Ah yes, as Macworld 2008 approaches and I ponder what we’ll see, I start to reminisce about the “good old days” of MacOS 9 and prior, and how far we’ve come. Along with being a much simpler — and slower — time (cooperative multitasking, anyone?), it was a time where Apple was spending boatloads of R&D money on their Advanced Technology Group to advance Apple’s technology portfolio… OpenDoc, HotSauce, CyberDog, the Newton, QuickDraw GX, QuickDraw 3D, V-Twin, and Apple Data Detectors. And there was NeXT stuff too like YellowBox and NeXT-on-Intel that was shelved.
But these technologies weren’t focused and Apple was way into the red. Copeland was a failed mess, and our beloved computer company was on the brink of non-existence. So they bought NeXT, Steve came back as the prodigal son, introduced the iMac, and we’ve been doing great ever since. But what happened to all the cool technologies? There used to be so much cool stuff, and if anyone remembers OS X Public Beta, you’ll remember it was pretty bare-bones, considering its lineage. Where’d all the cool stuff go?
Answer: future releases. And for two good reasons.
See, Apple has slowly been “bringing back” lots of technology that was left behind in the switch to OS X:
QuickDraw GX? Core technologies from that, like resolution independence, is now part of Leopard. Newton? Its handwriting recognition is the basis of OS X’s little-talked about InkWell. V-Twin? The basis for Spotlight. NeXT-on-Intel became OS X-on-Intel. Apple Data Detectors? Back.
Many things that were part of NeXTStep and MacOS 9 had to be cut for the simple fact that there simply wasn’t enough time, nor were there enough programmers at Apple HQ to churn out a total feature-complete release of OS X. But the second reason? Everyone knows that the name of the game is upgrades. And there’s no better way to keep people buying new machines than to churn out new versions of the OS that have fabulous new technologies requiring faster hardware, right?
So what’s next for Apple? Look at all the “abandoned” technologies for clues. For Macworld 08, I’d look towards Newton-meets-iPod-Touch. For the Worldwide Developer Conference this summer, I’m setting my sights on a re-emergence of YellowBox — the ability for MacOS developers to make Windows executables with a simple recompile. The technology is there, it’s just a matter of time before they use it.
(For what it’s worth, I won’t expect OpenDoc to resurface until the next iWork release, which will probably be released at Macworld ‘09. As for the file format… expect an open standard addition to the PDF format.)
– geek out
Wired is Digg-baiting again. They must need the traffic to their website:
Will Mac OS X one day run Windows apps without the need for dual booting or virtual machines? Thats the question/rumor currently making the rounds after Wine developer Steven Edwards discovered Leopard contains an undocumented loader for Portable Executables, a filetype used in Windows applications.
Will it happen? I’ve got an answer for ya: NO. I’ve already written about why Apple wouldn’t want Windows applications running on the Mac natively. But I do have a prediction as to what this all means: Apple is working hard on Yellow Box, the Windows compatibility environment for Cocoa/Objective C. These pointers lead me to believe that they are working on a way for OS X developers to make a universal distribution that can compile and run under OS X and Win32. In turn, this would make OS X the premiere development platform, since developers get the bonus of being able to run on two platforms after coding only once.
As more developers switch to Macs as their main development platform, this means that there’s more software for Macs that will also run on Windows. This helps to grow the Mac base. But what will motivate people to switch if the same software is available on both platforms? Aside from the obvious (stability, security, ease-of-use) there will be another one: features that are only available on the Mac release. They may be subtle things — like CoreAnimation effects — but they’ll be enough for people to go “Holy crap! I want a Mac!”
Wired’s article can be found here: Rumor: Windows Apps Running Native on Your Mac
–geek out
Every now and then I see or read or try something that makes my eyes get about 12 picas in diameter, and I go “Holy crap. You know what this means for the future…” Granted, this doesn’t happen often. Matter of fact It’s only happened a handful of times in the past 10 years. But when it happens, I know it. I feel it in my gut. And now is no different.
The first time was around 1999. I was working at a prepress shop, and I was reading in an industry publication about direct-to-plate and digital proofing. I took the article into one of the owners and said, “Hey, have you seen this? What are we going to do when people go direct-to-plate and don’t make film anymore?” He laughed at me.
“I’m not worried,” he said, looking at me like I was a shoeshine boy giving Donald Trump business advice. “There’s always going to be film. People like to be able to see proofs made form the film that’s used to make the plates.”
“What about digital proofing?” I asked.
“It’ll never be as good as a Matchprint.” With that he turned and went back to working on his personal website, effectively saying, “Toddle off, loser, what do you know?”
He may have shrugged it off as nothing, but I didn’t. I was out of the prepress industry the next year, and they were out of the prepress business — because printers went direct-to-plate — by 2003.
Every time I’ve seen the dots connected, I’ve been right. and I’ve learned to trust my gut when I feel it. So what is it that got me reaching for the Alka-Seltzer this time? The end of design as we know it. (more…)
