OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out(sixcolors.com)
sixcolors.com
OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out
https://sixcolors.com/post/2018/05/today-mac-os-x-is-as-old-as-the-classic-mac-os/
137 comments
I don't think that the obvious problems with OS X (macOS, whatever) are with the UX, though. Sure, there are problems on that front, but I don't think they're the major pain points people deal with on a daily basis.
Meanwhile, user-controllable per-process (or per-app) sandboxing would provide tangible benefit to all of us. This means, easy controls for accessing filesystem, network, cpu, gpu, memory, peripherals, and other processes.
Most of these controls exist, but in ways that don't map well to the desktop environment. How do I see what that adobe agent is doing? Sure, I can buy Little Snitch, but this should really be built into the OS. Too much of the UNIX model is designed to secure a user's information from other users, which simply isn't a massive concern these days when we often have dedicated workstations and have issues trusting the processes we run as our own user. What if I suspect my TODO list has a built-in bitcoin miner? I should be able to limit its use of the CPU and GPU.
Meanwhile, my editor still needs to read the configs of all my sandboxed apps, and whatever else I want it to access. This isn't necessarily an easy problem, but it's one I have confidence Apple could tackle, especially with mobile paving the way already.
All this time, docker has been innovating on the sandboxing, with mostly positive results. Android, I believe, runs each process as its own user, leveraging the existing UNIX controls better. I'm not sure what precisely iOS does, but it's locked down well enough to cause me immense frustration building stuff for my phone--not exactly what I'd like to see on the desktop, but they clearly have the ability to provide many of the controls I am looking for on the desktop.
I'm sure this would result in an improved UX as a result, TBH.
If not, Google is coming down the road with Fuschia.
Meanwhile, user-controllable per-process (or per-app) sandboxing would provide tangible benefit to all of us. This means, easy controls for accessing filesystem, network, cpu, gpu, memory, peripherals, and other processes.
Most of these controls exist, but in ways that don't map well to the desktop environment. How do I see what that adobe agent is doing? Sure, I can buy Little Snitch, but this should really be built into the OS. Too much of the UNIX model is designed to secure a user's information from other users, which simply isn't a massive concern these days when we often have dedicated workstations and have issues trusting the processes we run as our own user. What if I suspect my TODO list has a built-in bitcoin miner? I should be able to limit its use of the CPU and GPU.
Meanwhile, my editor still needs to read the configs of all my sandboxed apps, and whatever else I want it to access. This isn't necessarily an easy problem, but it's one I have confidence Apple could tackle, especially with mobile paving the way already.
All this time, docker has been innovating on the sandboxing, with mostly positive results. Android, I believe, runs each process as its own user, leveraging the existing UNIX controls better. I'm not sure what precisely iOS does, but it's locked down well enough to cause me immense frustration building stuff for my phone--not exactly what I'd like to see on the desktop, but they clearly have the ability to provide many of the controls I am looking for on the desktop.
I'm sure this would result in an improved UX as a result, TBH.
If not, Google is coming down the road with Fuschia.
Yup. While I do need to use a number of third-party tools to get the UX like I want it (Hammerspoon, Hyperswitch, Spectacle and Quicksilver), they do exist, they work fine and I think this has more to do with my specific requirements than with any fundamental issues or missing features in the UX.
Going forward, advanced sandboxing is indeed one of the most important things that I would love to see Apple focus on. Ever since I first considered the possibility that apps can have individual access controls, probably around the time I first encountered SELinux/RSBAC and later AppArmor, I've been wondering why vendors aren't pushing this as an absolute top priority on the security front.
Meanwhile I'm using this:
https://beta.f-secure.com/key/XFence
It's Jonathan Zdziarski's Little Flocker rebranded after he sold it to F-Secure. It works great, but it does admittedly require an upfront investment.
2 caveats:
- Current version only works on Sierra (I'm not touching High Sierra until just before the next one comes out)
- Creating "any via" rules can lead to noticeable slowdowns, while "ancestor" rules, even though they are theoretically more expensive, don't (unless one overuses them, I suppose). It's probably a bug.
Other than this, I've been using it for over a year and have no complaints whatsoever.
Going forward, advanced sandboxing is indeed one of the most important things that I would love to see Apple focus on. Ever since I first considered the possibility that apps can have individual access controls, probably around the time I first encountered SELinux/RSBAC and later AppArmor, I've been wondering why vendors aren't pushing this as an absolute top priority on the security front.
Meanwhile I'm using this:
https://beta.f-secure.com/key/XFence
It's Jonathan Zdziarski's Little Flocker rebranded after he sold it to F-Secure. It works great, but it does admittedly require an upfront investment.
2 caveats:
- Current version only works on Sierra (I'm not touching High Sierra until just before the next one comes out)
- Creating "any via" rules can lead to noticeable slowdowns, while "ancestor" rules, even though they are theoretically more expensive, don't (unless one overuses them, I suppose). It's probably a bug.
Other than this, I've been using it for over a year and have no complaints whatsoever.
macOS has sandbox based on TrustedBSD MAC framework. However official documentation is non existent and implementation looks like unfinished product, but I've tried it and it worked. Recommend you to read "Apple's Sandbox Guide" pdf. https://reverse.put.as/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Apple-Sand...
That looks like it might easily involve lots of fiddling, tweaking and dealing with obscure issues while XFence just works, which is worth a lot to me these days.
Yeah, some (arguably most) of the missing features/core problems are due to the fact that OSX has been all-but-ignored by Apple for half a decade, but some of them are just due to the fact that the UNIX paradigms are becoming outdated. Google is trying to solve the latter problem with Fuschia, you're right, which is interesting. But so far that OS's UX also looks like it's primarily mobile-focused, even if it's designed to be adaptable to desktops too.
I think OSX's UX problems are mainly in the first category - Apple just doesn't care. Windows introduced snapping in Windows 7, nearly ten years ago. It is extremely useful and seems pretty easy to implement. As you say, you can always get a third-party application like the (fantastic) BetterTouchTool. But you shouldn't have to do that for something so fundamental. The very least Apple could be bothered to do is keep up.
I think OSX's UX problems are mainly in the first category - Apple just doesn't care. Windows introduced snapping in Windows 7, nearly ten years ago. It is extremely useful and seems pretty easy to implement. As you say, you can always get a third-party application like the (fantastic) BetterTouchTool. But you shouldn't have to do that for something so fundamental. The very least Apple could be bothered to do is keep up.
I actually like having to use third party utilities for things like snapping, because it means I can pick the snapping paradigm I want, rather than the one Apple chooses for me.
Gnome has built-in functionality, yet it can still be extended with third-party plugins. One doesn't preclude the other.
It depends on how the built-in functionality is implemented. If it's a plugin of some sort that I can remove/disable and replace, built-in functionality is ok. OSX doesn't generally pick that route, though.
macOS does have — kind of — window snapping, doesn’t it? The split window mode? Or am I missing something? Although I agree that it should be more flexible and should have better keyboard controls....
It does not, or at least I haven't found it in the past four years of using OSX for all of my professional development.
It has multiple desktop spaces, fullscreen mode, and "expose". It used to be that clicking the green dot on a window expanded it in developer-defined ways that were often unpredictable, but that got replaced with fullscreen mode.
It has multiple desktop spaces, fullscreen mode, and "expose". It used to be that clicking the green dot on a window expanded it in developer-defined ways that were often unpredictable, but that got replaced with fullscreen mode.
I am talking about the Split View mode described at https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT204948
Huh. Well look at that. It's apparently hard to find, and it does appear that you're limited to splitting a "fullscreen" view - i.e., no menu bar, dock, or other windows - but it's better than nothing.
Yeah — not to mention the lack of keyboard controls like Windows 10. Sigh!
spectacle provides these features. But I agree, it should be part of the OS's UX
Since finding out about Spectacle, I don't even really make use of BTT at all anymore, even though it is still installed and running...
If you option-click the green dot, the window will resize in the “classic” way.
I don't know why you would want window snapping. It doesn't provide any benefit
Scenario: I want to position three separate windows so that I can see and use all of them on a single screen. When I launch the three application windows, they launch stacked on top of one another.
With window snapping, I can use keyboard shortcuts to quickly position each window and have all 3 windows be fully visible in their own distinct space, without having to remove my hands from the keyboard.
If window snapping 'doesn't provide any benefit', then there must be some alternate method that achieves what I've described above. What is this alternate method?
With window snapping, I can use keyboard shortcuts to quickly position each window and have all 3 windows be fully visible in their own distinct space, without having to remove my hands from the keyboard.
If window snapping 'doesn't provide any benefit', then there must be some alternate method that achieves what I've described above. What is this alternate method?
You can realistically only look at one thing at one time. Having 2 windows side by side is useful when referencing one and writing in the other. Otherwise command tab to switch works way better.
> If not, Google is coming down the road with Fuschia.
I'm also hoping Fuchsia will save us.
I'm also hoping Fuchsia will save us.
I wouldn't count on it. Google doesn't seem particularly interested in the desktop at all. And if they were, then my worry is that it'll be seen like Windows 10 is now seen by Microsoft: as an "experience" (aka advertising platform), not a tool people use to get things done that should spend most of its time staying the hell out of the way.
How is Fuchsia pronounced? Is it like "f*ck+sia"? Or more like "fushia"?
Edit: looking up in dictionay, it's actually /fjuːʃə/.
Edit: looking up in dictionay, it's actually /fjuːʃə/.
It's a real English word. You can look it up in a dictionary.
The color is named after the genus of plants which is in turn named after the German botanist Leonhart Fuchs.
A ground-up rewrite for... window snapping? :-)
I joke, but it's important to remember just how far behind Windows in basic operating system architecture Mac OS 9 was when Apple launched OS X. Apple absolutely had to replace Mac OS from the ground up. It had no choice.
Is macOS (the artist formerly known as OS X) in the same position today? I would argue no. Most of the "problems" with macOS are either UI complaints like window snapping, or ugly bugs--which are more likely the result of development workflow issues than fundamental shortcomings in the technology of the OS. When Microsoft made the big shift to address their security issues, it was mostly a sea change in how they developed Windows, not a ground-up rewrite of Windows.
I joke, but it's important to remember just how far behind Windows in basic operating system architecture Mac OS 9 was when Apple launched OS X. Apple absolutely had to replace Mac OS from the ground up. It had no choice.
Is macOS (the artist formerly known as OS X) in the same position today? I would argue no. Most of the "problems" with macOS are either UI complaints like window snapping, or ugly bugs--which are more likely the result of development workflow issues than fundamental shortcomings in the technology of the OS. When Microsoft made the big shift to address their security issues, it was mostly a sea change in how they developed Windows, not a ground-up rewrite of Windows.
> A ground-up rewrite for... window snapping? :-)
No, but it does need to be brought on par with the state of the art in UNIX world — things like process sandboxing, container support, process limits (like cgroups), a modern development environment (like .net is for Windows), better package management (App Store is a bad joke), cross platform development between for iOS and macOS, stability, performance enhancements etc. In fact, I am OK with the UI — it could do with some modernisation and new features, but for the most part, it is very usable.
And the tooling could definitely do with an upgrade. They are still using an ancient version of bash, for example. If they can’t use newer bash because of GPL, they could write their own shell, for example. The fact that something like Homebrew is the go to package manager tells the story of a major gap.
No, but it does need to be brought on par with the state of the art in UNIX world — things like process sandboxing, container support, process limits (like cgroups), a modern development environment (like .net is for Windows), better package management (App Store is a bad joke), cross platform development between for iOS and macOS, stability, performance enhancements etc. In fact, I am OK with the UI — it could do with some modernisation and new features, but for the most part, it is very usable.
And the tooling could definitely do with an upgrade. They are still using an ancient version of bash, for example. If they can’t use newer bash because of GPL, they could write their own shell, for example. The fact that something like Homebrew is the go to package manager tells the story of a major gap.
Maybe the needed changes could be made without a total rewrite - I'm a web developer, not a systems developer - but they can't be made without a major shift in attitude on Apple's part, and they do go deeper than the UX, as other people here have elaborated on
A huge point in favor of macOS is the quality of its ecosystem.
I only noticed this a couple of years ago when I tried to switch to Windows. When trying to find replacements for apps I use daily either there was nothing that had the functionality I wanted or what I found was just terrible. I found tons of win32 crap, or apps that didn't support scaling properly. Even software from Adobe...
Some examples: Alfred, iStatMenus, Karabiner, BetterTouchTool, etc.
After a couple of days and a buggy experience with a Surface Book 1 I returned it and bought a MBP.
I only noticed this a couple of years ago when I tried to switch to Windows. When trying to find replacements for apps I use daily either there was nothing that had the functionality I wanted or what I found was just terrible. I found tons of win32 crap, or apps that didn't support scaling properly. Even software from Adobe...
Some examples: Alfred, iStatMenus, Karabiner, BetterTouchTool, etc.
After a couple of days and a buggy experience with a Surface Book 1 I returned it and bought a MBP.
>A huge point in favor of macOS is the quality of its ecosystem.
A huge point in favor of Windows is the diversity of its ecosystem.
And what's wrong with Win32 per se that you'd discount it as crap? Not everything needs to be 64-bit (and since on Windows the only compelling reason is >4GB RAM usage - it shouldn't).
A huge point in favor of Windows is the diversity of its ecosystem.
And what's wrong with Win32 per se that you'd discount it as crap? Not everything needs to be 64-bit (and since on Windows the only compelling reason is >4GB RAM usage - it shouldn't).
I feel the same way. Also, the integration between Apple hardware is great. I have Macs, an iPhone and an iPad and everything works ridiculously well together.
I’ve contemplated switching to Linux for a while, and keep a laptop with Fedora installed, but every time I seriously consider it I picture losing those key applications and the tight integration with my other devices and I can’t justify it.
I’ve contemplated switching to Linux for a while, and keep a laptop with Fedora installed, but every time I seriously consider it I picture losing those key applications and the tight integration with my other devices and I can’t justify it.
All the more reason for Apple not to let that ecosystem burn to the ground, just because they're making lots of money from iOS.
I personally disagree. OS X, even older versions, is to me worlds ahead of Windows 7/10. I love the menu bar at the top for application-specific menus, the tabbed file manager, Spotlight is the best system-wide search compared to Windows or any third-party Windows tools. Devices like audio interfaces and printers are so much easier to get working than on Windows. The system preferences menu is a lot cleaner and easier to navigate than control panel (you have to enable Small Icons or Large Icons to get to different parts!). I'm very happy with OS X and I hope for the near future they just work on the occasional bugs and improving hardware performance within it.
I will agree that window snapping should be native. Still, the three dots is overall more consistent and visually nicer to me than Windows' min/max/close.
I will agree that window snapping should be native. Still, the three dots is overall more consistent and visually nicer to me than Windows' min/max/close.
I think the menu bar at the top served macOS well over the years, but I think menus on the window are a better solution now that multi monitor and high resolution monitors are so common. Having it at the top of your primary monitor just ruins Fitt's law.
It may be because of how I use a computer, but I only use Spotlight as an application launcher. Because it's there I will type stuff in the "Search" box in Finder, expecting to filter on the filename of the current folder--instead it it searches "This Mac" and my results are variable names from open source code I've downloaded. Since it also omits results from System files and preferences, like ~/Library, I often use good old locate in a Terminal.
Windows Control Panel is an unholy mess. macOS' Preference Pane search, as well as searching for menu items under Help inside any app, is a godsend.
It may be because of how I use a computer, but I only use Spotlight as an application launcher. Because it's there I will type stuff in the "Search" box in Finder, expecting to filter on the filename of the current folder--instead it it searches "This Mac" and my results are variable names from open source code I've downloaded. Since it also omits results from System files and preferences, like ~/Library, I often use good old locate in a Terminal.
Windows Control Panel is an unholy mess. macOS' Preference Pane search, as well as searching for menu items under Help inside any app, is a godsend.
> Because it's there I will type stuff in the "Search" box in Finder, expecting to filter on the filename of the current folder--instead it it searches "This Mac"
http://osxdaily.com/2013/03/12/change-finder-search-to-look-...
http://osxdaily.com/2013/03/12/change-finder-search-to-look-...
A neat function of OS X's menu bar is that all menu bars in other displays are slightly greyed out if it's not got the in focus application displayed.
There is a 'Primary Monitor' setting - this determines the window presenting the Dock and can be changed by clicking and dragging the 'menu bar' idiom between windows in the 'Arrangement' tab in the 'Displays' preference pane
There is a 'Primary Monitor' setting - this determines the window presenting the Dock and can be changed by clicking and dragging the 'menu bar' idiom between windows in the 'Arrangement' tab in the 'Displays' preference pane
> the tabbed file manager
Builds with 'sets' (tabs) have already circulated to Windows Insiders, so it can't be very long until we see them in the stable builds. They even work across apps! https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/8/17318334/windows-10-sets-a...
> Spotlight is the best system-wide search compared to Windows or any third-party Windows tools.
Have you tried Wox? https://github.com/Wox-launcher/Wox
> Devices like audio interfaces and printers are so much easier to get working than on Windows.
Windows auto-detects network printers. I'm not sure how much easier than that it can get.
> The system preferences menu is a lot cleaner and easier to navigate than control panel
That's why Microsoft made the Settings app. It used to be pretty bare, but has gotten quite functional and fully-featured over time, so I think we're at the point where it's unnecessary to touch the legacy Control Panel anymore.
There are legitimate gripes to be had with Windows (not in the least its data collection), but I don't think most of the ones you listed are the ones.
Builds with 'sets' (tabs) have already circulated to Windows Insiders, so it can't be very long until we see them in the stable builds. They even work across apps! https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/8/17318334/windows-10-sets-a...
> Spotlight is the best system-wide search compared to Windows or any third-party Windows tools.
Have you tried Wox? https://github.com/Wox-launcher/Wox
> Devices like audio interfaces and printers are so much easier to get working than on Windows.
Windows auto-detects network printers. I'm not sure how much easier than that it can get.
> The system preferences menu is a lot cleaner and easier to navigate than control panel
That's why Microsoft made the Settings app. It used to be pretty bare, but has gotten quite functional and fully-featured over time, so I think we're at the point where it's unnecessary to touch the legacy Control Panel anymore.
There are legitimate gripes to be had with Windows (not in the least its data collection), but I don't think most of the ones you listed are the ones.
In one of the OSX release keynotes, Steve Jobs said "with this OS we have set ourselves up for the next 20 years." That was 20 years ago. He was spot on.
The real questions are whether or not present-day Apple administration has enough vision to (want to) carry out an OS migration and, as you mention, whether or not the vision is any good.
The real questions are whether or not present-day Apple administration has enough vision to (want to) carry out an OS migration and, as you mention, whether or not the vision is any good.
As far as Ubuntu supporting window snapping, it’s worth noting that Linux has supported every conceivable window management feature for years, including some that have never come anywhere near Windows or Mac, like tiling window managers. making window management entirely modular.
Every WM or desktop combo in Linux has other features I find highly convenient which are strangely missing from Mac and Windows, such as a drag modifier key for windows, which allows you to move a window when the title bar is off screen. I prefer features like windowshading to minimization, too, and it is simple to configure Linux to do that, unlike Mac or Windows. I don’t use the feature, but would surprised if window-snap-to-borders wasn’t supported as far back as KDE 1.3 or WindowMaker .92.
Every WM or desktop combo in Linux has other features I find highly convenient which are strangely missing from Mac and Windows, such as a drag modifier key for windows, which allows you to move a window when the title bar is off screen. I prefer features like windowshading to minimization, too, and it is simple to configure Linux to do that, unlike Mac or Windows. I don’t use the feature, but would surprised if window-snap-to-borders wasn’t supported as far back as KDE 1.3 or WindowMaker .92.
Sure, but I don't think it was available out of the box for Ubuntu until recently (I could be wrong), and I also think Windows 7 invented snap-to-sides (could be wrong on this too).
Linux has always been the OS where you can do just about anything you want with enough research and effort, but it still matters what the most mainstream distro offers out of the box at any given time.
Linux has always been the OS where you can do just about anything you want with enough research and effort, but it still matters what the most mainstream distro offers out of the box at any given time.
I do believe that WM feature was available long before Windows 7... I recall similar options in many WMs as well as apps like Gimp, called sticky edges, edge attraction, snap-to-borders, and so forth. It seems like a fairly apparent idea to assist window placement, and i’d be surprised if it hasn’t been around in some form since the 80s.
Linux is highly extensible and modular, so it’s hard to say what it provides ‘out of the box’, even a given distro. For almost any distro, it’s very simple to start using a different WM (literally 3 steps).
I suppose it’s true that for the majority of users, what the defaults are is more important than an option merely being available as most people will never even read the settings menus.
Linux is highly extensible and modular, so it’s hard to say what it provides ‘out of the box’, even a given distro. For almost any distro, it’s very simple to start using a different WM (literally 3 steps).
I suppose it’s true that for the majority of users, what the defaults are is more important than an option merely being available as most people will never even read the settings menus.
My favorite feature, minimize to title bar, seems to be left for Window Maker and KDE, everyone else apparently has dropped it.
Xfce calls it shade window. I believe it is still there, and can be configured to be double click, or whatever you'd like.
Microsoft brought their essentials — kernel, filesystem, API etc. — up to scratch in mid 2000s. Vista and and 8 may not have been successful, but they played an important role in the evolution of Windows and Microsoft is now reaping the rewards in the form of Windows 10 — an OS which was dubbed as horribly unstable at launch and yet has become rock solid with updates — except for some unfortunate decisions like forced updates, privacy concerns, ads etc.
Apple did something similar when they switched from Classic Mac OS to Mac OS X - a transition which helped them stay alive and eventually bounce back when almost every one had given up on them. The transition indirectly led them the ultimate success of iOS and iPhone.
Microsoft was left behind in the smartphone race because they were late to the transition — the smartphone revolution started when they were still going through it and they were caught empty handed. They had nothing to show when they desperately needed an OS for smartphones. Had they launched the equivalent of Windows Phone 8 in 2009 or 2010, the history may have been very different from the one we know.
But the world has come full cycle, while the Microsoft Windows ecosystem is still relatively young and can probably keep going for another decade or two, Apple’s OS is starting to show its age. It’s not just the age of macOS — it is much older then that. Apple finally decided to overhaul their filesystem, but other things like the kernel, the API etc. still need the treatment.
Apple did something similar when they switched from Classic Mac OS to Mac OS X - a transition which helped them stay alive and eventually bounce back when almost every one had given up on them. The transition indirectly led them the ultimate success of iOS and iPhone.
Microsoft was left behind in the smartphone race because they were late to the transition — the smartphone revolution started when they were still going through it and they were caught empty handed. They had nothing to show when they desperately needed an OS for smartphones. Had they launched the equivalent of Windows Phone 8 in 2009 or 2010, the history may have been very different from the one we know.
But the world has come full cycle, while the Microsoft Windows ecosystem is still relatively young and can probably keep going for another decade or two, Apple’s OS is starting to show its age. It’s not just the age of macOS — it is much older then that. Apple finally decided to overhaul their filesystem, but other things like the kernel, the API etc. still need the treatment.
> Apple finally decided to overhaul their filesystem, but other things like the kernel, the API etc. still need the treatment.
And a large proportion of the kernel and APIs very obviously go all the way back to early NeXT days; they're really as old as WinNT is.
And a large proportion of the kernel and APIs very obviously go all the way back to early NeXT days; they're really as old as WinNT is.
Older, actually... NeXT 1.0 was released in 1989; first version of NT shipped in 1993.
NT shipped in 1993, but MS took on the NT project in 1988, and Cutler had the idea much earlier. NeXTSTEP 0.8 was 1988 as well, along with 4.3BSD Tahoe which the base was a part of, but of course 4.3BSD owes everything to Unix 32/v and everything before hand.....
Interesting theory; I didn't know all that history. Still, it's not just that OSX hasn't seen an overhaul in a while, it's that it hasn't even been getting incremental improvements outside of mission-critical bug fixes.
Given the decline of the desktop software market, I'm not sure a radical redesign makes sense for Apple. Looking at Apple's lineup, what's driving sales seems to be the end user market, and it's not clear to me Apple wants to be in the Pro market anymore. In any case, the Pro market is about delivering workhorses for running (Adobe et al) software, so a radical redesign will probably result in Adobe et al stopping to produce Mac OS software alltogether.
The maturity of the desktop software "market" is also evident in Linux. Ubuntu has recently choosen the venerable X.org rather than wayland for its LTS release over compatibility and stability concerns. I'd say that's a reasonable choice; after all, you're using Linux for apps that have been in the making for over 20 years, such as Inkscape, Krita, Gimp, Blender, etc.
I'm also not sure what Docker and sandboxing brings to the table (except for developers). Desktop workflows are organized around open file formats and clipboard cut/paste.
So I agree future Apple products will focus on iOS. There's simply so much more money to be made there.
The maturity of the desktop software "market" is also evident in Linux. Ubuntu has recently choosen the venerable X.org rather than wayland for its LTS release over compatibility and stability concerns. I'd say that's a reasonable choice; after all, you're using Linux for apps that have been in the making for over 20 years, such as Inkscape, Krita, Gimp, Blender, etc.
I'm also not sure what Docker and sandboxing brings to the table (except for developers). Desktop workflows are organized around open file formats and clipboard cut/paste.
So I agree future Apple products will focus on iOS. There's simply so much more money to be made there.
Developers have to have an OS to work from, no matter how much end-user usage shifts to mobile. Otherwise there would be no apps for those other platforms.
Apple may well get out of the developer game, which seems like a dumb idea given their market share, but I'm neither a finance expert nor an Apple executive, so maybe that's just how the numbers play out.
Microsoft is making a decent-sized push in this space lately, with the Linux subsystem, Visual Studio Code, etc. So I would guess they'll end up taking Apple's market share, which is a bit of a shame as far as I'm concerned.
Apple may well get out of the developer game, which seems like a dumb idea given their market share, but I'm neither a finance expert nor an Apple executive, so maybe that's just how the numbers play out.
Microsoft is making a decent-sized push in this space lately, with the Linux subsystem, Visual Studio Code, etc. So I would guess they'll end up taking Apple's market share, which is a bit of a shame as far as I'm concerned.
Microsoft learned, thanks to OS X, that most developers don't really want a UNIX, they are more than happy with a POSIX compatible layer for bash, awk, perl, C....
I bet if they had kept the original POSIX personality and improved it throughout the years, many devs would have not looked elsewhere.
I bet if they had kept the original POSIX personality and improved it throughout the years, many devs would have not looked elsewhere.
What is "window snapping"? If it's that thing Ubuntu does where accidentally dragging a window too close to one of the edges makes it spontaneously take over the whole screen, I'm glad OS X doesn't do that.
It's being able to automatically resize a window to one half of the screen or the other. Typically this can be done by dragging it to the sides, or by a keyboard shortcut (usually Windows Key + Left/Right Arrow).
No doubt it would be easy to provide a disable option; just because it annoys you doesn't mean it shouldn't be implemented.
No doubt it would be easy to provide a disable option; just because it annoys you doesn't mean it shouldn't be implemented.
I'd much rather Apple just buy Divvy and integrate that. It's more flexible and much less prone to error.
I made a window snapping script for macOS using the open source utility hammerspoon.
It supports keyboard and mouse snapping for windows with fullscreen, half screen, quarter screen and center presets.
I'll leave my old comment about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12097859
And a link to the script here: https://gist.github.com/spartanatreyu/850788a0441e1c5565668a...
It supports keyboard and mouse snapping for windows with fullscreen, half screen, quarter screen and center presets.
I'll leave my old comment about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12097859
And a link to the script here: https://gist.github.com/spartanatreyu/850788a0441e1c5565668a...
All I want for Christmas is macOS to stop showing me the SPOD whenever an external hard drive spins up.
Reminds me of DOS days.
Reminds me of DOS days.
Don't even get me started on the SMB client. I have to use it at work and it has lovely features like:
- Peppering the network drive with trash files containing OSX-specific metadata
- Failing to reconnect when the computer goes to sleep, except not really because it thinks the drive is still there, but you have to go through the connection process all over again before you can actually use it.
- Getting out of sync with the file server and keeping the local copies of some files under slightly-different-names. But you can't see the real ones either, even after you reconnect. So all of your path references just break.
etc. etc. etc.
- Peppering the network drive with trash files containing OSX-specific metadata
- Failing to reconnect when the computer goes to sleep, except not really because it thinks the drive is still there, but you have to go through the connection process all over again before you can actually use it.
- Getting out of sync with the file server and keeping the local copies of some files under slightly-different-names. But you can't see the real ones either, even after you reconnect. So all of your path references just break.
etc. etc. etc.
`defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores TRUE` should solve the first issue at least.
I was just thinking today it'd be nice if there was some kind of gitignore for SMB uploads to prevent Thumbs.db, Desktop.ini, and .DS_Store from ever uploading. I put a cron script on our work server to delete them periodically but that's the best thing I can find.
> Peppering the network drive with trash files containing OSX-specific metadata
There's an app that will automatically clean those up. Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of it right now. Hopefully it'll pop up on Google for you, if you're interested.
There's an app that will automatically clean those up. Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of it right now. Hopefully it'll pop up on Google for you, if you're interested.
I am honestly not sure these things needs to change.
At least not until we have input systems that are superior to keyboard and mouse (and no, touch screen so far is not).
At least not until we have input systems that are superior to keyboard and mouse (and no, touch screen so far is not).
Well, to each their own, the last thing I would want is a rewrite that innovates. You can already get that with Windows or the myriad Linux desktops, and I don't think the result is particularly enticing: having all your things being moved around endlessly as new trends come and go.
When Apple decided to innovate in the space, they made iOS. Now you could that's not a desktop OS but the thing is, I don't think they care about this desktop/whatever distinction, these are all computing devices, with different use cases.
Meanwhile, Windows, the leader in desktop innovation, tried everything at once, pretending to be a mobile device with full screen windows, then reverting it, removing and adding back the start menu, changing the look and feel to Metro and now Fluent, and even in the technology front there is constant churn. That may be innovative but I definitely don't want to be in the midst of all this innovation in my work computer.
When Apple decided to innovate in the space, they made iOS. Now you could that's not a desktop OS but the thing is, I don't think they care about this desktop/whatever distinction, these are all computing devices, with different use cases.
Meanwhile, Windows, the leader in desktop innovation, tried everything at once, pretending to be a mobile device with full screen windows, then reverting it, removing and adding back the start menu, changing the look and feel to Metro and now Fluent, and even in the technology front there is constant churn. That may be innovative but I definitely don't want to be in the midst of all this innovation in my work computer.
You're overlooking Chrome OS (with open source equivalent Chromium OS). While it might not be ready for pro-level production, it certainly is a revolutionary lightweight OS that's gaining more and more traction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrome_OS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrome_OS
I'm well aware of Chrome OS. It's great for casual use, but to my knowledge it's really not a reasonable development platform. Generally speaking, developers want/need:
- A fully-accessible file system
- A bash command line
- Tool support. Repositories, code runtimes, compilers, IDE's, etc.
I know there are some all-in-one web-based IDE's that you can work in, which are interesting, but I've yet to see one that could act as a full replacement for professional, native tools. And most of those don't support anything other than web development.
- A fully-accessible file system
- A bash command line
- Tool support. Repositories, code runtimes, compilers, IDE's, etc.
I know there are some all-in-one web-based IDE's that you can work in, which are interesting, but I've yet to see one that could act as a full replacement for professional, native tools. And most of those don't support anything other than web development.
This should help: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/5/8/17318340/ch...
With all the new IAC stuff coming out, expect big companies to move the web IDE route over the next 10 years. Even if it’s less functional, they will push it out. I have several clients really interested in it; not least because in combination with a serverless architecture, it makes end-to-end security really easy.
It's a web kiosk, not a desktop OS.
I agree that OSX is pretty creaky in certain areas, particularly the Finder for me. A spotty SMB/AFP connection should not lockup a system, and yet has remained a nightmare for as long as I can remember.
Sadly, Apple has scared me off their legacy software rewrites with their rewrite of iTunes and High Sierra. The releases were either disastrously sloppy (High Sierra) or a complete letdown (iTunes remains hot garbage).
Removing iTunes' persistent nav bar + tying it to Apple Music on Mac makes it one of the worst pieces of software I interact with on a daily basis. I don't want OSX to suffer the same fate.
http://web.archive.org/web/20130301120749/http://www.apple.c...
Sadly, Apple has scared me off their legacy software rewrites with their rewrite of iTunes and High Sierra. The releases were either disastrously sloppy (High Sierra) or a complete letdown (iTunes remains hot garbage).
Removing iTunes' persistent nav bar + tying it to Apple Music on Mac makes it one of the worst pieces of software I interact with on a daily basis. I don't want OSX to suffer the same fate.
http://web.archive.org/web/20130301120749/http://www.apple.c...
To be fair, iTunes has been hot garbage for as long as I can remember
In 2002 it was straight up amazing.
I just want to hammer home how correct you are. I remember thinking in 2006: "all audio consumption applications eventually go to shit. When will iTunes go?"
12 years later, the application is a nightmare to use while Spotify is a joy. I have my fingers crossed that Spotify remains usable, because I don't see them making huge business model shifts.
12 years later, the application is a nightmare to use while Spotify is a joy. I have my fingers crossed that Spotify remains usable, because I don't see them making huge business model shifts.
speaking of AFP, since apple is dumping their routers, does that mean time machine is going away? I imagine remote time machine will and we'll just have local snapshots.
I don't think so, at least not immediately - network Time Machine backups are supported on a wide array of third party NAS style devices, much the same as it worked on Apple's own Time Capsule device. I did a similar thing on my home made NAS server box to allow it to appear as a network Time Machine volume "natively" recently too. It's a pretty popular feature on the usual NAS players like Synology's products as well.
That said, the focus is clearly much more on iCloud these days, Time Machine feels like it hasn't seen development in years. I was lamenting its slow performance the other day.
That said, the focus is clearly much more on iCloud these days, Time Machine feels like it hasn't seen development in years. I was lamenting its slow performance the other day.
Time machine is now supported over SMB. So no, time machine will live on using either a NAS or macOS Server.
I do wish Apple reconsidered their approach to time capsules, providing an appliance you could back up your machines to was genius. It helped family have proper back ups. Sadly, there is no easy everyday replacement in sight. For many the cloud is not yet an option.
I do wish Apple reconsidered their approach to time capsules, providing an appliance you could back up your machines to was genius. It helped family have proper back ups. Sadly, there is no easy everyday replacement in sight. For many the cloud is not yet an option.
> Despite all this, OSX still has a huge foothold as the developer platform of choice
In North America yes, in Europe it never really took off outside the first level countries.
I only touch Apple devices for iOS development, and they are shared as part of a company pool.
And I bet African, Asian and South American developers would share a similar opinion.
In North America yes, in Europe it never really took off outside the first level countries.
I only touch Apple devices for iOS development, and they are shared as part of a company pool.
And I bet African, Asian and South American developers would share a similar opinion.
[deleted]
I think Apple do plan to rewrite some or large part of macOS. The problem is they surely want to do it in Swift, but Swift is no where near ready or stable enough for that use. Swift 5 were suppose to get ABI stability, may be that will be announced in WWDC.
They already rewrote launchd and the Dock last year.
I don't disbelieve you, but do you have a reference for this? `nm /sbin/launchd` doesn't show anything that looks like Swift. Searching ASCII WWDC turns up nothing. All I can find is you saying it a couple of times here on Hacker News. :)
What is new in Swift, WWDC 2017.
Later I can cross-check it.
Later I can cross-check it.
Thanks, I'll take a look.
Sorry it appears to be the wrong one. I will need to track down the talk.
Apple have basically spent the minimal amount of resources on Mac portables the past few years.
We should all get the picture and migrate elsewhere, I'm afraid. Windows laptops are looking more and more appealing...
We should all get the picture and migrate elsewhere, I'm afraid. Windows laptops are looking more and more appealing...
Windows is looking more and more appealing, at least. Maybe Apple will just say to-hell-with-it and start selling MacBooks with Windows preinstalled. If Microsoft got the Linux subsystem fleshed out, I'd buy one.
Fix the terrible memory subsystem. There is no need to swap on a 16 GB laptop! Especially when Apple solders the drive to board! That leads to premature ware on the board and me having to spend 600$! My Linux machine is perfectly fine running 2 Eclipse IDEs, 3 docker containers and four Spring Boot Services. No swapping. Since macOS disabled overriding the memory configuration, my laptop swaps merely running Safari ( less than 10 tabs), and VSCode for Cordova all with 16 GB.
I've read that there are reasons to use swap other than just as "RAM overflow"
I don't care about innovation on macOS. I just want it to be as fast and bug free as possible.
I have minor gripes with it, such as new installed apps changing the file icons, but in general most features introduced since Snow Leopard have been mostly noise for me.
I have minor gripes with it, such as new installed apps changing the file icons, but in general most features introduced since Snow Leopard have been mostly noise for me.
I see a lot of posts about updating / innovating the OS that mainly have to do with the GUI and app frameworks. Fair enough.
Personally, I wish they would just quit innovating for a while and FIX THE DAMN BUGS.
I am far more upset by a feature that doesn't work right, than I am an absent feature.
Personally, I wish they would just quit innovating for a while and FIX THE DAMN BUGS.
I am far more upset by a feature that doesn't work right, than I am an absent feature.
I agree with this, but also think that OS's largely don't need more features. In fact, they could do with significantly fewer in my opinion. The value of a Desktop OS is that it is a personal tool to manage workflows and acts as a stable platform for developers to target. It should do as close to the bare minimum as it can to make that possible. Give me simple tools, let me put them together in a way that works for what I'm doing. Don't try to make it "easy" by guessing at what my workflow is because you'll be wrong and just get in the way.
Agreed on that. A few daily bugs have crept up on my MacBook, nowhere near what I’m getting on KDD/Plasma but not nearly as stable as OS X of the past. Especially data syncing, that kills the battery.
I wish they’d drop the whole Swift thing too and work on fixing all the frameworks to make them solid and not splintering the dev communities.
I wish they’d drop the whole Swift thing too and work on fixing all the frameworks to make them solid and not splintering the dev communities.
My first OS X machine was an iBook G4 purchased in 2005. At the time I was rather tickled that, out of the box, it was still able to run (some) 17 year old classic Mac OS software from 1988.
Today I have software on my machine that's barely 5 years old and will stop working when 32-bit support is dropped. It will be the largest backward-compatibility purge in Mac history.
Today I have software on my machine that's barely 5 years old and will stop working when 32-bit support is dropped. It will be the largest backward-compatibility purge in Mac history.
Before anyone jumps on this claim, from the article:
Now, there are plenty of caveats:
There was a Mac OS X public beta.
The funeral for Mac OS 9 wasn’t held until 2002.
Classic Mode continued to function within Mac OS X
until it was removed in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.Apple II lived 5966 days, not including the IIe card for LC, which extends the lifespan to 6543 days.
Carbon lived until July 24, 2012. Including it as an "LTS" facility, Classic Mac OS lived 10,395 days.
By comparison Win NT (if you include Windows 10 as I do) is 9083 days old and counting.
Carbon lived until July 24, 2012. Including it as an "LTS" facility, Classic Mac OS lived 10,395 days.
By comparison Win NT (if you include Windows 10 as I do) is 9083 days old and counting.
The core OS needs to improve at a faster rate and OS-specific features need top billing. We tend to see mostly application-level improvements touted as top-10 OS features (enough about Safari and Photos!).
Concurrently, the environment provided to developers ranges from stagnating to degrading.
The solution to both problems is exactly the same: separate and silo bundled-app development away from the OS and make sure they dogfood the entire process, right down to having to use the EXTERNAL bug reporting system and Apple’s external tools for App Store updates, etc. Then, give the internal app teams at Apple massive superpowers in terms of prioritizing changes to developer tools. Overnight, those ridiculous bugs in Xcode would go away, App Store submissions would be less bureaucratic with superior tools, bugs would be responded to, APIs would be more sensible, etc.
Concurrently, the environment provided to developers ranges from stagnating to degrading.
The solution to both problems is exactly the same: separate and silo bundled-app development away from the OS and make sure they dogfood the entire process, right down to having to use the EXTERNAL bug reporting system and Apple’s external tools for App Store updates, etc. Then, give the internal app teams at Apple massive superpowers in terms of prioritizing changes to developer tools. Overnight, those ridiculous bugs in Xcode would go away, App Store submissions would be less bureaucratic with superior tools, bugs would be responded to, APIs would be more sensible, etc.
The part of this I found most interesting was the link to the funeral for OS 9. I missed that when it actually happened.
[0] https://www.macworld.com/article/1001445/06wwdc.html
[0] https://www.macworld.com/article/1001445/06wwdc.html
I would love to have some sort of L(onger)TS release. I'm perfectly happy with how my system is set up, everything just works, I don't need new features and I'm dreading the next upgrade forced on me by the loosely defined (or not at all really) and rather short EOL cycles.
I'm not sure why the article is speculating about a "seismic" change. Apple (and Microsoft and Google have followed) has established a pattern for their OS evolution: yearly incremental updates.
They had established that same pattern before too, until they released MacOS X and created a seismic change.
What the author is saying is that we should be coming up on a new chip for the Mac pretty soon, and if history is any guide, we may also be upon a brand new OS.
That being said, I don't think we'll see seismic shift, unless you count the possible unification of iOS and MacOS a seismic shift.
What the author is saying is that we should be coming up on a new chip for the Mac pretty soon, and if history is any guide, we may also be upon a brand new OS.
That being said, I don't think we'll see seismic shift, unless you count the possible unification of iOS and MacOS a seismic shift.
> we should be coming up on a new chip for the Mac pretty soon, and if history is any guide, we may also be upon a brand new OS.
If anything, I would interpret this to mean that a new OS is further off than the chip--the transition from 68k to PPC was not accompanied by a major OS change; that came with OSX several years later. Same with the transition from PPC to x86: snow leopard was notoriously "boring", and we're still on an os distinctly similar to snow leopard.
Meanwhile, both iOS and ARM were borne out of necessity. I'm not sure how to figure them into predictions of the future here.
If anything, I would interpret this to mean that a new OS is further off than the chip--the transition from 68k to PPC was not accompanied by a major OS change; that came with OSX several years later. Same with the transition from PPC to x86: snow leopard was notoriously "boring", and we're still on an os distinctly similar to snow leopard.
Meanwhile, both iOS and ARM were borne out of necessity. I'm not sure how to figure them into predictions of the future here.
It's possible for a hypothetical transition from x86 to a new architecture to be accompanied with an OS change. Had Pink/Taligent been completed as originally planned, then the transition from the 68k to the PowerPC would have been accompanied by a transition from System 7 to Pink/Taligent. Part of the reason that IBM got involved with the development of Taligent was the AIM (Apple/IBM/Motorola) alliance, which was formed in 1991 and led to the PowerPC transition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taligent
Unfortunately the development efforts of Taligent failed, which led to the equally-doomed Copland project, which led to Apple's purchase of NeXT. This saga lasted around a decade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taligent
Unfortunately the development efforts of Taligent failed, which led to the equally-doomed Copland project, which led to Apple's purchase of NeXT. This saga lasted around a decade.
Hey, great info! Wasn't aware of that, and it definitely changes the substance of my comment above.
While Mac OS 9 -> Mac OS X was a seismic shift, the System 6 -> System 7, System 7 -> Mac OS 8, and to some extent, Mac OS 8 -> Mac OS 9 transitions were significantly more than just "incremental" updates.
From the article:
"I doubt we will see a seismic transition to a new Mac OS"
This doesn't feel like the same speculation that you read?
This doesn't feel like the same speculation that you read?
Incremental updates only work up to a certain point.
I imagine Apple is working on its universal OS for all its devices, but maybe waiting for the switch to ARM on desktop.
Google is working on Fuchsia to apply all it has learned from Android and Chrome OS. I think it will be a hit. Google has got really good at making products for users and devs alike, but Android is a mess because it was never written from scratch.
I imagine Apple is working on its universal OS for all its devices, but maybe waiting for the switch to ARM on desktop.
Google is working on Fuchsia to apply all it has learned from Android and Chrome OS. I think it will be a hit. Google has got really good at making products for users and devs alike, but Android is a mess because it was never written from scratch.
When Steve Jobs announced the transition from the PowerPC to the x86 architecture in 2005, he mentioned that the transition from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X which took place between 2001 and 2003 set Apple up for the next 20 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghdTqnYnFyg
It's 2018, 20 years since Apple first announced Mac OS X at WWDC 1998 as a change from their original Rhapsody strategy. The 20th anniversary of the actual release of Mac OS X for consumers is approaching in a few years.
Now, I still believe that there is plenty of life in Mac OS X, and I could see it easily being usable at least throughout the 2020s, provided that Apple maintains it in the meanwhile.
However, I definitely wouldn't mind a new desktop OS. Let's face it: modern desktops such as Windows, Mac OS X, GNOME and its derivatives like Cinnamon, and KDE are all based on the GUI paradigm developed at Xerox PARC for the Xerox Alto workstation. This paradigm was further developed by Apple for the Lisa and the original Macintosh, and it has been further refined by NeXTSTEP, Windows 95, and early versions of Mac OS X. However, there are other GUI paradigms that haven't been tried in desktop environments outside of research labs and niche environments. For example, Xerox PARC also developed the Smalltalk environment. While it is commonly thought of as a programming language, it is more than just that; it is an operating system running inside a VM where everything is an object. This environment could easily be used to write full-fledged applications that also support message passing through a REPL. It is possible to build a system of GUI applications that are scriptable and composable through Smalltalk's message passing system, thus combining the usability advantages of contemporary GUI applications with the power of the command line.
There are other features that we don't have yet that can be added to a new operating system. For example, we came close to having a database file system available for the desktop when Microsoft was working on WinFS over a decade ago, but unfortunately it was cancelled in order to get Windows Vista shipped faster. Having a semantically-rich file system would be a very nice thing.
At the same time, though, given that the iOS platform is Apple's major revenue stream, I am concerned that the days of the Mac are numbered. I feel it is Apple's dream for everyone to be using the closed-down iOS instead of a general-purpose OS such as macOS. I feel Apple has been preparing pro Mac users for this transition by deliberately neglecting the Mac Mini and Mac Pro lines and by turning the MacBook Pro into basically an expensive, "blinged-out" MacBook Air Plus, signaling to pro users that the future of Apple won't include them (although the announcement of the 2019 Mac Pro might be contrary to this view).
All of this is to say that I would not be surprised if we see a new OS from Apple within the next five years, but I'm concerned that instead of seeing the next step of general purpose desktop computing, we're going to see a scaled-up version of iOS instead, which would be disappointing, especially if general purpose desktop computing is relegated to Windows and desktop Linux. I'm of the opinion that we do need another non-Apple general-purpose desktop OS, at least to hedge our bets in case Apple goes all-iOS and to avoid the situation where Microsoft has a monopoly on commercial general-purpose desktop operating systems.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghdTqnYnFyg
It's 2018, 20 years since Apple first announced Mac OS X at WWDC 1998 as a change from their original Rhapsody strategy. The 20th anniversary of the actual release of Mac OS X for consumers is approaching in a few years.
Now, I still believe that there is plenty of life in Mac OS X, and I could see it easily being usable at least throughout the 2020s, provided that Apple maintains it in the meanwhile.
However, I definitely wouldn't mind a new desktop OS. Let's face it: modern desktops such as Windows, Mac OS X, GNOME and its derivatives like Cinnamon, and KDE are all based on the GUI paradigm developed at Xerox PARC for the Xerox Alto workstation. This paradigm was further developed by Apple for the Lisa and the original Macintosh, and it has been further refined by NeXTSTEP, Windows 95, and early versions of Mac OS X. However, there are other GUI paradigms that haven't been tried in desktop environments outside of research labs and niche environments. For example, Xerox PARC also developed the Smalltalk environment. While it is commonly thought of as a programming language, it is more than just that; it is an operating system running inside a VM where everything is an object. This environment could easily be used to write full-fledged applications that also support message passing through a REPL. It is possible to build a system of GUI applications that are scriptable and composable through Smalltalk's message passing system, thus combining the usability advantages of contemporary GUI applications with the power of the command line.
There are other features that we don't have yet that can be added to a new operating system. For example, we came close to having a database file system available for the desktop when Microsoft was working on WinFS over a decade ago, but unfortunately it was cancelled in order to get Windows Vista shipped faster. Having a semantically-rich file system would be a very nice thing.
At the same time, though, given that the iOS platform is Apple's major revenue stream, I am concerned that the days of the Mac are numbered. I feel it is Apple's dream for everyone to be using the closed-down iOS instead of a general-purpose OS such as macOS. I feel Apple has been preparing pro Mac users for this transition by deliberately neglecting the Mac Mini and Mac Pro lines and by turning the MacBook Pro into basically an expensive, "blinged-out" MacBook Air Plus, signaling to pro users that the future of Apple won't include them (although the announcement of the 2019 Mac Pro might be contrary to this view).
All of this is to say that I would not be surprised if we see a new OS from Apple within the next five years, but I'm concerned that instead of seeing the next step of general purpose desktop computing, we're going to see a scaled-up version of iOS instead, which would be disappointing, especially if general purpose desktop computing is relegated to Windows and desktop Linux. I'm of the opinion that we do need another non-Apple general-purpose desktop OS, at least to hedge our bets in case Apple goes all-iOS and to avoid the situation where Microsoft has a monopoly on commercial general-purpose desktop operating systems.
Someone is eventually going to make one of the systems you describe, regardless of what Apple does. Modern consumer OSes are overly complex. Worse, there's nothing "personal" about personal computing. Something like a Smalltalk machine would go a long way, so long as it was built on appropriate metaphors and allowed users to "peel back" layers at a time as they wished to do more (imagine a system that, at the top user layer, acts like a "hypercard machine," but is Smalltalk or something underneath).
The proliferation of Internet access has changed the game in this regard. Back in the 80s and early 90s, compatibility issues among exotic PC systems led people to adopt only several types. But now as long as you can communicate and your system has a web browser...
The proliferation of Internet access has changed the game in this regard. Back in the 80s and early 90s, compatibility issues among exotic PC systems led people to adopt only several types. But now as long as you can communicate and your system has a web browser...
Beautifully said. I imagine a unix that works out of the box like a general purpose macOS.
Maybe if Apple kills their general purpose desktop enough designers will migrate to Linux and decide to improve the desktop UX there. It's perhaps unlikely but one can dream.
[deleted]
Regarding: "I doubt we will see a seismic transition to a new Mac OS"
First of all, you can observe a drop-off in quality (-control) with every new upgrade. OSes should be stable and not layered with new destabilising os-features every year. Since Tim Cook took over, the apple products were mere Box'es and not new new internets. I don't think they will come up with something "seismic" big.
First of all, you can observe a drop-off in quality (-control) with every new upgrade. OSes should be stable and not layered with new destabilising os-features every year. Since Tim Cook took over, the apple products were mere Box'es and not new new internets. I don't think they will come up with something "seismic" big.
I strongly dislike the mac OS. I only use the system because a.) Duel booting systems are a real pita (oh, let me boost to windows so I can look at that spreadsheet in a excel). And b.) Macs are powerful and light. I spend 1hr plus on the subway, so that's important.
If windows had a sensible terminal environment and real package manager and i could use that, great. And not some hacky workaround. And no, powershell is not sensible.
I do like mint and ubuntu, but office productivity software is on linux terrible on linux envs imo.
If windows had a sensible terminal environment and real package manager and i could use that, great. And not some hacky workaround. And no, powershell is not sensible.
I do like mint and ubuntu, but office productivity software is on linux terrible on linux envs imo.
Personally, Bash on Ubuntu on Windows is a fine solution for my most common use cases.
The NeXTStep years don't count?
Nor the CMU Mach years, nor the ancient Unix years?
NeXTSTEP might be a UNIX underneath, but the developer culture never was related to UNIX.
Hm, well the way I think of it is, MacOS X 1.0 is to NeXTStep as Windows XP is to Windows NT.
Both were releases on a decade-plus-old codebase, and had features (Carbon, e.g.) aimed at migrating legacy users from DOS and Mac. IIRC, it did have some differences that made it incompatible with NeXTstep (like DPDF), but I remember getting it and thinking it's basically the same OS with some Mac emulation and a different skin.
Both were releases on a decade-plus-old codebase, and had features (Carbon, e.g.) aimed at migrating legacy users from DOS and Mac. IIRC, it did have some differences that made it incompatible with NeXTstep (like DPDF), but I remember getting it and thinking it's basically the same OS with some Mac emulation and a different skin.
I played around on a NeXT cube last weekend at the Living Computer Museum and was reminded just how NeXT-like macOS is. I mean, I’ve played with NeXT in the past, and was aware of the continuity since the beginning, but playing with a NeXT in 2018 is uncanny. Of the noticeable UX changes in macOS, I’m not sure how many have been for the better.
I’ve long been bummed out that there’s never been an open NeXT clone gain traction. GNUStep, Etoile (built on GNUStep), and Cocotron all tried to recreate the magic, but languished in obscurity.
Back when Apple’s fortunes were down, betting on GNUStep would have been a decidedly quirky decision. But having the benefit of hindsight, I am convinced that had GNUStep been ready to ride Apple’s ride back to glory, we’d have a greater Linux user experience today, where popular software was a recompile away from running on both macOS and GNUStep.
I’ve long been bummed out that there’s never been an open NeXT clone gain traction. GNUStep, Etoile (built on GNUStep), and Cocotron all tried to recreate the magic, but languished in obscurity.
Back when Apple’s fortunes were down, betting on GNUStep would have been a decidedly quirky decision. But having the benefit of hindsight, I am convinced that had GNUStep been ready to ride Apple’s ride back to glory, we’d have a greater Linux user experience today, where popular software was a recompile away from running on both macOS and GNUStep.
Apple didn't exactly make it easy with all the changes and replacements to Core libraries.
Keeping pace with Apple seems impossible, given the glacial pace of the improvement and development of ProjectCenter and GORM.
It's not dead, in any case.
Keeping pace with Apple seems impossible, given the glacial pace of the improvement and development of ProjectCenter and GORM.
It's not dead, in any case.
What's the sentiment on OS X being rechristened macOS? Doesn't this count as a sort've era 2.5?
I for one really like this rename for search reasons.
Now it is a single unambiguous word: macos. Where before people used the variations: osx, os x, mac os x. Depending on how smart the search engine was you would either get to few or to many results, eg: github issue search. Some search engines even ignore 3 letter words altogether.
It will take a while of course for everyone to adopt the new name in their writing.
OS X used to be Mac OS X. Branding does not matter a whole lot for the underlying technology.
I feel that there was a pretty big technological change between "Rhapsody" and "Mac OS X", but the other name changes were not accompanied by comparable changes.
I feel that there was a pretty big technological change between "Rhapsody" and "Mac OS X", but the other name changes were not accompanied by comparable changes.
There was a big change between Rhapsody & OS X. The mach part was upgraded from 2.5 to 3.0 and the BSD part was rapidly being update. The other addition was the new driver abstraction library as NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP on i386 used Objective C, while OS X uses C++.
I don't think the code ever really sat that dormant, as they were working on 88000 based machines for the NeXTRISC before that was canceled, and sold off to Cannon who eventually shipped a dual PowerPC 601 machine based on the NeXT design that at the time was to include dual 88010's.
There clearly had been some work on PowerPC back when it was first announced as some early code made mention of a MC98601 aka the first gen PowerPC.
I don't think the code ever really sat that dormant, as they were working on 88000 based machines for the NeXTRISC before that was canceled, and sold off to Cannon who eventually shipped a dual PowerPC 601 machine based on the NeXT design that at the time was to include dual 88010's.
There clearly had been some work on PowerPC back when it was first announced as some early code made mention of a MC98601 aka the first gen PowerPC.
yea this headline confused me, because 99% of the world still says OSX when they mean MacOS (by Apple definition).
That took a moment to parse, but what a neat observation.
I've always admired apple from afar. I wish they cared More about lower rung use cases. If apple came out with something to compete with chromebooks, maybe $500-600 range, I'd be the first in those ridiculous lines.
Tangent: what's the outlook for swift on the server? Is that work group doing any work lately? Hell I heard swift was investigating memory safety as a future feature, is that still a thing?
I think with some of their software talent, swift could really make a strong case for swift>rust in learnability if it could make the same claims about safety and correctness.
Why do the coolest things always get so fucked up? The swift website is absolutely littered with old code that doesn't work, or at least it was the last time I bothered to investigate it.
They're sitting on such an absurd amount of cash, they oughtta do that Think Different thing and shake the scene up a bit more. The wait-for-google-and-then-fix-whatever-they-fuckup is getting stale.
I guess they don't care what I think since I'm not really an apple customer. But still.
Oh apple. Someday.
I've always admired apple from afar. I wish they cared More about lower rung use cases. If apple came out with something to compete with chromebooks, maybe $500-600 range, I'd be the first in those ridiculous lines.
Tangent: what's the outlook for swift on the server? Is that work group doing any work lately? Hell I heard swift was investigating memory safety as a future feature, is that still a thing?
I think with some of their software talent, swift could really make a strong case for swift>rust in learnability if it could make the same claims about safety and correctness.
Why do the coolest things always get so fucked up? The swift website is absolutely littered with old code that doesn't work, or at least it was the last time I bothered to investigate it.
They're sitting on such an absurd amount of cash, they oughtta do that Think Different thing and shake the scene up a bit more. The wait-for-google-and-then-fix-whatever-they-fuckup is getting stale.
I guess they don't care what I think since I'm not really an apple customer. But still.
Oh apple. Someday.
I think from Apple's perspective the iPad is the $500-$600 Chromebook competitor suitable for everyone. People have different opinions on the actually usefulness but Apple has been pretty clear saying the iPad is 'the future PC'.
Regarding swift on server, I think this could be fun. Will try it some day https://vapor.codes/
Regarding swift on server, I think this could be fun. Will try it some day https://vapor.codes/
If apple came out with something to compete with chromebooks, maybe $500-600 range
I hope they don't, companies with declining margins look to make it up in other ways that aren't always in the customers interest.
I hope they don't, companies with declining margins look to make it up in other ways that aren't always in the customers interest.
Here's what I'd like to see: a fresh desktop OS that actually innovates in the space. Desktop UX innovation has slowed drastically in the smartphone age, and for Apple it's come to a screeching halt (Windows - dare I say - is now the leader in desktop innovation). The fact that OSX is the only modern desktop OS that doesn't have window snapping out of the box is simply shameful. Even Ubuntu has it now, without any Gnome extensions.
Despite all this, OSX still has a huge foothold as the developer platform of choice - especially for web - because of its combination of quality hardware, Unix-ness, and relative stability (though all of those are becoming harder and harder points to defend). Apple should take advantage of this and throw power users a bone. We've been waiting for years on end. Stop working on useless things like the Touch Bar and start rethinking what a desktop operating system can be in 2018.
Unfortunately, what would probably happen if they built a new desktop OS is iOS with mouse and keyboard support, and developers would leave in droves.