My Gorram Frakking Blog

I wouldn’t worry too much. WINE is far from being able to run every Windows app out there. It works, but it doesn’t always work well, and even when it does, you get the feeling that something’s slightly off-kilter. And don’t think it will get better over time. Even with the resources that Apple has at its disposal, WINE will be perpetually playing catch-up.

Well, you might be right about this. As I said in the article, it’s all predicated on users being able to easily and “painlessly” run Windows apps on OS X.

Remember the time when Carbon was called the blue box and Cocoa the yellow box?

Some people dreamt of a red box - an emulator to run Windows apps on a Mac without having to run VPC with Windows. Not because of speed, but because of that other OS itself. Yuck.

Maybe Apple never built this red box because they didn’t want Mac Developers to stop developing for MacOS…
Though for many people this would have meant to be able to buy a Mac and still use their ONE Windows app (which was not available for MacOS).

So why would customers stick around? Apple has made no committment to maintain MacOS on PPC beyond their cancellation. Users now know that PPC purchases over the next year are obsolete and are probably a waste of money. Instead of wasting money, they will move to Windows. Can Apple withstand a year with severely declining hardware sales? Has Jobs put Apple on thr trail out of the hardware (and thus computer) market?

What worries me is if Macs are going to pick up any DRM / Palladium / Trusted Computing fantastic “security” “features” in this switch. According to a Wired article DRM and Hollywood are a motivating force (http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,67749,00.html), so to what extent will Macs have those kind of features? I find that area of things most worrying. Palladium is plenty enough to put me off giving over my time and creativity to a system like it. I guess DRM doesn’t mean Palladium, but a danger worth keeping an eye on to say the least IMO.

Apple was dead when they released OS X. Take it from a former Macintosh developer—there is no money to be made developing software for the Mac. There is tons of money developing for the Windows market even with all the competition. Put your best argument forward that OS X is better than XP— you can only argue that it’s marginally better. The price of a Macintosh doesn’t justify its utility. The coolness factor isn’t enough to sway businesses who purchase the overwhelming majority of software products.

The Macintosh died long ago with the senseless murder of OS 9 which was drastically superior to Windows.

Don’t think about WINE. Think about VirtualPC.

“Apple was dead when they released OS X. …

The Macintosh died long ago with the senseless murder of OS 9 which was drastically superior to Windows.”
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Couldn’t have said it better myself. Aqua is a gaudy non-intuitive piece of junk. Personally, I think it’s jobs’ revenge on all the Mac users who stayed loyal to the Mac instead of to him after he was ousted from Apple.

And don’t even get me started on that cookoo framework and all the instability, ui lag and code bloat it imposes. And now — That nitwit thinks developers are supposed to just happily DOUBLE the file size of all their applications??? Universal Binaries? Universal Bloat is more like it.

What I don’t get about the whole thing is why would anyone move from RISC to CISC? I mean that’s like going from CDs back to Audio Cassettes!

Very nice and well thought out article Rick. However I think by focusing on the software side only, I think you miss out on one good possibility. Here’s my thinking: Apple’s (potentially) triple boot capable hardware (OS X, Windows, Linux) generates much more interest in Apple’s hardware offerings. Apple’s market share increases dramatically over the years to 10-15 percent. Mac only developers would see a huge increase in users, and even cross platform development companies would have enough Mac users to justify keeping both versions around.

Apple’s software offerings will of course always be around in case of your doomsday prediction. And if the company’s pattern holds, they will be involved in even more software areas. This active development alone will persuade others to keep developing for the mac. And lets not forget that the OS has some capabilities that others do not (core image, etc) that can make certain apps much easier to develop on the mac.

Well, Scott, I hope you’re right!

Steve Jobs thinks strategically, not tactically. This could be an elegant exit strategy for Apple from the PC market, while hooking in windows people into the Apple brand. Or it could be like one of those moves in chess, where you seem to have a fantastic opportunity to win, but after you make the move it becomes clear you have 100% totally blundered.

Yes, this sprang into my mind too. But you got to keep this in mind: Why is there still being apps developed for mac now? Because there is an installed base. Why is there an installed base? After all, the hardware is (relatively) more expensive and software choices (comparatively) lesser.

In fact, why is there still users and developers on the mac platform at all? Because people (and believe it or not) developers prefer it. The operating system IS the Mac, not the CPU on which it runs. People have always wanted to run Windows apps, and mac users have bragged about how VPC has made that (albeit slowly) possible.

With Mac OS X we gained the possibility of running most Linux and UNIX apps, even those running in XWindows. Has that hindered new apps for the mac? No, app development has exploded as more developers have discovered the benefits of Mac OS X. But, hasn’t OpenOffice suddenly killed MS Office sales and Gimp raped Adobe? Hardly. Mac users are a discerning bunch. If an app does not work The Mac Way™ (which is not a snobbish thing, just a combination of common sense, good UI design and a sprinkle of what one is used to), it won’t be much used. As long as there’s demand for Mac OS X-applications, it will be made.

What I gather WILL suffer is games. Games do not require an UI to function (one can safely say most use their own). But that situation isn’t optimal even today. So I guess just running the games on a mac and not lose comparably performance to a PC will be a boon - even if they have to run under a WINE/classic-like environment.

I don’t think that last scenario is likely at all. Triple boot capabilities aren’t going to generate much new interest in Apple’s hardware. Letting XP and its ilk onto the Apple hardware is only going to have the effect that Rick has already outlined.

The only way to really expand desire for apps written to OS X API’s would be to release OS X for non-Apple intel based hardware in addition to Apple’s intel based machines, while keeping XP compatibility off their own hardware.

That way, developers would be in a situation where they would only need to write with OS X API’s to reach every installed piece of intel based hardware.

The problem with that scenario is this: Apple cannot prevent other parties from bringing XP compatibility onto Apple hardware. MS could do it very easily. And we haven’t exactly heard MS saying they’re going to discontinue VPC once Apple is on intel. Have we?

So, carrying this through to its logical conclusion: MS invades Apple’s intel hardware with VPC. Apple counters by releasing OS X for non-Apple hardware. Or vice-versa, it doesn’t matter who makes the first move.

Stalemate? No. Apple loses. Why? There’s just no compelling reason for developers (crossplatform or otherwise) to use OS X API’s:

If a developer is currently XP-only, there’s no way they would incurr the now needless overhead of adopting Apple’s API’s to run on Apple’s hardware.

If a developer is currently crossplatform, they will drop their OS X API versions. Why? Why not drop the XP version? Because dropping the OS X API version would let them eliminate the cost of supporting that version without losing their customers who use Apple hardware. However, dropping support for the XP version would, at the very least, require their customers to outlay even more money to buy OS X for their intel based hardware. And that would cost those developers their customers.

Once that development shift happens, consumers and businesses will sooner or later look at their computers and say “All my software is XP software that doesn’t need Apple hardware. I can go out and buy a cheaper machine and not lose anything.”

Once people realize that and stop buying Apple hardware, Apple will tank for good.

Isn’t it a bit simplistic to assume that *all* Windows application can run under an emulated environment? At the rate that Microsoft is rolling out new technologies, you do need the OS itself to keep up. Though I haven’t tried, would Office 2003 run under Wine? It will obviously run under VPC but you would need the Win OS underneath to support it which then entails that you drag along all the insecurities that Bill provides.

Or am I missing something?

How about after the PPC->Intel switch is finalized, Apple adds another checkbox to XCode that allows you to compile your app for Windows (like the old OpenStep Windows world). So XCode becomes an extremely attractive development environment with the Cocoa modern OO framework on Mac/Intel, Mac/PPC and Wintel. Apple could likely get all of their iLife apps over to Wintel in a nice timeframe as well. If Apple wants to grow up and be more of a device and software company, that is a very attractive path.

Unclear how Apple would differentiate their hardware sales since they are still such a large part of company profits. But with all developers getting onto XCode, Apple would have a lot of platform plays available for the future. Could continue to make XCode apps best on Mac OS X and sell an OpenStep layer for Windows users to take advantage of the best media apps out there … Could compete at both the App and OS layer with MS.

You’re wrong. If people want to run OS X like me, they will buy an Apple with Intel because OS X will not run on any other box so stated Apple. I’m sure there will be crack attempts, but like iTunes, Apple will continually fix those cracks.

“Apple was dead when they released OS X.”

I love idiots. They make the world so much more interesting to live in. The increasing market share and quarter over quarter shipment growth of Apple doesn’t suggest that you’re boneheadedly wrong?

“Take it from a former Macintosh developer—there is no money to be made developing software for the Mac.”

It’s nice that you may have been a developer at one point. On the other hand, there are a few companies who, you know, didn’t take their ball and go crying home to momma, that still develop Mac apps and make money off them. Try Adobe. Try Microsoft. Try Blizzard. Nice try though, troll.

“The Macintosh died long ago with the senseless murder of OS 9 which was drastically superior to Windows.”

From who’se perspective? Most -new- computer users find OS X wonderfully easy to use. Most serious computer users find OS X easy to use once they get used to it (coming from something else) and enormously powerful for their technical exploits. Only scared-of-change-old-fools are still clinging to OS 9. The Classic MacOS is dead, and good riddance. Deal with it.

“Apple was dead when they released OS X. …

The Macintosh died long ago with the senseless murder of OS 9 which was drastically superior to Windows.”
_________________________________________________
I’m with you. I hate to pyle on with the gang, but I believe it too. I look suspiciously at the HP-Apple aggreement, will they start making Apples? Will they license the OS, giving any customer a choice of desktop OS, OSX vs XP? Jobs is out for the money, his past behavior is his future behavior. Classic will be the first to go with PPC apps following right behind. All the while developing iApps which will have either mysterious “problems” or run “slower” in PPC mode.
Enjoy your PPC now, because tomorrow the Apple developers start a transition to Intel.

Look what Jobs has done for the company. One sure way to kill Apple would be to put one of you geeks in charge. Quit pretending like your smarter than he is.

I follow part of your logic which is that when Windows apps can run on OSX, native OSX development is going to be marginalized. I don’t follow your logic that Windows apps inherently suck.

To borrow a cliche, it’s the developers. A developer that makes a sucky UI for a windows app isn’t going to inherently make an amazing UI for an OSX app. They’ll keep as much code in common as possible already because that will help catch bugs, reduce development time, match features, and probably most importantly for them provide essentially the same user experience towards the lowest common denominator.

As far as interfaces are concerned, there’s nothing fundamentally different between OSX and Windows (or any X11 windows manager for that matter). If it’s “better” to build a dialog box with confirm on the right, then developers can do that in windows too.

Folks, I might have accidentally deleted one or more of your comments; for that I’m sorry. It is my intent to allow all comments that are not spam, but I’m still new at using MT. Please feel free to repost if you can’t find a comment you wrote. Sorry about that.

Jerry, you’re absolutely right. I misspoke when I said Windows apps inherently suck, and you’re right that a long-time Windows developer isn’t going to magically make wonderful apps when s/he moves to OS X.

What I meant was there’s an underlying attitude among Windows developers about usability, that’s so pervasive as to make for an inherent inferiority of Windows applications. Certainly there are exceptions, and there are a few things about the Windows API that probably force differences that (to me) make Windows inferior.

“The sky is falling!”

OK. It’s a possible scenario, but as you admit, it depends on effortless running of Windows apps. I think much more likely is that Windows will be required to run Windows apps. As often bemoaned, Windows authorization is getting better and better, so there will be a $200 price tag on getting windows apps to run.

But what I haven’t seen many of the alarmists addressing is the “No change in architecture” option.
1. Do you think Apple is just doing this for fun? As many others have said, this is the nuclear option for them. They were backed into a corner, so they went out a window. (No pun instended.) They have far more info on what the future holds for PowerPC than we do, and they choose to abandon it. I think that alone is reason this probably makes sense.

2. What do you think the future is for PowerPC? Huge wins with Sony and Microsoft mean that Apple is not the only customer that matters. Apple wants chips for laptops. (I strongly agree that laptops are the future.) The game console customers want fast chips, damn the power requirements. Do you expect IBM/Freescale to concentrate on Apple’s requirements? I think Apple looked far ahead (3 years or more in this game.) and saw that laptops with powerPC chips are going to be a losing bet.

But, guys, Windows apps DO suck—and it’s not just the developer at fault.

Depending on the development environment (and I’m sure a team of really good engineers can make great apps with great usability in windows using c/tkl/opengl, or even java), you may be stuck using Window’s inflexible libraries and behavior, the sort that pushes you into pointless or difficult to comprehend alertboxes (e.g. Mac uses verbs—Windows uses OK/Cancel), kludgy commands and menus, and generally poor design.

Take any program written in Visual Basic for Applications. It’s going to suck. Take your basic “plugs into the PC” firmware for scientific instruments. IT SUCKS. Those companies making engineering and scientific tools don’t have a team of crack C or java coders on staff. They use the VB development environment and the output is barely useable junk. Is that their fault—or Microsoft’s, for developing, selling, and promoting a kludgy pile of crap?

There are problems with OS X’s development environment, there are (minor) problems in usability in Apple’s own apps, and the usability of command line tools and programs in the *nixes make Windows look like Happy Fun Land. But let me just say this: if all that firmware that was developed in VBA in the 1990’s had been developed for Mac OS 7-9 instead, my life in the science and technical professions would be a heck of a lot easier.

(8.3 filenames? in 1995?!? *#$@!)

because very few people would continue to go to Apple when they could get machines elsewhere for much less.

You will still need a macintosh to run OSX. You can’t just buy a Dell and slap OSX for Intel on it.

Apple adds the most significant feature: the ability to double-click a Windows application and run it on your Macintosh.

While that would be interesting, Apple won’t be the ones doing that. MS, perhaps (maybe a great new VPC). And I think you have some valid points. However, look at the companies that currently tend to keep dual-platform versions of their software…Quicken, Adobe, MS, etc. The users of these types of software really don’t care about the other operating system. They want mac software. Period.

In the end, though, it’s all moot. Jobs didn’t really have a choice. PPC was dead.

Power user-based comment:
From what we have heard so far, Apple is “not going to let Mac OS X run in other system than a Mac.” I find that pretty laughable - we all know anyone will be able to run Mac OS X in AMDs x86 and non-macs in no time.
After that, why bother buying hardware from apple anymore? I am a big fan of Apple, but I have yet to find a reson *other than the OS and a couple of well designed apps* to go ahead and buy a computer that for all accounts is twice as expensive for pretty much the same thing (and please don’t give me that CISC vs. RISC bullshit - Apple has been lying to us all with their benchmarks and you know it - and now they even admit it)

You already pointed out the reason why this will never happen: “Mac users would notice a difference. See, Windows applications generally suck. While Apple could put the window close box in the right place, the OK and Cancel buttons would always be backward.”

Most Mac users aren’t going to tolerate running Windows versions of most of their apps. If we could tolerate it, we would have switched to Windows long ago.

Mac users are not going to buy Windows apps to run on their Macs—they’re going to buy Mac apps. Mac developers will still make money. Mac users want the Mac experience.

Here’s the choice at purchase in a couple of years: 1. buy a Mac that can run both Windows and Mac naitive software (maybe even the penguin) all for a PHENOMENAL price compared to 2. one machine that just runs Windows (which most software and games would b developed for) FOR A FRACTION OF THE COST! Hmmm what would John Q. Public do? Would they really NEED a triple boot system when everyone else is using the Windoze solution? Hard questions… no easy answers.

(Just to be clear. My last post was referring to Scott’s 10:32pm post from last night.)

Wrong. It is clearly better to follow the UI style guidelines for whatever platform you are delivering on. If I’m making a Win32 app, I’ll follow their guidelines. On the Mac, I’ll follow the Aqua guidelines.

Only if I’m writing something weird like a Qt application will I try to “split the difference.”

You know the other thing I hate? Marketing folks who think that their “idea” is better than following the platform UI standards.

>As far as interfaces are concerned, there’s nothing >fundamentally different between OSX and Windows (or any X11 >windows manager for that matter). If it’s “better” to build a >dialog box with confirm on the right, then developers can do >that in windows too.

Do you honestly think that the minds at apple didn’t deliberate for years about what the likely scenarios would be? This is a major computer hardware and software company that although not invonerable to mistakes, KNOWS it products and users to a degree. Enough to ensure the measurability of their behavior, reactions and subsequent effects. It’s called business, and if there is a dollar to be made above zero (or even below in marketshare cases, alla xbox [from a hardware perspective]) a company will forecast it out and decide which activities are not just COST EFFECTIVE but are also good business. Alienating users from any angle, be it software vendor or particular applications is not a smart move. Who’s to say that Mac Intel boxes will ever be able to run window’s apps in some transparent layer? No one. Just because something is possible doesn’t mean it makes good business. Auto manufacturers can make cars that are very efficient, however, they dont. Planned obselence? No, it’s normal business to ensure steady revenue streams.

All the doomsdayers are just too angry because they didn’t see it coming, OR saw it coming and no one believed them and now they have fists clenched and want to go “wine” about the future of development for a BRAND (not just a platform) that has the most valuable customers in the industry. The only reason the Mac has held up over the years is that people were willing to eat it up. They could afford to and will continue to eat up the Apple brand. More technical? Probably, the average mac users knows whats inside for sure, and an intel brand invading their personal space might stirr some emotions, but if by clicking a box in a development environment = revenue for your company, developers are going to click that box. Fat binaries? Who gives a shit. Space is not a premium anymore, a meg of ram doesn’t cost 50.00 like in the early 90’s and we have no clue what the next ten years are going to be like. Truth of the matter, unless some mass genecide becomes the mac community, there will always be an apple brand in a major way. Can it die? Sure, it can. It’s living just like every other company, through its’ users and developers. Users aren’t going to use crappy dells, businesses will continue to use the cheapest shit possible to get the job done. It’s called economics my friends, which wins out at the end of the day. Mac, PC , Who? How much does it cost and how much will it save me.

End of story.

Just as several have said most all windows applications suck bad. I hate just about every aspect of Windows and it’s applications. Even applications like Illustrator look markedly worse in Windows.

Windows applications running in the shitty Windows OS is very bad. If you run this trash in the mac OSX it will show up 10x worse. There is a bigger danger that Windows folk will move to the Mac in large numbers and bring their bad taste and low standards with them; There goes the neighborhood.

‘because very few people would continue to go to Apple when they could get machines elsewhere for much less.’

Rubbish.

I have adored this discussion. The above comment made me get involved. It is the most obvious indication of all that the point is being utterly missed. That comment is utter, utter rubbish here on Planet Earth and signifies a complete misunderstanding of Apple’s business and business in general.

Apple has a huge market. Not a huge market share but a huge market. There are plenty of people who will pay more for a Mac. Just like there are plenty of people who use Email / Firefox / MSN / Office / Photoshop on a Mac NOW even though it’s effectively the (same except a bit slower!) as the PC version. Apple do not want to be Wal Mart. Or Dell. There are plenty of people who will buy a Porsche despite the fact that a Golf GTi is cheaper, more fuel efficient and probably faster. Theses are the people you want to sell to. The wealthy people. The opinion leaders. The creative people. The beautiful people. Macs are already slower and much, much more expensive. People still do the same things on them as on PCs. Apple’s market share is still growing. Sales are up. Shares are up. People love their iPods. People will love their Intel Macs, Robot Boy.

People don’t care what the chip and the boring, boring components inside their wonderfully-designed box are. They DO NOT CARE. They care that it feels like OS X: The intangibles, the kudos, the PLEASURE - all the things your robotic brains cannot seem to compute are why Apple has the most loyal user base, the most recognisable and status-imbuing brand. I know this will make you angry. Do not worry. Return to your computers. Enjoy. Steve Jobs is smarter than you.

I wonder. Have Stevie insulted IBM too much so they said, no more toys for you. Or did Billy got an idea that, hmmm if we base our latest game box on PowerPC “A better platform than x86, that would empty the resources that IBM have for Apple and those resources will be used for us instead. Hmm, can we kill Apple this way? Just a thought.

“Who’s to say that Mac Intel boxes will ever be able to run window’s apps in some transparent layer? No one.”

WHAT YOU SAID IS ABSOLUTELY UNTRUE.

Apple itself has already stated that they will do nothing to prevent xp from running on apple/intel boxes. Apple has also already stated that they will not bring OS X to non-Apple boxes. So there will not even be that to slow down the developer shift to xp api’s.

The economic scenarios already outlined will play out: VPC (or even xp itself) will bring full speed xp, et-al onto Apple’s intel boxes. Crossplatform developers (in otherwords: all major apps) will drop their OS X api versions (because there’s a buck to be kept instead of spent). Consumers will stop considering apple boxes when there’s no reason to pay extra.

It is not a matter of clicking a box to get extra revenue. It’s a matter of developers reducing their workload and expenditures (thereby making more revenue) by dropping OS X api’s because OS X api’s simply do not give them anything (in terms of boxes that can run it) that xp api’s doesn’t already.

It’s called economics, and you’re not my friend, you blowhard nitwit.

I wonder if there will be a version of wine to run OS X software on Linux after the 86 conversion. Sounds like it would be a cool project.

What could Apple do? The PowerPC reached its limits on the Powerbook (see heat issues and underpowered chips compared to G5). And imagine a tablet Mac running on a PowerPC. Break out the ovenmitts.

If you want to blame or be disappointed with anyone, point the finger at PowerPC. They couldn’t make chips as good as Intel.

Oh well. Life goes on. Apple users, your hearts will still pump blood to your Apple doped brains regardless of if your Powerbook is running on an Intel or PowerPC.

With respect to Mac shooting itself in the foot on hardware sales, I’m thinking a majority of Mac owners will stick with Mac hardware products as:
1. A Mac is a status symbol and way of life as much as it is a computer for many of its current users
2. Current Apple users have this warm fuzzy feeling inside knowing they own a Mac and therefore are better then those Sony Vaio and Campaq carrying morons out there.

Life goes on and will get better.

One final note. Everyone should stop complaining as this will finally make Apple available to all! How many 18 year old kids have looked at an iBook and a Dell notebook and went with the Dell as it is $400 cheaper. This bridges the price gap(hopefully) and makes Mac available to the masses.

>>All of your favorite apps release updates (never mind that these will be expensive upgrades, not maintenance releases), even Metrowerks.

I assume you didn’t read the notes from the confrence when it was anounced by Jobs. Mathematica was ported in 2 hours, and it took all of 20 lines of code to be changed.

Keep up the FUD.

>>I assume you didn’t read the notes from the confrence when it was anounced by Jobs. Mathematica was ported in 2 hours, and it took all of 20 lines of code to be changed.

Well, Mathematica is an application already ported to multiple architectures. I’m sure every endianess issue had already been resolved. And it still took two hours? Assuming that wasn’t time spent dealing with compiler issues, what were they doing? I suppose there was a significant chunk of Mac OS-only code in Mathematica that needed extra work…

I am unconvinced.

“They care that it feels like OS X: The intangibles, the kudos, the PLEASURE”

What you kool-aid drinkers just can’t understand is that those intangibles you cite are going away. There will be no kudos for using the same xp app as everyone else. There will be no pleasure of using a Mac application BECAUSE THERE WON”T BE MAC APPS, just xp apps running on apple boxes.

All those ‘intangibles’ are created by software developers, who will no longer use OS X api’s because they simply don’t need to anymore. Their products will run just fine, and at full speed, as xp apps on Apple intel boxes. And people (including those who buy apple intel boxes) will still buy and use those xp apps because they will be the only things available.

It will take a little while, but eventually all developers will take this path simply because there is more money to be made selling an xp app than an OS X app.

Once all those ‘intangibles’ have gone away, the apple will lose its shine, and people will be left with a simple dollars and cents decision.

So go ahead and keep swilling that kool-aid down your gullet. I hope it tastes good. Because even that kool-aid won’t be around much longer.

“Apple was dead when they killed the Apple //”

Get over it people - I liked OS 9 as well, but it crashed often, was really difficult to get to a stable state, and was HORRIBLE at multitasking…

Are you unhappy with the OS X GUI? Sure - that’s OK, But as a reliable, stable, REAL OS, Mac OS X beats it HANDS down…
Just be thankful Apple waited long enough for classic to be irrelevant before moving to Intel. Go run classic on your old hardware, like you have been anyway now (apple has not made a machine that boots into classic in 2 years) and get on with the times - new hardware new times - don’t lament that Apple died when they abandoned Mac OS 9. Had we still been running Mac OS X now, there is one thing you’d be right about - Apple WOULD be dead about now….

“…who will no longer use OS X api’s because they simply don’t need to anymore. “

Do they need to now? Not really - but they are programming for an installed base of close to 20,000,000 Macs running OS X. Apple sells 4- 5 million Macs a year, and has been selling Macs that can run the current mac OS X for the last 6-8 years. They will be selling machines like that for the next two years.

So developers are going to look at that market, as a business choice, and decide that it is WORTH developing for that market…
And while they are developing for that market, they WILL check the checkbox… and WILL get Intel code. And lo and behold - they will have code that runs on both the 20 Mil + PPC Macs and the few mil Intel macs…

And if the Intel Macs are successful, they will continue to make software for them, because they can ALSO get software for the installed base of PPC macs, and before you know it, there will be MORE Intel macs than PPC Macs, and all this source code out there, and things will continue…

Wow! Jim Jones would be jealous at the amount of blind sycophantic loyalty I see here. Let me clarify my last comment. Classic had a superior user interface. It was clean functional and uncluttered. You got a lot of work done without the user interface getting in the way of your productivity. Everything down to the file management toolbox calls were designed with the user in mind, hence, filed ids instead of filenames and directories and Extensions instead of daemons.

Yes, Classic did in fact need an upgrade and it could have been done easily. The former upper management at Apple did everything they could to prevent the Macintosh team from delivering protected memory and preemptive multitasking. They were convinced that the 1980s “aging” OS needed to be replaced by a 1970s one. That’s why we have the Frankenstein, tower of babble, UNIX system we have now. Where are the friendly alert boxes? Where’s tingling sensations when you immediately see another Macintosh machine over an AppleTalk network without any complex setup process? Where’s the ability to organize and understand every file in the system folder? Lastly, where’s my damn screen real estate that’s been used up by the dock and other extravagant gadgetry?

Mac OS X has moved the Macintosh painfully close to Windows, while Windows is now moving enjoyably closer to the Macintosh. Even the lowest level user is painfully aware of this. Again, any advantage of OS X over Windows is marginal, not worth the extra expense and alienation from the computing community. Was it really worth destroying usability for solely for the sake of multitasking and memory protection? Did the Macintosh get any new killer applications or sway business customers? At one time, the most innovative applications came out on the Macintosh first and Windows second. OS X has long since killed this pattern. Now go on with your Kool-aid spasms!

Ugh, I can’t believe people are defending Mac OS 9 as being superior to Mac OS X?? The old Mac OS is the only reason I _didn’t_ buy a Mac before OS X was released (I bought a G4 Powerbook a few months after X came out).

I remember about 7 years back helping set up my wife’s G3 for her to do graphic design on (myself coming from the Linux world and having no prior Mac experience) and I couldn’t believe how archaic it was to have to tell the OS how much memory each application needs to run (using trial and error by way of waiting for the application to crash and upping the memory a bit more each time)! For all the niceties of not requiring users to know much about computers to use a Mac — it’s just inexcusable to make those same users do that. And the ludicrous amount of (at the time expensive) RAM Mac users had in their machines just so that they could run 2 or 3 applications at the same time (re. no memory protection). Seeing Mac users with 512- 768MB of RAM at a time when a 128MB chip was around $200-$250 wasn’t uncommon. As a technology enthusiast, I just couldn’t run a system like that.

Regarding the age factor… UNIX was well designed from the start (complex systems built from smaller, simple, easier to understand and fix components - a design philosophy which has been proven in many industries outside of technology). Years of shaping from academia and the reasearch community added all the technology of a modern OS (years before most other OSes had them). 24/7 use in industrial applications made it rock solid. 1970s and 1980s are just numbers which confuse the real issue: what is the best technology? The old Mac OS: which was obviously designed from the core for computer systems circa 1984? Or UNIX, which was well designed from the start and crafted over many years by the brightest minds in the software community?

What I’ll give Apple is that they’ve always had a very well-designed and consistent UI (something I’ll definitely allow you to slam UNIX for). Whether you like the UI of Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X, that’s simply a matter of preference:

- Alert boxes: what do you need those for if your computer doesn’t crash?
- Complex setup process? Turn on Personal File Sharing in your preferences, open the Finder, and browse the big Network box in the topleft corner?
- Understanding files in the System folder? That’s like UNIX geeks arguing that everyone should understand how to edit the files in /etc to configure their system
- Screen real estate use by the dock? Scale it down and autohide it if it bothers you. I personally have a widescreen monitor and so I position mine on the right side of the screen.

A UI can easily be reconfigured and tweaked, however, the core of the OS is something which is much harder to change/fix. Maybe others prefer a nice UI on a system which crashes a few times a day, but I personally prefer not to waste my time waiting for my computer to reboot.

As for swaying customers with OS X - count me (and a number of software developers at my company who have an appreciation for well-designed technology).

>> It may take a few years, but you will slowly see the erosion of the Mac into an elegant OS for launching crappy apps. And how long after that will once-loyal Mac users simply switch? There are so many more hardware choices in the WIntel world.

I don’t follow your reasoning here. Apple will continue to make fantastic apps and that’s what attracts a lot of Mac users. That and the secure elegant OS you mentioned. (At least those are what attracted me). You might be overestimating how many Mac users will abandon ship.

At the same time you haven’t mentioned the huge potential for Windows users to switch to Mac. They will have the choice of a crappy OS running crappy apps or a secure elegant OS running the crappy apps that they are familiar with and some great apps from Apple.

Price would be the only thing holding them back wouldn’t it? And Apple seem to be trying to address that issue too lately (Mac Mini).