dick applebaum

Rayz2016 said:

ivanh said:

It's all about a tiny sensor. When it's invented, Apple or Samsung uses it, integrate it and write codes for it.  If this kind of sensor has been there, at least one "real" Glucose Level monitor should be using it without a smartphone. Have you ever seen Apple makes even one electronic component in the past?

Er … yes. 
Let's start with the A processors, move on to the display controllers in the 5K iMac, the W1 chip in the headphones…

Actually Apple developed custom chips much earlier than that:

• the original Apple ][  in 1977 had custom ROMS that provided Integer BASIC and mini assembler
• the Apple Disk ][ had custom driver chips
• Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) in 1986 (Apple ][ GS, later Mac II and Mac SE)  had custom ASIC Chips

These were all designed by WOZ.

Mmm...

I just noticed that DED's personal roughlydrafted.com web site now redirects directly to AI.com...

What's that all about?

Rayz2016 said:

dick applebaum said:

Soli said:

4) Any ideas why it wasn't use for macOS? 

Millions of non-Mac devices -- but a controlled environment... Think about it... It is much easier to update a File System that is invisible to users and developers while only interfaced by Apple's code -- Jailbreakers, be damned!  Couldn't pull that off so easily in an exposed File System system as in macOS!

Very true. 

But since the iOS user base is several orders of magnitude larger than the MacOS user base, and arguably more important to Apple, I'm still a bit surprised they pulled the trigger here first. 

Still, judging by the silence, this could be one of the most successful mass upgrades in IT history. 

Yeah...

I just reviewed the WWDC2016 video introducing APFS.



at about 34 min in.

Several things may contribute to the decision:

• The iOS version of HFS+ is different from the macOS version -- there are fewer considerations in the iOS upgrade
• Apple's goal was to do the upgrade from HFS to APFS without moving the data -- the new APFS metadata will be written to the HFS+ free space 
• support for boot volumes, Time Machine and other macOS capabilities was not then provided
• many 3rd-party macOS apps need to manipulate the file system at a lower level -- NA in iOS app

But, I agree, this could be one of the most successful mass upgrades in IT history. 


Edit: I guess the market agrees:  AAPL just hit its all-time high and has a market cap 3/4 $Trillion plus change

steveh said:

I was at the event, being at the time a technical writer in the Apple// division. The Apple//c documentation set was the last major project I worked on at Apple. Lessee now...

1. What's with the articles' calling the //c a "terminal"? Being as it's the computer itself, it would make more sense to call it an almost-laptop. As it happens, there was an LCD display that was made for the //c, smaller and lighter than the CRT display Apple sold with the computer. Never saw the LCD display in the wild, as far as I can remember, but it shows up in an early scene in the movie 2010.

Two partners and I opened our Sunnyvale Computer Plus store in 1978 -- We were an Apple dealership (among others).  At the same time, I worked at the IBM Palo Alto DB/DC Systems Center.  In 1979 IBM announced a new CRT terminal -- AIR, this was an IBM 3101 terminal.  The terminal was a breakthrough for IBM in that it was ASCII and used asynchronous communications -- which allowed it to connect to non-IBM computers -- maimframes, minis, etc.  The terminal used a RS-232 connecter -- either hard-wired or dial-up.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3101

Remind you of anything???

Another group in the Systems Center was responsible for the introduction of the this terminal to the IBM marketing reps and customers.   The only problem was that they didn't have access to any non-IBM computers to test the connection...  They knew I had an Apple ][ and they asked me to bring it in so they could setup and test the RS-232 interface. Everything worked fine -- the IBM ASCII CRT Terminal connected to an Apple ][ computer.    

AIR, the IBM Terminal was a lot bigger than the Apple ][, had beaucoup electronics inside and cost several hundreds of $ per month rental.


As to the LCD display:   Our store was the best Apple Dealership in the area and was 7/10 mile from Apple HQ.   Whenever anyone had some new accessory for an Apple Computer, they'd visit Apple HQ, and our store -- to see and be seen.  AIR, again it was sometime in 1979-80, when a couple of men from a small startup  in Taiwan (I think) brought in an LCD display that they wanted to connect to an Apple ][ computer.  It was about 3" high x 8" wide and 1/1/6" thick clear plastic.   The LCD was slightly bigger and a about the same shape as the label on the Apple ][.  If you covered the label with masking tape the LCD looked like it belonged there!  



Again, everything worked fine.   It was neat!

These two men found out that our store was going to have a booth at the upcoming West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco -- and we agreed that they could show their LCD Display in the booth...  The Faire was really crowded and our booth was a hit -- we had the first Joy Stick for the Apple ][, a full Assembler and some Hi-Res Graphics apps...  When word got around that we were demoing an LCD Display, the booth was overrun by people from various Asian countries.  They all talked excitedly in languages that none of us understood.   I suspect that some big deals were going' down!   FWIW, one of the advantages of a clear LCD Display was that you could place it on an overhead projector and display the output on a white board -- an old teachers' trick.

GeorgeBMac said:

wwchris said:

Man, I just wish Apple would add mouse support for iOS. At that point, I might actually use my iPad for content creation. The ability to insert a cursor or select a block of text in iOS is painful and too slow. Copying and pasting is still a pain and often results in deselecting the selected text. Also, if I have a misspelled word, half the time I have to navigate to a second submenu to select the correct spelling. If the word is underlined red and I select it, wouldn't my most obvious action be to correct it rather than copy, cut, paste or Other...?

The MacBook bigots say that the cursor is THEIRS and YOU CAN'T HAVE IT!   EVER!

Here's an example on a 3D Drawing App using the iPad Pro and Pencil.  It shows one implementation of a cursor in iOS.  Very nice, IMO!

 



Here's another -- not quite as nice, IMO.