Modern hardware is powerful enough for Apple to revisit its OpenDoc ideas, without worrying unduly about the processing overhead.
Interestingly, it seems likely that touch devices will help break the app metaphor and usher in an era of mainstream, file centric computing, since touch manipulation encourages the sense that the file at hand is the "stuff" that you working on directly, rather than the "contents" of a given app.
So you start to watch a video stream, pause with a tap, drag that frame onto the desktop, invoke text entry with a gesture, type a caption on the soft keyboard that popped up, make another gesture to invoke email addressing, and "toss" the captioned frame grab onto the outgoing email icon.
This is where Apple is headed, and I think their technologies put them in a great position to make it happen.
Modern hardware is powerful enough for Apple to revisit its OpenDoc ideas, without worrying unduly about the processing overhead.
Interestingly, it seems likely that touch devices will help break the app metaphor and usher in an era of mainstream, file centric computing, since touch manipulation encourages the sense that the file at hand is the "stuff" that you working on directly, rather than the "contents" of a given app.
So you start to watch a video stream, pause with a tap, drag that frame onto the desktop, invoke text entry with a gesture, type a caption on the soft keyboard that popped up, make another gesture to invoke email addressing, and "toss" the captioned frame grab onto the outgoing email icon.
This is where Apple is headed, and I think their technologies put them in a great position to make it happen.
I for my part admit to having been excited by OpenDoc.
I for my part admit to having been excited by OpenDoc.
Yeah! It was one of those really interesting, forward thinking initiatives that sort of got lost in the shuffle during the dark years.
I mean, there were problems, for sure, but Apple couldn't decide if it wanted to fully commit or just doodle in the margins, and that's no way to drive adoption.
I always hated Snapz, but used it.... but recently I started using Screenium, and its sooo much better than Snapz. Everyone should switch over to Screenium, its even cheaper too.
Yeah! It was one of those really interesting, forward thinking initiatives that sort of got lost in the shuffle during the dark years.
I mean, there were problems, for sure, but Apple couldn't decide if it wanted to fully commit or just doodle in the margins, and that's no way to drive adoption.
I think the issue was that they were waiting for Microsoft to get on board but they failed to realise that Microsoft adopting something that they couldn't control exclusively would have been a no-no.
The only real alternative would have been if they (Apple) provided frameworks for Windows themselves rather than relying on Microsoft to ship it with the operating system itself - but then again, this was before the internet so wide spread deployment would have been difficult.
The vision was a grand universe where people pick and choose their software from a load of different components: a spellchecker from one company, a text editor from another, some drawing tools from another. The problems are:
1. Companies don't want to deliver their software as bitesized components. It adds value when a product is fully integrated, and making things component based removes that.
2. Writing a good, self contained component, including all its UI, in a way that fits in with a host application and is easy to use... is really difficult.
3. It makes a lot of sense for page layout apps, but all other uses of OpenDoc (including conceptual stuff) doesn't seem appropriate. Things like AudioUnits and Core Image filters already do enough for their respective disciplines.
4. How do you price things? If a user wants to mix and match products from ten companies to make their dream DTP app, those components had better be a tenth of the price. You know it's not going to happen.
5. OpenDoc's native document format was a mess. It was hard to parse, and components could not read each other's files. Therefore, to view a document, you had to have the same set of components installed as its creator.
6. One problem that could be solved now but wasn't then, is the RAM usage. When I first used System 7.5, I had 4MB of RAM. OpenDoc used over half of this.
Comments
Modern hardware is powerful enough for Apple to revisit its OpenDoc ideas, without worrying unduly about the processing overhead.
Interestingly, it seems likely that touch devices will help break the app metaphor and usher in an era of mainstream, file centric computing, since touch manipulation encourages the sense that the file at hand is the "stuff" that you working on directly, rather than the "contents" of a given app.
So you start to watch a video stream, pause with a tap, drag that frame onto the desktop, invoke text entry with a gesture, type a caption on the soft keyboard that popped up, make another gesture to invoke email addressing, and "toss" the captioned frame grab onto the outgoing email icon.
This is where Apple is headed, and I think their technologies put them in a great position to make it happen.
Excellent post, and I completely agree.
Modern hardware is powerful enough for Apple to revisit its OpenDoc ideas, without worrying unduly about the processing overhead.
Interestingly, it seems likely that touch devices will help break the app metaphor and usher in an era of mainstream, file centric computing, since touch manipulation encourages the sense that the file at hand is the "stuff" that you working on directly, rather than the "contents" of a given app.
So you start to watch a video stream, pause with a tap, drag that frame onto the desktop, invoke text entry with a gesture, type a caption on the soft keyboard that popped up, make another gesture to invoke email addressing, and "toss" the captioned frame grab onto the outgoing email icon.
This is where Apple is headed, and I think their technologies put them in a great position to make it happen.
I for my part admit to having been excited by OpenDoc.
I for my part admit to having been excited by OpenDoc.
Yeah! It was one of those really interesting, forward thinking initiatives that sort of got lost in the shuffle during the dark years.
I mean, there were problems, for sure, but Apple couldn't decide if it wanted to fully commit or just doodle in the margins, and that's no way to drive adoption.
Yeah! It was one of those really interesting, forward thinking initiatives that sort of got lost in the shuffle during the dark years.
I mean, there were problems, for sure, but Apple couldn't decide if it wanted to fully commit or just doodle in the margins, and that's no way to drive adoption.
I think the issue was that they were waiting for Microsoft to get on board but they failed to realise that Microsoft adopting something that they couldn't control exclusively would have been a no-no.
The only real alternative would have been if they (Apple) provided frameworks for Windows themselves rather than relying on Microsoft to ship it with the operating system itself - but then again, this was before the internet so wide spread deployment would have been difficult.
The vision was a grand universe where people pick and choose their software from a load of different components: a spellchecker from one company, a text editor from another, some drawing tools from another. The problems are:
1. Companies don't want to deliver their software as bitesized components. It adds value when a product is fully integrated, and making things component based removes that.
2. Writing a good, self contained component, including all its UI, in a way that fits in with a host application and is easy to use... is really difficult.
3. It makes a lot of sense for page layout apps, but all other uses of OpenDoc (including conceptual stuff) doesn't seem appropriate. Things like AudioUnits and Core Image filters already do enough for their respective disciplines.
4. How do you price things? If a user wants to mix and match products from ten companies to make their dream DTP app, those components had better be a tenth of the price. You know it's not going to happen.
5. OpenDoc's native document format was a mess. It was hard to parse, and components could not read each other's files. Therefore, to view a document, you had to have the same set of components installed as its creator.
6. One problem that could be solved now but wasn't then, is the RAM usage. When I first used System 7.5, I had 4MB of RAM. OpenDoc used over half of this.
Amorya