MacNET reporting Apple to pull a MS with 10.4
According to this article Apple is planning on rolling the major Apple supplied apps into the OS:
The rest of the article goes on to say that OSX is going to get the Knowledge Navigator treatment with smart assistants able to decode normal speech into actions ala Newton's Assist function. But it's the first part that scares me. If true Apple is as bad as MS. There is no need or reason to integrate these apps into the OS except to kill competition. I thought getting rid of the Internet system pref was bad, but this is much much worse.
Quote:
Apple will be rolling in some of its applications into the OS, making them readily available without having to launch them. These apps include Mail, Address Book, iCal, iSync, iChat, Safari, and more. These applications will no longer reside in the ?Applications Folder? and you will access them by using the System Preferences Panel.
Apple will be rolling in some of its applications into the OS, making them readily available without having to launch them. These apps include Mail, Address Book, iCal, iSync, iChat, Safari, and more. These applications will no longer reside in the ?Applications Folder? and you will access them by using the System Preferences Panel.
The rest of the article goes on to say that OSX is going to get the Knowledge Navigator treatment with smart assistants able to decode normal speech into actions ala Newton's Assist function. But it's the first part that scares me. If true Apple is as bad as MS. There is no need or reason to integrate these apps into the OS except to kill competition. I thought getting rid of the Internet system pref was bad, but this is much much worse.
Comments
John Manzione is a whore.
John Manzione is a whore.
John Manzione is a whore.
John Manzione is a whore.
Thanks.
I *can* see Apple making an 'Apple' folder inside Applications to partition their stuff off, much like /System does for other files, but they want to make access to their stuff as easy as possible. Having to launch SysPref to get to it makes zero sense.
Originally posted by Kickaha
...they want to make access to their stuff as easy as possible. Having to launch SysPref to get to it makes zero sense.
Don't be silly. If there is any truth in this Voice-Recognition-Integrated-Apps rumour, SysPref wouldn't exist in the same form as it does now, would it? I think the reference just means that access to all the future iApps would be in a single place.
Read the article... it makes very little sense, to be honest. The entire 'rolling apps into the OS' makes *ZERO* sense from a CS point of view, and always has.
MS launched an IE service at boot time, and offered a GUI over it for the user. What they did wrong was to place it in the kernel space (fragile, anyone?), then make it so other developers could not replace it, and if they tried with an application level library and API, it would almost certainly break - the OS was looking for workarounds and actively disabling them.
That's not 'rolling it into the OS', that's creating a policy.
Apple's policy has always been 'provide core tools and services but make them developer accessible and developer replaceable'. Look at WebCore and WebKit. Safari requires them. They live in /System. But OmniWeb can use them. Firebird can choose not to. Everybody wins.
So it looks like Apple may offer a voice recog entry point to scripting. GREAT! FREAKING COOL! EXCELLENT!
That does not mean they've 'rolled' anything into the OS. That's just Joe Sixpack speak for "I dunno what's going on, but it sure looks purty".
And to the original poster:
Microsoft embedded the browser to kill a threat to it's operating system which became less relevant to people as soon as developers could create OS-agnostic web apps. (Anyone else remember when you did computer banking by installing a windows app that dialed up the banks mainframe?)
It embedded it's media player in order to leverage its desktop monopoly into a media format (WMA, WMV) monopoly.
Assuming there is any nugget of truth in the nonsense in this article, what do you think Apple's alleged masterplan is by embedding it's Mail app or Safari into the OS? (Remembering that Mail is built on top of internet standards and Safari's rendering core is both open source and available as an easily embedded framework.) How exactly is it as bad as Microsoft?
Microsoft- By incorporating Internet Explorer into the OS they effectively froze out 3rd parties
Apple- By incorporating iCal, Address Book and iChat etc into the OS they've effectively froze out...???
The difference is iCal, AB at other Apple utilities have API's that 3rd parties can access and use. To compare this to what MS offered to 3rd parties is myopic.
With that in mind I don't think Mazione is anywhere close on this one.
Originally posted by hmurchison
Apple- By incorporating iCal, Address Book and iChat etc into the OS they've effectively froze out...???
Palm, AOL, Now, (ironically) Microsoft, and a few others.
But it won't happen.
Originally posted by HOM
I thought getting rid of the Internet system pref was bad, but this is much much worse.
Well, getting rid of the Internet control panel was weird in itself...I have no idea why they would do that. And why would someone want to go to system preferences to check mail? Mail is not a system preference....neither is a calendar...or anything else that was mentioned above.
Wouldn't that bloat the system a little though? Or would it not? Maybe a dumb question, but don't hurt me
Originally posted by CosmoNut
Palm, AOL, Now, (ironically) Microsoft, and a few others.
But it won't happen.
Umm, no. If those companies wanted to access the underlying data, they could. See Launchbar for an example of a program that uses the data from the Addressbook without a hitch. You think the Objective Development guys have to reverse engineer the Addressbook data to get at it? I don't think so. Just because they *choose* not to use it doesn't mean they are "frozen" out.
Compare that to MS' use of .pst files for outlook data. It's non-standard and you need to jump through hoops to get your data out. Who's more open? (mail.app's use of standard unix .mbox files is another example of the critical difference between these two software companies).
John Manzione is a whore.
Anyway...now he posts this?
He is taking things that changed in Panther, like the way Disk Copy was integrated into the OS so that when you click on a .dmg it mounts, and the way the Internet control panel was (more or less) moved into the Safari application, and building this grand conspiracy theory about how the next version of Mac OS X will become more appliance-like.
Nice idea. If Apple were to sell some $199 box with zero expansion. Maybe a set-top box for a WebTV-like market. I sincerely doubt this.
Originally posted by JimDreamworx
The poor boy is very confused.
He is taking things that changed in Panther, like the way Disk Copy was integrated into the OS so that when you click on a .dmg it mounts,
This is the kind of stuff I'm talking about.
The .dmg functionality was integrated into the *FINDER*, *NOT* the OS.
Originally posted by Kickaha
This is the kind of stuff I'm talking about.
The .dmg functionality was integrated into the *FINDER*, *NOT* the OS.
Just exactly how fast CAN you type?
Well, getting rid of the Internet control panel was weird in itself...I have no idea why they would do that. And why would someone want to go to system preferences to check mail? Mail is not a system preference....neither is a calendar...or anything else that was mentioned above.
That was retarded. I hope it comes back.
So it looks like Apple may offer a voice recog entry point to scripting. GREAT! FREAKING COOL! EXCELLENT!
Like Speakable Items, but better? Being able to speak instructions and parameters to an Applescript interpreter would be cool.
Originally posted by stupider...likeafox
That is the worst article I have read in a long time.
And to the original poster:
Microsoft embedded the browser to kill a threat to it's operating system which became less relevant to people as soon as developers could create OS-agnostic web apps. (Anyone else remember when you did computer banking by installing a windows app that dialed up the banks mainframe?)
It embedded it's media player in order to leverage its desktop monopoly into a media format (WMA, WMV) monopoly.
Assuming there is any nugget of truth in the nonsense in this article, what do you think Apple's alleged masterplan is by embedding it's Mail app or Safari into the OS? (Remembering that Mail is built on top of internet standards and Safari's rendering core is both open source and available as an easily embedded framework.) How exactly is it as bad as Microsoft?
Apple is not out to "kill" any other software, but they are out to "control the entire widget". That means that in order to take full advantage of the OS you need to use Apple's software. Here's a for instance: Dot Mac. Dot Mac is primarily a WebDAV space set aside on an XServe somewhere in Cupertino. Why can't I use 10.3's sync feature with another WebDAV provider?
The following is the only way I could see this not being a MS move. If Apple made the Finder much more like BeOS's file viewer with dynamic view options based on the contents of a folder. So if you are viewing a folder that has email the columns change to reflect that the contents are email. I first saw this demonstrated at a BeOS developer meeting almost 10 years ago. They opened a folder containing "this new music format called MP3" and the options changed to Artist, Album, Song Name, ect. This could be applied to Address Book, Mail.crap, iTunes, iPhoto, and pretty much every other Apple app that uses the side bar metaphor. There would no longer be an Address Book.app, but a Finder window that dynamically changed it's options to reflect that you were looking at vCards.
Originally posted by Stoo
Like Speakable Items, but better? Being able to speak instructions and parameters to an Applescript interpreter would be cool.
Exactly.
Think of it this way...
We currently have Mail.app. We launch it to access our mail.
Instead, think of a Mail.framework that provides an API to access the functionality of what Mail.app currently does. It's essentially the core of Mail.app, with the GUI stripped off. MailExtreme.app is then just the GUI layer over a rich library set.
Well, frameworks are accessible from AppleScript.
So now you can script the Mail functionality *directly* without having to have MailExtreme.app running.
TextEdit is just a simple GUI shell over the NSText sections of Cocoa... any application can use NSText and friends, and any application would be able to use the Mail.framework as well.
Including AppleScript.
So now add the second piece - natural language interpretation into AppleScript.
"Send mail to Amorph, attaching the latest JPEG of Brad with the vat of jello."
It goes out, finds the last created file of type JPEG that corresponds to the keywords "Brad" and "jello", creates a new mail message, addresses it to Amorph, after looking in the Address Book, and sends it. Voila.
Metadata file access + rich frameworks + AppleScript access + natural language interpreter hooks into AppleScript = Step 3, Make Profit.
Originally posted by the cool gut
Just exactly how fast CAN you type?
What? That was a whole three minute gap!!
Metadata file access + rich frameworks + AppleScript access + natural language interpreter hooks into AppleScript = Step 3, Make Profit.
or something like this:
Metadata file access + rich frameworks + AppleScript access + natural language interpreter hooks into AppleScript = security issues