Is OSXI still on track? What hardware might go with it?
I'm not interested in OSX anymore and I suspect neither does Apple.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Apple (beyond the work done on snow leapard) is working on their future operating system which what I would guess will be called OSXI. I'm wondering though what is the timetable on that operating system's release?
Does anyone know or can guess?
Do you all think the OS might have a 3D desktop GUI like in their recent patent?
And what hardware do you think they are developing that might support it? Perhaps they would have a special monitor that shows 3D or a system board with a totally proprietary design (besides the intel cpu).
I don't know.
Ideas anyone?
I have a sneaking suspicion that Apple (beyond the work done on snow leapard) is working on their future operating system which what I would guess will be called OSXI. I'm wondering though what is the timetable on that operating system's release?
Does anyone know or can guess?
Do you all think the OS might have a 3D desktop GUI like in their recent patent?
And what hardware do you think they are developing that might support it? Perhaps they would have a special monitor that shows 3D or a system board with a totally proprietary design (besides the intel cpu).
I don't know.
Ideas anyone?
Comments
Now that doesn't mean that OS/X revisions stop after Snow Leopard. Instead I see SL as a transitional release to a 64 bit platform. It is a frame work with which Apple can continue to improve OS/X for a couple of more years.
Beyound ten years it is hard to say where the OS world will move to or even if Apple will leave the UNIX core behind. It would be nice to see an OS that uses AI agents extensively to get your work done. That is a different type of computing than todays computational machines so one has to wonder if Intel will be a player then. At some point adding more CPUs to a machine isn't going to yield the performance increases that software will continue to demand. So nueral nets or something new will be needed to offer up a more cognitive functioning. In a nut shell Apple will start looking at a new OS when there is significantly new hardware available to leverage high order software.
Since there is almost nothing coming out of the labs of late I'm not to sure we will see a transistion to a computer that has an OS based on AI. So we may see UNIX continue to evolve. This would be in the same way that Apple is evolving OS/X today to support GPU processors. That is again as we move forward there may be a need to offer up access to special purpose processors that work hand in hand with the CPUs and GPUs. I'm not certain what the nature of these processors would be at the moment but they would be optimized to meet the demands of new software solutions. In other words they would develop in the same manner that GPUs have to address 2D and then 3D graphics. Think of this as a more gradual development of computing hardware rather than a big jump to AI processors.
The problem with all of this though is that unless you are involved in computer science research or the allied AI community it is hard to offer up guesses about what may be possible 10 to 20 years out. For example the field of robotics could potentially take off with the advent of some specialized hardware. DARPAs recent robotic vehical competition could lead to specialized hardware to assist in the navigation and object avoidance visualization systems. Eventually such features might end up very close to the CPUs.
Now that is a point of view that implies that specialization will be better than generalization. Many will say that generalization will beat out specialization and that hundreds of i86 processors on a chip will be hard to beat. I'm not sure that will end up being a universal case at all. But what ever happens with hardware will end up shaping what is possible with software and the OS. This will happen much in the same way that GPUs shape what is possible with software. It is not that the software was impossible without the GPU hardware but rather that the GPU hardware made the acceleration of the software fast enough to be accepted by the user.
Dave
I'm not sure what caused you to post this message as there has been nothing floating around to justify the thought. Indeed it would seem to be just the opposite as a couple of years ago someone atvApple indicated that they had an OS to last a decade. I believe this is a rational estimate.
Now that doesn't mean that OS/X revisions stop after Snow Leopard. Instead I see SL as a transitional release to a 64 bit platform. It is a frame work with which Apple can continue to improve OS/X for a couple of more years.
Beyound ten years it is hard to say where the OS world will move to or even if Apple will leave the UNIX core behind. It would be nice to see an OS that uses AI agents extensively to get your work done. That is a different type of computing than todays computational machines so one has to wonder if Intel will be a player then. At some point adding more CPUs to a machine isn't going to yield the performance increases that software will continue to demand. So nueral nets or something new will be needed to offer up a more cognitive functioning. In a nut shell Apple will start looking at a new OS when there is significantly new hardware available to leverage high order software.
Since there is almost nothing coming out of the labs of late I'm not to sure we will see a transistion to a computer that has an OS based on AI. So we may see UNIX continue to evolve. This would be in the same way that Apple is evolving OS/X today to support GPU processors. That is again as we move forward there may be a need to offer up access to special purpose processors that work hand in hand with the CPUs and GPUs. I'm not certain what the nature of these processors would be at the moment but they would be optimized to meet the demands of new software solutions. In other words they would develop in the same manner that GPUs have to address 2D and then 3D graphics. Think of this as a more gradual development of computing hardware rather than a big jump to AI processors.
The problem with all of this though is that unless you are involved in computer science research or the allied AI community it is hard to offer up guesses about what may be possible 10 to 20 years out. For example the field of robotics could potentially take off with the advent of some specialized hardware. DARPAs recent robotic vehical competition could lead to specialized hardware to assist in the navigation and object avoidance visualization systems. Eventually such features might end up very close to the CPUs.
Now that is a point of view that implies that specialization will be better than generalization. Many will say that generalization will beat out specialization and that hundreds of i86 processors on a chip will be hard to beat. I'm not sure that will end up being a universal case at all. But what ever happens with hardware will end up shaping what is possible with software and the OS. This will happen much in the same way that GPUs shape what is possible with software. It is not that the software was impossible without the GPU hardware but rather that the GPU hardware made the acceleration of the software fast enough to be accepted by the user.
Dave
Wow.
I didn't expect such a thorough response. Lemme eat my lunch then I'll properly respond later.
On the one hand you want to break radically with current designs - to allow for something truly new. 3D GUI, etc.
But on the other hand if it means having to learn a completely new application programming interface, few software vendors will bite initially. And with a lack of software, why should people buy the new OS? Evolution is better here than revolution. Which would signal that evolving OSX step by step, adding e.g. 3D GUI features, would seem a more likely scenario.
I can envision 2 new scenarios that allow for a more radical break:
1.) Networked Computing
What if your OS moves more and more onto web based servers to the point that the whole OS becomes one big blur between what's done on a device, or locally on a server or on the web in the cloud. There are certainly trends to that point.
The result will be that the computation/application becomes irrelevant and only the data, the processed result is important. You just want something done in a specific way. You don't care how it's getting there or what apps are involved. A bit like the AI idea, but not necessarily involving AI much. Just a more 'services' based approach.
2.) Granular Computing
The iPhone Appstore is a small glimpse of that. The future could hold many mini-applications that will all work together. That way developers don't have to learn the whole new API but only the fraction that interests them, making adoption of a radically new OS much easier. Everyone contributes just a little. But if all these little bits can work together seamlessly then you can still achieve a lot in minimal time.
The Newton OS had a really good idea of that. Little code blocks could add new functions to any application, applications which were never originally designed to have these features.
You could even imagine a combination of these 2 ideas.
It certainly seems that companies like Google are much better suited to provide the next big OS revolution.
Apple is not doing too bad either, but they don't seem to have a fully coherent picture yet, too many aspects seem rather grown over time than planned with a single goal.
Also have a look at the new Palm Pre that's just been announced today. Its new OS takes ubiquitous data from many sources, locally, a server or from many places on the web, gets rid of duplicates and provides the result in one place - a mobile device.
Just my 2 cents...
I'm not interested in OSX anymore and I suspect neither does Apple.
Do you all think the OS might have a 3D desktop GUI like in their recent patent?
How does that make it not OS X?
Perhaps what you're getting at is when will Apple start working on and release an OS that is not backward compatible. (Without emulation of some sort)
My guess is... perhaps 10 or 20 years from now. Resource management is becoming a known science, much more so than when Mac OS Classic was originally written. I would bet that the life-span of operating systems will increase while still allowing for rapid improvement at both higher and lower levels of code.
Granted, what constitutes a "new" OS is a pretty debatable subject. But my take is that OS X is still quite future proof and perhaps getting even more so every day.
...
You could even imagine a combination of these 2 ideas.
It certainly seems that companies like Google are much better suited to provide the next big OS revolution.
Apple is not doing too bad either, but they don't seem to have a fully coherent picture yet, too many aspects seem rather grown over time than planned with a single goal.
...
Excellent post! Just a comment on this particular section.
Apple is dealing with a legacy installed base while developing its OS. Hence things like carbon. Google has the opportunity to start fresh. The logical side affect of this is that Apple can't just roll out a completely new product, they've got to do it slowly and in a predictable manner. MS has even more difficulty with this, with legacy support being the primary selling point of Windows. This is why Vista was such a difficult project for MS, legacy support makes development waaaaay more difficult.
This isn't to point fingers or make excuses. Rather, it is simply what these companies have to deal with when evolving their products.
I'm not interested in OSX anymore and I suspect neither does Apple.
...
You are ignoring darned near everything that Apple is doing. Far from being not interested in OS X, Apple is extending its reach. This operating system is at the heart of Apple's laptop, desktop, and server systems. These families have been around for decades and are increasing marketshare. OS X is also at the heart of many new products from Apple. These include the iPhone, iPod touch, and TV.
When it introduced MacOS X, Apple said that the new OS would be the basis of its computers for the next 20 years. That was about eight years ago. We have twelve years to go. If it is so inclined, then Apple may arbitrarily introduce any new release of its operating system with a new numbering sequence. MacOS XI seems highly unlikely. More likely, it will be MacOS X 11.0.
wizard69 makes an incredibly important point. New software technology does not appear as bolts out of the blue. They bounce around computer science labs and publications for years, if not decades. This technology is the subject of discussions among computer buffs nearly as long.
What do you see happening with Apple? What is happening with Apple is that it is fast becoming the legal custodian of UNIX technologies such as CUPS. It sells one of the very few official ports of UNIX03. The notion that Apple is going to abandon UNIX is a child's fantasy. The evidence is that Apple will extend the reach of UNIX. The name of its UNIX-based OS is really not that important.
More likely, it will be MacOS X 11.0.
So you're expecting someone, possibly Steve Jobs, to stand on a stage and call the new operating system "Mac OS Ten Eleven?"
Okay...
The disadvantages that made Solaris get nicknamed Slowaris when single core, high clock cycle CPUs were the norm are the same foundational elements that make better use of multi-core CPUs.
Solaris' threading model is probably the best for multi-core in a commercial OS.
If there is an OS XI I would guess it would be a kernel change from Mach to something licensed from Sun for desktops while the mobile stuff stayed on Mach.
So you're expecting someone, possibly Steve Jobs, to stand on a stage and call the new operating system "Mac OS Ten Eleven?"
Okay...
I suppose that it never dawned on you that Apple's current OS is "Mac-Oh-Es Ten Ten-Point-Five."
But it just seems that Apple is on the verge of something revolutionary with all their recent patents concerning multi-touch, 3d GUIs, special monitors with cameras embedded in them and PA Semi's chipworks.
All I know is that the pressure is on. I sure hope that Apple has something.....several things up their sleeves for this year and next. Because as this year starts: palm is back in the game, windows 7 is coming (and its looking decent) and android is not sitting around.
Apple has had a wonderful opportunity to grow because of Microsoft's pathetic mishaps. But if windows 7 turns out to be a decent product then the mac's growth will slow. Mind you windows 7 doesn't have to be spectacular.....just decent. Indications are that it runs stable and fast and also on netbooks too.
The pressure is on! And in the end I think its the consumers that will win.
Ok ok points taken on all of the above.
But it just seems that Apple is on the verge of something revolutionary with all their recent patents concerning multi-touch, 3d GUIs, special monitors with cameras embedded in them and PA Semi's chipworks.
First, do not confuse patents with shipping products, they are not the same thing.
Also you seem to confuse I/O with the operating system as a whole. I/O is just a way to access or interact with the hardware and software systems. For example most people use their Macs with Apples standard Aqua interface but the OS can also be accessed via XWindows and terminal windows in the normal UNIX manner. Adding Touch or 3D is really just a case of extending the system that is already there.
All I know is that the pressure is on. I sure hope that Apple has something.....several things up their sleeves for this year and next. Because as this year starts: palm is back in the game, windows 7 is coming (and its looking decent) and android is not sitting around.
I don't really see it that way. The problems with MS run deeper than just Vista, and I'm not at all sure that Palm is much to worry about.
In any event the above highlights why I believe there is confusion here. That is Android has Linux as it's OS underneath. Android is more of an API than a web browser. Same thing goes for iPhone, there is something like Unix under the hood there two.
Apple has had a wonderful opportunity to grow because of Microsoft's pathetic mishaps. But if windows 7 turns out to be a decent product then the mac's growth will slow. Mind you windows 7 doesn't have to be spectacular.....just decent. Indications are that it runs stable and fast and also on netbooks too.
The pressure is on! And in the end I think its the consumers that will win.
Apple has good opportunities if they keep moving forward and not ignore the customers. One of the biggest issues with iPhone is Apples tight grip and slow development. Just like MS Apple is far from perfect.
Dave
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Apple has had a wonderful opportunity to grow because of Microsoft's pathetic mishaps. ...
There is an old saying in politics that also applies to the marketplace:
You can't beat somebody with nobody.
What this means to this discussion, that Apple has a wonderful opportunity to grow because of clear vision, sound business decisions, and good products. The notion that Microsoft suddenly started making mistakes is nonsense. Microsoft has made mistakes throughout its history. Ever hear of Microsoft Bob or Windows Me?
Apple cannot predicate its own success on Microsoft mistakes. It needs to continue to develop and produce its own innovative products. The rest will take care of itself.
To make use of the multi-core environment, one would think that a radical redesign of the applications will be necessary. I have already done some work in Erlang and it is a very interesting platform for highly concurrent programming, but this sits on top of the OS, so I would expect that the OSX will evolve to absorb the ability to support huge numbers of lightweight processes/threads. The Xserve might be the place where this begins, just as OSX began on the server side.
I'd say "OSXI" would have to cope with 64bit and superscalar CPUs, either Core or Itanium at the Mac Pro level.
To make use of the multi-core environment, one would think that a radical redesign of the applications will be necessary. I have already done some work in Erlang and it is a very interesting platform for highly concurrent programming, but this sits on top of the OS, so I would expect that the OSX will evolve to absorb the ability to support huge numbers of lightweight processes/threads. The Xserve might be the place where this begins, just as OSX began on the server side.
So if there is somewhere down the line a radical upgrade to the GUI its still most likely going to to be OSX still then correct.
"It goes to 11!"
You don't throw out a brand like "OS X" casually. Besides, there's no particular reason to jettison an operating system that is constantly being groomed at all levels. It just went on a diet so that it could run on the iPhone, after all.
It's modular enough and clean enough that I expect it to stick around for a good long time, even as the face changes and it picks up new capabilities and loses old ones.
Apple does not seem to be at all shy about ordering significant rewrites and revisions. That kind of maintenance will keep it viable until the computational model of the underlying hardware changes(!) or Apple decides for other reasons to start with a clean sheet.
So you're expecting someone, possibly Steve Jobs, to stand on a stage and call the new operating system "Mac OS Ten Eleven?"
Okay...
OSXI could be pronounced "Oh Sexi"!
OS whaaaaaa?
You don't throw out a brand like "OS X" casually. Besides, there's no particular reason to jettison an operating system that is constantly being groomed at all levels. It just went on a diet so that it could run on the iPhone, after all.
It's modular enough and clean enough that I expect it to stick around for a good long time, even as the face changes and it picks up new capabilities and loses old ones.
Apple does not seem to be at all shy about ordering significant rewrites and revisions. That kind of maintenance will keep it viable until the computational model of the underlying hardware changes(!) or Apple decides for other reasons to start with a clean sheet.
Like Steve would give a damn about OSX if one of his tech minions were to show him some new incredible OS. He would drop OSX like someone beat it with an ugly stick!