would anybody assume for a minute that they didn't?
Secondly, I think all this carping about processors and defining what is, or isn't, "true" OS X is missing the point. If Apple were to ship a Tablet Mac that didn't include a keyboard, and which, consequently, had a handful of new technologies enabling complete control via the screen and stylus, and perhaps some new or modified applications which made optimal use of handwriting as an input method, nobody would be saying that it wasn't still, fundamentally, running OS X. It would simply be OS X with additional tablet-specific functionality incorporated. I think Jobs called it OS X because they are trying NOT to make people jump to the conclusion that the iPhone is somehow a new Mac model, or needs a Mac to work, or works best with a Mac. Saying it ran MAC OS X would just make some people conclude that it was connected to, or WAS, a Mac, with whatever biases that may bring. For all intents and purposes, OSX = Mac OS X = an operating system developed by Apple for the purpose of running its family of Mac computers and assorted other devices.
Thirdly, what we see on the iPhone as a user interface is no more foreign than, say, a kiosk computer that lets you run a specific set of tasks but prevents you from seeing or accessing any other functionality. Front Row is a good example of an alternate interface to a Mac that gives you specialized and very limited controls optimized for use as an entertainment hub. I would argue that the iPhone interface is but another example of a specialized interface optimized for use on a small mobile phone device. If all you knew about a Mac was what you saw of one running Front Row, that wouldn't make it any less of a Mac, or make whatever version of Mac OS X it were running any less valid, any more than the version that may be running on iPhones. The truth is, we don't know yet what is on an iPhone, but claiming that it isn't "real" OS X because it lacks a Finder, or might run on an ARM processor, or may not run off-the-shelf Mac OS X applications unmodified, well, those just aren't proper criteria. If the APIs are there for the bulk of what we consider Mac software, I'd call that a Mac OS. Period.
Fourthly, and this is probably my most important point: I think everybody is failing to remember probably the most important reason behind the development of Dashboard. I highly doubt that it was to address the needs of the throngs of people clammoring for a modern set of desk accessories and other utilities. Dashboard was created, I would argue PRIMARILY, for the purpose of creating a software platform. A platform that is, for the most part, not tied to the Mac, not tied to a CPU architecture, not tied to anything at all except HTML, CSS and Javascript. I submit that the ultimate purpose for creating such a platform was very specifically to enable robust third-party application development for small devices like iPods and iPhones. The ease with which such applications can be developed, and the widespread availablity of people with the know-ho
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Since the bulk of macOS and iOS actually falls into /bin /sbin /usr /var and so on, can you explain what separating /System would gain anyone? Unless Apple decides to completely rewrite the folder locations of the BSD subsystem, this would never work.
LOL. Steve Jobs was "fired" in 1985, a full decade before the internet ever became even remotely a mainstream thing, and when Microsoft made it's "substantial monetary investment" in 1997 ($150 million), it was a PR stunt in conjunction with a pledge from Microsoft that it was committed to continuing Office for Mac for the next 5 years. This investment was in the form of non-voting shares, and Microsoft subsequently sold all of them for a huge profit. At the time, Apple was already on the rebound, and even though it was certainly low on cash, it still had roughly $600 million. Apple never needed Microsoft's money, they never came remotely close to running out of money. They certainly COULD have, but they didn't, and claiming that Microsoft rescued them is ludicrous. What saved them was buying NeXT and getting Steve Jobs back in the bargain.
I had to wade through 100+ posts debating capitalism vs libertarianism vs communism vs socialism before finding even one post mentioning the lawsuit this topic is supposed to be about. Why do I even bother reading this site anymore?
Honestly, in case it wasn't apparent on casual reading, I was being just slightly sarcastic in my previous post. I'm not in any position to say what will end up happening, either with the overall success of iPhones, in general or in any specific market segment (such as enterprise), or in how Apple will or will not address the needs of certain markets by, for example, allowing for the extension of iPhones with third-party applications. I'm merely a 15 year IT professional, Macintosh system engineer, longtime Apple enthusiast who has been around long enough that I think I have intuition about these things that might be just slightly better than the average bear.
I'm not claiming the iPhone will be an unqualified smash success, including or especially in the enterprise market. My sarcastic smart ass post was mainly aimed at those people who take a pessimistic view, but apparently just KNOW that they are absolutely correct in their views and predictions, and state their thoughts unequivocally. I'd like to know where they get their information, because while they may have legitimate points to make and have valid opinions about things, I don't know where they get off acting like they just know everything there is to know, they have factored in every variable, envisioned every future scenario, and can state their OPINIONS with absolutely no trace of humility or acknowledgement of the fact that they, like myself, are going on limited information and the widespread inability of the majority of human beings to know future events ahead of time. I'm much less annoyed by opposing views than I am by people who argue from the position that they are utterly and infallibly correct. I would be the first to qualify a statement as being just an opinion, based on limited information, subject to factors I may not be aware of and thus fail to take into consideration, etc. Everything out of my mouth should be taken with a grain of salt, as is generally the case for almost everybody. It just bugs me when other people either don't realize, or just fail to acknowledge, the limits of their own knowledge and experience and the fact that their views are just as subject to unknown factors, missing or incorrectly understood details, etc.
A plea for some humility, in other words.....
People, People! Predictions of the failure of the iPhone are comically off-base and premature. Writing it off as an enterprise-worthy smart phone is also absurdly based on nothing more than the conventional wisdom and cliches of people who couldn't think outside the box if their life depended on it. Let's review:
(1) Between Dashboard widgets, Cocoa running on a more or less full version of OS X, and a desktop-class browser capable of displaying everything that Safari can display on Macs today, with Javascript support, that's three fairly robust ways to implement any kind of application on an iPhone. Apple (i.e. Steve Jobs) would have to be colossally stupid to build off of a foundation like that and then MARKET the device as "running OS X" and mentioning Cocoa as one benefit of same, and then declare that there would be no ability to add third-party applications, ever. That would be monumentally stupid, and a giant waste of all the stuff that comes with any system running an OS as mature and capable as OS X is. There would be almost no benefit to using OS X, and certainly nothing to gain from referring to OS X as a bullet point in your marketing, unless that technology was being leveraged across the board. To stop at an email app, a browser, and google maps, is just not even in the realm of believable. This phone was designed expressly to further the mobile phone paradigm in every possible way, and the ability to produce desktop-calibre sophisticated software for almost any imaginable type of task was surely a key design goal. So, yes there will be third-party software on iPhones. Duh!
(2) Can we all get a grip already? It is an unreleased first generation product, the very first product of its kind designed by Apple. Obviously, it will not do everything anybody ever imagined using a mobile phone / PDA for, or thought of doing while on an acid trip, or saw someone else doing on some mythical superphone commonly found in Asia but nowhere to be seen in the pathetic US mobile phone market. Did somebody hear about the iPhone, watch the webcast where Steve Jobs thoroughly demo'd it, and then read up on it on Apple's web site, and walk away from that with the idea that the only thing iPhones can't do is your kid's trig homework, cleaning your gutters or baking a wedding cake from scratch? Get real! Yeah, Apple announced the iPhone. It is a phone, with a very advanced GUI, a browser, email client, google maps, SMS "iChat-like" texting, and Apple couldn't come up with a single idea for even one additional use for this phone. They fully expect this to be the full feature set of all iPhones for all time, and have never for a single second entertained the idea that they, or someone else, might have a task that they would like to be able to use their iPhone to perform, much as they can already do on a variety of other products from Palm and RIM and so forth. Those Apple people, see, they aren't very forward thinking or creative, not a bright bunch at all, really, and the features publicly announced for the very first iPhone model were all they could come up with. Whatever.
After the very first iPhone model, you can expect Apple to release ADDITIONAL models, at a variety of price-points and with varying features. They could have a camera-free model for people who have no-camera restrictions at their workplace, or to offer a lower priced model. They could have a model that ditches the iPod features and is just a phone/PDA. They could have different form factors, cuz, like, some people like flip phones and some people like slider phones and so on. Just imagine the possibilities!!
Oh yeah, I forgot. Apple is SO stupid they will never think of any of this. Too bad they have such brain dead people working for them. If only.......
(3) the iPhone may or may not initially or eventually support direct communication with Exchange over MAPI. And what if it does not? Oh no! If only you could somehow use a third party program instead, something that DID speak to Excha
Before everybody goes and gets hysterical about whether or not the iPhone runs OS X, or whether or not it will be able to run third-party applications, I think everybody should try to remember a few things:
First, when the iPod was first introduced, it was FireWire-based and only marketed for Macs. It was very purposefully NOT aimed at the much larger PC market. There was no iTunes Music Store, just plain ordinary iTunes. It took two years and several revisions to bring us a music store and a PC version. It took several more years still to bring us TV shows and movies and games, and to move from FireWIre to USB. The point here is that this is a 1.0 product, and in all probablity it is merely the first in what will be a FAMILY of phones that will have overlapping features and come in a range of sizes and price points. In other words, just because Apple didn't announce it today does not mean they haven't got all kinds of plans for things. Why would anybody assume for a minute that they didn't?
Secondly, I think all this carping about processors and defining what is, or isn't, "true" OS X is missing the point. If Apple were to ship a Tablet Mac that didn't include a keyboard, and which, consequently, had a handful of new technologies enabling complete control via the screen and stylus, and perhaps some new or modified applications which made optimal use of handwriting as an input method, nobody would be saying that it wasn't still, fundamentally, running OS X. It would simply be OS X with additional tablet-specific functionality incorporated. I think Jobs called it OS X because they are trying NOT to make people jump to the conclusion that the iPhone is somehow a new Mac model, or needs a Mac to work, or works best with a Mac. Saying it ran MAC OS X would just make some people conclude that it was connected to, or WAS, a Mac, with whatever biases that may bring. For all intents and purposes, OSX = Mac OS X = an operating system developed by Apple for the purpose of running its family of Mac computers and assorted other devices.
Thirdly, what we see on the iPhone as a user interface is no more foreign than, say, a kiosk computer that lets you run a specific set of tasks but prevents you from seeing or accessing any other functionality. Front Row is a good example of an alternate interface to a Mac that gives you specialized and very limited controls optimized for use as an entertainment hub. I would argue that the iPhone interface is but another example of a specialized interface optimized for use on a small mobile phone device. If all you knew about a Mac was what you saw of one running Front Row, that wouldn't make it any less of a Mac, or make whatever version of Mac OS X it were running any less valid, any more than the version that may be running on iPhones. The truth is, we don't know yet what is on an iPhone, but claiming that it isn't "real" OS X because it lacks a Finder, or might run on an ARM processor, or may not run off-the-shelf Mac OS X applications unmodified, well, those just aren't proper criteria. If the APIs are there for the bulk of what we consider Mac software, I'd call that a Mac OS. Period.
Fourthly, and this is probably my most important point: I think everybody is failing to remember probably the most important reason behind the development of Dashboard. I highly doubt that it was to address the needs of the throngs of people clammoring for a modern set of desk accessories and other utilities. Dashboard was created, I would argue PRIMARILY, for the purpose of creating a software platform. A platform that is, for the most part, not tied to the Mac, not tied to a CPU architecture, not tied to anything at all except HTML, CSS and Javascript. I submit that the ultimate purpose for creating such a platform was very specifically to enable robust third-party application development for small devices like iPods and iPhones. The ease with which such applications can be developed, and the widespread availablity of people with the know-ho