UrbanBard's Profile

  • Dec 26, 2010
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Latest comments made by: UrbanBard

  • That web designer displayed the height of technological arrogance; he wanted technology to be "hard-ro-use" so he could feel superior to other people. People have various temperaments or personalities. Each temperament displays their own competence and skills. This is not about intelligence as he would surmise; the point is that only a small percentage of people are technologically capable and enjoy decoding complex puzzles which that web designer would erect. It is about 12% of humanity. If the computer had remained as hard-to-use as they were back in the 1970s then computers would be a niche of only a few million. Fortunately, Apple pursued the easy-to-use path and Microsoft stole most of their ideas to mass market them. Just imagine if we still had a priesthood of computing like they had back in the IBM 360 era. We would be forced to put up with many more arrogant snobs like that web designer. We would never have enjoyable devices like the iPad. And people who rightly fear and hate computers, because they are unsuited to their temperaments, would never have their needs met.
    UrbanBard had this to say on May 06, 2010 Posts: 111
    The iPad's Design Utopia vs. the Internet at Large
  • "My disagreement was that it’s acceptable for a company to behave in a way we would consider bad if it were an individual - just because it is a company. We don’t have to take on the belief that since profit is important we should accept lack of care. " But who can you trust to correct corporate behavior? Are individuals, courts or governmental regulatory agencies any less corruptible than companies? Often, corporate problems are from an excess of power where companies become arrogant and unethical. Some of this is part of our culture. If amoral behavior is ignored by the Press or the company's customers, then corporate practices can get injurious. The courts are best used in curbing that. I think our solution is plenty of competition and exposure. Companies need to duke it out in the markets and in public opinion. Companies who use FUD get found out; they get horrible reputations. Governmental regulatory agencies often get suborned by businesses or associations of businesses, so politics solves nothing. That just adds a layer of bureaucratic corruption.
    UrbanBard had this to say on Apr 23, 2010 Posts: 111
    Something to Realize about Apple's Corporate Spats
  • Greg, you have it slightly wrong. We customers have the power to buy or not to buy. If companies don't serve us well, then we shouldn't buy. The problem comes in when there is a lack of competition; That is when companies get arrogant and stop serving us. The computer industry's problems are a result of Microsoft's monopoly. All the competition was in the hardware markets for a decade and a half. Apple made many mistakes and came close to going out of business. Adobe chose to be fickle and suck up to Microsoft; It is paying a price for that. These spats are not personal; it's just business. It's just a result of Microsoft's unraveling dominance. Monopolies don't last forever. Microsoft is under serious attack from many quarters; it has shown enormous arrogance and incompetence. The chickens are coming home to roost. Microsoft is under threat from Apple. Apple moved out of its traditional niches of education, graphics and design and has made huge inroads in the upper end consumer market. It is now appealing to the Small to Medium sized Business market. But, Apple's market share is unlikely to exceed 25%. Few people realize that Microsoft's market share is mostly inactive. Sixty per sent of the world's computers are using Windows XP and will likely remain there for the next couple of years. These are old computers running old software in Enterprise. Companies have no reason to upgrade, because the hardware is working adequately, if slowly. Businesses don't have the money to buy new computers. That will be necessary for these business functions to upgrade to Windows Seven. Hey! Even the Vista computers aren't moving very fast to upgrade. Sure, at 2% growth a month, that is twice as fast as Vista was, but it is less than half as fast as Snow Leopard's adoption. At this rate, it will take another year for Windows Seven to get 35%. The real threat to Microsoft is that Google's Chrome OS is coming out this year. Google is going after the low end consumer market, initially, but this will expand into Microsoft's business and government niches. The Chrome OS will be much safer and more secure than Windows Seven -- cheaper, too. Chrome, in combination with WINE to run the old XP software, could take over much of the Windows XP market share. That is a WIN-WIN situation for the Enterprise companies and Google. It is a losing proposition for Microsoft and its allies. This is good because there is competition again. Markets are supposed to be combative. Why? Because it is not about the companies; it is about how well they serve their customers. Adobe's Flash got its dominance because HTML was so crappy and Adobe climbed on Microsoft's coat tails. It didn't matter for a decade that Adobe got arrogant and did not serve its Macintosh customers well. As Microsoft loses its dominance, many of its old business arrangements and alliances will break up. Apple and Google are competing fiercely and they are unlikely to steal much from each other. Apple's target is hardware sales; Google's target is web views of advertising. Both will be going after Microsoft's established base. This will gore Adobe's ox as well. This trouncing comes from aligning, too closely, with the Industry leader. Adobe will, thus, suffer Microsoft's fate. The handwriting is on the wall for both. Adobe's FUD campaign against Apple is not working. Next year, most web sites will offer both Flash and H.264 access to video. Many web sites will do this easily by parking its video on YouTube.
    UrbanBard had this to say on Apr 22, 2010 Posts: 111
    Something to Realize about Apple's Corporate Spats
  • There is something that you are missing, Chris. Apple, like many professionals, is looking for the Next Big Thing. To be really successful in the Next Big Thing, you must get on the ground floor, concentrate your energies and ignore the old Big Thing which you plan to replace. The best way to capitalize on the Next Big Thing is to grow the computer market, not just steal users from Microsoft. A computer company must bet on technologies, like Apple has bet on multitouch technologies and HTML 5. Apple has had great success as a trend setter in the last 12 years. Why? Because Steve Jobs has good taste, is very hard to please and won't let a product out the door until it is ready. This is why Apple's products are so successful. Not everyone agrees with Steve's taste, especially those companies who own the old Big Thing, Like Flash. Those companies might think they can push Apple around. Apple has had a problematic relationship with Adobe. Using your sandbox illusion, Apple and Adobe were once best buddies. They did everything together when they were starting out. Then, a New Kid, Bill Gates, moved into town and build a bigger sandbox than Apple's. The kids at the Apple sandbox said that the Microsoft sandbox was cheaper, shoddier and had lower quality than Apple's. The problem was that the kids at the Apple sandbox started leaving to hang out at Microsoft, but Apple was going through management problems then. The real crushing blow was when Apple was doing poorly, Adobe publicly abandoned Apple and told all the neighborhood kids to come over to Microsoft's sand box. Since then, Adobe would drop by the Apple sandbox periodically, say some nasty words, drop some buggy, bloated, cross platform Apps and rush back to Microsoft. It wasn't until Apple got its success with the iPhone that Adobe realized that Flash was in jeopardy, not just on mobile phones where Adobe had never seriously tried to play, but also on desktops. Since then, Adobe has been badmouthing Apple constantly. It has been misrepresenting the fact that Flash cannot work, at all, on multi-touch devises and few iPhone users missed Flash on the web, anyway. Apple has little reason to cooperate with Adobe. Back during Apple's beleaguered days, Adobe and Microsoft were essential to Apple's existence. Now, Apple is no longer ill or badly managed. Its products are in great demand. Apple's sandbox is growing larger every year while Microsoft's sandbox has seen better days and is decaying at the edges. Adobe and Microsoft no linger call the shots and need to learn that lesson. If this looks as though Apple is being dictatorial, then Apple is willing to live with whatever consequences come from that.
    UrbanBard had this to say on Apr 20, 2010 Posts: 111
    Something to Realize about Apple's Corporate Spats
  • Paul, the App Store is a work in process. No doubt, it will change over time in order to satisfy the consumers needs. Apple has an embarrassment of riches in its App store. It probably never knew the store would grow this fast, therefore it never made plans for expansion. "I’ve read your defense, but I really can’t agree. Software quality on the Mac seems to have not suffered with the free market and " Apple never controlled a market before; computers grew like topsy in often unfriendly ways for customers and developers. Apple had a niche market, so it could concentrate on pleasing reasonable professionals. But even then, Apple had many problems with developers. "Apple has not felt a need to dictate to Mac owners what they can and can’t run on their computers or that software can only be bought from them. " That is silly. Apple often has had to dictate to Mac owners in order to improve its OS. Apple told the developers for three years, in Mac OS 8, to stop making direct calls to hardware. Eventually, Apple had to cut the practice even though that broke programs. Who got blamed? The Developers? Dream on. Apple had a devil of a time converting its users and developers to Mac OSX even though its users knew the benefits of a modern, object oriented, operating system. Apple had to create the Carbon API's as the only means to move the developers and users to Cocoa API's. We are still four years away from Carbon API's becoming obsolete. Most recently, Apple had been telling developers, several years before the move to Intel hardware, to use Xcode and Cocoa API's. Adobe refused. It tried to coerce Apple into creating Carbon 64 bit API's, so it could cross compile programs, until Apple cut them off. Adobe has blamed Apple for being a year and a half late in converting CS to 64 bit. "I can’t see why the iPad should be any different. " What make the iPad platform different is the multi-touch technologies. You cannot simply transfer a Wintel app to the iPad and expect it to work well. Apple had to extensively reprogram iWorks to get the programs to be effortless. Also, Apple may be nipping problems in the bud by being strict now. Apple can afford to be strict, because it has more developers than it needs. The Wintel software marketplace is atrocious; it is not efficient. 80% of all apps are stolen. This means that developers must price their apps five times as high to gain a decent profit. It was never that bad in Macintosh software, but Macintosh users are very demanding and are less likely to be thieves. The word spread when an application wasn't good or very Mac-like. The App store Is an efficient marketplace, because Apple polices it. It isn't perfect, but the small developers can make a living on it. Apple didn't have such a marketplace before. I'm expecting Apple to extend the store to regular apps when it gets its infrastructure worked out. "The best thing Apple can do to ensure quality software is to continue to develop rich application frameworks and powerful development tools. " What if you can't get lazy developers to use your wonderful tools? What if they want to sell crappy knockoffs of programs they designed for Windows? Adobe, for instance, designed Flash to work very well and fast on Windows, but extremely poorly and problematically on the Mac. Who gets blamed for that situation? Not Adobe. "If they get that right, they won’t need to police their market place as developers will want to use their tools because they’re the best, not because they’re the only option." You have a naive view of the world. You must have police because there are malefactors. Apple could have the best tools in the world, but some people, out of self interest or blindness, will choose something else. What Apple is demanding on the iPad is native applications using open technologies. This is mostly aimed at Adobe, but Apple needs to elaborate on how it intends to respond to runtime programs.
  • Paul Howard said: "Ultimately if the “vanilla” Flash-based applications are bad and the Objective-C/Cocoa applications are excellent, the market will reflect that and people will vote with their wallets. Absolutely no need for Apple to dictate. " Apple needs to dictate, because it will get blamed for allowing poor products to be sold in the App store. The App store is not a Free Market any more than a Flea Market is, because restrictions always apply. Apple is acting as a middlemen in its ownership of the App store. Middlemen stand between the customers and the producers to moderate the demands and excesses of both. They create the marketplace by providing a selling space and establishing the rules. Rules lead to order, because disputes always arise. The question is always "who administers the rules?" A marketplace is "Free" according to how little the government involves itself and the owners of property decide. If the middlemen enforce quality standards then that insures that customers aren't being ripped off. That protects the brand name of the store. This seems to be what Apple is doing. Apple is taking the position that "native applications" using "open" standards are preferable to "cross platform applications" using "proprietary" standards. "Whether Adobe or someone else is in a position to develop better tools is highly debatable, but my main point is that the market should decide, not Apple. " The market is deciding, Paul. This isn't a consumer squabble. It is a producer rebellion. It is Apple saying to its vendors, "You must sell according to my rules, if you are setting up shop in my App store." We can quibble over Apple's dictates and whether Apple's vision of the platform's future is appropriate, but some people are saying that Apple has no right, as a Middleman, to control its own property. That the developers should set the rules in Apple's store. That is not so. The developers who believe that should go elsewhere -- or stay with Linux. "Indeed the biggest obstacle to this at present is the organizational mess known as the App Store (more like an App yard sale) - it may have 100000 applications, but how on earth do you find the one you want, and identify the better applications? " Markets tend to become more orderly over time even as the number of producers increase. A market in information about the products arises; rating agencies and reviewers are developed to help people decide. A lot of this mess will shake out with time. Word of mouth will select the good products and drive the bad ones out of business. Some of this commotion is from the App store's newness. Some of it is from "fly by night" developers who want to rip people off. Apple stands in the middle enforcing its quality standards. It is getting lambasted for that. "If Apple focused their efforts on providing a better interface to the app store then the rest would take care of itself - and they’d probably sell more applications to boot." Can you make up your mind? Now, you are asking Apple to assert even more control over its property. You are right; Apple needs to refine its interface for its customers. But, how can Apple do that when the developers are introducing disorder by grasping away control?
  • Apple does not have a monopoly, Beeblebrox. There is plenty of competition in music players, mobile phones and internet appliances. Apple entered each of these markets as a novice -- an underdog. Apple earned its market share by pleasing customers better then the existing vendors did. If Apple screws up or become unnecessarily dictatorial, it will lose out very rapidly. There is no lack of competition. It seems like we have en iPhone killer every month. The point is that Apple owns and controls the iPod / iPhone / iPad software platform; therefore, it controls the path which that platform will take. Nor is this anti-competitive. If Flash is considered essential by iPod / iPhone /iPad users, then Apple will take a hit from that. If Apple is right and Flash is nonessential to its buyers then it will lose nothing. The problem is that Apple has very poor competition in these markets. Therefore, it is the developers who must attack Apple. This is a very weak hand. What the developers want to do is share in Apple's success, while simultaneously sabotaging Apple's plans for the future. The problem with Microsoft Windows is not that it controls 89% of the market, but that it is such a crappy, insecure OS. There are institutional reasons which maintain Microsoft's Market share, but that won't last forever. The cracks are starting to widen. I can see three ways in which Microsoft's market share will fall over the next ten years, but there are too many forces in play to know how it will happen.
  • I agree with your conclusion, Hadley. I merely disagree with your history lesson. Do you remember OS/2? It was a pretty good OS; it could have competed well against the classic Mac OS; It was much better than Windows 95. Microsoft misled people into developing for OS/2 and then shot it down. That was how Microsoft got its monopoly by sabotaging any competitor to Microsoft Windows and Office. The IT personnel in big businesses allowed Microsoft to get away with that anti-competitive behavior. It was a closed system. It wasn't a lack of openness which relegated the Mac to a niche; Wintel was not open on the Operating System side. Apple's board of directors were greedy; they milked the Apple II and the Mac for every dime they could get. Apple was not delivering sufficient value, or technological improvements, to compete with Wintel computers who were competing on the lowest possible price and the highest megahertz. That relatively higher Apple price you speak of, tundraboy, allowed Microsoft to steal the march on Apple. Windows 95 was junk compared to the Mac OS, but a Wintel computer costs half or less of an Apple. If you did not have high requirements or wanted a long life expectancy, then Wintel could do almost as well. The Windows OS was said to be "good enough." What does openness mean? Linux is totally open OS, but that means that it has no direction. It has too many conflicting visions. Google may be in the process of making Linux into a success by closing it down more with the Chrome OS, but it is too soon to say. Apple is providing direction for the mobile phone market; that is why it is successful. It is the industry leader. It is creating products which serve the customer's long term needs, not the developer's short term needs. Developers who come from Linux side often resent the lack of anarchy and attempt to force Apple into Linux's open mode. That would destroy Apple's vision for the future. I believe in competition. Let the best system win: open or closed. Apple has a partially closed system because it is betting on certain technologies and controlling its vision. It will allow developers to come along on its ride so long as they don't try to grab the steering wheel. Both Microsoft and Adobe have their heads stuck in the past when Apple was weaker than they. This is no longer true. They do not control the shots. It is unclear how this recent brouhaha will pan out, but Apple is in no hurry to change anything substantial. Flash will not be on the iPhone. Apple needs to refine its position on Unity, Lua and the other runtime programs through.
  • Not quite, SterlingNorth. The issue is more complex than that. Diminishing returns are setting in on Microsoft Windows, but events are occurring in ways previously unforeseen. The handwriting is on the wall. Window's doom is certain, but apparently, it is deferred. Where James erred was in not recognizing that Microsoft is a marketing company, not a technology company. As long as the suckers are buying the Windows OS, then Microsoft will be issuing new crappy versions of it, full of glitter and hype, but no substance. Microsoft acts as a Confidence Man relying on other people's ignorance and gullibility. The Longhorn OS failed after five years of development and almost six billion dollars spent, so MS pulled a fast one to cover their embarrassment. They took an updated version of Windows NT with all its security flaws -- Windows Server 2003 -- and then hurried up to produce Vista in a year and a half. No wondered that Vista failed; it was still an Alpha version when released. MS needed over three years to revamp Vista into a half way decent OS in Windows Seven. But, the Windows operating system is not fixable. It is not a multi-user, multi-tasking operating system designed for the internet; it is a stand alone disk system which has been reworked into fooling you into believing it is. Apple did the same con job with multi-finder in System 5 in 1985. http://rixstep.com/2/20090601,00.shtml James is right in saying that Microsoft Windows is a disaster in the making. The Windows OS should be abandoned, but there are institutional reasons for why it will not die easily. As long as Windows is on the Internet, billions will be lost each year due to malware. A vulnerability in Windows is automatically an exploit, because it has no internal protection. Windows users have been conned into thinking that their malware woes are a necessary and an unavoidable part of computing. It is not. We have no idea when Windows will fail or how hard. As it seems right now, the Chrome OS is the greatest threat to Microsoft Windows, not Mac OSX. But, when this article was written, Google had not even started on the Chrome OS. http://rixstep.com/2/20090726,00.shtml Apple is in the hardware business. It will use Microsoft's incompetence to sell its hardware, but it is not at war with Microsoft. That is why Chrome is the only OS which stands a chance of replacing Windows. Over 60% of the computers in existence are on Windows XP. These computers are, mostly, in Enterprise companies, world wide, doing specialized tasks using old software. The systems work well enough for occasional use, so there is no reason to upgrade the hardware to run Windows Seven. Meanwhile, those computers remain a threat to the internet, because XP is so easily corrupted. What the Chrome OS can do is to allow the companies using XP to convert to Google apps. I expect than when Chrome is finally released, this year, someone in the FOSS community will revamp WINE to run on Chrome. This means that the companies who currently use Windows XP can install the Chrome OS and run their old Windows software in WINE. Hence, their workflows will be unhampered. How fast this will occur is anyone's guess.
  • I believe it it is worth the money just to get to 90% of our user base in 64 bit code. By June or July, the Snow Leopard user base will be 60 to 65% SL and 80% of the Mac Apps will be in 64 bit code. Apple will change the kernel by default. There will be enough improvements that word of mouth will persuade the user base to upgrade. This means that over 90% will be in Snow Leopard by Sept to November -- 12 to 14 months after SL launch. Apple will be able to ignore 32 bit code as legacy. Carbon API's will be sidelined. I'm not expecting new features before 10.7, but we will have greatly improved applications to get used to. I don't expect 10.7's release until late spring to late summer. Apple will need to deliver some system level features because 10.6 was sparse. Meanwhile, the Wintel market will have changes for Apple to adjust to. The Chrome OS Is apt to take over the lower half of the consumer market. Apple doesn't want this market anyway. The iPad is not going after the NetBook customers, although it may get a few. The iPad is creating a new market segment. It is designed for the non-computer user -- the young, the old, the technically incompetent and the technically fearful. Microsoft will be pushed out of the consumer market by Chrome, not Apple. Microsoft will be pushed back into those organizations which have IT personnel -- government and big business. This is necessary because Windows Seven will continue to be hit with malware. The malware makers are getting quite good. Microsoft has over promised for security in Windows Seven. There will be another PR debacle for Microsoft. There are great uncertainties in Microsoft's business plan. 60% of Windows computers remain in Windows XP; much of Microsoft's market share is inactive and is unlikely to upgrade or to buy new computers soon. Microsoft's market share, at the Win7 launch, moved from 2% using the Win7 Release Candidate to 10% using Win7 in four months. This upgrade is twice as fast at the Vista upgrade, but is still disappointing. It is half as fast as Snow leopard's upgrade. It is uncertain how much of Microsoft's user base Apple can steal. It depends on the consumers. Many XP users will find it problematic and expensive to move to WIn7. A move to the Macintosh will be safer and more secure.
    UrbanBard had this to say on Mar 07, 2010 Posts: 111
    What's Next for Mac OS X?
  • "I’m curious, what is it that you think you can do with 64-bits that you can’t already do with 32-bits - other than address more memory or use longer registers? One example of a revolutionary change would be interesting." Ah, Paul, this technology is much like a baby. It depends on how it grows up. If you focus too closely you can miss the end result. A revolution is an abrupt event which depends on many incremental events before it. The American revolution was a hundred years in the making, but fifteen years before Concord the Americans were loyal Brits. Apple has had a long tendency of putting the pieces of technology in place until it has all its ducks in a row. When it adds the final piece, a revolution occurs, because new capabilities are revealed which weren't there before. How Apple took over the music player market was a revolution, just as is how it revamped the mobile phone market. The iPad seems to be an evolution of the iPod Touch, but I believe it is a part of the next revolution. You could say that this is just evolutionary, but by doing so, you miss the fact that the effect is greater than the sum of its parts. 64 bit code for a commercial device, like a server, is very different from a consumer device. Apple has inherited a long series of compromises which were forced on it by primitive technology or user demands. Apple, in Snow Leopard, is leaving behind the compromises it made, back in 1998, to adapt NeXTstep to the Mac. The Carbon API's will be rendered legacy so they can disappear in five years. Many of the exciting technologies in NeXTstep can now be enabled. When Apple migrates to 64 bit code, it gains enhanced security and control which is impossible in 32 bit code. This is a whole new level. This is more than merely extra address space or the ability to hide essential system files in that wider space. Apple will take advantage of the new capabilities to make the Mac much more secure. Microsoft has ASLR, DEP and the sand boxing of XP applications, but it won't make Windows secure. Nothing will change fundamentally. The Mac, in the 64 bit kernel, will gain ASLR, DEP and sand boxing, but it will use them in brand new ways. It is very long and tiring to explore the ramifications of that. And some of this is guesswork, because Apple has hinted at the possibilities but not laid out the details. You could discount my opinions as an over active imagination, but we will see soon enough. Are you aware that Apple changed its install procedure in Snow Leopard? Why did Apple do that? The installer now loads a part of the DVD on the disk, before it starts asking questions. In the 64 bit kernel, the installer is likely to be sand boxed in a virtual machine where it will be difficult to spoof. This allows Apple to close a security loophole which has been available since the original Mac OS. If you had physical access to the computer and an installer disk, the computer was at your mercy. I believe this will now change; the installer will start demanding your authorization to load software. Apple needs to make this as effortless as possible for legitimate Apple users, but this security loophole will, eventually, be closed. One enhancement is that if Apple is to secure the Mac for businesses, then it needs to lock down, erase or encrypt files on a lost or stolen Macs. This is no trivial matter to businesses. Apple already has the capability on the iPhone. I believe it will be extended to its Notebook line. But, without the 64 bit kernel, that would be impossible. This is just one ramification.
    UrbanBard had this to say on Feb 12, 2010 Posts: 111
    What's Next for Mac OS X?
  • The Cloud is nothing more than "thin computing" modernized. It has its advantages and drawbacks. For casual computer users, the advantages of the Cloud vastly out-weigh the risks. The point is the computer market is not "one size fits all." Mainframes didn't disappear when the micro computer arrived. The Cloud will not replace heavy duty apps or super computers. The definition for each will be upgraded. The leading edge is toward very difficult simulations, VR, graphics etc. The answer to the title question, above, "What's next for the Mac," depends on whether your focus is on the short, medium or long term. The author seemed focused on the medium term over the next year or so. I pointed out that we have some short term events coming up within six months which we must adjust to. Companies are positioning themselves to take advantage of the target market which they choose to serve. For Google, that is NetBooks, low end computers and the casual computer users. They will continue to make their money through ads on their search engines and web apps. Google, also, stands a chance of stealing away part of the recalcitrant Windows XP crowd with the Chrome OS and VMware. It will be cheaper, easier and less troublesome for many business users than migrating to Windows 7. Apple is moving in several different directions. The iPad, iPhone and iTouch seems aimed at serving people who do not like or use computers, now. These are people who would find a NetBook too hard to use. They comprise about half of the population. Another market segment for Apple is the heavy duty computer users. This is what the 64 bit code, OpenCL and Grand Central Dispatch is for. Games will become part of that, too, but mostly this is for serious work. Apple has already attained a lock on the upper end of the consumer market. Apple is not interested in the low end consumer market, government and big business sales, but it is interested in serving Small to Medium sized businesses. Windows is being pushed back into its government and big business niche by Apple, Google and Linux. The interesting trend is that Microsoft will be under constant attack from all quarters. The most devastating attack will be from computer devises not yet invented. They will be very cheap and specialized devices using open standards most likely run by Linux. They will work flawlessly with a Mac. This is part of the process of computers fragmenting. These devices will become cheap and powerful, because every one has it own computer inside. Naturally, this could make confusion possible, but you will carry a portal with you for your important information. That portal will know where everything is in your home, office or in the Cloud. It will display your output to what ever monitor you choose out of many. Your most important information will move with you, but the portal will know where everything is and what your normal preferences are. If it chooses wrongly, you can quickly correct it. That portal will look very much like an iPad or a device a little smaller. A back pocket and pocket book sized portal which unfolds into a bigger screen would work fine. But we need flexible screens or holographic projection for that. That will come in less than ten years years. These possibilities are driven by improvements in technology. Computers will be in everything, even your underwear. Apple seems well adapted to handle such devices without confusion. Other vendors will not be so blessed.
    UrbanBard had this to say on Feb 12, 2010 Posts: 111
    What's Next for Mac OS X?
  • Make your bet, tundraboy, and I'll make mine. I never said when these trends will bear out. I merely said that the iPad was part of the process. The computer will be composed of many parts, but the combination will be greater than the sum of the parts. All the peripherals we currently use will be specialized computers which wirelessly work with the whole. I think Apple has an advantage in such a change.
    UrbanBard had this to say on Feb 11, 2010 Posts: 111
    What's Next for Mac OS X?
  • Some people never understand anything, Paul, unless it smacks them upside the head. We will see in four to five months what the changes will be. There are far more ramifications than simply increased address space, although that is important for security enhancements. What makes 64 bit code revolutionary is that it nails down the lid on Microsoft Window's coffin. Microsoft will never be able to catch up; its reputation will turn upside down. The Microsoft FUD machine will be in tatters if Apple attains a dramatic increase in speed. What is revolutionary is that people see Apple as the leading edge. It has been for some time, but people often need a shock to perceive reality. It is almost impossible to get windows users to perceive how much better Mac OSX is.
    UrbanBard had this to say on Feb 11, 2010 Posts: 111
    What's Next for Mac OS X?
  • It's hard to say, yet, where things are headed, Greg. I see a lot of trends. But, I can also see various ways in which they could play out. The Mac is a serious computer system. It can do very heavy duty work. The Mac, very soon, will become even more impressive because of 64 bit computing, OpenCL and Grand Central Dispatch. But all these technologies must be local, not in the cloud. They are application and hardware based. It is Google who is leading the way to cloud computing, not Apple. Its target is to steal users from Microsoft. Cloud computing has drawbacks which make it inapplicable for the heavy duty work which the Mac does, nor is the cloud as reliable as a serious user would need. Apple and Google will work seamlessly together. They are going after different market segments. The iPad will be bought by people who think a Google NetBook is too difficult to use. One trend that I see is that the computer is on the verge of fragmenting. The components are getting cheap enough so that we will have five or six computers, in our homes or office, to replace our single one. The iPad is part of that process; it is designed to work with our wireless LAN and other computers. Apple will be inserting the iPad into a unified whole, rather than as a stand alone devise. But, Apple is not rushing the process; it is putting one piece in place at a time. One of the biggest pieces is the 64 bit kernel. The show doesn't start until it is turned on.
    UrbanBard had this to say on Feb 10, 2010 Posts: 111
    What's Next for Mac OS X?