INEVITABLE (Jon Oldblood) Mac OS
Introduction
- 1 day ago Cult of Mac - Luke Dormehl. 12h. According to (generally) reliable Apple tipster Jon Prosser, Apple will release its new 2021 iMac, iPad Pro with M1 chip, and faster Apple TV 4K with redesigned Siri Remote on May 21. The new devices shown.
- The Mac Observer: Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.4.11 with Security Fixes, Safari 3 Josh Pigford / The Apple Blog: Last version of Tiger released - Includes Safari 3 Glenn Fleishman / TidBITS: Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.4.11 with Safari 3.
Back in early November of 2003, I introduced my Mac OS X 10.3 Panther review with some concerns about Apple's OS release cycle.
It's strange to have gone from years of uncertainty and vaporware to a steady annual supply of major new operating system releases from Apple. But do I really want to pay US$129 every year for the next version of Mac OS X? Worse, do I really want to deal with the inevitable upgrade hassles and 10.x.0 release bugs every single year? Is it worth it, or is a major OS upgrade every year simply too much, too often?
'Craig has done a great job managing the Mac OS team for the past two years, Lion is a great release and the transition should be seamless.' This story is from Computerworld's Apple Holic blog.
In the end, I concluded that I was okay with yearly releases, but that some sort of adjustment for 'normal' customers would be nice.
If there's going to be any consumer backlash, it's not going to start with me. I think Panther is worth the cost, but I consider its price to be an investment in the future of Mac OS X—something I obviously have strong opinions about. I'm probably not a typical user, however. If Apple wants to help ease the burden of the larger Mac community, decent upgrade pricing would be a good start. With a yearly release schedule, that is nearly the same thing as a simple price reduction, but if so, so be it.
So convinced was I of the inevitability of the Mac OS X yearly release juggernaut that I never even considered the possibility that relief from the $129-per-year Mac OS X tax might come in the form of an extra six-month wait for version 10.4. 'Let's do this again next year' were my exact words at the end of the Panther review.
Well, here we are 18 months and 6 days later, finally getting a look at Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Windows users patiently waiting for Longhorn may not be sympathetic, but the longer wait for Tiger is something new to Mac OS X users.
AdvertisementTiger's longer gestation doesn't mean that the rate of change has slowed, however. Tiger includes updates that are at least twice as significant as any single past update. Mac OS X is now getting to the point where significant improvements require a larger time investment. As far as the core OS is concerned, most of the low-hanging fruit has been harvested. Now it's time for Apple to get down to the real work of improving Mac OS X.
Inevitable (jon Oldblood) Mac Os Catalina
Tiger also represents a milestone in Mac OS X's development process. Apple has promised developers that there will be 'no API disruption for the foreseeable future.' Starting with Tiger, Apple will add new APIs to Mac OS X, but will not change any existing APIs in an incompatible way. This has not been the case during the first four years of Mac OS X's development, and Mac developers have often had to scramble to keep their applications running after each new major release.
Despite its NeXTSTEP roots, Mac OS X is still a very young operating system. Most of the technologies that make it interesting and unique are actually brand new: Quartz, Core Audio, IOKit, Core Foundation. The hold-overs from NeXT and classic Mac OS have also evolved substantially: QuickTime, Carbon, Cocoa.
It's tempting to say that Tiger marks childhood's end for Mac OS X, but I think that goes too far. A more accurate analogy is that Mac OS X versions 10.0 through 10.3 represent 'the fourth trimester' for Apple's new baby—a phrase used to describe the first three months of human life, during which the baby becomes accustomed to life outside the womb. As any new parent knows (yes, I am one of them), this is not an easy time of life, for the baby or for the parents.
It's been a rough journey, but we've made it through intact: Apple, Mac OS X, and Mac users everywhere. Tiger has arrived. Let's see what this baby can do.
In article <starsabre-225F10.07574617062007@inetnews.worldnet.att.net>,[snip]
jt august <starsabre@net.att> wrote:
>In article <1hzuoa3.11urs99yzyyxnN%see_signature@mac.com.invalid>,
> see_signature@mac.com.invalid (Jon) wrote:
>
>> jt august <starsabre@net.att> wrote:
>>
>> > In the classic OS (1.0 to 9.2), back in the daze of System 6.0.5 and
>> > System 7, files had a Type and Creator attribute that was heads and
>> > tails over the .SFX suffix of Windows. When Apple went to the Unix
>> > based OS X, they abandonned this very nice set-up. My question is why?
>>
>> http://arstechnica.com/reviews/2q00/macos-qna/macos-x-qa-2.html
>> http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10-4.ars/11
>
>The first article was very technical and confusing. The second article
>describes a new typing structure, but says that this only applies to
>some parts of the OS, and that .suffixes are still required for saved
>datas.
>
>Neither article explains why Apple chose to move away from TYPE and
>CRTR. And googling has yet to produce an explanation as to why?
Reading the first article sited there is a paragraph that says:
The situation for plain files is somewhat less perfect. There are only two
popular methods for representing concrete types: HFS/HFS+ type/creator
codes and filename extensions. Mac OS X supports both, but Apple 'strongly
encourages developers to use file extensions as alternative means for
identifying document types.' Apple's reasoning is that the Internet, the new
'lowest common denominator' of interoperability, does not support
HFS-style attributes and forks; it deals only in flat files. Where the
overwhelming majority of 'flat file' volume formats (i.e. Windows/FAT,
Unix/UFS) failed to change Apple's thinking, the pervasive connectivity of the
multi-million-node Internet has succeeded.
That sure sounds like an explanation as to why.
Inevitable (jon Oldblood) Mac Os X
--
Dave Funk University of Iowa
<dbfunk (at) engineering.uiowa.edu> College of Engineering
319/335-5751 FAX: 319/384-0549 1256 Seamans Center
Sys_admin/Postmaster/cell_admin Iowa City, IA 52242-1527