quote:

Originally posted by thalo:
Finally Steve seemed to have ready my feedbacks. I mean almost every highlight of Leopard was something I asked for, minus new layers of useless interface.

Stuff I harp on constantly in my feedbacks regarding OSX:

1. A more clearly identifiable active window.
2. A way to visually browse through most recently worked-on files. Column view would be OK if we could sort it by time, rather than just alphabetically.
3. Consistent window appearance... I friggin' can't stand all the different competing designs.
4. Get spotlight to work. And it's ridiculous that you couldn't search Macs on your network... they're finally fixing that.
5. Increase Speed and stop wasting computing resources (64 bit may be the answer to this, please oh please).
6. Fix the friggin' FINDER. It remains to be seen if it's really fixed.
7. Redesign folder icons... they're terrible. Old generic legacy flat folders were better. They finally did this. Woo Hoo!
8. Get rid of stripes and stupid uses of transparency (like under type). Mostly addressed, but the new Menubar is transparent to the desktop. Groan.
9. More control over interface fonts. Nope.
10. Ability to use black as a text highlight color and have it work. Nope.

I could care less about iChat, but Steve sounds like he's finally listening to thalo.net. I feel like we got through to him. This keynote was almost a loveletter to us.

quote:

Originally posted by klapauzius:

quote:

Originally posted by thalo:
Finally Steve seemed to have ready my feedbacks. I mean almost every highlight of Leopard was something I asked for, minus new layers of useless interface.

Stuff I harp on constantly in my feedbacks regarding OSX:

1. A more clearly identifiable active window.
2. A way to visually browse through most recently worked-on files. Column view would be OK if we could sort it by time, rather than just alphabetically.
3. Consistent window appearance... I friggin' can't stand all the different competing designs.
4. Get spotlight to work. And it's ridiculous that you couldn't search Macs on your network... they're finally fixing that.
5. Increase Speed and stop wasting computing resources (64 bit may be the answer to this, please oh please).
6. Fix the friggin' FINDER. It remains to be seen if it's really fixed.
7. Redesign folder icons... they're terrible. Old generic legacy flat folders were better. They finally did this. Woo Hoo!
8. Get rid of stripes and stupid uses of transparency (like under type). Mostly addressed, but the new Menubar is transparent to the desktop. Groan.
9. More control over interface fonts. Nope.
10. Ability to use black as a text highlight color and have it work. Nope.

I could care less about iChat, but Steve sounds like he's finally listening to thalo.net. I feel like we got through to him. This keynote was almost a loveletter to us.

This keynote was Apple's goodbye-kiss to the computing stuff.

64 bit comes in some obscure way, but Carbon doesn't support it and remains 32 bit. Great. ALL professional stuff is Carbon. The kernel runs in some weird (and actually not officially supported) 32/64-compatibility-mode. Developers are scratching their heads. No answers from Apple. Wait till October.

Games are back on the Mac. Well, actually, they aren't. EA bought some emulation technology that emulates Windows API on Intel Macs so they just sell their Windows games for the "mac". Great.

Other than that, more futile attempts to program a usable file manager, more unusable gimmicks, and an even tighter integration of the browser and the OS. That's what M$ got fined for. Ah, but we are the good ones. Yeah, right.

OS X is becoming a useless emulation layer for windows applications. Nobody needs it any more.

Kiss Apple Computer goodbye.

quote:

Games are back on the Mac. Well, actually, they aren't. EA bought some emulation technology that emulates Windows API on Intel Macs so they just sell their Windows games for the "mac". Great.

quote:

Originally posted by BN:
OS X is becoming a useless emulation layer for windows applications. Nobody needs it any more.

If most Macs someday soon can boot into Windows, why would any game developer take the time to port anything to OS X? They could still put "Works with Intel Macs" on the side of the box and probably not lose anyone. I could perhaps see OS X sort of being like a Java overlay for Windows itself. A shell, perhaps. Who these days is buying Macs for any reason other than the hardware? I don't mean the tech savvy. I mean the rank and file. Do they know or care about interfaces? They're buying style. And they would care less if Windows was simply "prettified" by some OS X shell-like thing. And every application that Apple ports to Windows is like an invasion of the Aqua virus, perhaps getting people ready for this. I can see it making sense, and making sense soon, for Apple not to even bother with a competing operating system. That seems where this is all headed. They like to tout themselves as a software company. And certainly software is no small thing. But surely their sales are primarily based on hardware. And their sales could increase drastically if they can sell more hardware to regular Windows users. They proved that they could penetrate the portable music player industry by offering something better. And surely, at least for consumers, they can probably offer something better for Windows users. At the very least they can market their "youth Pepsi" schtick to younger Windows users, even if their cola is sickening sweet to us older folks. Get 'em while they're young.

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Cider is a sophisticated portability engine that allows Windows games to be run on Intel Macs without any modifications to the original game source code. Cider works by directly loading a Windows program into memory on an Intel-Mac and linking it to an optimized version of the Win32 APIs. Games are "wrapped" with the Cider engine and they simply run on the Mac.

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After all, unlike other types of software, a game offers up its own unique experience, including a user interface. There is no "Mac Way" to be missed within Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

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That's right, no pesky restarts to get into Windows. Instead, the Apple menu will have a "Restart into Windows" option, which will put your Mac into a "safe sleep" state, then boot Windows. Over on the other side, you'll be able to Hibernate your Windows install, then switch back to OS X right where you left off.

quote:

Combine this with Intel Turbo Memory, the technology formerly known as Robson, and you may see the equivalent of Fast User Switching for operating systems. Plus you get the entirety of the Windows gaming universe, not just what EA and other companies deem to wrap in Cider.

quote:

Originally posted by BN:

quote:

Cider is a sophisticated portability engine that allows Windows games to be run on Intel Macs without any modifications to the original game source code. Cider works by directly loading a Windows program into memory on an Intel-Mac and linking it to an optimized version of the Win32 APIs. Games are "wrapped" with the Cider engine and they simply run on the Mac.

Klappy, that strategy seems to make a lot of sense. Create a "portability engine" which is the minimum amount of true Windows components that you need in order to play a regular game made for Windows. That seems like a quite elegant solution. Something like that could certainly catch on, at least for those who wish to sell games for the Mac.

quote:

After all, unlike other types of software, a game offers up its own unique experience, including a user interface. There is no "Mac Way" to be missed within Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

And that seems like a very good point. And rather than undermining Mac gaming, this would seem to be a big boost to it -- potentially.

quote:

That's right, no pesky restarts to get into Windows. Instead, the Apple menu will have a "Restart into Windows" option, which will put your Mac into a "safe sleep" state, then boot Windows. Over on the other side, you'll be able to Hibernate your Windows install, then switch back to OS X right where you left off.

If I had an Intel Mac, I would be excited about this. This sounds neat.

quote:

Combine this with Intel Turbo Memory, the technology formerly known as Robson, and you may see the equivalent of Fast User Switching for operating systems. Plus you get the entirety of the Windows gaming universe, not just what EA and other companies deem to wrap in Cider.

A lot of forward-thinkers have said we'll really get to ease-of-use when the operating system underneath is irrelevant to the user or hidden from her or him (just like machine language is now, but it wasn't always on those very first machines). Maybe Apple is thinking long-range here. It could be a stunningly crafty plan. You have a "method" (interface, if you like) that runs on top of whatever operating system. Usually it is the operating systems (or maybe things like Java) that allow you that level of abstraction (abstraction from the hardware mostly, perhaps). But why not a "super" operating system. OS X potentially (and this is just wild, unsubstantiated speculation) become the interface for Windows. It's already the interface for Unix and used to be kinda-sorta for OS 9.

As technology advances, the days of twiddling with command lines or the nuts and bolts of Windows have to come to an end. Few of these technologies can pass the "mother" test. No one should need a PhD to use a microwave oven, for instance, and they don't. The better ones are fairly push-button simple.

I doubt anyone is really thinking long-term this way. But sometimes the unexpected evolves. It should be interesting to watch.

Great link, Klappy. Thanks for that.