Yes, it was such a stupid idea to include a video interface port that lets you connect to anything from VGA on up to HDMI and DVI monitors with the addition of an inexpensive adapter.
Especially since some of the monitors' interface connectors wouldn't fit on a laptop as thin as the new MB/MBP set.
What could they possibly have been thinking?
Harsh. I believe he was referring to mini-DisplayPort and mini-DVI ports, not regular DisplayPort and DVI ports themselves. Hopefully I remembered this correctly, but I think the standard DisplayPort port might have fit on the new MacBooks too, as someone commented in another thread. I won't argue such points as I'm not an expert on computer hardware. I do believe that I can speak for many people when I say that proprietary ports can cause some frustration to end users with the added expense of more cables and converters than would otherwise be necessary if all manufacturers stuck to universal ports for all products. And at the same time, as I stated in my reply to the original poster of the quote in your post, I can see the good business decision of creating proprietary ports to lock in consumers to one company's product line.
In my opinion only, I think Apple made the right choice creating mini ports as their refined designs practically require them. And at the same time, I can appreciate another's point of view without mocking them.
No. In general, rewriting things in Cocoa makes them slower because of dynamic binding and less optimization opportunities for the engine. However, because Apple has much more expertise in Cocoa and it integrates better into the latest frameworks, it's probably still the right move. If they're going to be creating a platform on which to build new capabilities, it's better to be on a technology and toolchain everyone's familiar with.
Actually, yes, because if the Cocoa Finder is 64-bit, which I expect it will be, it may well run significantly faster due to the use of the X64 instruction set and its double helping of on-chip registers, not to mention the more advanced garbage collection available in Cocoa.
Re-writing Finder in Cocoa is OK, however the real issue is Finder design. That's what's broken. I see nothing about completely re-thinking the design aspect of Finder, which frankly is a disaster. A real shame for Apple, that such a central feature of an OS UI is broken. Shame, shame, shame.
I think it is never a good time to change until a few years down the road. Then you see it was a good thing. I hope that is the case here.
True. What computers being sold today offer DisplayPort as standard yet? And Apple's already made a mini port, lol. I guess as long as Apple continues supplying miniDisPlayPort dongles. Will they continue to sell microDVI dongles for the 1st gen MacBook Airs, or are those people out of luck if they don't get one in time or theirs fails?
I guess that's the downside to propriety ports, they disappear faster than industry standard ones.
I think it's rather inconsistent. You can't copy-passte in Finder, how stupid is that?
Also, I don't see why BlueTooth has it's own little app and can't be directly included into Finder. I'd like to see my BlueTooth cellphone show up in Finder's left column.
I think it's rather inconsistent. You can't copy-passte in Finder, how stupid is that?
Also, I don't see why BlueTooth has it's own little app and can't be directly included into Finder. I'd like to see my BlueTooth cellphone show up in Finder's left column.
That's funny, because I just copied and pasted in Finder....
My biggest beef with Finder is the networking, which is still rubbish even in Leopard, with networked machines disappearing, or unable to log into them. Although I don't use it I agree about Bluetooth, that kind of generic "connected device" would be great within Finder.
I generally use PathFinder for file operations, I much prefer it to the Finder.
In addition, many of the Apple-authored applications accompany the new build are also said to have been wrapped completely in Cocoa.
?
In June, ArsTechnica's Jacqui Cheng cited sources who suggested that Apple might "eventually wrap everything in Cocoa" with the release of Snow Leopard.
However, unlike Kasper Jade, Jacqui Cheng knows what the word ?wrap? means in this context and doesn?t just toss it around to sound clever.
Well, Mike Bombich does work at Apple now, so maybe this is an offshoot of NetRestore.
Aw this one made me giggle. Mike Bombich has literally worked for Apple for a long long time. It's nothing new.
NetRestore is a wrapper which accesses OS X components written by Apple engineering. Mike is a Systems Engineer... not a Software Engineer. That means he does advanced technical implementation and consultancy for customers. Ok, so they gave him the wrong shirt at one point at WWDC08 but he was first to admit that.
ImageBoot has nothing to do with NetRestore. It's just tapping into how a Mac boots up, piggy-backing on the NetBoot code inside the EFI. It's loca hard drive NetInstall basically.
This article has its facts wrong. ImageBoot appears to work soley for install disk images and has nothing to do with being able to run a workstation from a disk image. It also works with Leopard and is not unique to Snow Leopard.
I hope karma gets whoever leaked this. At least when it's on ADC we can blame Apple for letting anyone buy a membership, but the source this came from has generally been better behaved. Furious.
I hate hearing things like "completely" or "rewritten". How many times have I heard these words and be unpleasantly surprised that things weren't really rewritten...just updated.
I hate hearing things like "completely" or "rewritten". How many times have I heard these words and be unpleasantly surprised that things weren't really rewritten...just updated.
Cocoa Finder was rewritten for Rhapsody in 1998, but was never released. Don't ask. Too many hours wasted on Old Mac Faithful, BlueBox, RedBox and more.
This new one will most certainly have been in the works and advanced for the past 5 years.
Apple's just doing what many other hardware companies are doing, and it's not new for them at all. Creating proprietary ports to lock consumers into your product line is good business, plus who can argue too much over smaller ports on a portable?
Then again extra dongles suck.
Extra Dongles won't be needed for future displays, you will find that many monitors & TVs of the future will begin adopting Mini-Display connections.
Mini-DVI may have been a move towards Apple Proprietary but Mini-Display is going to become an industry standard. Apple doesn't try to lock people to proprietary hardware, they try to push the industry to advance already. ADV was around for how long before DVI finally got standardized? ADV was Apple's attempt to actually put some sort of DVI type standard out there. Trust me, Display port is a very very good thing & will be replacing HDMI & DVI both.
As far as Firewire goes, it's a lost cause. Even with 3200 standard coming along it will never recover from the overwhelming adoption of USB in the PC industry. Apple has finally begun to realize that they have to work with popular standards, not against them. This is why they are picking up Mini-Display instead of advancing their own mini-DVI, why they are slowly weaning people off Firewire (USB 3.0 will be capable of 4.8GB/s). Firewire is now up against eSATA & loosing, it's a dying standard.
It's not Apple's fault the industry is moving on so quit whining about it. You aren't going to get any better firewire support from the PC industry, they would have had to adopt it in the first place to abandon it.
I think it's rather inconsistent. You can't copy-passte in Finder, how stupid is that?
Also, I don't see why BlueTooth has it's own little app and can't be directly included into Finder. I'd like to see my BlueTooth cellphone show up in Finder's left column.
You CAN copy and paste in the finder! The difference is that the finder is working at the file level, it's a file manager, and copies files or folders appropriately. That paradigm is logical but Windoze lovers hate it. When you are in an app, copy and paste is there appropriately for the text level.
I'm thinking of getting CS4, but am concerned that Mac OS X seems to be moving towards being Cocoa-only.
Got burnt when my PS stopped working on Leopard, and hope not to go through that again.
It seems quite unlikely that Apple will drop Carbon support altogether, but it's tweaked stuff here and there before
Any ideas on whether to wait or get CS4?
Huh? What's wrong with Apple going to Cocoa and dropping carbon? FYI, Adobe CS5 is rumored going to be in Cocoa and that is scheduled for release like next year?. Its up to you to upgrade or not. If you think you are going to use the features introduced in CS4, then by all means UPGRADE .
Quote:
Re-writing Finder in Cocoa is OK, however the real issue is Finder design. That's what's broken. I see nothing about completely re-thinking the design aspect of Finder, which frankly is a disaster. A real shame for Apple, that such a central feature of an OS UI is broken. Shame, shame, shame.
Huh, please elaborate, I know its not perfect but its definitely not a disaster, ever used Windows OS search function? Now that is a disaster.
For a major release that was promised to not have many new features Snow Leopard is turning out to be feature packed. The Finder re-write has been asked for since practically day one of OSX's release.
I'm still holding hope that it will be a free update for Leopard users.
It might be, seeing as the main new thing from the consumers point of view is going to be the across-the-board Cocoa touch layer, which only one computer can use - the yet to be released Mac touch. Though with Apple they'd charge for water.
And HOW LONG have we been waiting for this? Sheesh. NEXTSTEP's Workspace Manager was already Cocoa...before Cocoa was Cocoa. Why didn't they just build on that in the first place?
My Finder Wishlist:
1. An end to all the hangs when dealing with servers and shared folders!!!
2. A system-wide tagging architecture
3. The ability to browse documents and data using a tag cloud
Anybody else sick of having to shell out $150 for a .1 update to OSX?
It felt like the jump from and Panther to Tiger and Tiger to Leopard were about as big performance-wise as the jump from SP1 to SP2 and SP2 to SP3 on XP, with the main difference being the addition of Time Machine and Exposé. Does that really warrant spending all the money upgrading?
What bugs me the most is that every year and a half that Apple .1 updates OSX, the new OSX isn't compatable with a lot of existing software (see ProTools, etc), but new software frequently requires the new OS version...
I'd be more than willing to pay $300-400 once every 6 years like the Windows model (instead of $150 every year and a half-2 years) and get the updates/new features for free, especially since the change in philosophy would force Apple to make the compatibility transitions smoother and not penalize folks who upgrade/don't upgrade...
Just a thought. Maybe the grass is always greener, and I do admit that Apple's model allows the company to generate extra hype on a more regular basis (although CocoaFinder and ImageBoot aren't really much to get excited about for the average user...)
I realize this mail exposes me to the potential to a ridiculous number of flames, which really aren't necessary, so please, put away your negative crayons.
1) Release early - release often. Get it out there and rapidly stablise. If you don't find it 'suitable' or 'compatible' then stick with your existing setup until it does.
2) How is it Apple's fault for incompatible software - its the lazy software companies who have had build after build after build of MacOS X to test against, they continually use private frameworks and hacks - and wonder why things go pear shaped. Your flamage should be directed at those software companies, not Apple.
3) I'm an average user, if the introduction of a new finder, improved optimisation which means more 'teh snappy', then I'll be happy to pay for an upgrade.
Comments
Yes, it was such a stupid idea to include a video interface port that lets you connect to anything from VGA on up to HDMI and DVI monitors with the addition of an inexpensive adapter.
Especially since some of the monitors' interface connectors wouldn't fit on a laptop as thin as the new MB/MBP set.
What could they possibly have been thinking?
Harsh. I believe he was referring to mini-DisplayPort and mini-DVI ports, not regular DisplayPort and DVI ports themselves. Hopefully I remembered this correctly, but I think the standard DisplayPort port might have fit on the new MacBooks too, as someone commented in another thread. I won't argue such points as I'm not an expert on computer hardware. I do believe that I can speak for many people when I say that proprietary ports can cause some frustration to end users with the added expense of more cables and converters than would otherwise be necessary if all manufacturers stuck to universal ports for all products. And at the same time, as I stated in my reply to the original poster of the quote in your post, I can see the good business decision of creating proprietary ports to lock in consumers to one company's product line.
In my opinion only, I think Apple made the right choice creating mini ports as their refined designs practically require them. And at the same time, I can appreciate another's point of view without mocking them.
No. In general, rewriting things in Cocoa makes them slower because of dynamic binding and less optimization opportunities for the engine. However, because Apple has much more expertise in Cocoa and it integrates better into the latest frameworks, it's probably still the right move. If they're going to be creating a platform on which to build new capabilities, it's better to be on a technology and toolchain everyone's familiar with.
Actually, yes, because if the Cocoa Finder is 64-bit, which I expect it will be, it may well run significantly faster due to the use of the X64 instruction set and its double helping of on-chip registers, not to mention the more advanced garbage collection available in Cocoa.
I think it is never a good time to change until a few years down the road. Then you see it was a good thing. I hope that is the case here.
True. What computers being sold today offer DisplayPort as standard yet? And Apple's already made a mini port, lol. I guess as long as Apple continues supplying miniDisPlayPort dongles. Will they continue to sell microDVI dongles for the 1st gen MacBook Airs, or are those people out of luck if they don't get one in time or theirs fails?
I guess that's the downside to propriety ports, they disappear faster than industry standard ones.
Here is what I've seen:
1. The never-ending search party for network shares that don't exist
2. Stability issues (but not much more than any other program...certainly much better than Windoze explorer.exe)
Uhh...that's all I can think of right now
Can someone tell me what else they have run into, or what is so bad about it?
Also, I don't see why BlueTooth has it's own little app and can't be directly included into Finder. I'd like to see my BlueTooth cellphone show up in Finder's left column.
Anybody else sick of having to shell out $150 for a .1 update to OSX?
I'm sick of the anti-Snow Leopard hyperbole, personally.
If Snow Leopard's performance comes anywhere near what we project it to, it should be well worth the cost of upgrading.
I think it's rather inconsistent. You can't copy-passte in Finder, how stupid is that?
Also, I don't see why BlueTooth has it's own little app and can't be directly included into Finder. I'd like to see my BlueTooth cellphone show up in Finder's left column.
That's funny, because I just copied and pasted in Finder....
My biggest beef with Finder is the networking, which is still rubbish even in Leopard, with networked machines disappearing, or unable to log into them. Although I don't use it I agree about Bluetooth, that kind of generic "connected device" would be great within Finder.
I generally use PathFinder for file operations, I much prefer it to the Finder.
In addition, many of the Apple-authored applications accompany the new build are also said to have been wrapped completely in Cocoa.
?
In June, ArsTechnica's Jacqui Cheng cited sources who suggested that Apple might "eventually wrap everything in Cocoa" with the release of Snow Leopard.
However, unlike Kasper Jade, Jacqui Cheng knows what the word ?wrap? means in this context and doesn?t just toss it around to sound clever.
Well, Mike Bombich does work at Apple now, so maybe this is an offshoot of NetRestore.
Bombich has worked at Apple for years and NetRestore is like NetBoot and NetInstall (it actually uses NetBoot).
Well, Mike Bombich does work at Apple now, so maybe this is an offshoot of NetRestore.
Aw this one made me giggle. Mike Bombich has literally worked for Apple for a long long time. It's nothing new.
NetRestore is a wrapper which accesses OS X components written by Apple engineering. Mike is a Systems Engineer... not a Software Engineer. That means he does advanced technical implementation and consultancy for customers. Ok, so they gave him the wrong shirt at one point at WWDC08 but he was first to admit that.
ImageBoot has nothing to do with NetRestore. It's just tapping into how a Mac boots up, piggy-backing on the NetBoot code inside the EFI. It's loca hard drive NetInstall basically.
This article has its facts wrong. ImageBoot appears to work soley for install disk images and has nothing to do with being able to run a workstation from a disk image. It also works with Leopard and is not unique to Snow Leopard.
I hope karma gets whoever leaked this. At least when it's on ADC we can blame Apple for letting anyone buy a membership, but the source this came from has generally been better behaved. Furious.
I hate hearing things like "completely" or "rewritten". How many times have I heard these words and be unpleasantly surprised that things weren't really rewritten...just updated.
Cocoa Finder was rewritten for Rhapsody in 1998, but was never released. Don't ask. Too many hours wasted on Old Mac Faithful, BlueBox, RedBox and more.
This new one will most certainly have been in the works and advanced for the past 5 years.
Apple's just doing what many other hardware companies are doing, and it's not new for them at all. Creating proprietary ports to lock consumers into your product line is good business, plus who can argue too much over smaller ports on a portable?
Then again extra dongles suck.
Extra Dongles won't be needed for future displays, you will find that many monitors & TVs of the future will begin adopting Mini-Display connections.
Mini-DVI may have been a move towards Apple Proprietary but Mini-Display is going to become an industry standard. Apple doesn't try to lock people to proprietary hardware, they try to push the industry to advance already. ADV was around for how long before DVI finally got standardized? ADV was Apple's attempt to actually put some sort of DVI type standard out there. Trust me, Display port is a very very good thing & will be replacing HDMI & DVI both.
As far as Firewire goes, it's a lost cause. Even with 3200 standard coming along it will never recover from the overwhelming adoption of USB in the PC industry. Apple has finally begun to realize that they have to work with popular standards, not against them. This is why they are picking up Mini-Display instead of advancing their own mini-DVI, why they are slowly weaning people off Firewire (USB 3.0 will be capable of 4.8GB/s). Firewire is now up against eSATA & loosing, it's a dying standard.
It's not Apple's fault the industry is moving on so quit whining about it. You aren't going to get any better firewire support from the PC industry, they would have had to adopt it in the first place to abandon it.
I think it's rather inconsistent. You can't copy-passte in Finder, how stupid is that?
Also, I don't see why BlueTooth has it's own little app and can't be directly included into Finder. I'd like to see my BlueTooth cellphone show up in Finder's left column.
You CAN copy and paste in the finder! The difference is that the finder is working at the file level, it's a file manager, and copies files or folders appropriately. That paradigm is logical but Windoze lovers hate it. When you are in an app, copy and paste is there appropriately for the text level.
It's a design issue NOT a flaw.
A little off-topic, but
I'm thinking of getting CS4, but am concerned that Mac OS X seems to be moving towards being Cocoa-only.
Got burnt when my PS stopped working on Leopard, and hope not to go through that again.
It seems quite unlikely that Apple will drop Carbon support altogether, but it's tweaked stuff here and there before
Any ideas on whether to wait or get CS4?
Huh? What's wrong with Apple going to Cocoa and dropping carbon? FYI, Adobe CS5 is rumored going to be in Cocoa and that is scheduled for release like next year?. Its up to you to upgrade or not. If you think you are going to use the features introduced in CS4, then by all means UPGRADE
Re-writing Finder in Cocoa is OK, however the real issue is Finder design. That's what's broken. I see nothing about completely re-thinking the design aspect of Finder, which frankly is a disaster. A real shame for Apple, that such a central feature of an OS UI is broken. Shame, shame, shame.
Huh, please elaborate, I know its not perfect but its definitely not a disaster, ever used Windows OS search function? Now that is a disaster.
For a major release that was promised to not have many new features Snow Leopard is turning out to be feature packed. The Finder re-write has been asked for since practically day one of OSX's release.
I'm still holding hope that it will be a free update for Leopard users.
It might be, seeing as the main new thing from the consumers point of view is going to be the across-the-board Cocoa touch layer, which only one computer can use - the yet to be released Mac touch. Though with Apple they'd charge for water.
My Finder Wishlist:
1. An end to all the hangs when dealing with servers and shared folders!!!
2. A system-wide tagging architecture
3. The ability to browse documents and data using a tag cloud
Good riddance, Carbon.
Anybody else sick of having to shell out $150 for a .1 update to OSX?
It felt like the jump from and Panther to Tiger and Tiger to Leopard were about as big performance-wise as the jump from SP1 to SP2 and SP2 to SP3 on XP, with the main difference being the addition of Time Machine and Exposé. Does that really warrant spending all the money upgrading?
What bugs me the most is that every year and a half that Apple .1 updates OSX, the new OSX isn't compatable with a lot of existing software (see ProTools, etc), but new software frequently requires the new OS version...
I'd be more than willing to pay $300-400 once every 6 years like the Windows model (instead of $150 every year and a half-2 years) and get the updates/new features for free, especially since the change in philosophy would force Apple to make the compatibility transitions smoother and not penalize folks who upgrade/don't upgrade...
Just a thought. Maybe the grass is always greener, and I do admit that Apple's model allows the company to generate extra hype on a more regular basis (although CocoaFinder and ImageBoot aren't really much to get excited about for the average user...)
I realize this mail exposes me to the potential to a ridiculous number of flames, which really aren't necessary, so please, put away your negative crayons.
1) Release early - release often. Get it out there and rapidly stablise. If you don't find it 'suitable' or 'compatible' then stick with your existing setup until it does.
2) How is it Apple's fault for incompatible software - its the lazy software companies who have had build after build after build of MacOS X to test against, they continually use private frameworks and hacks - and wonder why things go pear shaped. Your flamage should be directed at those software companies, not Apple.
3) I'm an average user, if the introduction of a new finder, improved optimisation which means more 'teh snappy', then I'll be happy to pay for an upgrade.