the transition to OsX from 9 was a noticable biggy. but it must be noted that Mac Os, before X, was really falling behind Windows in terms of features and support by developers. Os 9 was slim pickings while W/2000 was looking pretty good. 2000 made use of multi processor platforms, was used in servers, and every program available could be used on it. it supported all the text messengers that are used by 99% of the worlds computer users and had superior video and webcam support. 2000 was industrial grade, favored by the worlds teenage girls and every hardcore gamer. Mac Os wasn't. now, finally, after 7 years Mac Os is heading for industrial levels, supports a better consumer friendly hardware platform, and hopefully will get more support from 3rd party messengers. though iChat is amazing (and with no ads!) it's only usable Mac to Mac.
and Bootcamp. that's more about selling to Windows users than Mac users. Apple is a hardware company that has it's own Os as a unique product package. since the iPod Apple has been selling it's products as hardware, independent of Os, as a branding to consumers. iTunes is bi-platform as is the iPhone. now so is the iMac and Apple laptops and towers. it's not about the promotion of Mac Os anymore, Apple doesn't need to do it now to compete in a Windows dominated world, all they've done is allow their hardware to support Windows for Windows users. Apple products are Os independent, which gives them a unique advantage in the marketing of PCs. as consumers begin to view Apple as hardware, instead of software, Apple has opened up a whole new market. the iPod would NEVER have been as big a hit had it not been for the fact it's available to Windows users. Apple provides the coolest laptops, the most popular AIO set up (just needs bezel speakers) and the slickest built, best valued dual processor desktop/workstation available (really! compare the prices, it's amazing, equivalent PCs are more expensive now)
so now Apple can grow WITHIN the Windows world, and grow OUTSIDE Windows by providing the best alternative to Windows, Mac Os X.
SJ must be shaking at the possibilties.
Nice causerie. Just that it doesn't have anything to do with the topic. Everyone in here knows that stuff you're confabulating about. This forum is called "AppleInsider", not "AppleNostalgic."
NO. If Apple did this, Microsoft would just brag about Windows 7. WinFS, BIOS successor, new Kernel, it certainly would be a revolution. Unless Apple also released a revolution at about the same time. A big surprise nobody ever counted on three years earlier. Just like the transition Mac OS 9 -> Mac OS X.
Where have you been? With each new generation of Windows, Microsoft claims to have finally surpassed or to have at least equaled the Mac. Windows 95 finallly freed Windows from MS-DOS--except that it didn't. Windows Vista had all the things that you listed but they never made it into the shipping product. What's more, the shipping product doesn't work. Long story short--the truth has nothing to do with what Microsoft says.
You seem to be laboring under the impression that Apple sits around twiddling its thumbs waiting for Microsoft to make a move so that it can respond. Hate to break it to you, but you have it backwards.
Look. You are ignoring some basic realities of software development. Every major operating system today, except Windows, is based on Unix. Windows--the OS that is not based on Unix--is the one having major problems. Coincidence?
The next thing that you seem to not understand is that a new OS cannot just burst onto the scene as a "Bolt out of the Blue." Each new OS is based on prior work which is very much in the public eye for years. If Apple were planning to replace MacOS X within the next five years, we would already know enough about the replacement's precursors to spawn many laborious and heated discussions on this and other Mac fan sites.
You seem to be laboring under the impression that Apple sits around twiddling its thumbs waiting for Microsoft to make a move so that it can respond. Hate to break it to you, but you have it backwards.
No. I've never said Windows was a good OS. Of course Windows Vista is just a huge disappointment. Of course Microsoft has done a lot of mistakes. And I'm sure Windows 7 will also be a disappointment -- unbelievable hardware requirements, uncool GUI, and much too complicated and difficult to use. But it's really getting time for Microsoft to release some really new stuff and Apple would just be right to counter with something even beter (although I know they're already much better).
To return to the issue at hand, it seems like OS X will not undergo a BANG change until 2015 or later. We may know about the next strategy sooner, for the sake of developers, but Apple has no need to.
iZune, you might be missing the issue here which is that the evolutionary process that has produced Leopard is a very effective - and profitable technique, that will continue. Your view seems to be not too different from confused Windows users who are confounded that OS X users will pay $129 for a "point-revision upgrade." Remember that before OS 8, Mac OS was revised as OS 7.x for years, and that this is the marketing strategy embraced by Apple again, after a much-needed kick-start. The OS is the basic bucket of features, which is polished in major revisions, but is essentially the same thing.
Windows has never really used this marketing strategy, but the relatively similar operating systems of W95, W98, and WMe are no more or less upgrades to the same basic system than OS X 10.0, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, and 10.5 are. And it's this somewhat vague package that is OS X.
For example, there is nothing that ties HFS+ to OS X, after all it was an OS 8 feature. But it is also a critical component of OS X and its quality. Same too with CoreImage or the Dock. Is removing them making it not OS X? They really help OS X be different than anything else. Yet OS X is so much more.
What makes OS X so stellar are its kernel and its interface, and at these I draw the line. The Darwin kernel is rock-solid and has been refined greatly from its basis in UNIX. I really can't make any other predictions on this matter, but I can tell you that UNIX-based operating systems show no signs of aging, and will be around for a while. Technologies in OS X are built to address Darwin like Cocoa and Core technologies, to name a few, would be lost in an entirely new system, or they would weigh down the new operating system needlessly.
The UI, which you seem to be mostly focused on, will change gradually as software catches up with multi-touch or whatever comes next. But 3D windows and all of the other gratuitous shlock Looking Glass and Vista include don't really help anyone get anything done. That is not to say that OS X does not have similar waste, but it tends to help the user more.
Besides, it's gonna be called A1104HC, as the robots who will rule us after 2012 will have no time for our fleshy-brains and their susceptibility to marketing.
I can think of two big OS revolutions that worked well - OS9 to OSX, and SunOS to Solaris. (SunOS 4 to 5, pedantically).
In both cases a newer codebase that already worked, and had loads of new features the old one didn't (NeXT and SVR4, OS9 and SunOS 4 respectively) were adapted, made as back compatible as possible and launched, then successively refined.
This is why MacOS and Solaris are pretty much the only OS's that run faster on the same hardware with each release - a pile of impressive tech has been ported and is then refined and improved on the target hardware.
I see OSXI being either developed new, or acquired from a startup - it will need to be something that the OSX of the day can't come near and already be running and slick on some other platform (NB. I'm not saying SVR4 was slick, by the way).
I think Apple will work with the fine base that is OSX unless something very compelling comes along to become the next OS - in the last round it was things like proper multitasking, and scalable SMP.
Now we're all based on Unix these things are pretty well understood - OSX/BSD doesn't scale so well, but things like Solaris have been running on well over a hundred cores for ages and most Unix systems can cope with 16/32 cores pretty easily. So, these can be worked into OSX, and probably more easily than into Windows.
I guess the question is what's the next compelling reason - a feature like "multitasking" or "SMP" that today's OS's don't yet do. I don't think we know what it is yet - well, that is, I don't. But until it's been shown to be the next big thing I think OSX is here to stay.
Apple have just spent the last 7 or so years getting OSX into decent shape. They wouldn't do that unless they planned on getting a long lifetime out of it.
Comments
the transition to OsX from 9 was a noticable biggy. but it must be noted that Mac Os, before X, was really falling behind Windows in terms of features and support by developers. Os 9 was slim pickings while W/2000 was looking pretty good. 2000 made use of multi processor platforms, was used in servers, and every program available could be used on it. it supported all the text messengers that are used by 99% of the worlds computer users and had superior video and webcam support. 2000 was industrial grade, favored by the worlds teenage girls and every hardcore gamer. Mac Os wasn't. now, finally, after 7 years Mac Os is heading for industrial levels, supports a better consumer friendly hardware platform, and hopefully will get more support from 3rd party messengers. though iChat is amazing (and with no ads!) it's only usable Mac to Mac.
and Bootcamp. that's more about selling to Windows users than Mac users. Apple is a hardware company that has it's own Os as a unique product package. since the iPod Apple has been selling it's products as hardware, independent of Os, as a branding to consumers. iTunes is bi-platform as is the iPhone. now so is the iMac and Apple laptops and towers. it's not about the promotion of Mac Os anymore, Apple doesn't need to do it now to compete in a Windows dominated world, all they've done is allow their hardware to support Windows for Windows users. Apple products are Os independent, which gives them a unique advantage in the marketing of PCs. as consumers begin to view Apple as hardware, instead of software, Apple has opened up a whole new market. the iPod would NEVER have been as big a hit had it not been for the fact it's available to Windows users. Apple provides the coolest laptops, the most popular AIO set up (just needs bezel speakers) and the slickest built, best valued dual processor desktop/workstation available (really! compare the prices, it's amazing, equivalent PCs are more expensive now)
so now Apple can grow WITHIN the Windows world, and grow OUTSIDE Windows by providing the best alternative to Windows, Mac Os X.
SJ must be shaking at the possibilties.
Nice causerie. Just that it doesn't have anything to do with the topic. Everyone in here knows that stuff you're confabulating about. This forum is called "AppleInsider", not "AppleNostalgic."
NO. If Apple did this, Microsoft would just brag about Windows 7. WinFS, BIOS successor, new Kernel, it certainly would be a revolution. Unless Apple also released a revolution at about the same time. A big surprise nobody ever counted on three years earlier. Just like the transition Mac OS 9 -> Mac OS X.
Where have you been? With each new generation of Windows, Microsoft claims to have finally surpassed or to have at least equaled the Mac. Windows 95 finallly freed Windows from MS-DOS--except that it didn't. Windows Vista had all the things that you listed but they never made it into the shipping product. What's more, the shipping product doesn't work. Long story short--the truth has nothing to do with what Microsoft says.
You seem to be laboring under the impression that Apple sits around twiddling its thumbs waiting for Microsoft to make a move so that it can respond. Hate to break it to you, but you have it backwards.
Look. You are ignoring some basic realities of software development. Every major operating system today, except Windows, is based on Unix. Windows--the OS that is not based on Unix--is the one having major problems. Coincidence?
The next thing that you seem to not understand is that a new OS cannot just burst onto the scene as a "Bolt out of the Blue." Each new OS is based on prior work which is very much in the public eye for years. If Apple were planning to replace MacOS X within the next five years, we would already know enough about the replacement's precursors to spawn many laborious and heated discussions on this and other Mac fan sites.
You seem to be laboring under the impression that Apple sits around twiddling its thumbs waiting for Microsoft to make a move so that it can respond. Hate to break it to you, but you have it backwards.
No. I've never said Windows was a good OS. Of course Windows Vista is just a huge disappointment. Of course Microsoft has done a lot of mistakes. And I'm sure Windows 7 will also be a disappointment -- unbelievable hardware requirements, uncool GUI, and much too complicated and difficult to use. But it's really getting time for Microsoft to release some really new stuff and Apple would just be right to counter with something even beter (although I know they're already much better).
iZune, you might be missing the issue here which is that the evolutionary process that has produced Leopard is a very effective - and profitable technique, that will continue. Your view seems to be not too different from confused Windows users who are confounded that OS X users will pay $129 for a "point-revision upgrade." Remember that before OS 8, Mac OS was revised as OS 7.x for years, and that this is the marketing strategy embraced by Apple again, after a much-needed kick-start. The OS is the basic bucket of features, which is polished in major revisions, but is essentially the same thing.
Windows has never really used this marketing strategy, but the relatively similar operating systems of W95, W98, and WMe are no more or less upgrades to the same basic system than OS X 10.0, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, and 10.5 are. And it's this somewhat vague package that is OS X.
For example, there is nothing that ties HFS+ to OS X, after all it was an OS 8 feature. But it is also a critical component of OS X and its quality. Same too with CoreImage or the Dock. Is removing them making it not OS X? They really help OS X be different than anything else. Yet OS X is so much more.
What makes OS X so stellar are its kernel and its interface, and at these I draw the line. The Darwin kernel is rock-solid and has been refined greatly from its basis in UNIX. I really can't make any other predictions on this matter, but I can tell you that UNIX-based operating systems show no signs of aging, and will be around for a while. Technologies in OS X are built to address Darwin like Cocoa and Core technologies, to name a few, would be lost in an entirely new system, or they would weigh down the new operating system needlessly.
The UI, which you seem to be mostly focused on, will change gradually as software catches up with multi-touch or whatever comes next. But 3D windows and all of the other gratuitous shlock Looking Glass and Vista include don't really help anyone get anything done. That is not to say that OS X does not have similar waste, but it tends to help the user more.
Besides, it's gonna be called A1104HC, as the robots who will rule us after 2012 will have no time for our fleshy-brains and their susceptibility to marketing.
In both cases a newer codebase that already worked, and had loads of new features the old one didn't (NeXT and SVR4, OS9 and SunOS 4 respectively) were adapted, made as back compatible as possible and launched, then successively refined.
This is why MacOS and Solaris are pretty much the only OS's that run faster on the same hardware with each release - a pile of impressive tech has been ported and is then refined and improved on the target hardware.
I see OSXI being either developed new, or acquired from a startup - it will need to be something that the OSX of the day can't come near and already be running and slick on some other platform (NB. I'm not saying SVR4 was slick, by the way).
I think Apple will work with the fine base that is OSX unless something very compelling comes along to become the next OS - in the last round it was things like proper multitasking, and scalable SMP.
Now we're all based on Unix these things are pretty well understood - OSX/BSD doesn't scale so well, but things like Solaris have been running on well over a hundred cores for ages and most Unix systems can cope with 16/32 cores pretty easily. So, these can be worked into OSX, and probably more easily than into Windows.
I guess the question is what's the next compelling reason - a feature like "multitasking" or "SMP" that today's OS's don't yet do. I don't think we know what it is yet - well, that is, I don't. But until it's been shown to be the next big thing I think OSX is here to stay.
I hope that made sense...
Martin.