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Mac OS X = UNIX with a GUI? - Page 3

post #81 of 186
12/20/07 at 12:05pm
Thread Starter 
First, I would like to thank all those who have contributed to this thread 'cause they are increasing my knowledge on Mac OS X. I am unable to answer to each of you individually, so I 'll just answer those comments that I think try to distort reality

Quote:
Originally Posted by aegisdesign View Post

What you seem to have a problem with is anything in user space such as OSX's system wide PDF compositing technology, it's object oriented frameworks inherited from NextStep, it's simple networking and discovery technology, it's system wide functionality that is built in to all applications and many more things that make it more than just UNIX + GUI. UNIX is such a little part of OSX. If Apple switched from a UNIX kernel to a Windows kernel, it'd barely matter to a user - it'd sure matter to us geeks though.

Again, if Apple switched to the Windows NT/2000/XP kernel, it would suffer from all the deficiencies of that system, including, but not limited to, the painting sessions that 1337_5L4Xx0R so nicely described, viruses and a whole lot of security issues that come with the Windows NT kernel design (it has to solve the impossible problem of allowing the average user to have some admin priviledges (to do things like installing software or modifying the registry) or supporting a myriad of hardware done by third parties, thus having a less tightly controlled driver subsystem). Mac OS X's doesn't have those issues because it's UNIX based (great!) and as I said, does things like being able to edit PDFs make it a complete different OS (no, I don't thik so), and more importantly, do they justify the move to a world where 90% + use Windows? That's what I will figure out. But as I said, based on all the answers I've gotten so far, Mac OS X ~ UNIX + GUI/UI.

Quote:
Originally Posted by aegisdesign View Post

As visionary put it, we're explaining 3D to you when you're living in a 2D world.

I disagree, you are explaining irrational attachment when what I was trying is to find a rational answer to the question Max OS X ~ UNIX + GUI?

Cheers!
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post #82 of 186
12/20/07 at 12:16pm
Thread Starter 
One more thing,

Quote:
Originally Posted by 1337_5L4Xx0R View Post

And OS X is certainly not 'enterprise grade' as its focus is user-desktop and media creation.

As a matter of fact, because of its UNIX roots, it's not that far from being enterprise grade. If Apple was willig to make the right investments (in supporting high availability HW and creating a Professional Services group for the Enterprise), it could easily make a dent in the medium sized servers market most likely at the expense of Sun or Linux. In the high end space, it's more unlikely since it would need to make OS X support several hundreds of cores/CPUs and ultra high end storage HW to make it competitive with the offers of HP and IBM (and that's far from trivial).

Another point where Mac OS X's UNIX roots are of extreme benefit.

Cheers!
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post #83 of 186
12/20/07 at 12:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by curious_about_mac View Post

I disagree, you are explaining irrational attachment when what I was trying is to find a rational answer to the question Max OS X ~ UNIX + GUI?

Cheers!

An answer you were never looking for since your mind was made up prior to ever coming to this forum.

Yes, OSX is just UNIX + GUI. Of course it's also the most popular desktop unix ever made and the only unix with a GUI that doesn't suck.

I use OSX so I don't have to load Linux to do unix stuff. 80% of the time my MBP is running Windows because I need DirectX9 support for work.

But hey, ignore that many, if not most, ex-Amigans have Macs and live in your Linux world bucko. After all, AmigaDOS didn't have a GUI...oh wait...by gosh it did. And while Apple scripting isn't exactly like ARexx it is powerful and useful. There's a lot more to like about OSX than simply dismissing it as UNIX + GUI. But only for folks with an open mind rather than some oddball superiority complex because you used to use an Amiga.

Mac zealotry. Pfft. Pikers. Amigans are undead zealots of a cursed operating system.
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post #84 of 186
12/20/07 at 3:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by aegisdesign View Post

Yep, there are non-UNIX OSs such as QNX that are POSIX compliant. IIRC BeOS was too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QNX

Quote:
QNX (pronounced either Q-N-X or Q-nix) is a commercial POSIX-compliant Unix-like real-time operating system, aimed primarily at the embedded systems market. As of September 12 2007, the source of the QNX kernel has been released for non-commercial use.

...Due to the POSIX interface, porting Unix and BSD packages to QNX became much easier.

You're not going to get away from the UNIX roots even in QNX.

Classification : UNIX-like Operating System.
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post #85 of 186
12/20/07 at 3:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by curious_about_mac View Post

Again, if Apple switched to the Windows NT/2000/XP kernel, it would suffer from all the deficiencies of that system, including, but not limited to, the painting sessions that 1337_5L4Xx0R so nicely described...

Again, this isn't specifically tied into the UNIX core, but rather the Core Graphics Framework which is part of what makes OS X > Unix + GUI. And the rest of what Aegisdesign said, also frameworks. They have nothing to do with Unix, specifically.

If your only concern is stability and redundancy, stick with Unix sans GUI or one of those ATM systems you talked about earlier. It'll do the trick for you. If you're living in the terminal anyways, you'll have no need for a GUI no matter how many spiffy frameworks and elegant functionality it has...
"I've learned there's more to life than being really, really, really, really, really, really, ridiculously good-looking. :-x" - Zoolander
~:My scraps:~
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"I've learned there's more to life than being really, really, really, really, really, really, ridiculously good-looking. :-x" - Zoolander
~:My scraps:~
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post #86 of 186
12/20/07 at 3:57pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Whyatt Thrash View Post

Again, this isn't specifically tied into the UNIX core, but rather the Core Graphics Framework which is part of what makes OS X > Unix+ GUI.

What what said originally, At work at a video game company, I used a multi-core PC running XP. One of my favorite things to do when the UI locked up due to 'CPU overload' was grab a window, and start painting with it. It would leave tracers all over the desktop. You simply cannot do that with a Mac running OS X. The front-most app has priority, and both the GUI and BSD layer are threaded. With OS X 10.5, the Finder (which sucks) is now kinda-threaded, so iDisk access doesn't lock up the Finder.

That has everything to do with the BSD core, which is UNIX. Then, the GUI makes an efficient use of the UNIX services (which speaks highly of the Mac OS X developers) but it's the UNIX core which makes it possible.
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post #87 of 186
12/20/07 at 4:05pm
Thread Starter 
delete
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post #88 of 186
12/20/07 at 4:06pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by curious_about_mac View Post

That has everything to do with the BSD core, which is UNIX. Then, the GUI makes an efficient use of the UNIX services (which speaks highly of the Mac OS X developers) but it's the UNIX core which makes it possible.

And in fact, this is another aspect that supports the UNIX + GUI thing. Every single UNIX + GUI OS that I have used is robust in this respect (the GUI is not as nice as Mac OS X's but is equally robust). From the HP 700 workstations that ran HP-UX 9.X ~ 12 years ago (the same was true for the Sun workstations) to the RedHat/Ubuntu Linux machines I have used recently. I have been only able to "paint" in the sense described before with Windows NT/2000/XP .
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post #89 of 186
12/20/07 at 5:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by curious_about_mac View Post

My claim, based on having worked for a long time with Linux (Redhat, Debian), HP-UX and Sun Solaris, is that Mac OS X is a UNIX + GUI (I stress probably the best GUI ever built on top of a UNIX-like OS) + a bunch of bundled software/applications intended for non expert users.

Well, you are close, but wrong. OS X has pretty much everything you'd expect from a unix/unix-like system + a bunch of OS X-specific frameworks, services and programs. The meat of the issue is that vast majority of what makes OS X what it is are the OS X-specific frameworks and services.

BTW, you need to cut out the "mac preacher"/"religion" thing. Grow up.
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post #90 of 186
12/20/07 at 5:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QNX

You're not going to get away from the UNIX roots even in QNX.

Classification : UNIX-like Operating System.

It is now perhaps but it has no UNIX roots. The POSIX layer came later. I've not used it in ages. The last time was back in 1997-2000ish when it was being touted as the new kernel for the Amiga by whoever owned Amiga back then. Can't remember exactly if it was Gateway, Amiga Tech or just Fleecy and Bill spinning us a yarn.

I can remember watching some cool demos of it's Photo Micro-GUI though which featured 'warp gates' where processes could pass messages through a 'warp gate' and they came up somewhere else, even a different computer somewhere else on the network. Cool technology.

Of course, curious would probably still call even that UNIX + GUI just because it ran bash.

edit: incidentally, back then QNX was the favourite because of it's almost Amiga like interprocess communication and real time performance which OSs like Linux couldn't match. And IIRC Tao ran on top of QNX too. BeOS was the only other OS that got close.
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post #91 of 186
12/20/07 at 8:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by aegisdesign View Post

edit: incidentally, back then QNX was the favourite because of it's almost Amiga like interprocess communication and real time performance which OSs like Linux couldn't match. And IIRC Tao ran on top of QNX too. BeOS was the only other OS that got close.

Yah, BeOS got close. OSX is certainly sluggish in comparison. I dunno that QNX would have been as good a spiritual match as BeOS would have been.

I'd have bought OS4 and a PPC unit for it except that it never really hit release. I'd love to run the OS4 on my old quicksilver. I had an A500, A2000, A3000 and then finally an A1000 before I sold it all. Every so often I look on eBay and think about getting one for kicks but alas, my wife made me dump a lot of my old gear and I finally tossed out all my old Amiga software disks including a lot of NewTek stuff and LightWave.

All in all though...OSX is a good replacement for the Amiga experience in a way that MacOS never was.
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post #92 of 186
12/20/07 at 8:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by curious_about_mac View Post

But as I said, based on all the answers I've gotten so far, Mac OS X ~ UNIX + GUI/UI.

I think it would help your case if you make it clear exactly what conclusions you want to derive from the assertion that Mac OS X ~ UNIX + GUI/UI.

I could very well go to a forum and say Jessica Alba is just another woman. The only difference is that she is more attractive. So you could easily just take the skank down the road and you'd get a similar experience.

I think you'll agree that although the assertion that Jessica Alba is just another woman is true, the conclusion of her being somehow equal to any other woman is somewhat misleading. This is the same thing with OS X.

The conclusion you seem to want to draw is that because Mac OS X ~ UNIX + GUI/UI, that means that it can easily be replaced with another unix+GUI, which is a misleading statement.
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post #93 of 186
12/20/07 at 10:15pm
Or, for another analogy, saying os x is just unix with a gui is like saying a car is a human with a paint job.
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post #94 of 186
12/21/07 at 12:01am
I've actually enjoyed the various posts on this thread. As a former Unix SysAdmin, it is good to get under the hood and hear guys talk about the engine, and well as all the old "hotrods" we used along the way. IT guys = the mechanics of the 21st century - just without the grease.

However, there is more to a car than just the engine. People can throw every thing else all under the category of GUI but that is not correct. Some have brought up the frameworks and other aspects that make Mac OS unique. I have tried to present a case that there is something bigger than the UNIX engine, GUI, or frameworks - and that is design.

I can talk form and function maximization but most engine geeks look at me like I am speaking Greek. At least that is what it seems. So let me attack a different angle of design. It is going to involve a pretty good leap too so bear with me. However, it should make sense to most knowledgeable geeks.

I really suspect Apple is slowly moving the Mac OS to OpenDoc. It was a good idea back in the day, just too big of a chunck to bite off back then. We now have more RAM and processors to handle the overhead of OpenDoc. I think Quicklook is one step towards OpenDoc. Think about it for a second and you will see this is true. Also think of what OOP does for app creation and usage.

Just as OOP code is reusable, Apple is designing the building blocks to make OpenDoc happen. We can look at the cores - Core Audio, Core Image, Core Animation - but also look at the Apps. Most people look at them and compare them to other apps - for example iWork to MS Office. But examine all the iWork and iLife apps from an OpenDoc perspective. Apple is getting WP, the Spreadsheet, the HTTP editor, audio, video - all the classes objects and methods developed.

I eventually see the Libraries and their viewing functions of iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie all being incorporated into the Finder. Thus for example, the left hand Pictures, Music, Movies, and Documents all become icons that change the data format on the right hand side to that of the iLife apps. Thus one does not open iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes but in a way, the OS does it behind the scenes and just displays it all in the Finder window on the right side. Same for Mail, Address Book, iCal - even web pages.

Just as iWork Numbers takes spreadsheets and introduces a document focused way to look at spreadsheets, so to will the Finder present a data focused way to look at different types. For most users, the various data types will be stored in centralized libraries and metadata will be used to finding and sorting.

I know I am jumping some into the future of the Mac OS but it is based on Apple's desires in the past and the plotted the progress points from the last ten years. What we have is an OS on its way to an integration of apps and OS unlike anything most people envision. Apps load, open, and shut in the background just by us using various data types. It is all invisible and seamless to the user. If they want to edit the data type, then the core methods are loaded and waiting to go. However, rather than apps, think of them as additional Core Frameworks if you want.

I hope I explained this design trajectory well enough to show how UNIX+GUI+frameworks+Xcode+apps=something much bigger than the sum of their individual parts. It is design but on a whole new dimension. Think OpenDoc with all the pieces Apple has been developing over the years.

I wish I had time to do a mock up of what all this would be like. It would be much easier to understand it then. While Apple is not all the way there yet, they are well on their way to redefining what a computer OS is.

Just as browsers and Java were a threat to MS as a OS agnostic GUI that would render Windows irrelevant, there are other paradigms that can upset the current state of operating systems. While MS can quickly buyout a browser and give it away for free to knockout competition to their desktop OS, they will not be able to buy up software apps and throw them together into an OpenDoc-like OS.

Apple is building all their pieces to their OS and then when they are all ready they will rearrange the tested and proved pieces and combine them into an integrated OS unlike anything most people can envision.

Thus the Mac OS = UNIX + GUI is so very short-sighted. Computers are quickly becoming systems of systems of systems. What people want is high level solutions not do-it-yourself kits to assemble themselves. Just as Apple discovered when they failed with their new OS and had to buy Next, there is only so far you can keep hacking together complex systems. You eventually have to do a rewrite from the ground up. It is this organization and design in the OS code that is a huge deal.

Apple has made that transition and now is extending what the OS can be. But its true design potential has yet to be revealed. MS has not made that transition and probably never will. By the time Apple releases an OpenDoc-like OS, MS will have nothing even close to offer. They are years behind and don't realize it.

MS is planning to fight future and present wars using past strategies and weapons. Apple is designing the IT equivalent of the A-bomb. MS will never stand a chance in this future OS broadside.

Of course, Apple is now much more than an OS company. With its music, phone, and retail business, they are grabbing all their vertical market share and extending the expectations what a computer company is. They are outflanking Microsoft's Maginot Line. Walking into an Apple store and talking to a Apple Genius, taking free how-to-use-app classes leaves MS and all PC makers inadequate. And nobody is going to dare suggest the local Best Buy salesman or Indian tech support person is equivalent.

Apple is changing the war from just an OS war to an all-out tech war. It is fighting on so many more fronts and MS is losing in most of these. The one front Apple is not fighting on is the game console front. However, MS is battling Sony and Nintendo and while standing their ground, they are also not doing well financially in that battle. Thus, this business warfare of a much greater magnitude. MS offers a gun. Apple offers a combined arms military. And Sony and Nintendo are convenient allies - enemies of their enemies.

One can look at just the OS but they need to understand the history, the future, and the context of the battle. So on this bigger perspective, Mac OS is just a portion of the picture.

These are reason why evaluating a current OS by itself is so shortsighted. One needs to look at the past, look to the future, and look at the complete scope of the industry. When one does that, they see the Mac OS is the right train to jump on now. Even if we do not like everything Apple doing, they are still the ticket to ride.

So regardless of the warts Apple has - and it does indeed have some, it is important for anybody in the IT world to start learning the system that will probably make most others obsolete. I know for ex-Amiga people it is hard to win this point. They have been burned once and have gone what they think is pragmatic. But they should not make the mistake the other way now and not jump when they should.

Thanks for your patience with the long post.
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post #95 of 186
12/21/07 at 3:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by giant View Post

Or, for another analogy, saying os x is just unix with a gui is like saying a car is a human with a paint job.

Icecream is just sugared milk.

A human is just a monkey walking upright.

Earth is just another planet with an ozone layer.

Come on, join the game! This is fun!
"I've learned there's more to life than being really, really, really, really, really, really, ridiculously good-looking. :-x" - Zoolander
~:My scraps:~
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"I've learned there's more to life than being really, really, really, really, really, really, ridiculously good-looking. :-x" - Zoolander
~:My scraps:~
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post #96 of 186
12/21/07 at 6:43am
3 pages of discussion on this?
Of course OS X is UNIX with a GUI.

The word "just" might be intended to belittle (or not). But does it really matter?
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post #97 of 186
12/21/07 at 8:36am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin View Post

I think you'll agree that although the assertion that Jessica Alba is just another woman is true, the conclusion of her being somehow equal to any other woman is somewhat misleading. This is the same thing with OS X.

Well, as misleading as claiming that Jessica Alba is this generation's equivalent to Rita Hayworth. As of today, Jessica Alba is "just" another good looking/sexy Hollywood woman, as there are/"have been" hundreds. Only time will tell!

And as for the comment,

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

So regardless of the warts Apple has - and it does indeed have some, it is important for anybody in the IT world to start learning the system that will probably make most others obsolete. I know for ex-Amiga people it is hard to win this point. They have been burned once and have gone what they think is pragmatic. But they should not make the mistake the other way now and not jump when they should.

Well, if anything, that would be one reason to stay away from Mac OS X. If there is something I fear more than MS's dominating position in the OS world (BTW, the company has been punished for its abusive practices) is that a single company would dominate both HW and SW in the desktop. Windows might be a crappy OS in many respects, but it's great in the sense that it runs in a myriad of HW from which I can pick the cheapest/more expensive if I wanted to. One of the William Pitt's (the online sources cannot agree in which one) put it best,

"Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it; and this I know, my lords, that where laws end, tyranny begins"

And a century later, it was Lord Acton, in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 1887 who said,

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

At least Bill Gates is giving away most of his money (and therefore power/influence)!
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post #98 of 186
12/21/07 at 3:30pm
Which would you rather have - a good king or a democracy of fools?

While some may fear one company controlling too much of the IT industry, one has to look at how that company got its power and its actions. I think MS got their power illegally and has held back years of progress in the computer world. On the other hand, name me something bad Apple has done, I mean something worse than the typical rant that their computers are a couple hundred dollars overpriced. I also do not mean bugs and occasion recall stuff. I mean evil stuff.

You could fill a couple volumes with MS actions but you would be hard pressed to do a brochure on Apple. The problem with MS is that is it is a repeat offender. In my opinion they have NOT been adequately punished for their offensives and they refuse to change their MO. Talk about one person or company controlling too much power - is this a reason to not support MS or not to support Apple? You seem to use it against Apple while most everybody else would say this reasoning goes against MS.

As for Gates giving his money away, I see lots of his "charity" as another way to attack his business opponents. Give free PCs to schools - that otherwise would probably use Macs. Also doesn't he give away millions for population control - ie. abortion and contraception? For many people, they would not call that "charity." Same with vaccinations. Mercury anyone?

My point is that Gates is a very controversial figure and I theorize he has quite possibly added nothing of value to IT or charity. In fact, he has done great harm to many innovators. Same with much of his charity. But this is really a side issue.

Iit all comes back to which computer company is the future and why. UNIX is the future and GUIs are here to stay. With that, the Mac OS is in the right place. But there are other things that differentiate the Mac OS from just another UNIX with a GUI. That is what many of us are trying to lay out. Even if we have answered the original question, can we not extend the thread to what Apple has in addition to UNIX and a GUI?

Anybody want to comment on the OpenDoc theory and where the Mac OS is going? I see this as the next big thing in Mac OS development yet most people just give a big yawn. Do people not know about OpenDoc and what it promised. Do you not realize the barriers why it failed in the past are now gone? Do people not see how metadata databases provide a far superior view then the traditional nested folder view? Do people not see how a program like iTunes should get rolled into the OS Finder. Same with the libraries and their views in iPhoto and iMovie.

When the Mac OS boots, it should load the core code into memory to handle all these browsing and finder functions. Then when one looks at a specific data type, the core edit code for that data type should be loaded into RAM and be waiting to go. If it is not used then the user never knows. Else if the user wants to edit the data type, the code is already loaded and immediately ready to go.

Do people not see where OOP is going and where the end of Core frameworks will be? Everybody knocks the Finder yet nobody proposes how to make it better. I mean really make it better. Everything I have read is just little surface stuff - brushed metal this and aqua that. I have laid out a very valid idea where the OS should go and I know there are veteran IT guys on these forums that have to acumen to understand this stuff.

It is one thing to be a geek and get under the hood and build a PC or configure a server. Unix this and GUI that is average mechanic stuff. I want to do the race car stuff - set land speed records - go where no OS has gone before - real geeky stuff. Thus the OpenDoc theory.
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post #99 of 186
12/21/07 at 3:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by curious_about_mac View Post

Well, if anything, that would be one reason to stay away from Mac OS X.

Don't you mean MS?
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post #100 of 186
12/21/07 at 4:39pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by iPeon View Post

Don't you mean MS?

No, I mean Apple. If it had world dominance on both HW and SW in the desktop space it would be a very difficult monster to deal with which would make MS look like an NGO.

Just look at how it is managing the whole iPhone thing, forcing revenue sharing agreements with operators (unheard of in the telephone market), not allowing full openness of the iPhone (it's been only partially openned; and recently due to pressure). A world where 90% of the world computers run Apple SW + HW doesn't sound very appealing to me. If Apple decided to license Mac OS X to third party HW, that would be different story. The game would be even interesting .

And now I go with visionary

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

Which would you rather have - a good king or a democracy of fools?

Not sure whom you are thinking about in each case, but as the founding fathers of the United States brilliantly argue, tyranny is tyranny, be it because it is exercised by a despot or be it because it is imposed by the mobe, which is why the US constitution places such a strong emphasis in individual rights and due process. But that's a different topic and I don't want to get sidetracked

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

On the other hand, name me something bad Apple has done, I mean something worse than the typical rant that their computers are a couple hundred dollars overpriced. I also do not mean bugs and occasion recall stuff. I mean evil stuff.

Until very recently (I claim ~ 2005 when Apple began to get really fat thanks to its good decision of opening iTunes/iPod to Windows users), Apple didn't have that type of leverage. What we have seen in the past 2 years is no different from other companies that began to get big, be it MS, Yahoo or Google. To the iPhone abuse I mentioned (it even had a German court issue an order to liberate the iPhone in that market), you can add its attitude with dealing with the content owners (which is making it tough to negociate good deals with the owners of the industry). The price thing is not a minor issue. One of the merits of MS/Intel, which people don't appreciate enough (even myself, and I insist I am not an MS fun) is that it drove HW (and SW) prices down making it possible for the average person to own a Personal Computer. If the iPhone way is any indication, a desktop world dominated by Apple both in SW and HW will suddenly make Personal Computers unaffordable for a large portion of the population. We'll see how it goes. If Apple decided to support Mac OS X with non Apple HW, we might be talking a very differencet scenario (and a very interesting one, BTW).


Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

As for Gates giving his money away, I see lots of his "charity" as another way to attack his business opponents. Give free PCs to schools - that otherwise would probably use Macs. Also doesn't he give away millions for population control - ie. abortion and contraception? For many people, they would not call that "charity." Same with vaccinations. Mercury anyone?

Even Gates' harshest critics seem to agree that Gates is making a huge positive impact in worthy causes. For you is fine to talk like that, but if you were one of the million people whose live has been saved because of the money Gates has put into vaccinations or HIV/AIDS drugs (the UN and world governments have been totally unable to handle those crisis in the way Gates has) or whose college education has been possible because of Gates Millennium Scholars program, you might have a complete different view.

Look, here in Silicon Valley / Stanford (and this way I gave away a little bit of info), Steve Jobs has a huge fan base. Even myself I admire him very much for many things (I attended almost by chance his now famous commencement speech at Stanford; I didn't know much about him until I went to the Stadium that morning of June 2005). But the very one thing that both admirers and detractors alike seem to have against Steve Jobs is his so far lack of commitment towards philantropic causes. That, despite being one of the richest men in the universe. When he has been challenged about it in public, he has always refused to give an inspiring answer. Maybe whatever he is doing, he is doing it in private (and that would be another reason for admiring him) but to the best of my knowledge, most people I have talked to seem to think it's unlikely.

This society (the US) wouldn't be as great if generations of wealthy business people hadn't given back their fortunes for the benefit of those who were less fortunate. We had Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Howard Hughes, Dave Packard, Bill Hewlett, now the Intel founders, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, even the "Google = evil" guys set up a foundation right away when Google went public. What has done Steve Jobs in this respect? To the best of my knowledge nothing. If that's any indication of how he plans to manage an Apple which would have the leverage and influence of MS, it's damned scary.

Anyway, lets keep the conversation going.

Cheers!
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post #101 of 186
12/21/07 at 5:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

...

Anybody want to comment on the OpenDoc theory and where the Mac OS is going? ...

This is hardly a revelation. OpenDoc was an integral part of System 8 (aka Copland). When Apple cut life support to Copland, it shopped around for a replacement--not just a pre-emptive, multi-user, multi-tasking OS, but one which would include functional replacements for most Copland technologies. We know that Apple considered BeOS, but it was too premature. Apple settled on OpenSTEP because it already had features like Services which can take the place of OpenDoc. OpenSTEP first became Rhapsody and then MacOS X. After MacOS X went live, Apple has gradually moved many Copland features to the OS.
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post #102 of 186
12/21/07 at 5:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

I've actually enjoyed the various posts on this thread. As a former Unix SysAdmin, it is good to get under the hood and hear guys talk about the engine, and well as all the old "hotrods" we used along the way. IT guys = the mechanics of the 21st century - just without the grease.

However, there is more to a car than just the engine. People can throw every thing else all under the category of GUI but that is not correct. Some have brought up the frameworks and other aspects that make Mac OS unique. I have tried to present a case that there is something bigger than the UNIX engine, GUI, or frameworks - and that is design.

I can talk form and function maximization but most engine geeks look at me like I am speaking Greek. At least that is what it seems. So let me attack a different angle of design. It is going to involve a pretty good leap too so bear with me. However, it should make sense to most knowledgeable geeks.

I really suspect Apple is slowly moving the Mac OS to OpenDoc. It was a good idea back in the day, just too big of a chunck to bite off back then. We now have more RAM and processors to handle the overhead of OpenDoc. I think Quicklook is one step towards OpenDoc. Think about it for a second and you will see this is true. Also think of what OOP does for app creation and usage.

Just as OOP code is reusable, Apple is designing the building blocks to make OpenDoc happen. We can look at the cores - Core Audio, Core Image, Core Animation - but also look at the Apps. Most people look at them and compare them to other apps - for example iWork to MS Office. But examine all the iWork and iLife apps from an OpenDoc perspective. Apple is getting WP, the Spreadsheet, the HTTP editor, audio, video - all the classes objects and methods developed.

I eventually see the Libraries and their viewing functions of iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie all being incorporated into the Finder. Thus for example, the left hand Pictures, Music, Movies, and Documents all become icons that change the data format on the right hand side to that of the iLife apps. Thus one does not open iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes but in a way, the OS does it behind the scenes and just displays it all in the Finder window on the right side. Same for Mail, Address Book, iCal - even web pages.

Just as iWork Numbers takes spreadsheets and introduces a document focused way to look at spreadsheets, so to will the Finder present a data focused way to look at different types. For most users, the various data types will be stored in centralized libraries and metadata will be used to finding and sorting.

I know I am jumping some into the future of the Mac OS but it is based on Apple's desires in the past and the plotted the progress points from the last ten years. What we have is an OS on its way to an integration of apps and OS unlike anything most people envision. Apps load, open, and shut in the background just by us using various data types. It is all invisible and seamless to the user. If they want to edit the data type, then the core methods are loaded and waiting to go. However, rather than apps, think of them as additional Core Frameworks if you want.

I hope I explained this design trajectory well enough to show how UNIX+GUI+frameworks+Xcode+apps=something much bigger than the sum of their individual parts. It is design but on a whole new dimension. Think OpenDoc with all the pieces Apple has been developing over the years.

I wish I had time to do a mock up of what all this would be like. It would be much easier to understand it then. While Apple is not all the way there yet, they are well on their way to redefining what a computer OS is.

Just as browsers and Java were a threat to MS as a OS agnostic GUI that would render Windows irrelevant, there are other paradigms that can upset the current state of operating systems. While MS can quickly buyout a browser and give it away for free to knockout competition to their desktop OS, they will not be able to buy up software apps and throw them together into an OpenDoc-like OS.

Apple is building all their pieces to their OS and then when they are all ready they will rearrange the tested and proved pieces and combine them into an integrated OS unlike anything most people can envision.

Thus the Mac OS = UNIX + GUI is so very short-sighted. Computers are quickly becoming systems of systems of systems. What people want is high level solutions not do-it-yourself kits to assemble themselves. Just as Apple discovered when they failed with their new OS and had to buy Next, there is only so far you can keep hacking together complex systems. You eventually have to do a rewrite from the ground up. It is this organization and design in the OS code that is a huge deal.

Apple has made that transition and now is extending what the OS can be. But its true design potential has yet to be revealed. MS has not made that transition and probably never will. By the time Apple releases an OpenDoc-like OS, MS will have nothing even close to offer. They are years behind and don't realize it.

MS is planning to fight future and present wars using past strategies and weapons. Apple is designing the IT equivalent of the A-bomb. MS will never stand a chance in this future OS broadside.

Of course, Apple is now much more than an OS company. With its music, phone, and retail business, they are grabbing all their vertical market share and extending the expectations what a computer company is. They are outflanking Microsoft's Maginot Line. Walking into an Apple store and talking to a Apple Genius, taking free how-to-use-app classes leaves MS and all PC makers inadequate. And nobody is going to dare suggest the local Best Buy salesman or Indian tech support person is equivalent.

Apple is changing the war from just an OS war to an all-out tech war. It is fighting on so many more fronts and MS is losing in most of these. The one front Apple is not fighting on is the game console front. However, MS is battling Sony and Nintendo and while standing their ground, they are also not doing well financially in that battle. Thus, this business warfare of a much greater magnitude. MS offers a gun. Apple offers a combined arms military. And Sony and Nintendo are convenient allies - enemies of their enemies.

One can look at just the OS but they need to understand the history, the future, and the context of the battle. So on this bigger perspective, Mac OS is just a portion of the picture.

These are reason why evaluating a current OS by itself is so shortsighted. One needs to look at the past, look to the future, and look at the complete scope of the industry. When one does that, they see the Mac OS is the right train to jump on now. Even if we do not like everything Apple doing, they are still the ticket to ride.

So regardless of the warts Apple has - and it does indeed have some, it is important for anybody in the IT world to start learning the system that will probably make most others obsolete. I know for ex-Amiga people it is hard to win this point. They have been burned once and have gone what they think is pragmatic. But they should not make the mistake the other way now and not jump when they should.

Thanks for your patience with the long post.

OpenDoc? Get real. This strategy of OOP Reuse is Purely Openstep 5.0. And when Apple finally provides a proper Services interaction it once had under NeXTSTEP/Openstep then we'll see how much these separate frameworks and applications can benefit each other.
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post #103 of 186
12/21/07 at 10:44pm
I know the OpenDoc thing goes way back but what I am commenting on is the effect it can have on the common user and their experience. So yes, we should see OOP and OpenDoc happening but not just in the OS and app code, I mean how it metamorphoses the GUI, especially the Finder.

Is not half of iPhoto, iWeb, and iMovie, plus Mail, Address Book, iTunes, Dictionary, iCal, and Font Book all specific Finders for certain data type or object? They all look very similar too. There other side is the edit or method side, but the first half is the object side, all a type of Finder. Just as Finder loads and runs at all time, so too should these specialized Finders. Apple might even merge all of them into one master Finder. The preferences for these data types would then be under system preferences or Finder preferences.

Small apps like calculator, dvd player, and the utilities would then run as widgets and Apple could finally move to a document centered system rather than the current application centered system. Pro apps might be an exception but I am talking about the average consumer usage.

This is what Apple is doing with iWork. Numbers does not start with a spreadsheet and make a document an afterthought. It starts with a document and one adds a spreadsheet, chart, text, or all the above. This is way beyond OLE and just linking and embedding. This is the OS taking over much of the domain that use to be applications.

MS cannot merge more apps function into the OS without getting hauled into court for monopoly practices and they are walking on eggs now. However, Apple can do this and move to a document centered experience. I think they are step-by-step making this happen.

So my theoretical new-generation Finder goes way beyond the past OpenDoc or current OOP boundaries and ushers in the next big thing in operating systems and apps. I am not sure but zfs might also factor in here since file metadata is more important than some folder location.

On the other issues,

Apple is not the one playing hardball with music or cell phones - at least not to the customer. Music labels can complain all day about how Apple is "ruining their business" but that is not the truth. If the labels cannot make a profit off approximately 79 cents per song, then they need to reform their business model. Apple is on our side on this issue.

As for DRM, Jobs has gone public with his wish. It is not him but the music labels that impose restrictions. And MS is way worse. So in the music industry, Apple is not doing evil at all. It is the good guy fighting for us.

As for cell phones, Apple is again fighting for us. They are innovating where the existing cell phone companies were becoming lazy and greedy. As for getting a cut of the service cost, how is it that different to most consumers? Yes, there are differences in the B2B model but that is between AT&T and Apple. It is the other cell phone companies' PR that are trying to make Apple at war with the consumer. The truth is consumers overwhelmingly love Apple and the iPhone.

As for the iPhone being closed, Apple never said they would always keep it closed. People falsely assumed Apple said this. Yet, everything I have ever read is that Apple only said it was closed for the present. They chose their words very carefully but people assumed closed in the present meant closed in the future. Again, this was PR spin by competitors.

If Apple is truly moving their OS to more of a document centered system than an app centered system, you can understand why Apple is not that interested in opening up the iPhone in the traditional way. Traditional apps have little future there but Apple cannot state all this just yet.

Plus, Apple DID make a way for people to build apps on the current iPhone - through the web browser. So the iPhone was never closed from the beginning. If Google can make an Office Suite in a browser, then one cannot claim a browser app is not a real app. Again PR spin.

To be scared of Apple as some evil empire dwarfing MS is crazy. Stating hypothetical examples of what Apple will do if it takes over SW and HW is not reasonable. I could just as well counter that fallacy with saying that little green men from another galaxy will come down and punish Apple if it does become the next evil empire. One good fallacy deserves another.

If at some future time Apple gains control over all the IT markets and starts being corrupt, then new IT companies will spring up to lead the revolution. It will be hard, yes. And I can see why people should be worried. But if an IT company gets lazy, they will get caught and bypassed. Technology improvements are not always smooth and there are always times where breakthough technologies offer new companies a special ticket to the head of the line.

So for right now, do not call white black and black white. MS is the evil empire not Apple. I truly believe Apple's vision is to make great products that people need and that are powerful and simple to use. They are not interest and never been interested in taking over the world for the sake of power and fortune. This is been Gates goal. He is a business man first and a IT guy second. I believe Jobs is a visionary IT guy first and a business man second.

As for Gates charity, that is debatable. Just look at the US welfare system as an example. They can boast about all the money being spent to help people out and I'm sure can point to some examples how people really did benefit. But the system overall stinks big time. I bet only one cent per dollar goes toward anything even close to being meaningful. In fact, much bad is done that offsets any good happening. So judging charity is not a easy surface matter.

I happen to sit on a charity board that gives away millions so I have lots of experience about this type of thing. I also have personally given away millions to help others so it gets very personal too. Even I am not always sure of the outcomes of my charity, so believe me, charity is not a simple black and white thing.

As for Jobs charity or lack thereof, that should never be our concern, period. To bring it up is deeply wrong, especially when it is off an argument from silence. I see Jobs business work as very beneficial to society so he does not need to sooth his conscience with public acts of charity. Also, who is to say if at sometime in the future, possibly even after his death, that Jobs doesn't do some great public charitable work. Happens all the time.

As for the company doing charity, I strongly believe charity should be left to individuals, not government or corporations. Many companies sponsor charities for PR and marketing anyway. They get to places their normal marketing can't get to. So again, be careful how you judge. Charity many times is anything but that.
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post #104 of 186
12/22/07 at 8:05am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

MS cannot merge more apps function into the OS without getting hauled into court for monopoly practices and they are walking on eggs now. However, Apple can do this and move to a document centered experience. I think they are step-by-step making this happen.

Which you would agree with me gives an unfair advantage to Apple. One that is unlikely to be challenged given the number of friends Apple has in the Democratic controlled congress and very likely Democratic controlled WhiteHouse in 2008. Talking about not being evil!

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

Apple is not the one playing hardball with music or cell phones - at least not to the customer.

I think the German courts think differently. And Europeans in general too. The GSM standard was created to favor interoperability. In most European countries it is possible to buy a terminal and switch carriers at will (although only a few have this enforced by law, like France). The exclusive deals Apple is inking have the only objective of keeping the price of the iPhone high and having a slice of the operator's revenue.

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

Music labels can complain all day about how Apple is "ruining their business" but that is not the truth. If the labels cannot make a profit off approximately 79 cents per song, then they need to reform their business model. Apple is on our side on this issue.

I disagree. It might look like that on the surface. But at the end of the day, if the Music companies, and that's true for any other content provider, get financially squeezed, the long term loser is the consumer since few people are wlling to (not) make a living generating content for free or cheapely.


Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

As for cell phones, Apple is again fighting for us. They are innovating where the existing cell phone companies were becoming lazy and greedy. As for getting a cut of the service cost, how is it that different to most consumers? Yes, there are differences in the B2B model but that is between AT&T and Apple.

Again, I recognize the truly unique innovations of the iPhone. I have never questioned that, though I am not so sure that all other cell phone companies were becoming lazy. At least not in Europe or Japan both of which have very healthy wireless industries (in the case of Nokia, its revenue is a sizeable piece of Findland's GDP).

But that said, I don't think Apple is fighting for us, but for itself (and that kind of hypocrisy is very typical of evil companies). First, they sold the iPhone at $200 more a piece than what they could reasonably afford. Then the "exclusivity" of the deal forces the consumer to pick a specific carrier, then the revenue sharing thing makes the subscription more expensive than it would be otherwise, and finally if this whole think cuts ATT's margins it's the final consumer who is impacted because it would mean less money available from ATT to invest in its network. I happen to have worked in the telecom industry for some years and decreasing margins in that highly competitve industry is a big issue that has put many companies at the verge of Chapter 11. In fact, MCI-World Worldcom was an example of a company which was about to drive many of its competitors to death before it killed itself.

If Apple had released the iPhone unlocked, without forcing the consumer to a 2 year voice + data subscripion model, and at a reasonable price since day 1, I would have agreed with you. But the way Apple has been handling the whole iPhone thing shows that it's becoming an evil company in ways other companies of its leverage have become in the past.


Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

The truth is consumers overwhelmingly love Apple and the iPhone.

Let me rephrase this,

The truth is wealthy consumers overwhelmingly love Apple and the iPhone.

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

To be scared of Apple as some evil empire dwarfing MS is crazy. Stating hypothetical examples of what Apple will do if it takes over SW and HW is not reasonable.

It's showing with the iPhone my friend! And it's very reasonable, except, of course, if you have a cult-like following with Apple, which I don't. I am just being realistic. The IT/desktop world has enough with a single company owning the SW. What could be worse than that? A single company owning both SW and HW!

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

If at some future time Apple gains control over all the IT markets and starts being corrupt, then new IT companies will spring up to lead the revolution. It will be hard, yes. And I can see why people should be worried. But if an IT company gets lazy, they will get caught and bypassed. Technology improvements are not always smooth and there are always times where breakthough technologies offer new companies a special ticket to the head of the line.

As MS' case shows, it's not that simple to take away a 90%+ market share once you are a established player.

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

MS is the evil empire not Apple. I truly believe Apple's vision is to make great products that people need and that are powerful and simple to use.

Around 2 weeks ago, I attended an event hosted at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View to celebrate the C64. Among the panelists there was S Wozniak and Jack Tramiel (founder of Commodore). Jack put it best when asked about the different approach at the time of Apple vs Commodore: "at Commodore we always built computer for the masses, while Apple built computers for the classes". Woz was unable to reply to that.

Apple's evil empire building is potentially more dangerous for the consumers since it makes sure that all of its gadgets are only affordable by the economic elite. It's not there yet, but as I said, it's only recently that Apple has achieved a size that allows it to have a significant leverage; and from what it is showing, is not very appealing for the average consumer.

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

They are not interest and never been interested in taking over the world for the sake of power and fortune. This is been Gates goal. He is a business man first and a IT guy second. I believe Jobs is a visionary IT guy first and a business man second.

I don't think very highly of either in that respect. We haven't had true "enlightened business leaders" in the IT/electronics markets after the deaths of Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard.

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

As for Gates charity, that is debatable. Just look at the US welfare system as an example. They can boast about all the money being spent to help people out and I'm sure can point to some examples how people really did benefit. But the system overall stinks big time. I bet only one cent per dollar goes toward anything even close to being meaningful. In fact, much bad is done that offsets any good happening. So judging charity is not a easy surface matter.

Talking about making unsupported statements....

Again, that's because you have never needed any help from charity (thankfully me either).
It's like saying that just because the UN is a corrupted body (which it is), one should never give money to UNICEF. You can always improve efficiencies but even if the end result is that 1 person saved his/her life (and Gates' contributions have saved millions), then I think it's worth it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

Even I am not always sure of the outcomes of my charity, so believe me, charity is not a simple black and white thing.

I believe you, but at the same time I am humbled by Gates' efforts. It takes a lot of courage to do what he and his wife are doing. Except for Hewlett and Packard it was unheard of among high tech executives to give away most of one's money to charity.

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

As for Jobs charity or lack thereof, that should never be our concern, period. To bring it up is deeply wrong, especially when it is off an argument from silence. I see Jobs business work as very beneficial to society so he does not need to sooth his conscience with public acts of charity. Also, who is to say if at sometime in the future, possibly even after his death, that Jobs doesn't do some great public charitable work. Happens all the time.

As for the company doing charity, I strongly believe charity should be left to individuals, not government or corporations. Many companies sponsor charities for PR and marketing anyway. They get to places their normal marketing can't get to. So again, be careful how you judge. Charity many times is anything but that.

I am giving Jobs the benefit of the doubt, as I made it very clear in my previous posting.
As to the purpose of a company I disagree (and the emphasis it places in corporate ctizenship). I tend to agree with Dave Packard in that respect, who put it best in 1948 (well before HP was a giant),

http://hpcorp.feedroom.com/index.jsp...77ca09b01c2bc6

The DNA of what a company is all about is put very early on. In that respect, neither Apple nor Steve Jobs (so far) measure up to MS and Gates (http://www.microsoft.com/about/corpo...g/default.mspx), and of course, not at all to Bill and Dave's HP (http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/grants/index.html, http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/grants/bg_9...ilanthropy.pdf).
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post #105 of 186
12/22/07 at 8:34am
Thread Starter 
Are related to having spent 4 years at HP. Look at what he says here,

http://hpcorp.feedroom.com/?fr_story...8ed0da7390404b

Maybe Steve Jobs didn't get enough HP exposure?????

Cheers!
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post #106 of 186
12/22/07 at 8:42am
Well, at least you finally realized what an awful job you were doing at pretending not to be a common, immature troll and gave up. Perhaps you should start a new thread catch-all thread to dump your ranting so people looking for a technical discussion don't have to waste clicks on you.
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post #107 of 186
12/22/07 at 8:57am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by giant View Post

Well, at least you finally realized what an awful job you were doing at pretending not to be a common, immature troll and gave up. Perhaps you should start a new thread catch-all thread to dump your ranting so people looking for a technical discussion don't have to waste clicks on you.

I am not sure what you are talking about. I didn't take the discussion away from the technical thing. I stay behind my conclusion after reading all sides: Mac OS X ~ UNIX + GUI/UI (since purists don't like "=" ).

Then if people like visionary make propagandistic statements about the "Apple's good nature" vs "MS' evil nature", as a technical argument to go Max OS X, I have to set the record straight.

It's people like you who are showing how intolerant and irrational some Mac OS X users are. If you are unhappy with the content of the discussion, it's easy: don't read this thread. If you want to censor what I say, talk to te forum managers. And if I get censored because of my postings, it would be yet another proof of how toxic the Mac religion is (and the need to stay away from it!).

Although, after checking the threads you have started, I am really bewildered by your comment. You don't come across as a technical guy but rather as a radical leftist troll (I must admit that I like this slang ) who uses AppleInsider to spread political propaganda. Your remark is at the very minimum ironic. If your concern is whether I plan to compete with you, rest assured, I don't intend to. Not that I dislike talking about politics, but I wouldn't do that at a website forum whose major focus is technology. My genuine question at the beginning was whether Mac OS X = UNIX + GUI/UI. After hearing all those that have spoken, my conclusion is indeed, Mac OS X ~ UNIX + GUI/UI. Which is a great thing.

If others want to talk about the evil/good nature of companies, I am open to it too, of course!

Cheers!
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post #108 of 186
12/22/07 at 3:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by curious_about_mac View Post

No, I mean Apple. If it had world dominance on both HW and SW in the desktop space it would be a very difficult monster to deal with which would make MS look like an NGO.

I have to disagree with you on this. It is the intent that differentiates good from bad. And good from bad is defined only from the view point of the observer. Having dominance (control) over something is not a bad thing in-itself. It is how you use such responsibility that does. If you didn't have the ability to control what you do you would be hard pressed getting anything done. Matter of fact, control is what defines sanity. If you look at an insane person or entity you will immediately recognize this aspect - they are insane because they have no ability to control.

Now, what differentiates MS from Apple? Let me put it another way, when you are using a MS product do you as a user feel you are in full control?

Let me back up and share an experience I just had the other day.

A get a call from a friend of mine. She had purchased a wireless keyboard and mouse and wanted me to come over and install it. I'm thinking, it's just a keyboard and mouse what could be so difficult about that. But I know how frustrating she gets when trying to instal anything on her PC. Fine, I agree to go do that for her.

I get there and plug the thing. I'm thinking that it should just be plug and play. I mean, it's a MS mouse and a MS keyboard on a MS Windows OS, Windows XP to be exact.

No. The thing does not work, no curser, no signs of life. OK. I unplug it and plug in the old one so I can work. Insert the CD, a window pops up on the screen and I'm ready to install the software. Soon after that a second window pops up on top of the first one with an alert message. It basically said, "Alert, what you are about to install is not recognized, we do not recommend that you install this product. Do you want to stop or go ahead and install it?" It's a MS product for crying out loud, how can a MS product not recognize another MS product? Crazy! I opt to take my chances and go ahead with the installation.

Back to installation. First it wants to know the model of the keyboard that I'm installing. After some investigation I find the model number, then look for the keyboard model inside this long list which is inside a drop down down menu of all places to be in. Same exercise goes for the mouse.

Good, we are done and can now plug in the keyboard and mouse. Not! Plug in the hardware and a PC "detects" that new hardware has been plugged in! It now wants to run a "Wizard" to set things up!

Is that sane? From my viewpoint it is not. It is insane! So yes, is it a bad thing for an insane company to have dominance over the market? Absolutely!

That is what differentiates Apple from MS. Apple is sane while MS is insane. MS lacks the ability to control.
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post #109 of 186
12/22/07 at 4:14pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by iPeon View Post

I have to disagree with you on this. It is the intent that differentiates good from bad. And good from bad is defined only from the view point of the observer. Having dominance (control) over something is not a bad thing in-itself. It is how you use such responsibility that does. If you didn't have the ability to control what you do you would be hard pressed getting anything done. Matter of fact, control is what defines sanity. If you look at an insane person or entity you will immediately recognize this aspect - they are insane because they have no ability to control.



Hi!

giant permitting, I give you my opinion on good/evil companies and why I fear more an ultra-powerful Apple than an ultra-powerful MS. Of course, you are free to disagree, but if you get nasty, so I will .

It's a behavior seen again and again in companies that have monopoly status (legal or illegal) in a particular domain. Once they reach the point in which they achieve monopoly status, they forget about customers and begin to impose their own view of how "things ought to be" in order to maximize their own profits. When there is fair competition, the consumer benefits. When competition is over, the consumer suffers the tyranny of the monopolist. You saw that with IBM up until the eighties (the open architecture of the IBM PC is what freed us from IBM's tyranny in the PC and we all benefited from that), you saw that with the telecom companies before deregulation (it can even be argued that it's still true today where the situation is of oligopoly instead fo monopoly), you saw that with MS, you saw that with Intel, you saw that with Yahoo and Google (these two in their dealings with privacy at home and free speech abroad) and you are starting to see it with Apple today.

Take MS as an example. Until the release of Windows 95/98, they got pretty busy releasing new and better versions of MS-DOS and Windows (I am not getting in who copied whom; that discussion for a different time). Then they became the de facto monopoly, and the rate of release of new/better versions of their OS was decreased dramatically, to the point that it took them 5 years to release Vista when the latest OS had been XP!!!. In the 5 years between 1995 to 2000, MS released Windows 95, 98, ME, NT 3.X (even for Digital Computers), NT 4.0 and Windows 2000, many of them with their respetive Service Packs. We saw again the same behavior with Internet Explorer. They kept improving it as long as they saw Netscape Navigator/Communicator as a threat. They stopped adding features with IE 6.0 and it took another threat (Firefox) to get them serious again with IE 7.0.

In the case of Apple, it's so convinced that it will replicate in the smart phone space its success with the iPod (here too the consumers are abused since Apple doesn't make it easy to play music non bought with iTunes, drag and drop doesn't do the trick for things like mp3 files; you need to go through iTunes which at the very minimum makes you waste disk space), that the whole go to market strategy for the iPhone has been abusive with the consumer since day 1 (I already explained why in a previous post, so I don't need to explain it again). Just thnking about Apple dominating both HW and SW in the desktop gives me have headaches. Suddenly, forget about choices in HW. Only Apple produced gadgets will be allowed. And for those who dare use something else, with Mac OS X, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple sued them.

Of course not all evils were created equals. Yahoo cooperated with the Chinese government to jail a political disident and both Yahoo and Google have agreed to collaborate with censonship in China and other countries. By their very nature of their businesses, neither MS nor Apple are likely to engage in this type of evil, but still, as a consumer of HW/SW the thought of a single company dominating both drives me nuts.

Quote:
Originally Posted by iPeon View Post

Let me back up and share an experience I just had the other day....

I must admit it was a funny story. I have of course experienced similar things, but it was long time ago and with non MS approved hardware. I had to reinstall Windows XP a few times in my old PC (one of the things that I hate most about Windows is its "degeneration with use" feature) but I never had the issues you mentioned with XP, not even with non MS hw. Maybe the problem was the HW maker????

Cheers!
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post #110 of 186
12/22/07 at 6:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by curious_about_mac View Post

Hi!

giant permitting, I give you my opinion on good/evil companies and why I fear more an ultra-powerful Apple than an ultra-powerful MS. Of course, you are free to disagree, but if you get nasty, so I will .



Absolutely. I enjoy exchanging viewpoints.

From my viewpoint MS has been evil (stupid) from the get go. Apple on the other hand has not. What do I define as evil? It is evident that stupidity is the source of evil since something evil is evil because it is too stupid to realize the consequences of it's actions.

Would Apple turn "Evil" if it had a monopoly? If it did it would find itself out of business sooner or later, just as MS has found itself out of business as far as my wallet is concerned. So this postulated fear isn't something I ponder upon.

Quote:
I must admit it was a funny story. I have of course experienced similar things, but it was long time ago and with non MS approved hardware. I had to reinstall Windows XP a few times in my old PC (one of the things that I hate most about Windows is its "degeneration with use" feature) but I never had the issues you mentioned with XP, not even with non MS hw. Maybe the problem was the HW maker????



The HW was from MS itself. This happened on a MS keyboard and mouse!
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post #111 of 186
12/22/07 at 10:26pm
curious about mac,

It is true that power does corrupt usually, but history is also filled with examples of people who buck this trend. The question is if there is a pattern why some people seem to "not take the ring of power." I would also say just because somebody was evil in the past does not mean that they cannot reform. Also, the opposite - just because somebody has always been nice, does not mean they will never do something evil. So predicting the future is hard to do.

I see how if we get one dominate company in charge of both HW and SW that they could really abuse their power. And we all should be wary of this. But you seem to think Apple is starting to do this. I disagree from the data you presented.

You talk about Apple taking money away from the cell phone telecoms with their iPhone pricing. However, I would rather give the money to Apple than to the cell phone companies. I think Apple would do a better job with using this money to create better products then any telecom would. I think most people would agree with me too.

Also, no telecom company was forced to do a deal with Apple. Obviously AT&T thought they would be better off partnering with Apple then not partnering with them. Apple thought they would be better doing a exclusive deal with one manufacture than trying to work with all telecoms. So don't be so quick to speak for telecoms like AT&T when your view of how the telecoms feel is not based on solid facts. AT&T might be very pleased with their deal. At the very least I do not concede your viewpoint as proven.

I think everybody would ideally agree that it would be best for us for Apple to open the iPhone up in all ways. However, I am not sure we have proven this strategy actually better in the long term. Apple has to make money to continue to drive their innovation. They need to not take too much and not too little. I think we can all agree on this. The question is what would have happened had Apple opened the iPhone to all carriers. What would be all the ramifications. Until that is explained, we cannot be sure Apple took a wrong path.

With the iPhone price reduction, Apple admitted they took too much and they compensated people for it. I have never heard a company do what Apple did over this issue. Yes, I have heard of good things companies do for an individual here or there, but to do something that big and so public? Yet, people use this as evidence that Apple is bad. However, also I think the evidence can just as well prove that they are good.

As for the iPod being an example of something bad by making people use iTunes and not making it easy enough to load music onto an iPod without it, I also disagree. Would not people complain if Apple didn't provide such a utility? I like iTunes and how it brings organization to my music collection and I think people are probably foolish who don't use it. Maybe a few people have valid reasons not to but I don't concede this point at all. I would definitely not use it as an example of how Apple is somehow evil or abusing its power.

They want people to experience the complete system and not just sample a portion of it and then reach an inaccurate conclusion. Apple is not a HW company or a SW company - they are a solutions company. People who want to mix and match don't understand what Apple is really trying to do.

Why don't you complain about the auto industry using the same logic? When you buy a Chevy, you actually have to buy an all-Chevy car. According to your logic, we would be better off if everybody could choose pistons from one company, fuel injectors from another, a starter from a third company, a couple seats from another, and so on. Don't you see how this system of systems would be maddening for most customers? For some grease monkeys it would be heaven but for most people it would be hell.

What we need is cars that use the same gas and use the same roads using the same lighting signals and standard user interface. But we should be thankful auto companies provide whole cars, not puzzle pieces to assemble by the user. This analogy sums up why Apple is different. You can see this as evil but most people beg to differ.

Apple is not trying to please all grease monkeys but to provide solutions for most people - and by most people I mean - even grease monkeys can appreciate a great complete car too. You want a hotrod or a race car? Build a linux server or a PC, but don't complain that not everybody is a geek like you.

Apple is targeting their computer for personal use at home. This is also why Apple does not fight hard for the enterprise. Most business PCs run Office or one custom app for their particular business. How can Apple improve on this? What benefits does their GUI and multimedia frameworks provide?

Plus, the profit margins on these machines are cut-throat. And hardly anybody gets a BMW, Lexus, or Cadillac for a company car. Don't get mad at Apple for making a great driving machine and not entering budget enterprise markets that are saturated. If PC makers didn't saturate this market, then Apple would probably step up to the plate. So I don't think it is right to knock Apple as elitist.

One last point, it was said,

"Of course, you are free to disagree, but if you get nasty, so I will."

May I suggest they following,

"Of course, you are free to disagree, but if you get nasty, I will not follow a fool in his folly. "

Is it better to kill a Tiger in a fight or to tame it with patience and kindness? Both take strength and courage - just one way ends up with a friend.
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post #112 of 186
12/23/07 at 8:12am
I can't believe this is still going. I thought Curious and I had this cleared up in the first few posts, but I guess not. (This is smashbrosfan btw)

It's been fun reading about the history of OS X, but really. Was it worth the bickering? I don't think by any means that OS X is Unix + GUI, but if the goat wont listen, he won't listen. No need to spend so much time on it.
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post #113 of 186
12/23/07 at 11:03am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

curious about mac,
...So predicting the future is hard to do.

True.

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

You talk about Apple taking money away from the cell phone telecoms with their iPhone pricing.

Not only that, it forces the consumer to use a particular carrier and to use it for 2 years! So it's also abusing the consumers. Truth to be told, those consumers who buy, no body forces them to buy in the first place because today we have competition.

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

However, I would rather give the money to Apple than to the cell phone companies. I think Apple would do a better job with using this money to create better products then any telecom would. I think most people would agree with me too.

A cell phone without a decent network is useless. The iPhone might be a very nice gadget, but it needs a good working network to be of use. If all you want is a PDA or an iPod, you don't need to buy an iPhone. More over, few people would buy an iPhone just for that.

To give some data, you can take a look at how expensive is to maintain a network by taking a look a the reduced margins of the netwok operators (when compared to Apple's),

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=S&annual
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=T&annual
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=vz&annual

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=AAPL&annual

Some companies like Sprint are struggling because it's a fierce world out there. When was the last time your cell monthly payment increased? For the last 10 years or so, in voice services you've had for the same money more anytime monthly minutes and extended hours for the unlimited minutes. In addition, hundreds of thousands of employees make a living out of the combined Sprint, ATT and Verizon businesses, while only a tiny 20 something K make living out of Apple (and I am including the retailing employees).

Is a nice gadget, and filling the pockets of Apple employees, really worth putting pressure on the operators? Well, I don't think so. In some respects, is what MS did with MSDOS/Windows: it filled its pockets at the expense of manufacturers of computers (who are the ones who have very reduced margins).

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

Also, no telecom company was forced to do a deal with Apple. Obviously AT&T thought they would be better off partnering with Apple then not partnering with them. Apple thought they would be better doing a exclusive deal with one manufacture than trying to work with all telecoms.
So don't be so quick to speak for telecoms like AT&T when your view of how the telecoms feel is not based on solid facts. AT&T might be very pleased with their deal. At the very least I do not concede your viewpoint as proven.

Obviously AT&T thought it would benefit from it. But didn't IBM think also it would benefit from MS and look at what ended up happening?
As of today, AT&T is clearly on the losing side of the deal, since ~ 1/6th of the iPhones are not being activated wth AT&T. So while Apple is not getting as much profit from those 1/6th as it hoped, AT&T is not getting any.

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

Apple has to make money to continue to drive their innovation. They need to not take too much and not too little. I think we can all agree on this.

Yes

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

The question is what would have happened had Apple opened the iPhone to all carriers. What would be all the ramifications. Until that is explained, we cannot be sure Apple took a wrong path.

As the French, German markets and the hacked US iPhones showed, Apple would make enough money out of selling just the iPhone. And those iPhones work equally well with all networks (you don't have the integration with the voicemail but few consumers care about that). What Apple is really after in its exclusive deals is an exagerated profit, even if it's at the expense of the operator. In that respect it is showing "evil traits" that can only grow over time.

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

With the iPhone price reduction, Apple admitted they took too much and they compensated people for it. I have never heard a company do what Apple did over this issue.

The compensation came only after intensive pressure from consumers. The original position of Jobs was,

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/product...bs-qanda_N.htm

"Q: What do you say to customers who just bought a new iPhone for $599? Sorry?

A: That's technology. If they bought it this morning, they should go back to where they bought it and talk to them. If they bought it a month ago, well, that's what happens in technology. "

And the following day you had,

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/openiphoneletter/

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

Yes, I have heard of good things companies do for an individual here or there, but to do something that big and so public? Yet, people use this as evidence that Apple is bad. However, also I think the evidence can just as well prove that they are good.

Let's be serious here. How many iPods had been sold before the price cut? I bet that less than one million, so comparatively it didn't cost much to Apple to do this. It was just a marketing thing and it was forced by the upset consumers. Without the consumer pressure, there is no way Apple had done it. And even with the pressure, I doubt that Apple would have done it if it had been selling million of iPods.

Many companies engage in voluntary recall programs proactively (especially in the car industry you mention below), before any customer pressure mounts.

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

Would not people complain if Apple didn't provide such a utility? I like iTunes and how it brings organization to my music collection and I think people are probably foolish who don't use it. Maybe a few people have valid reasons not to but I don't concede this point at all. I would definitely not use it as an example of how Apple is somehow evil or abusing its power.

I think that the whole point is freedom. For those who want to have the feature, great, it should be there. For those who don't (like myself), there should be a way to do it directly. And that point is only raised without getting paranoid. If I want to get a little bit paranoid, I could even argue that the reason Apple does this is to get info of which music/audio I use for marketing purposes. It's like the sync thing. By the time I bought my iPod, it could be disabled (which is what I do), but I don't see the point in forcing people to sych their iPods Apple's way.

I only have blind allegiance to myself. This thing of "trust me, I am good" doesn't look very appealing to me. And when the guy/entity who says that is a corporation making several billion dollars of profit a year, I am even more suspicious.

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

They want people to experience the complete system and not just sample a portion of it and then reach an inaccurate conclusion. Apple is not a HW company or a SW company - they are a solutions company. People who want to mix and match don't understand what Apple is really trying to do.

Let me rephrase this. They want to impose in people "a given way" of experiencing technology, the Apple Way. Well, for those who want to be imposed, is fine. But for those like me who have their own idea of how to use technology, I appreciate the extra things, but I also want the freedom to do what I please. And I profit from this answer to express another of the things that I hate most about Windows. Its closed nature. As a UNIX guy, I love to be able to debug things when there are problems (I can boot the system in single user mode, check config files, recompile the kernel if necessary, etc). In Windows, you know that the debugging steps are reduced to:

1- reboot
2- If "1-" didn't work, re-install.

As long as Mac OS X is UNIX + GUI, you have the freedom. If the move to a MS model for both SW + HW and they dominate the Deskop, it's very scary.

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

Why don't you complain about the auto industry using the same logic? ...

I could, but I was complaining about Apple's conversion to evil (which might argued and that's what we are talking about ). The car industry is already established. I don't want a similar oligopoly in computers.

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

Apple is targeting their computer for personal use at home. This is also why Apple does not fight hard for the enterprise. Most business PCs run Office or one custom app for their particular business. How can Apple improve on this? What benefits does their GUI and multimedia frameworks provide?

Again, nothing against them giving that, but they should also give the freedom to those who think otherwise. Given Mac OS X' UNIX roots, it should be very easy. Removing freedom, in my opinion, has only one objective: to achieve monopolistic status in both SW and HW. And as I said, in my opinion, the go to market strategy of the iPhone seems to confirm that.

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

So I don't think it is right to knock Apple as elitist.

$200 dollars here and there (in things like accessories) might not be a big difference for you, but it adds up very quickly for the average person. Just visit HP's online store for PCs and compare prices with equivalent Macs. The price difference is dramatic.

As a matter of comparison, the C64 in its day sold for ~ 1/3 rd of the Apple II despite both had similar technical specs (the C64 had even more memory).

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

May I suggest they following,

"Of course, you are free to disagree, but if you get nasty, I will not follow a fool in his folly. "

Is it better to kill a Tiger in a fight or to tame it with patience and kindness? Both take strength and courage - just one way ends up with a friend.

Sure, but at the same time, I hate unpunished bullies, they make this world harder than what it would be otherwise. There is some comprise.

Finally,

Quote:
Originally Posted by Synthetic Frost View Post

I can't believe this is still going. I thought Curious and I had this cleared up in the first few posts, but I guess not. (This is smashbrosfan btw)
It's been fun reading about the history of OS X, but really. Was it worth the bickering? I don't think by any means that OS X is Unix + GUI, but if the goat wont listen, he won't listen. No need to spend so much time on it.

Believe me, the issue Mac OX X ~ UNIX + GUI is very clear in my mind now. But!, if people are willing to discuss about other things, I am very happy to do so!
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post #114 of 186
12/23/07 at 10:31pm
Well, I think you have a few points but I think I do too. Sometimes the best we can do is agree to disagree. Still, I find the forums a good place to organize my thoughts and test them against others. I also have found it a great place to learn info.

I really wish more people would pick up on the OpenDoc future of OS X and how it can impact the whole computer experience. I know I am extremely good at analyzing data and repeatedly see things before others. I am use to others not getting it, but always search for others who do.

Granted the move to document-centered systems from app-centered systems is not a sure thing, but it sure seems to be where Apple is going. And I want them to go there. I do not think that is the only innovation possible in the Finder and OS but it is a big one.

Other things I would love to see added are good voice-to-text input and something to replace the mouse. Wrist problems are a real pain.
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post #115 of 186
12/23/07 at 11:08pm
I disagree. There is plenty you can do in the command line (more than in the GUI in fact) and lots of ways to mess around with the UI if you have the know-how and inclination.

Quote:
Originally Posted by smashbrosfan View Post

If you LIKE messing around with the command line and tweaking the OS to your every whim, then OS X isn't for you.
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post #116 of 186
12/24/07 at 1:31am
Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

I know I am extremely good at analyzing data and repeatedly see things before others. I am use to others not getting it, but always search for others who do.

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post #117 of 186
12/24/07 at 2:18am
Quote:
Originally Posted by curious_about_mac View Post

Believe me, the issue Mac OX X ~ UNIX + GUI is very clear in my mind now.

That was never really an issue because it's too vague. The issue stems from what implications you make by that assertion, which is why people question that assertion. What you are implying from the statement is still unclear.

Quote:
Originally Posted by curious_about_mac

Well, as misleading as claiming that Jessica Alba is this generation's equivalent to Rita Hayworth. As of today, Jessica Alba is "just" another good looking/sexy Hollywood woman, as there are/"have been" hundreds. Only time will tell!

From this you seem to be saying that you would agree OS X is good now but because it is UNIX+GUI, it may be replicated sometime in the future.

I would suggest it's not so much you think the OS X experience will be replicated but you just want it to be and have decided it will be in your mind because OS X is simply UNIX with a GUI. This is simple enough to be replicated in your eyes. This means at some point in the future, since you don't want to pay for Apple's hardware, you will be able to have the cheap PC hardware that you prefer and run a good OS on it.

We see this viewpoint all the time from PC users who just want to use OS X as an alternative to Windows but prefer the cheaper PC hardware. What never seems to sink in is that Apple is not primarily a software company but a hardware company -> Mac, ipod, apple TV, iphone.

I'm personally a bit tired of Apple's hardware options too but Apple haven't given any indication they will license OS X for generic hardware. Nor have Microsoft or the Linux community shown they will replicate the OS X experience anytime soon.
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post #118 of 186
12/24/07 at 3:32am
Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

Well, I think you have a few points but I think I do too. Sometimes the best we can do is agree to disagree. Still, I find the forums a good place to organize my thoughts and test them against others. I also have found it a great place to learn info.

I really wish more people would pick up on the OpenDoc future of OS X and how it can impact the whole computer experience. I know I am extremely good at analyzing data and repeatedly see things before others. I am use to others not getting it, but always search for others who do.

Granted the move to document-centered systems from app-centered systems is not a sure thing, but it sure seems to be where Apple is going. And I want them to go there. I do not think that is the only innovation possible in the Finder and OS but it is a big one.

Other things I would love to see added are good voice-to-text input and something to replace the mouse. Wrist problems are a real pain.

Let me make it clear. During the merger between NeXT and Apple there was discovered a lot of NeXT technologies that duplicate OpenDoc which were internal to NeXT and have been slowly making their way into current revisions of OS X.

Nothing in OpenDoc made it compelling to keep doing the research and development.

http://prefab.com/essays/opendocopenstep.html

What Scott didn't realize is that there was a lot of in-house technologies never released that duplicated OpenDoc, but were already Openstep developed.

When you see these "similarities" to OpenDoc I can see you forseeing a revival in it. The fact is that these ideas were well-used inside NeXT Corporate.
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post #119 of 186
12/24/07 at 8:33am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin View Post

That was never really an issue because it's too vague. The issue stems from what implications you make by that assertion, which is why people question that assertion. What you are implying from the statement is still unclear.

I think I have been very clear for those who were willing to listen.
As a system that is essentially a UNIX + GUI, there are plenty of positive things that I see in Mac OS X. All the other fancy stuff, although I acknowledge they might be useful for some people, it's unlikely to be of use to me since it's the UNIX +GUI aspects that I care about.
Put it in another way: if Mac OS X didn't have a UNIX core/roots (say it had a Windows NT kernel as was suggested by somebody) but it still had all the UI fancy stuff, it would be a no brainer to me: no way I am going to switch to Mac OS X: I wouldn't care about the fancy stuff and I'd be happy with the Windows UI bacause it allows me to do all I need to do and it runs on way cheaper HW. Is prescisely because it's UNIX, that I have second thoughts. And that's the genune question that I had at the begining. My friend was convinced that the UNIX roots of Mac OS X is a very tiny aspect of Mac OS X. Well, I said, if Mac OS X isn't ~ UNIX + GUI, then what is it? From listening to people, it seems clear that Mac OS X's UNIX roots is 90% of what makes Mac OS X a good OS (all the other features that people have been talking about, wouldn't run as nice in a non-UNIX kernel, you might even amuse yourself painting the Desktop when the kernel was unable to effectively handle multi CPU / multi threaded processes, as it is possible to do with Windows). It might all end up being a "question of taste". Some people wouldn't give a damn for the internals of the OS in order to have the most tasteful/nicest GUI/UI while others, like me, don't give a damn for a nice GUI/UI if the internals are crappy. It turns out that Mac OS X, in my view, seems to be a great OS not because of its fancy GUI but because its UNIX internals.

Which takes me to

Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin View Post

We see this viewpoint all the time from PC users who just want to use OS X as an alternative to Windows but prefer the cheaper PC hardware. What never seems to sink in is that Apple is not primarily a software company but a hardware company -> Mac, ipod, apple TV, iphone.

This aspect seems to be ignored by most Apple followers, but it's an important one. From the Apple website, a basic 13 inch, 1GB RAM, 80 GB disk, 2.0 GHz dual proc Mac has a base value of $1099. The more or less equivalent config from HP (it has 14 inch screen and a 120 GB instead) costs $874 at HP. That's $225 less (and you even get a slightly larger screen and a larger hard disk). If you begin to add other stuff (like more memory/harddisk and applications), the price difference keeps increasing. Say the final price difference is $400 or even more for higher end models (larger screens, etc). For Silicon Valley engineers (who belong to the economic elite of the planet) that might not be a lot of money, but for other people it is. At the end of the day, the average consumer doesn't have any vested interest in making Apple rich vs making MS rich (or vice versa) but in addressing his computer needs. A cheap HW running MS software seems to be doing the job for most people. And the argument, pay me $400 more and you'll get a way fancier GUI doesn't seem to resonate much among the average consumer.

And finally,

Quote:
Originally Posted by visionary View Post

Well, I think you have a few points but I think I do too. Sometimes the best we can do is agree to disagree. Still, I find the forums a good place to organize my thoughts and test them against others. I also have found it a great place to learn info.

Yes, I have learned a lot too. I am way more prepared now to argue my UNIX + GUI point than I was before the thread started.

Merry Christmas to all of you!
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post #120 of 186
12/24/07 at 11:38am
Your assessment is correct, but like all flavors of UNIX, it's evolved from the base since its inception. The original 10.0 used mostly UNIX systems and utilities, but since then Apple has evolved the Darwin core. So, for example, Apple no longer uses UNIX mail, chron, and has never used the UNIX file system.

I think the biggest improvements aren't to the actual Darwin core, nor to the GUI. Apple has improved the experience beyond that, writing powerful libraries and optimizations into their programming language, Objective-C. Core data, core animation, webkit, quicktime, etc... all allow you to write software for the Macintosh platform that looks great, runs fast, and is stable.

Additionally, the new version of OS X server offers its own departures. It's really the first version of server that does significant things that you couldn't do on your normal mac. Previously, they were both using the same UNIX libraries, and server offered a GUI for the management and metrics (and trimmed away some of the frill). It's now capable of offering collaboration services out to other macs and macintosh applications. Just a small offering now - wikiserver, podcast producer, and iCal server - but I'd look for more of this in the future if it's successful. And, of course, all these libraries are accessible to app programmers, and as such, they can be integrated into your applications.

So, I think you're right to insist that OS X is basically a UNIX derivative, but that your friend is also right to point out that you're getting a lot more out of it than just it's UNIX core and GUI. Although if what you're saying is true, he may not truly appreciate what exactly Apple has done for him.
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