Apple is deprecating Java
Xah Lee
Java Deprecation
As of the release of Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 3, the version
of Java that is ported by Apple, and that ships with Mac OS X, is
deprecated.
This means that the Apple-produced runtime will not be maintained
at the same level, and may be removed from future versions of Mac OS
X. The Java runtime shipping in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and Mac OS
X 10.5 Leopard, will continue to be supported and maintained through
the standard support cycles of those products.
Am so glad of this. Sooo glad. Death to you, Sun Microsystems, and
your Java fuck. Thank you for your incredible unscrupulous marketing
lies and lawsuit gaming.
12 years ago, the creator of tcl, John K Ousterhout, wrote a well
known article〈Scripting: Higher Level Programming for the 21st
Century〉 at Source. It is finally coming true in recent years.
* Xah's Java Logo
* Jargons of Info Tech Industry
* What are OOP's Jargons and Complexities
* The Tech Geekers and Software Engineering
* Proliferation of Computing Languages
for links, see: http://xahlee.blogspot.com/2010/10/apple-is-deprecating-java.html
Xah
markha...@gmail.com
> Apple is deprecating Java! See: developer.apple.com. Quote:
>
> Java Deprecation
>
>
> Xah
Great....now if I promise to buy a Mac can we get Dylan back?
Tim Bradshaw
> Great....now if I promise to buy a Mac can we get Dylan back?
If you buy a mac you will probably get, in due course, an entirely
closed appliance. Don't think deprecating Java is a good thing: it's
part of the process by which Apple are closing the system down.
jos...@lisp.de
> On 2010-10-22 01:45:22 +0100, MarkHanif...@gmail.com said:
>
> > Great....now if I promise to buy a Mac can we get Dylan back?
>
> If you buy a mac you will probably get, in due course, an entirely
> closed appliance. Don't think deprecating Java is a good thing: it's
> part of the process by which Apple are closing the system down.
Apple is not deprecating Java, it is only deprecating their own
distribution of it.
Like on other platforms SUN/Oracle will have to provide it - or other
vendors of Java implementations, like IBM.
Pascal J. Bourguignon
But at the same time, that renders Java an optionnal package, which is a
basis to exclude applications requiring it from the MacStore (and
obviously from the iOS AppStore too).
That doesn't prevent MacOSX applications requiring these optional
packages to be sold, but not thru Apple.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
Tim Bradshaw
> Like on other platforms SUN/Oracle will have to provide it - or other
> vendors of Java implementations, like IBM.
It's probably a significant amount of work to to platform-integration
stuff unless Apple give away theirs. The result is likely to be, at
best, an implementation which uses X11 and suffers from the resulting
catastriphic look&feel failures.
So it is almost certainly dead, I think. As others have pointed out,
this is probably only partly about closing down OS X: it's also about
hurting people who want to use a mac to develop for Android.
markha...@gmail.com
> On 2010-10-22 01:45:22 +0100, MarkHanif...@gmail.com said:
>
> > Great....now if I promise to buy a Mac can we get Dylan back?
>
> If you buy a mac you will probably get, in due course, an entirely
> closed appliance. Don't think deprecating Java is a good thing: it's
> part of the process by which Apple are closing the system down.
I'm sure something flew right over your head.
jos...@lisp.de
> On 2010-10-22 11:32:40 +0100, jos...@corporate-world.lisp.de said:
>
> > Like on other platforms SUN/Oracle will have to provide it - or other
> > vendors of Java implementations, like IBM.
>
> It's probably a significant amount of work to to platform-integration
> stuff unless Apple give away theirs. The result is likely to be, at
> best, an implementation which uses X11 and suffers from the resulting
> catastriphic look&feel failures.
Microsoft does not create the Windows version. Still somebody does.
The look&feel of Java applications was never good on the Mac.
Probably it is never good anywhere.
Apple has given up on supporting the Cocoa bridge for Java
long ago.
It also does not matter much, since not much Java programming
is done for Mac UIs. In corporate environments much Java use is
simply server-side programming. There are some Java applications
with desktop UIs, but they weren't never much developed
for the Mac or even on the Mac.
> So it is almost certainly dead, I think. As others have pointed out,
> this is probably only partly about closing down OS X: it's also about
> hurting people who want to use a mac to develop for Android.
Doesn't matter. Android does not use Mac UIs.
All that is needed to develop for Android is a relatively plain Java
for it.
The thing is simply that there are few programming environments
who can create good Mac-like applications. Apple concentrates
on their tools and if developers want something else, they
need to use open source tools (which most are not really good)
or go to other vendors. If for example IntelliJ wants
to provide their commercial Java IDE for the Mac also in the future,
they
have to deliver a suitable Java implementation for it
(or use some other).
The relevance of Java for GUI application is approaching zero.
Apple's capability to provide a Java implementation
is also approaching zero - Oracle/IBM/... owns that business
and if they want to address Java developers, they
should provide the implementation. That's also not rocket
science, since the ports are done, the compilers are there.
There is value for Apple in providing their port of the Java
tools.
Similar on the Lisp side. In recent years I have seen very very
few useful GUI-based Lisp apps, on the Mac. That's not the fault
of Apple. It is simply that there are few developers using
Lisp to deliver apps on the Mac. It simply does not matter.
Even CCL has not seen a relevant amount of useful Mac applications
- it simply is not mature enough on the library side.
The only Lisp option that currently creates useful
result is LispWorks - which is great, but a bit expensive.
These people should stop bash Apple and show their commitment
to their tools and languages. Talk does not matter. Applications
do.
Btw., I have a LispWorks faceless application which runs CL-HTTP.
I was thinking about turning that into a real Mac application
and see if one could enter it into Apple's app store.
It's native, doesn't use deprecated technology, ...
I can't see why Apple should reject it.
jos...@lisp.de
wrote:
Correct. Like Apple's Rosetta. It is optional, so Apple won't
distribute
software based on it.
If Java applications come with the necessary runtime bundled into
the application, it could be distributed.
Like in LispWorks. One can generate a single executable which contains
all the necessary stuff: runtime, library, application.
LispWorks applications don't need any optional runtime to be
installed.
The executable has some size, but that does not matter, since people
even download multi-hundred megabyte apps for the iPad from the
Appstore.
A typical LispWorks app is a fraction. If somebody can download
a navigation application with hundreds of megabytes size from an
appstore,
a foto magazine with hundreds of megabytes,
one could certainly download a ten MB LispWorks application from some
appstore.
jos...@lisp.de
wrote:
>
> The relevance of Java for GUI application is approaching zero.
> Apple's capability to provide a Java implementation
> is also approaching zero - Oracle/IBM/... owns that business
> and if they want to address Java developers, they
> should provide the implementation. That's also not rocket
> science, since the ports are done, the compilers are there.
> There is value for Apple in providing their port of the Java
> tools.
>
I meant, there is little value for Apple in doing so...
Tim Bradshaw
> Microsoft does not create the Windows version. Still somebody does.
Because windows has much, much more market share than OS X (and
historically had even more)
>
> Doesn't matter. Android does not use Mac UIs.
> All that is needed to develop for Android is a relatively plain Java
> for it.
I don't know what people use but I bet it's Eclipse or something like
that: I bet it will be come big complicated GUI-based thing anyay. I
don't know to what extent Eclipse depends on the native GUI libraries
though.
Incidentally, I'm not bashing Apple: I think what they're doing is
pretty smart (not the Java stuff, the closed-ecosystem stuff that has
done so well for iPhone/iPad and (I think) may well be looming for mac
- after all it's how macs started). It's just hostile to anything I
care about.
jos...@lisp.de
> On 2010-10-22 14:59:57 +0100, jos...@corporate-world.lisp.de said:
>
> > Microsoft does not create the Windows version. Still somebody does.
>
> Because windows has much, much more market share than OS X (and
> historically had even more)
>
>
>
> > Doesn't matter. Android does not use Mac UIs.
> > All that is needed to develop for Android is a relatively plain Java
> > for it.
>
> I don't know what people use but I bet it's Eclipse or something like
> that: I bet it will be come big complicated GUI-based thing anyay. I
> don't know to what extent Eclipse depends on the native GUI libraries
> though.
SWT, but that is no rocket science. If there is enough interest
in having a useful SWT port for the Mac somebody will do it.
If not, it may deserve to die...
>
> Incidentally, I'm not bashing Apple: I think what they're doing is
> pretty smart (not the Java stuff, the closed-ecosystem stuff that has
> done so well for iPhone/iPad and (I think) may well be looming for mac
> - after all it's how macs started). It's just hostile to anything I
> care about.
I don't think Apple is hostile. They just don't care much about
stuff that's not used much anyway or which the developing company
failed to improve (for example Flash).
Tony
> Apple is deprecating Java! See: developer.apple.com. Quote:
>
> Java Deprecation
>
> As of the release of Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 3, the version
> of Java that is ported by Apple, and that ships with Mac OS X, is
> deprecated.
>
> This means that the Apple-produced runtime will not be maintained
> at the same level, and may be removed from future versions of Mac OS
> X. The Java runtime shipping in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and Mac OS
> X 10.5 Leopard, will continue to be supported and maintained through
> the standard support cycles of those products.
As a former Sun employee I can say the world has deprecated us why not
Apple.
>
> Am so glad of this. Sooo glad. Death to you, Sun Microsystems, and
> your Java fuck.
Is this language really needed? (turn other-cheek)
>Thank you for your incredible unscrupulous marketing
> lies and lawsuit gaming.
What every are you talking about?
Andrew Reilly
> So it is almost certainly dead, I think. As others have pointed out,
> this is probably only partly about closing down OS X: it's also about
> hurting people who want to use a mac to develop for Android.
I think that it's more likely to be a side-effect of their rising
standards for application appearance, their desire to be able to control
or switch processor architectures easily.
The user-experience is the big issue, I think. It is the same issue as
flash on the iPhone. I think that what we're seeing is a final
realization that cross-platform GUI toolkits simply aren't good enough,
and can't be, because the underlying models of what's going on and how to
achieve it are quite different. Well, Windows and some of the Linux GUIs
are relatively similar, but Cocoa is quite different. A cross-platform
toolkit that follows a Windows/Linux model, but uses a Cocoa layer to draw
the results is still going to feel alien to Mac users, and the in-window
menu bar is just the beginning. A cross-platform toolkit that doesn't
even use the Cocoa layer, but renders all of the widgets in look-alike
fashion (swing) is doomed to suffer many small aspects of brokenness.
Up to now, it seems that supporting different-feeling applications, in
order to have those applications at all, has been an acceptable trade-
off. Perhaps growing success in the market place makes Apple think that
they are in a position to demand that software vendors support their
platform "natively."
I think that we're seeing a rejection of the whole notion of "cross-
platform GUI".
Cheers,
--
Andrew
Espen Vestre
> The user-experience is the big issue, I think. It is the same issue as
> flash on the iPhone.
I think Flash on the iPhone is not only a user-experience issue, but
also a battery issue.
> I think that what we're seeing is a final realization that
> cross-platform GUI toolkits simply aren't good enough, and can't be,
> because the underlying models of what's going on and how to achieve it
> are quite different.
You may be right, but Lispworks CAPI applications tend to work out
better than any java application I've seen so far.
--
(espen)
jos...@lisp.de
> Andrew Reilly <areilly...@bigpond.net.au> writes:
> > The user-experience is the big issue, I think. It is the same issue as
> > flash on the iPhone.
>
> I think Flash on the iPhone is not only a user-experience issue, but
> also a battery issue.
Both, I would not be able to say where it is worse.
>
> > I think that what we're seeing is a final realization that
> > cross-platform GUI toolkits simply aren't good enough, and can't be,
> > because the underlying models of what's going on and how to achieve it
> > are quite different.
>
> You may be right, but Lispworks CAPI applications tend to work out
> better than any java application I've seen so far.
Isn't that ironic? LispWorks 6 is totally snappy and looks/feels
great.
I'm using the 64bit Cocoa-based version and it is quite great.
Compare that to the Java-based IDEs (Eclipse, IntelliJ, ...) which are
providing a lot of functionality, but always feel a bit sluggish and
where the UI is complex and kind of ugly.
> --
> (espen)
Tim X
I think you can forget about IBM. They announced a wek or so back that
they were going to put all their efforts into supporting openJDK now.
Essentially, anyone who is expecting Java to go away any time soon is
woefully mistaken. If anything, the increase in focus on openJDK by
major players will likely prolong its life.
Personally, this may be a good thing. While I hated using Java back in
the 1.0 and 1.1 versions and found the environment a major pain to
maintain, I have to say that more recent experiences as a result of
looking at clojure, indicate huge improvements. I still don't like Java
and still think it is an overly verbose and boring language to use with
too much bloat, but at least the environment has improved and getting
things setup and then maintaining them seems to have become far less
frustrating. This is good because there are some interesting things
happening on the jvm.
As an example, I recently wrote a very simple utility in clojure which I
was able to get deployed in our production environments with absolutely
no problems because it was just a jar file. A similar utility written in
CL was rejected on the grounds the admins were not prepared to maintain
a CL environment (a native executable was also rejected for other
largely political and ill-informed technical reasons). I was going to
try ABCL, but settled on clojure for no other reason other than I wanted
to try writing something in it. I also got past the most significant
bottleneck with CL - no available database access library that would
allow calling of stored procedures etc. Clojure, having access to the
java APIs allows the use of JDBC. (I suspect you might be able to do
something similar with ABCL as well).
While Java as a programming language is IMO limited, JVM as a deployment
platform has some very interesting possibilities. Languages like
clojure, scalar and even jRuby or jPython could mean that as
programmers, we may not be as constrained by management's concern over
enterprise environment maintenance and administration. While there would
always be the maintenance concern over anything used in production that
is written in a language only one person knows, being able to use one
deployment infrastructure is likely to provide some more freedom for
programmers.
Tim
--
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au
jos...@lisp.de
> "jos...@corporate-world.lisp.de" <jos...@lisp.de> writes:
> > On 22 Okt., 12:06, Tim Bradshaw <t...@tfeb.org> wrote:
> >> On 2010-10-22 01:45:22 +0100, MarkHanif...@gmail.com said:
>
> >> > Great....now if I promise to buy a Mac can we get Dylan back?
>
> >> If you buy a mac you will probably get, in due course, an entirely
> >> closed appliance. Don't think deprecating Java is a good thing: it's
> >> part of the process by which Apple are closing the system down.
>
> > Apple is not deprecating Java, it is only deprecating their own
> > distribution of it.
>
> > Like on other platforms SUN/Oracle will have to provide it - or other
> > vendors of Java implementations, like IBM.
>
> I think you can forget about IBM. They announced a wek or so back that
> they were going to put all their efforts into supporting openJDK now.
No, they didn't say that. They said that they will support OpenJDK
instead of Apache Harmony.
This has no effect on the fact that IBM has its own Java
implementation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_J9
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/jdk/linux/download.html
I don't think IBM will support it on the Mac, but what I wanted to
say that there are multiple vendors of Java Virtual Machines and Java
compilers.
If Apple does not support their own port of some JVM (the SUN JVM),
somebody
else might. SUN supports Hotspot on Windows, Linux and Solaris.
There are ways to build OpenJDK on Mac OS X :
http://wikis.sun.com/display/OpenJDK/Darwin10Build
The company I currently work for is interested in this stuff, but
personally I don't care. Personally I'm happy with the native CL
implementations
which run great under Mac OS X.
Pascal J. Bourguignon
> On Fri, 22 Oct 2010 12:15:47 +0100, Tim Bradshaw wrote:
>
>> So it is almost certainly dead, I think. As others have pointed out,
>> this is probably only partly about closing down OS X: it's also about
>> hurting people who want to use a mac to develop for Android.
>
> I think that it's more likely to be a side-effect of their rising
> standards for application appearance, their desire to be able to control
> or switch processor architectures easily.
>
> The user-experience is the big issue, I think. It is the same issue as
> flash on the iPhone. I think that what we're seeing is a final
> realization that cross-platform GUI toolkits simply aren't good enough,
> and can't be, because the underlying models of what's going on and how to
> achieve it are quite different. Well, Windows and some of the Linux GUIs
> are relatively similar, but Cocoa is quite different. A cross-platform
> toolkit that follows a Windows/Linux model, but uses a Cocoa layer to draw
> the results is still going to feel alien to Mac users, and the in-window
> menu bar is just the beginning. A cross-platform toolkit that doesn't
> even use the Cocoa layer, but renders all of the widgets in look-alike
> fashion (swing) is doomed to suffer many small aspects of brokenness.
Cross platform GUI (even with native look and feel) could work. If it
wasn't a moving target. But since Apple is in the fashion business
since 2000, they have to change the look of their GUI every couple of
years, and the cross platform GUI providers just don't have the
resources to follow.
And of course, changing the look is the only way you can get recuring
sales, since otherwise normal people wouldn't see the point in
upgrading.
> Up to now, it seems that supporting different-feeling applications, in
> order to have those applications at all, has been an acceptable trade-
> off. Perhaps growing success in the market place makes Apple think that
> they are in a position to demand that software vendors support their
> platform "natively."
>
> I think that we're seeing a rejection of the whole notion of "cross-
> platform GUI".
That said, the customers of Apple themselves are quite discriminating
and reject applications that are not up to Apple's standard. I've seen
this occur several times since 1984.
On the other hand, GNUstep has not had much of a success either in the
other platforms, so perhaps the others are discriminating too.
Tim X
> On 23 Okt., 01:50, Tim X <t...@nospam.dev.null> wrote:
>> "jos...@corporate-world.lisp.de" <jos...@lisp.de> writes:
>> > On 22 Okt., 12:06, Tim Bradshaw <t...@tfeb.org> wrote:
>> >> On 2010-10-22 01:45:22 +0100, MarkHanif...@gmail.com said:
>>
>> >> > Great....now if I promise to buy a Mac can we get Dylan back?
>>
>> >> If you buy a mac you will probably get, in due course, an entirely
>> >> closed appliance. Don't think deprecating Java is a good thing: it's
>> >> part of the process by which Apple are closing the system down.
>>
>> > Apple is not deprecating Java, it is only deprecating their own
>> > distribution of it.
>>
>> > Like on other platforms SUN/Oracle will have to provide it - or other
>> > vendors of Java implementations, like IBM.
>>
>> I think you can forget about IBM. They announced a wek or so back that
>> they were going to put all their efforts into supporting openJDK now.
>
> No, they didn't say that. They said that they will support OpenJDK
> instead of Apache Harmony.
>
> This has no effect on the fact that IBM has its own Java
> implementation.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_J9
> http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/jdk/linux/download.html
>
OK, I was going on a secondary source which could very well be incorect.
While it did clearly state IBM was no longer going to put support behind
Harmony, it was also suggested that, while IBM was not planning to stop
support of their Java implementation, they would not be continuing to
develop/extend it further, instead they would move more towards using the
openJDK and incresingly put more of their resources into that version.
In reality and based on past behavior, they will probably hedge their
bets for a while yet and see what happens with openJDK and what Oracle
does.
> I don't think IBM will support it on the Mac, but what I wanted to
> say that there are multiple vendors of Java Virtual Machines and Java
> compilers.
> If Apple does not support their own port of some JVM (the SUN JVM),
> somebody
> else might. SUN supports Hotspot on Windows, Linux and Solaris.
>
> There are ways to build OpenJDK on Mac OS X :
> http://wikis.sun.com/display/OpenJDK/Darwin10Build
>
I suspect if the demand is there, openJDK will be supported.
> The company I currently work for is interested in this stuff, but
> personally I don't care. Personally I'm happy with the native CL
> implementations
> which run great under Mac OS X.
Your lucky. No way can I get anything written in CL onto production
systems (even when compiled to native exe). Of course this is from
management that states our users are all windows based when we have
clear figures that indicate nearly 40% are Mac and another 8% are Linux.
Andrew Reilly
>> You may be right, but Lispworks CAPI applications tend to work out
>> better than any java application I've seen so far.
>
> Isn't that ironic? LispWorks 6 is totally snappy and looks/feels great.
> I'm using the 64bit Cocoa-based version and it is quite great.
Is that because the LispWorks people wrote a Cocoa GUI for their IDE,
after making the necessary Objective-C method invocation and object
management schims, or have they just made a sufficiently advanced and
abstract cross-platform toolkit? I.e., is the IDE GUI code on Mac the
same as the IDE GUI code on Windows or Unix? (I'm afraid that I've not
used it on any platform.)
Certainly Lisp has the semantic flexibility to be able to interact in the
Smalltalk-ish way that makes Objective-C and Cocoa a good bit different
from Java or the Windows or GTK API(s).
I don't think that it is ultimately a language issue, but *is* an object
model, GUI API and method invocation semantics issue, and some languages
make things difficult for themselves by being inflexible about their
object models and GUI APIs...
Cheers,
--
Andrew
Pascal J. Bourguignon
You can have different object models cohabiting in a lisp application.
I would not try to make a CLOS subclass of NSView, anymore than I would
make a CLOS object a subprototype of a KB prototype.
jos...@lisp.de
> On Fri, 22 Oct 2010 16:06:45 -0700, jos...@corporate-world.lisp.de wrote:
> >> You may be right, but Lispworks CAPI applications tend to work out
> >> better than any java application I've seen so far.
>
> > Isn't that ironic? LispWorks 6 is totally snappy and looks/feels great.
> > I'm using the 64bit Cocoa-based version and it is quite great.
>
> Is that because the LispWorks people wrote a Cocoa GUI for their IDE,
> after making the necessary Objective-C method invocation and object
> management schims, or have they just made a sufficiently advanced and
> abstract cross-platform toolkit? I.e., is the IDE GUI code on Mac the
> same as the IDE GUI code on Windows or Unix? (I'm afraid that I've not
> used it on any platform.)
In the early days LispWorks had a nice GUI toolkit for X11 systems on
top of
CLX/CLUE. Then the demand came up for a native Windows based port of
LispWorks. That caused them to develop CAPI, which was abstracted
to be cross-platform over X11/Motif and Windows. CLX/CLUE was gone.
http://www.lispworks.com/products/capi.html
Over the years this has been improved. When the Mac got OS X and
Cocoa,
eventually LispWorks was ported to that platform with a port of CAPI
on top of Cocoa. The first versions were raw, but the current
LispWorks 6
version is quite a bit improved. For example the toolbars in the
windows
are now really the complex native based toolbars of the Mac with the
native customization feature. There are some weak spots, but one thing
stands out: on my MacBook Pro the UI doesn't lag and is not sluggish.
One gets the typical animations: the print dialog, the open dialog,
slide
down. Not that they are really useful, but it provides a consistent
feeling across applications, including LispWorks.
The Apple Cocoa framework has some nice stuff, but from a programming
side
it has some limitations (like the need to use the main thread for
UI code).
With LispWorks 6 CAPI was improved further and a new native
GTK+ port has been added. The old X11/Motif backend is now
'deprecated'.
I'm not saying that CAPI is perfect or deep enough, but if you
look at some at the basic UI look&feel, it isn't alien at all.
Something that is important for a Mac user. It's also
not slavishly Mac, the tools still have extended commands, etc.
Tim Bradshaw
> I don't think Apple is hostile.
"hostile to anything I care about" is what I said, which is different.
> They just don't care much about
> stuff that's not used much anyway or which the developing company
> failed to improve (for example Flash).
That's one view...
Tim Bradshaw
> I think that it's more likely to be a side-effect of their rising
> standards for application appearance, their desire to be able to control
> or switch processor architectures easily.
I think you're agreeing with me, though you may not think so. What I
want is a platform where I can write or use applications which are as
ugly and non-conformant as anything if I want to, and not one which is
"curated" for me by some higher power.
Of course, one might ask why such curation is needed - is there somehow
a worry that bad user-interface design will beat out good? Maybe
there's some other, simpler, explanation.
Tim Bradshaw
> I think Flash on the iPhone is not only a user-experience issue, but
> also a battery issue.
Of course, one could suggest that users might be able to make that kind
of decision themselves: "I keep usign these Flash applications, and my
battery life is shit as a result, maybe I should stop using that".
Pascal J. Bourguignon
But obviously, most users are not able of making such an inference.
Also, it is good for the benchmarks. This is the point of Apple's
integration work of hardware and software. If you can reject
applications that consume too much energy, then your devices will have
more battery time than the others who stack up inefficiency layers
(eg. the JVM or the flash VM), and therefore whole device benchmarks
will be more favorable to Apple's products, even if they actually
provided worse hardware.
This is "Apple's way" since day one, with the Woz-machine, where the
hardware is stripped to the barest functionality (you could say that
it's subfunctional hardware), but when you add Apple's software (the
disk drivers), you get a system that is able to store more data on the
same medium than the competition that does everything in hardware.
Since software can be duplicated without cost, while hardware still
cannot, it makes perfect economic sense, and the result is obvious on
the NASDAQ.
Tim Bradshaw
> But obviously, most users are not able of making such an inference.
Yes, poor stupid users, we must protect them from themselves. We must
herd them from place to place, protecting them from all harm and the
need to make any decision, until the time comes to harvest them.
Raffael Cavallaro
> I would not try to make a CLOS subclass of NSView, anymore than I would
> make a CLOS object a subprototype of a KB prototype.
When using LispWorks for Macintosh and Clozure CL64/32 I make CLOS
subclasses of NSView quite frequently - it's very convenient.
Specifically, it lets you integrate your subclass into everything else
in a CLOS friendly way, (CLOS idioms like with-slots, writing
initialize-instance methods, (setf slotname) methods, etc.) all the
while having the objective-c runtime automatically call NSView methods
on your subclass instances (most importantly, drawRect: of course).
Admittedly, keeping the two different object models straight can take a
bit of getting used to, but it becomes fairly straightforward. For me
it's more of a problem that LispWorks and CCL do things slightly
differently, so I need to shift gears when going back and forth between
the two.
warmest regards,
Ralph
--
Raffael Cavallaro
Espen Vestre
> Of course, one could suggest that users might be able to make that
> kind of decision themselves:
But they aren't.
--
(espen)
Tim Bradshaw
> But they aren't.
On the iPhone and iPad no, they aren't, because the choice has been
taken away from them. Elsewhere yes, they are. They might not be
making the decision the priesthood want them to make, but they are
deciding.
Pascal J. Bourguignon
I've got the impression Android users are mostly hackers. Non
programmers are using iPhones, or BlackBerries.
Espen Vestre
>> But they aren't.
>
> On the iPhone and iPad no, they aren't, because the choice has been
> taken away from them. Elsewhere yes, they are. They might not be
> making the decision the priesthood want them to make, but they are
> deciding.
I envy you your optimism. My impression is that a surprising number of
users don't even know which version of Windows they're using.
--
(espen)
Tim Bradshaw
> My impression is that a surprising number of
> users don't even know which version of Windows they're using.
And, of course, we must prevent them from becoming educated and able to
make complicated decisions like whether to use Flash or not. Down that
path chaos lies: soon they'll be expecting to be able to choose their
own leaders, and that would never do. They might not choose us.
Rob Warnock
+---------------
Which, of course, has already happened with the advent of social networks
and search engines, where users aren't "customers", they're the *product*!
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/10/20/jacques-vallees-stat.html
Jacques Vallee's Stating The Obvious: I, Product
[Hint: Advertisers are the real customers.]
-Rob
-----
Rob Warnock <rp...@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
Rob Warnock
| make complicated decisions like whether to use Flash or not. Down that
| path chaos lies: soon they'll be expecting to be able to choose their
| own leaders, and that would never do. They might not choose us.
*Sshhh!* Not so loud!! You're not the only one with black helicopters,
you know...
Mark Wooding
> I've got the impression Android users are mostly hackers. Non
> programmers are using iPhones, or BlackBerries.
I think Android is for the wannabes. The real deal are running Maemo or
OpenMoko or something.
-- [mdw], typed on an N900, with tongue somewhat in cheek.
Tim Bradshaw
> *Sshhh!* Not so loud!! You're not the only one with black helicopters,
> you know...
I sold mine to Jobs: probably a mistake but he offered Apple stock so
I'm not regretting it so far.
Seriously, I hope I've kind of demonstrated that the "users are too
stupid to make decisions" argument about Flash tends to lead to some
quite strange places quite quickly. Fortunately there's an alternative
explanation which makes much more sense: if you allow Flash on an
appliance then your customers can access Flash applications (often
games) from anywhere; people could even set up stores allowing people
to buy these things, completely independently. That's bad news for you
if your business model is based on taking a cut of stuff sold through
your app store. The same is true of Java: although Java applets are
pretty mch dead outside some specialised markets, things like Android
might change that. So obviously, Apple don't want to allow Flash of
Java, or other possible general-purpose-interpreters on their
appliances: that's just basic business sense for them.
The fascinating thing about this is both that some groups of people
will deny it vigorously, and that other groups of people will express
it in terms of good & evil. I think both of these things have the same
explanation: both groups believe that companies are in the business of
being good or evil. The first group desperately wants Apple, like
Jedburgh, to be on the side of the angels, and thus invokes all these
weird crypto-totalitarian "we must protect people from themselves"
arguments that we've seen in this thread. The second group thinks that
Apple (and perhaps all companies) are on the side of Satan, and comes
up with another set of weird arguments to support that. In fact, of
course companies are in the business of making money, and that is what
Apple are doing, and doing very well.
jos...@lisp.de
> On 2010-10-24 01:04:45 +0100, Rob Warnock said:
>
> > *Sshhh!* Not so loud!! You're not the only one with black helicopters,
> > you know...
>
> I sold mine to Jobs: probably a mistake but he offered Apple stock so
> I'm not regretting it so far.
>
> Seriously, I hope I've kind of demonstrated that the "users are too
> stupid to make decisions" argument about Flash tends to lead to some
> quite strange places quite quickly. Fortunately there's an alternative
> explanation which makes much more sense: if you allow Flash on an
> appliance then your customers can access Flash applications (often
> games) from anywhere;
Flash is relatively unusable on a mobile device and
on touch screen devices. One of the first things
on any device I do is to turn off Flash.
> people could even set up stores allowing people
> to buy these things, completely independently. That's bad news for you
> if your business model is based on taking a cut of stuff sold through
> your app store. The same is true of Java: although Java applets are
> pretty mch dead outside some specialised markets, things like Android
> might change that. So obviously, Apple don't want to allow Flash of
> Java, or other possible general-purpose-interpreters on their
> appliances: that's just basic business sense for them.
Android does not use a standard JVM. It uses a different
virtual machine which is not directly compatible.
Code needs to go through a translator.
>
> The fascinating thing about this is both that some groups of people
> will deny it vigorously, and that other groups of people will express
> it in terms of good & evil. I think both of these things have the same
> explanation: both groups believe that companies are in the business of
> being good or evil. The first group desperately wants Apple, like
> Jedburgh, to be on the side of the angels, and thus invokes all these
> weird crypto-totalitarian "we must protect people from themselves"
> arguments that we've seen in this thread. The second group thinks that
> Apple (and perhaps all companies) are on the side of Satan, and comes
> up with another set of weird arguments to support that. In fact, of
> course companies are in the business of making money, and that is what
> Apple are doing, and doing very well.
Apple has attracted a lot of new customers. At the same time
their Mac business increases also. The 'Back to Mac'
movement brings iOS technologies to the Mac and will
make Mac devices more attractive to iOS users and
thus to mobile workers.
Years ago I was the only daily Mac user in the consulting
company I work for. Then the Mac was introduced as an
incentive. Now it looks like the default. When I
walk across the streets in Düsseldorf, I see people
in Cafes using their MacBooks, in my Hotel the Hotel
manager is an iMac user. Just across the street
a large Gravis store selling Apple stuff opens.
Hamburg, where I live, will soon get the second AppleStore.
The fear that the Mac goes away is completely irrational.
I see it expanding everywhere around me. Even
Autocad has been ported to the Mac recently.
I propose to explore the chances of writing
Lisp software for the Mac, instead of whining.
Two points:
* Never ever have been so many high-quality
Lisp implementations available for programmers.
On the Mac, Windows and on Linux/FreeBSD too.
* the commercial LispWorks implementation is
IMHO one of the best dynamic language
implementations ever on any platform and especially
on the Mac with a native Cocoa interface
and high performance.
I would work from there, not from the fear that in some
future the sky might turn black.
Why is all this 'fear' around???
Tim Bradshaw
> Flash is relatively unusable on a mobile device and
> on touch screen devices. One of the first things
> on any device I do is to turn off Flash.
Right. You make the choice (it's the same one I make).
> The fear that the Mac goes away is completely irrational.
> I see it expanding everywhere around me. Even
> Autocad has been ported to the Mac recently.
I have no fear that macs will go away. I would be annoyed if they
turned into appliances, though I think it might be in Apple's interest
for that to happen. I'm actually not sure why you read my article in
terms of "fear".
Raffael Cavallaro
> The fear that the Mac goes away is completely irrational.
> I see it expanding everywhere around me. Even
> Autocad has been ported to the Mac recently.
Yes, Macs will still be around, but Macs as UNIX will be an
increasingly niche market - Jobs has said so plainly. He said the PC is
going away, and is being replaced by touch/iOS/appliance devices. He
compared PCs to trucks, and iPads etc. to cars. Since the market for
powerful, genral purpose UNIX Macs will be dwindling, and the market
for iOS or Mac/iOS fusion consumer touch devices will be growing, it
would be wise for most developers to target the growing
consumer/appliance/iOS market, not the dwindling full UNIX Mac OS X
market. It is worth pointing out in this connection that your example,
Autocad, is a niche market product, not a mass market piece of software.
Since, going forward, it is nearly certain that the only way to get
software onto iOS/appliance Apple devices is via the App Store (be it
the iPhone or iPad or Mac App Store), if you want to target this
growing market with lisp, you need to find some way to get a lisp into
an App Store app. Right now, this has already been done with Gambit -
James Long's Farmageddon is an iPhone game written with Gambit. It
should be possible with ecl as well. Clozure is already targetting ARM,
but they use undocumented APIs in their compiler, and that may well be
enough for Apple to refuse ccl based App Store apps.
Note also that, at least with Gambit, you can develop in traditional
lisp incremental sytle, editing and loading code into the running
application, with access to the debugger, etc.
>
> I propose to explore the chances of writing
> Lisp software for the Mac, instead of whining.
>
> Two points:
>
> * Never ever have been so many high-quality
> Lisp implementations available for programmers.
> On the Mac, Windows and on Linux/FreeBSD too.
>
> * the commercial LispWorks implementation is
> IMHO one of the best dynamic language
> implementations ever on any platform and especially
> on the Mac with a native Cocoa interface
> and high performance.
I agree. I took the plunge a while back and bought a 64-bit LWM
license, then upgraded to 6.0 when it was released, and have been very
happy with it as both a lisp implementation and an IDE. Also, the user
community on the lispworks-hug mailing list is awesomely helpful.
However, I have serious doubts about where lispworks will fit into the
Mac platform going forward if the App Store eventually becomes the sole
channel for Mac software distribution. The potential uncertainty alone
is enough to put many people off targeting Mac OS using anything that
doesn't compile to C/C++/Objective-C. Since Gambit and ECL do, I think
they are a safer bet for lisp users.
>
> I would work from there, not from the fear that in some
> future the sky might turn black.
>
> Why is all this 'fear' around???
Maybe because Apple has a long history of pulling the rug out from
under lisp developers? Dylan anyone?
jos...@lisp.de
<raffaelcavall...@pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
> Yes, Macs will still be around, but Macs as UNIX will be an
> increasingly niche market - Jobs has said so plainly. He said the PC is
> going away, and is being replaced by touch/iOS/appliance devices. He
> compared PCs to trucks, and iPads etc. to cars. Since the market for
> powerful, genral purpose UNIX Macs will be dwindling,
I don't see that. Apple has introduced several new general
purpose UNIX Macs in the recent months, including
two MacBook Airs just days ago. Sales are increasing, too.
Apple has been updating the i7 for the MacBook Pro as well.
The iMacs are relatively new, as is the latest Mac mini.
Additionally Apple has announced that they are working
on Mac OS X 10.8 - another full release of Mac OS X.
The big trends for the future still are:
* improved user interfaces
* mobile computers with long running times
* mobile networking
* small low-power devices
If Intel does not come out with real lower power x86 chips,
I would not be surprised if Apple brings a machine
to the market that runs the full Mac OS X, but runs
on ARM. They must have bought the chip design
capability for something. The time for bulky and
power hungry desktop computers is over. But the
changing form factor does not mean that
Mac OS X goes away. (Though I would hope that
somebody like Apple develops a powerful
non-Unix OS that gets rid with all the complexity
and baggage of Unix.)
> and the market
> for iOS or Mac/iOS fusion consumer touch devices will be growing, it
> would be wise for most developers to target the growing
> consumer/appliance/iOS market, not the dwindling full UNIX Mac OS X
> market. It is worth pointing out in this connection that your example,
> Autocad, is a niche market product, not a mass market piece of software.
These are different markets. Users of Macs will continue to use
MS Office, Adobe Lightroom, and other productivity apps.
These will not go away anytime soon.
...
> > I propose to explore the chances of writing
> > Lisp software for the Mac, instead of whining.
>
> > Two points:
>
> > * Never ever have been so many high-quality
> > Lisp implementations available for programmers.
> > On the Mac, Windows and on Linux/FreeBSD too.
>
> > * the commercial LispWorks implementation is
> > IMHO one of the best dynamic language
> > implementations ever on any platform and especially
> > on the Mac with a native Cocoa interface
> > and high performance.
>
> I agree. I took the plunge a while back and bought a 64-bit LWM
> license, then upgraded to 6.0 when it was released, and have been very
> happy with it as both a lisp implementation and an IDE. Also, the user
> community on the lispworks-hug mailing list is awesomely helpful.
>
> However, I have serious doubts about where lispworks will fit into the
> Mac platform going forward if the App Store eventually becomes the sole
> channel for Mac software distribution.
There is no sign that this will happen.
> The potential uncertainty alone
> is enough to put many people off targeting Mac OS using anything that
> doesn't compile to C/C++/Objective-C. Since Gambit and ECL do, I think
> they are a safer bet for lisp users.
No, the safest bet are systems who can develop cool applications
with Apple's look & feel. Then Apple will start to listen.
Technology is only of minor interest. Apple will
bend the rules if there are cool Apps.
> > I would work from there, not from the fear that in some
> > future the sky might turn black.
>
> > Why is all this 'fear' around???
>
> Maybe because Apple has a long history of pulling the rug out from
> under lisp developers? Dylan anyone?
Dylan was never a product and was never aimed at Lisp developers -
a market that would have been tiny anyway.
All Apple did was trying to develop a new environment aimed
at Object Pascal/C++ developers based on Lisp technology. All
they achieved was a 'developer preview'. There were almost
no applications ever developed with it. Lisp had some
benefit from that in so far that Apple bought MCL, had
it maintained for a few years, employed a bunch of Lisp
experts and then gave MCL to a company after they no longer
needed it.
I would really prefer if Lisp programmers had fears that their
applications are not going into the Appstore. Currently
there is nothing to fear, because the attractive applications that
could be sold via the Appstore are simply not there in any
number worth mentioning and that is not Apple's fault.
Scott
wrote:
>
> Flash is relatively unusable on a mobile device and
> on touch screen devices. One of the first things
> on any device I do is to turn off Flash.
>
I assume you mean because you can't hover over areas as required by
many Flash applets. This user interface limitation could be easily
solved by implementing a virtual mouse cursor. Tap somewhere on the
screen, and the virtual cursor moves there and generates a hover
event. Tap the cursor, and it generates a click event. Drag the
cursor, etc...
Flash gets a bad rap because it's used for so many annoying
advertising purposes. It's really a nice little virtual machine
though. It has an elegant class library, and it's every bit as JIT-
able as JavaScript (probably more so). Before they added the video
codec stuff, it was a really tiny (400K?) Netscape plugin. It's
really what Java applets should've been.
The other bad rap it gets is because of security and stability
issues. Bugs are bugs and should be fixed of course. Bloated memory
and cpu usage is just bad programming as in every other environment.
Raffael Cavallaro
On 2010-10-24 12:48:48 -0400, jos...@corporate-world.lisp.de said:
I don't see that. Apple has introduced several new general
purpose UNIX Macs in the recent months, including
two MacBook Airs just days ago.
The hardware is not UNIX, the software is. The hardware will run iOS right now if Apple wants it to. At the same keynote they introduced Lion, which looks and acts as much like iOS as current MacOS X. Apple are moving away from the user having access to the file system, and toward an app centric system. Users will access and work with their data through apps only (just as they do now on the iPhone and iPad) not by having direct access to the file system.
This is not just a means of simplifying the user interface [1] - by getting users used to working with their data only through apps and not having direct access to the file system, they get users used to not being able to put arbitrary things on their mass storage, like pesky third party applications not vetted by Apple. Conveniently, this means that Apple also gets a cut of all software running on these Apple devices.
The big trends for the future still are:
* improved user interfaces
* mobile computers with long running times
* mobile networking
* small low-power devices
If Intel does not come out with real lower power x86 chips,
I would not be surprised if Apple brings a machine
to the market that runs the full Mac OS X, but runs
on ARM.
but that "full Mac OS" may well be a locked-down fusion of current UNIX Mac OS X and iOS. Judging by the Lion preview at the keynote, it seems quite likely. Remember iOS is Mac OS X too; it just isn't usable as a UNIX by the end user.
But the
changing form factor does not mean that
Mac OS X goes away.
This is just wishful thinking. The changing of the form factor has *already* resulted in Mac OS X as UNIX going away! That's what iOS is - it's Mac OS X with the user's access to UNIX diked out.
Apple doesn't do things willy-nilly. They have a multi-year plan and they execute on it systematically. Right now we are part-way through a plan to move all ordinary users to an OS where they:
1. interact with the device primarily through touch gestures, not separate hardware devices (i.e., not mice and keyboards)
2. don't have direct access to their device's file system. This ensures that they only install Apple approved software. This ensures that they only buy software of which Apple gets a cut.
Jobs has said *explicitly* [2] that he expects an overwhelming majority of users in the future to use an iPad like device as their primary computing device. We know what Jobs thinks an appropriate OS for an iPad like device is, and it is *not* UNIX, it is locked-down iOS.
warmest regards,
Ralph
[1] in fact, in some ways it makes the UI more complex - for example, moving Pages documents between a desktop mac and an iPad is more complex than it would be if one could simply drag and drop from one file system to the other.
[2] <http://d8.allthingsd.com/20100607/steve-jobs-at-d8-the-full-uncut-interview/>
--�
Raffael Cavallaro
jos...@lisp.de
<raffaelcavall...@pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
> On 2010-10-24 12:48:48 -0400, jos...@corporate-world.lisp.de said:
>
> > I don't see that. Apple has introduced several new general
> > purpose UNIX Macs in the recent months, including
> > two MacBook Airs just days ago.
>
> The hardware is not UNIX, the software is.
Apple does not sell hardware. They sell software+hardware.
> The hardware will run iOS
> right now if Apple wants it to.
That's new. All I have seen is an emulator. Do you know more?
> At the same keynote they introduced
> Lion, which looks and acts as much like iOS as current MacOS X.
No it doesn't. It just gets a few things from iOS.
> Apple
> are moving away from the user having access to the file system, and
> toward an app centric system. Users will access and work with their
> data through apps only (just as they do now on the iPhone and iPad) not
> by having direct access to the file system.
Apps have a file system. I'm using Goodreader on my iPad
with a file system.
> This is not just a means of simplifying the user interface [1] - by
> getting users used to working with their data only through apps and not
> having direct access to the file system, they get users used to not
> being able to put arbitrary things on their mass storage, like pesky
> third party applications not vetted by Apple. Conveniently, this means
> that Apple also gets a cut of all software running on these Apple
> devices.
>
> > The big trends for the future still are:
>
> > * improved user interfaces
> > * mobile computers with long running times
> > * mobile networking
> > * small low-power devices
>
> > If Intel does not come out with real lower power x86 chips,
> > I would not be surprised if Apple brings a machine
> > to the market that runs the full Mac OS X, but runs
> > on ARM.
>
> but that "full Mac OS" may well be a locked-down fusion of current UNIX
> Mac OS X and iOS. Judging by the Lion preview at the keynote, it seems
> quite likely. Remember iOS is Mac OS X too; it just isn't usable as a
> UNIX by the end user.
iOS is quite different from Mac OS X in scope and depth.
>
> > But the
> > changing form factor does not mean that
> > Mac OS X goes away.
>
> This is just wishful thinking. The changing of the form factor has
> *already* resulted in Mac OS X as UNIX going away! That's what iOS is -
> it's Mac OS X with the user's access to UNIX diked out.
No that was not a changing form factor. That was a completely
new form factor. Apple will tweak laptops and change
desktops (like it did from a Cube to a Mac mini).
> Apple doesn't do things willy-nilly. They have a multi-year plan and
> they execute on it systematically.
I don't think that's the case at all. Apple does incremental
improvements. I'm pretty sure that Steve believed
that web apps were the way to go and was surprised
by the success of the Appstore, for example. Apple
just adapts to technical possibilities.
> Right now we are part-way through a
> plan to move all ordinary users to an OS where they:
> 1. interact with the device primarily through touch gestures, not
> separate hardware devices (i.e., not mice and keyboards)
Funny, I was using my iPad with a Bluetooth keyboard all
the time in the office. Why do you think did they
added external keyboard support to the iPad from day one?
> 2. don't have direct access to their device's file system. This ensures
> that they only install Apple approved software. This ensures that they
> only buy software of which Apple gets a cut.
>
> Jobs has said *explicitly* [2] that he expects an overwhelming majority
> of users in the future to use an iPad like device as their primary
> computing device. We know what Jobs thinks an appropriate OS for an
> iPad like device is, and it is *not* UNIX, it is locked-down iOS.
Yeah, he also told us that nobody reads anymore and a few
months later unveiled iBooks and the book store for it.
He told that web apps are the way to go and local application
development
will not be supported. A few months later we got the Appstore.
>
> warmest regards,
>
> Ralph
>
> [1] in fact, in some ways it makes the UI more complex - for example,
> moving Pages documents between a desktop mac and an iPad is more
> complex than it would be if one could simply drag and drop from one
> file system to the other.
Pages can copy files from and to WebDAV for example.
Raffael Cavallaro
> On 24 Okt., 19:42, Raffael Cavallaro
> <raffaelcavall...@pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
>> On 2010-10-24 12:48:48 -0400, jos...@corporate-world.lisp.de said:
>>
>>> I don't see that. Apple has introduced several new general
>>> purpose UNIX Macs in the recent months, including
>>> two MacBook Airs just days ago.
>>
>> The hardware is not UNIX, the software is.
>
> Apple does not sell hardware. They sell software+hardware.
>
>> The hardware will run iOS
>> right now if Apple wants it to.
>
> That's new. All I have seen is an emulator. Do you know more?
To clarify: Apple owns the hardware and the software. They can put any
software they want on any hardware they make.
>
>> At the same keynote they introduced
>> Lion, which looks and acts as much like iOS as current MacOS X.
>
> No it doesn't. It just gets a few things from iOS.
Right now yes. Going forward is Mac OS X likely to get more like iOS or
less like iOS? Doesn't Apple have a huge cost incentive to unify Mac OS
X and iOS? They will.
>
>> Apple
>> are moving away from the user having access to the file system, and
>> toward an app centric system. Users will access and work with their
>> data through apps only (just as they do now on the iPhone and iPad) not
>> by having direct access to the file system.
>
> Apps have a file system. I'm using Goodreader on my iPad
> with a file system.
You can write arbitrary files to anyplace on your iPad's file system
without jailbreaking it? That's news indeed. What you have is the
ability to write files where Apple's APIs let apps write files. You
don't have arbitrary read/write access to the file system of a device
*you own*, unless of course, you jailbreak it. This means you can't
install software of your own choosing, only what Apple lets you.
Jobs wanted Apple to be the only game in town for native apps and
non-apple devs to write web apps. Once it was clear that developers
weren't interested, he relented. But he relented in such a way that
Apple maintained complete control over what Apps run on iOS, and gave
Apple the right to appropriate any App Store app by replacing it with
Apple's own - it's in the developer agreement and has been from day 1.
Jobs wanted Apple to be the only developer tools used for iOS. Once it
was clear that couldn't be, he relented. But he relented in such a way
that Apple maintained complete control over what Apps run on iOS, and
kept for Apple their right to replace any app with an Apple version.
Se a pattern here? Apple wants complete control over what runs on Apple
devices. This is *fundamentally* at odds with the notion of a general
purpose computer. And Jobs has said that general purpose computers are
going bye bye. They'll be replaced by appliance computers like the iPad.
>
>> Right now we are part-way through a
>> plan to move all ordinary users to an OS where they:
>> 1. interact with the device primarily through touch gestures, not
>> separate hardware devices (i.e., not mice and keyboards)
>
> Funny, I was using my iPad with a Bluetooth keyboard all
> the time in the office. Why do you think did they
> added external keyboard support to the iPad from day one?
To co-opt users who think keyboards are essential to computer use
(i.e., dinosaurs like us). My daughter thinks a keyboard is totally
unnecessary with an iPad, and she can type about 50 wpm on one, so, for
her and her generation, she's right. After trying for a while, I see
she and Jobs have an argument - I really don't *need* a keyboard with
an iPad - I'm just more used to using one. Old habits die hard. Apple
is transitioning the old farts by letting us use keyboards, but this is
a non issue for the next generation.
>
>> 2. don't have direct access to their device's file system. This ensures
>> that they only install Apple approved software. This ensures that they
>> only buy software of which Apple gets a cut.
>>
>> Jobs has said *explicitly* [2] that he expects an overwhelming majority
>> of users in the future to use an iPad like device as their primary
>> computing device. We know what Jobs thinks an appropriate OS for an
>> iPad like device is, and it is *not* UNIX, it is locked-down iOS.
>
> Yeah, he also told us that nobody reads anymore and a few
> months later unveiled iBooks and the book store for it.
>
> He told that web apps are the way to go and local application
> development
> will not be supported. A few months later we got the Appstore.
>
>>
>> warmest regards,
>>
>> Ralph
>>
>> [1] in fact, in some ways it makes the UI more complex - for example,
>> moving Pages documents between a desktop mac and an iPad is more
>> complex than it would be if one could simply drag and drop from one
>> file system to the other.
>
> Pages can copy files from and to WebDAV for example.
But no drag and drop. Coming from Apple, no drag and drop of files is
beyond bizarre. It can't be an accident. Apple wants users to lose the
ability to put whatever they want on their hardware's mass storage.
Whenever a vendor *removes* useful features you have to ask why. The
answer here is simple: so users can't put any software they choose on
the device.
Imagine if you had arbitrary read/write access to your iPad. If people
can write software to jailbreak the iPad/iOS, how hard would it be for
them to write software to modify arbitrary apps so they looked to the
OS like valid, digitally signed, App Store apps? The first line of
defense in keeping non-App-Store software off the device is removing
the user's ability to write to arbitrary locations in the file system.
This is all about controlling what software users can run on Apple devices.
jos...@lisp.de
<raffaelcavall...@pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
> > That's new. All I have seen is an emulator. Do you know more?
>
> To clarify: Apple owns the hardware and the software. They can put any
> software they want on any hardware they make.
They directly support running Windows on their machines.
Native.
With VMWare and Parallels I can run almost anything I want.
With integration into Mac OS X.
> >> At the same keynote they introduced
> >> Lion, which looks and acts as much like iOS as current MacOS X.
>
> > No it doesn't. It just gets a few things from iOS.
>
> Right now yes. Going forward is Mac OS X likely to get more like iOS or
> less like iOS? Doesn't Apple have a huge cost incentive to unify Mac OS
> X and iOS? They will.
They had incentive to develop iOS for ARM hardware. Now they
bring back capabilities to the Mac OS X.
> >> Apple
> >> are moving away from the user having access to the file system, and
> >> toward an app centric system. Users will access and work with their
> >> data through apps only (just as they do now on the iPhone and iPad) not
> >> by having direct access to the file system.
>
> > Apps have a file system. I'm using Goodreader on my iPad
> > with a file system.
>
> You can write arbitrary files to anyplace on your iPad's file system
> without jailbreaking it? That's news indeed. What you have is the
> ability to write files where Apple's APIs let apps write files. You
> don't have arbitrary read/write access to the file system of a device
> *you own*, unless of course, you jailbreak it. This means you can't
> install software of your own choosing, only what Apple lets you.
Every app has a file system and can open apps in another app.
Some Apps have an iTunes integration. Some can provide
their file system via Webdav. I can mount Goodreaders
file space on my Mac and copy files to and from it.
> Jobs wanted Apple to be the only game in town for native apps and
> non-apple devs to write web apps. Once it was clear that developers
> weren't interested, he relented. But he relented in such a way that
> Apple maintained complete control over what Apps run on iOS, and gave
> Apple the right to appropriate any App Store app by replacing it with
> Apple's own - it's in the developer agreement and has been from day 1.
True, still it was not planned from day one.
>
> Jobs wanted Apple to be the only developer tools used for iOS. Once it
> was clear that couldn't be, he relented. But he relented in such a way
> that Apple maintained complete control over what Apps run on iOS, and
> kept for Apple their right to replace any app with an Apple version.
>
> Se a pattern here? Apple wants complete control over what runs on Apple
> devices. This is *fundamentally* at odds with the notion of a general
> purpose computer. And Jobs has said that general purpose computers are
> going bye bye. They'll be replaced by appliance computers like the iPad.
No, general purpose computers will not go away and they will
not be replaced by iPad. Instead many thousand developers
are buying Macs to be able to develop for iOS devices.
> To co-opt users who think keyboards are essential to computer use
> (i.e., dinosaurs like us). My daughter thinks a keyboard is totally
> unnecessary with an iPad, and she can type about 50 wpm on one, so, for
> her and her generation, she's right. After trying for a while, I see
> she and Jobs have an argument - I really don't *need* a keyboard with
> an iPad - I'm just more used to using one. Old habits die hard. Apple
> is transitioning the old farts by letting us use keyboards, but this is
> a non issue for the next generation.
No, it's a different use case. I use my iPad on a stand and
type mails, texts, etc. There is a lot of software in the
Appstore that supports that. There are a lot of situations
where I don't need a keyboard, but when I produce
a lot of text, I need a keyboard. There are special
writer apps in the store which are supporting this use case,
terminal emulators (currently with poor keyboard support),
etc.etc.
> But no drag and drop. Coming from Apple, no drag and drop of files is
> beyond bizarre. It can't be an accident. Apple wants users to lose the
> ability to put whatever they want on their hardware's mass storage.
Mount a Goodreader filesystem (or any other app that supports Webdav)
on your Mac, done.
>
> Whenever a vendor *removes* useful features you have to ask why. The
> answer here is simple: so users can't put any software they choose on
> the device.
My take: the iOS team is relatively small. They need time to develop
things with a touch UI. iOS started without copy&paste. Added later.
No multitasking. Added later. No Apps. Added later...
> Imagine if you had arbitrary read/write access to your iPad. If people
> can write software to jailbreak the iPad/iOS, how hard would it be for
> them to write software to modify arbitrary apps so they looked to the
> OS like valid, digitally signed, App Store apps? The first line of
> defense in keeping non-App-Store software off the device is removing
> the user's ability to write to arbitrary locations in the file system.
The Appstore comes to the Mac, so they need to solve that problem.
>
> This is all about controlling what software users can run on Apple devices.
iOS devices. Partly. Large companies can install their own software.
See the
Enterprise developer program.
Mac OS X supports user installable software.
Raffael Cavallaro
> On 24 Okt., 22:42, Raffael Cavallaro
> <raffaelcavall...@pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
>
>>> That's new. All I have seen is an emulator. Do you know more?
>>
>> To clarify: Apple owns the hardware and the software. They can put any
>> software they want on any hardware they make.
>
> They directly support running Windows on their machines.
> Native.
> With VMWare and Parallels I can run almost anything I want.
> With integration into Mac OS X.s-
You can run plan 9 for all Apple cares. Apple cares what most users
will run, and most users will run the default OS install.
To repeat, we don't need to guess here. Jobs himself has told us what
expects most users to be running in 5 years - an iPad like appliance
computing device, *not* a general purpose computer. Jobs himself has
*shown* us what kind of OS such devices run, and it is locked down.
This is not freedom to write what you want, where you want on a device
*you own*. It is freedom to write what Apple permits (since they must
approve all software) where Apple permits (since they create the APIs).
>
>
>> Jobs wanted Apple to be the only game in town for native apps and
>> non-apple devs to write web apps. Once it was clear that developers
>> weren't interested, he relented. But he relented in such a way that
>> Apple maintained complete control over what Apps run on iOS, and gave
>> Apple the right to appropriate any App Store app by replacing it with
>> Apple's own - it's in the developer agreement and has been from day 1.
>
> True, still it was not planned from day one.
What was planned was even *more* restricive - for third party
developers, only websites, something Apple couldn't possibly exclude or
no one would buy the device.
You're not seeing the big picture - Apple has been moving steadily in
the direction of greater and greater control over what runs on Apple
devices. The fact that it is possible to run alternative OSes has
little or no bearing on the largest software market which will always
be for software that runs on the default installed OS. Going forward,
that means a locked down OS, where Apple not only must approve the
software, but retains the right to create a clone of it if they want.
>>
>> Jobs wanted Apple to be the only developer tools used for iOS. Once it
>> was clear that couldn't be, he relented. But he relented in such a way
>> that Apple maintained complete control over what Apps run on iOS, and
>> kept for Apple their right to replace any app with an Apple version.
>>
>> Se a pattern here? Apple wants complete control over what runs on Apple
>> devices. This is *fundamentally* at odds with the notion of a general
>> purpose computer. And Jobs has said that general purpose computers are
>> going bye bye. They'll be replaced by appliance computers like the iPad.
>
> No, general purpose computers will not go away and they will
> not be replaced by iPad. Instead many thousand developers
> are buying Macs to be able to develop for iOS devices.
You are confusing "go away" with "become irrelevant." I never said that
general purpose computers will go away, and neither did Jobs. He
explicitly said they will become like trucks - useful, necessary, but
only a small fraction of the vehicle market. Most people drive cars not
trucks; Jobs expects that most people will use iPad like devices not
general purpose computers; Jobs expects that most users will be on
locked down OSes, not UNIX; Jobs expects that the largest software
market will be for a locked down OS via the App Store, not for user
installed software on general purpose computers.
This means that developers will target the locked down OS, or they will
be ignoring by far the largest share of the market.
>
>
>> To co-opt users who think keyboards are essential to computer use
>> (i.e., dinosaurs like us). My daughter thinks a keyboard is totally
>> unnecessary with an iPad, and she can type about 50 wpm on one, so, for
>> her and her generation, she's right. After trying for a while, I see
>> she and Jobs have an argument - I really don't *need* a keyboard with
>> an iPad - I'm just more used to using one. Old habits die hard. Apple
>> is transitioning the old farts by letting us use keyboards, but this is
>> a non issue for the next generation.
>
> No, it's a different use case. I use my iPad on a stand and
> type mails, texts, etc. There is a lot of software in the
> Appstore that supports that. There are a lot of situations
> where I don't need a keyboard, but when I produce
> a lot of text, I need a keyboard.
That's my point; when *you* produce a lot of text *you* need a
keyboard. There are already students who produce whole papers in Pages
on the iPad without a keyboard. And going forward, the touch based text
input will only get better (more accurate, better feedback) making
keyboards less necessary.
> There are special
> writer apps in the store which are supporting this use case,
> terminal emulators (currently with poor keyboard support),
> etc.etc.
>
>> But no drag and drop. Coming from Apple, no drag and drop of files is
>> beyond bizarre. It can't be an accident. Apple wants users to lose the
>> ability to put whatever they want on their hardware's mass storage.
>
> Mount a Goodreader filesystem (or any other app that supports Webdav)
> on your Mac, done.
Again, missing the point. Why was this obvious feature *removed* in the
first place? To keep users from installing whatever they please on the
device.
>
>>
>> Whenever a vendor *removes* useful features you have to ask why. The
>> answer here is simple: so users can't put any software they choose on
>> the device.
>
> My take: the iOS team is relatively small. They need time to develop
> things with a touch UI. iOS started without copy&paste. Added later.
> No multitasking. Added later. No Apps. Added later...
By this argument, full file system access and the ability to install
arbitrary software will happen in future iOS releases. A bold
prediction. I for one will not be holding my breath...
>
>> Imagine if you had arbitrary read/write access to your iPad. If people
>> can write software to jailbreak the iPad/iOS, how hard would it be for
>> them to write software to modify arbitrary apps so they looked to the
>> OS like valid, digitally signed, App Store apps? The first line of
>> defense in keeping non-App-Store software off the device is removing
>> the user's ability to write to arbitrary locations in the file system.
>
> The Appstore comes to the Mac, so they need to solve that problem.
They'll solve this problem the same way they solved the Classic
problem, by deprecating it.
They've already started this. Have you noticed that if you install an
app that is not digitally signed you get a scary potential malware
notice? Apple wants to make running unsigned software a second class
experience - like running a Java app, or an x windows app. (Is
compiling and installing x windows apps another feature that you expect
in future iOS releases?)
At some point iPad like devices will outsell what we now call Macs
(i.e., general purpose computers) by so much that Apple won't bother to
lock down Mac OS X - it will become commercially irrelevant - mac os x
as UNIX and machines preloaded with it will only be sold to developers
and extreme power users, not ordinary users. Ordinary users will run a
locked down os like the current iOS.
>
>>
>> This is all about controlling what software users can run on Apple devices.
>
> iOS devices. Partly. Large companies can install their own software.
> See the
> Enterprise developer program.
>
> Mac OS X supports user installable software.
Going forward, the Apple OS that most users use will not, because most
Apple users will be using a locked down OS. We know this because Jobs
himself *told us* that most users will be using an iPad type device,
and Jobs has *shown us* what kind of OS an iPad type device ships with,
and the iOS does *not* support user installable software.
jos...@lisp.de
>
> > On 24 Okt., 22:42, Raffael Cavallaro
> > <raffaelcavall...@pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
>
> >>> That's new. All I have seen is an emulator. Do you know more?
>
> >> To clarify: Apple owns the hardware and the software. They can put any
> >> software they want on any hardware they make.
>
> > They directly support running Windows on their machines.
> > Native.
> > With VMWare and Parallels I can run almost anything I want.
> > With integration into Mac OS X.s-
>
> You can run plan 9 for all Apple cares. Apple cares what most users
> will run, and most users will run the default OS install.
Still they care for the Windows installation and provide
drivers for that. I just met a guy who had Windows running
as the primary OS on a MacBook Pro - strange, but true.
> To repeat, we don't need to guess here. Jobs himself has told us what
> expects most users to be running in 5 years - an iPad like appliance
> computing device, *not* a general purpose computer. Jobs himself has
> *shown* us what kind of OS such devices run, and it is locked down.
To repeat, Jobs said a lot which changed over time. Even Jobs can't
predict
the future, though he tries to shape it.
...
> > True, still it was not planned from day one.
>
> What was planned was even *more* restricive - for third party
> developers, only websites, something Apple couldn't possibly exclude or
> no one would buy the device.
So the trend is that they open up the device based on consumer
demand!
>
> You're not seeing the big picture - Apple has been moving steadily in
> the direction of greater and greater control over what runs on Apple
> devices.
You just said the opposite.
It is also not true for Macs. I can write and install software
on my Mac like I did on my first Mac SE/30 in 1989.
Nothing has changed.
> The fact that it is possible to run alternative OSes has
> little or no bearing on the largest software market which will always
> be for software that runs on the default installed OS. Going forward,
> that means a locked down OS, where Apple not only must approve the
> software, but retains the right to create a clone of it if they want.
There is nothing to support that position for Macs.
...
> > No, general purpose computers will not go away and they will
> > not be replaced by iPad. Instead many thousand developers
> > are buying Macs to be able to develop for iOS devices.
>
> You are confusing "go away" with "become irrelevant."
It won't even be irrelevant. A Mercedes S-class is not irrelevant,
just because the same company makes the Smart, the A-Class,
even trucks and busses. Mercedes trucks are great.
> I never said that
> general purpose computers will go away, and neither did Jobs. He
> explicitly said they will become like trucks - useful, necessary, but
> only a small fraction of the vehicle market. Most people drive cars not
> trucks; Jobs expects that most people will use iPad like devices not
> general purpose computers; Jobs expects that most users will be on
> locked down OSes, not UNIX; Jobs expects that the largest software
> market will be for a locked down OS via the App Store, not for user
> installed software on general purpose computers.
That does not mean that the Mac will be closed.
> This means that developers will target the locked down OS, or they will
> be ignoring by far the largest share of the market.
For the Mac the Appstore is a great new distribution channel.
I see currently no reason why a Lisp app can't be sold there.
Create an App on the Mac using Lisp and sell it through
the Appstore. Where is the problem? Nobody will
ever know that it is written in Lisp, unless one
tells it or shows it.
> > No, it's a different use case. I use my iPad on a stand and
> > type mails, texts, etc. There is a lot of software in the
> > Appstore that supports that. There are a lot of situations
> > where I don't need a keyboard, but when I produce
> > a lot of text, I need a keyboard.
>
> That's my point; when *you* produce a lot of text *you* need a
> keyboard. There are already students who produce whole papers in Pages
> on the iPad without a keyboard. And going forward, the touch based text
> input will only get better (more accurate, better feedback) making
> keyboards less necessary.
What will always stay is that I have to look down on the tablet
and that the screen keyboard takes half of the screen.
There is a healthy market for stands and from
reading the comments and App descriptions, bluetooth keyboard
support is important for a bunch of apps. Apple
supports that even on the iPhone.
> > Mount a Goodreader filesystem (or any other app that supports Webdav)
> > on your Mac, done.
>
> Again, missing the point. Why was this obvious feature *removed* in the
> first place? To keep users from installing whatever they please on the
> device.
I was not removed. The UI started from zero.
Apple builds a new UI. They add new features
as they can and want.
> > My take: the iOS team is relatively small. They need time to develop
> > things with a touch UI. iOS started without copy&paste. Added later.
> > No multitasking. Added later. No Apps. Added later...
>
> By this argument, full file system access and the ability to install
> arbitrary software will happen in future iOS releases. A bold
> prediction. I for one will not be holding my breath...
The Enterprise Developer account allows installation of
custom applications today. It allows to write custom applications
that can be installed on iOS devices linked to that account.
My prediction:
I would expect that Apple adds a graphical programming system
to the iPad. It's just that they don't have time now and
that they don't want anybody else to enter that market
before them.
Think Automator meets Interface Builder meets Dashcode meets Quartz
Composer.
For me it is obvious that something like that will be added.
There are already Music tools on the iPad that can be programmed
graphically (like Reactable).
That could even be interesting for the Lisp world, since there is
some experience in that area. For example PWGL and AgentSheets.
PWGL runs in LispWorks and Agentsheets in CCL (IIRC).
...
> They've already started this. Have you noticed that if you install an
> app that is not digitally signed you get a scary potential malware
> notice? Apple wants to make running unsigned software a second class
> experience - like running a Java app, or an x windows app. (Is
> compiling and installing x windows apps another feature that you expect
> in future iOS releases?)
Well, it makes sense to me. Sounds like a feature. The world
around is changing and we need to adapt, too.
> At some point iPad like devices will outsell what we now call Macs
> (i.e., general purpose computers) by so much that Apple won't bother to
> lock down Mac OS X - it will become commercially irrelevant - mac os x
> as UNIX and machines preloaded with it will only be sold to developers
> and extreme power users, not ordinary users. Ordinary users will run a
> locked down os like the current iOS.
One possible future. Even then we can write and use Lisp software for
Appstores.
Could. If somebody would do it. Until then it is all theoretical,
based on fear that things get worse. There are even alternatives
like Android or some other Linux-based systems. I haven't seen
Lisp developers there, either.
Is the negative world view common right now? Am I too stupid because
I tend to see chances and opportunities? In my view the Lisp
'world' was cold and lonely ten years ago. Today I see
young people doing cool stuff and the state of the implementations
has never been better. There might be even a way to quickly install
Lisp libraries from the net. There might even be a complete
land of Lisp.
Vend
> Up to now, it seems that supporting different-feeling applications, in
> order to have those applications at all, has been an acceptable trade-
> off. Perhaps growing success in the market place makes Apple think that
> they are in a position to demand that software vendors support their
> platform "natively."
>
> I think that we're seeing a rejection of the whole notion of "cross-
> platform GUI".
Users can decide themselves whether they like an interface.
What we are seeing is a rejection of the notion of cross-platform
development environment.
Apple wants to prevent development of easly portable applications:
Developers will be unable to develop for other systems without
rewriting all their code from the scratch, and consequently users will
be unable to switch to other systems without losing all their apps.
Tim Bradshaw
> That's my point; when *you* produce a lot of text *you* need a
> keyboard. There are already students who produce whole papers in Pages
> on the iPad without a keyboard. And going forward, the touch based text
> input will only get better (more accurate, better feedback) making
> keyboards less necessary.
At a complete tangent, I don't think screen keyboards will drive out
real ones. People who touch type (which I more or less do) rely on
physical feedback from the keys. For instance the little nubs on the f
and j keys tell you where the home position is, without looking at the
keyboard. Similarly I'm fairly sure that the shape of the keys helps
you centre your fingers on them. I think anyone who poduces
significant quantities of text will want a real keyboard.
(Disclaimer: I haven't used an iPad).
Tim Bradshaw
> Apple wants to prevent development of easly portable applications:
> Developers will be unable to develop for other systems without
> rewriting all their code from the scratch, and consequently users will
> be unable to switch to other systems without losing all their apps.
And that's what you'd expect them to do, of course. If you're a
dominant player in some market (iPhone/iPad) then you obvously don't
want people writing applications that can easily be ported to smaller
players (Android). They're doing exactly what I'd do, and in fact
they're more-or-less doing what they must do if they want to maximise
shareholder value, as they are abliged to do.
Tamas K Papp
Last week the S key fell off my laptop - it was still usable, but
pressing the little rubber thing instead of a full-fledged and
responsive key interfered with my touch-typing considerably.
I could not put it back, one of the little plastic things was broken.
After typing for about half an hour I got frustrated, and decided do
catch up with some other things that didn't require a computer until
it was repaired (which fortunately happened next day).
So I agree with you completely, I don't think I could manage without a
physical keyboard. But maybe I am not representative of the general
population.
Tamas
Tamas K Papp
> To repeat, we don't need to guess here. Jobs himself has told us what
> expects most users to be running in 5 years - an iPad like appliance
> computing device, *not* a general purpose computer. Jobs himself has
> *shown* us what kind of OS such devices run, and it is locked down.
I don't think that even non-technical consumers like locked down
devices very much. Granted, a lot of people are willing to put up
with a small amount of lock-down if the device is otherwise
convenient, cheap and easy to use.
But once you have some amount of lock-down, it is very hard to resist
interfering with every little thing if it brings a bit of profit in
the short run. Even if you extract only a few dollars for extra
features or content, those things add up very quickly, and sooner or
later the TCO of the device becomes unacceptable. Unless Apple finds
a way to resist this, I don't think that the lock-down business model
will be successful.
Tamas
jos...@lisp.de
I'm currently switching between four keyboards:
* iPad, on screen
* iPhone, on screen
* Apple flat Alu keyboards, laptop style
* Symbolics, 'modern' style
iPhone: tiny, needs lots of attention, not usable for longer texts
iPad on screen: my error rate is relatively high. This makes it kind
of unusable to write longer texts. Every time I look at my text I see
that it contains many errors, mostly because I wasn't hitting the
right character, but some character next to it. Possible reason: the
on screen keyboard looks like a physical keyboard, but is a bit
smaller. If one only types on this smaller on-screen keyboard, the
error rate might go down. Also editing the text is a pain with the
touch based selection/cut/copy/paste. The on-screen keyboard lacks
this functionality. That the on-screen keyboard covers the lower half
of the screen makes text adjustments also a pain.
Alu keyboard: works great
Symbolics: loud, needs more physical work to press the keys down, good
for Lisp programming
Currently I see no way that the on-screen keyboard is as productive
for writing and editing text like a good external keyboard. It is
possible, but it is a bit painful.
Antony
> To repeat, we don't need to guess here. Jobs himself has told us what
> expects most users to be running in 5 years - an iPad like appliance
> computing device, *not* a general purpose computer. Jobs himself has
> *shown* us what kind of OS such devices run, and it is locked down.
guess)
-Antony
Tamas K Papp
I had an Apple laptop in their pre-intel days (a Powerbook), with the
nice alu keyboard. I liked the feel of it very much. Is the keyboard
you mentioned an external one with the same look & feel? That sounds
great.
Tamas
Pascal J. Bourguignon
> Currently I see no way that the on-screen keyboard is as productive
> for writing and editing text like a good external keyboard. It is
> possible, but it is a bit painful.
Let's be serrious:
Where are the keys shift control alt meta super hyper?
No such keys, no emacs, no editing.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
Pascal J. Bourguignon
jos...@lisp.de
wrote:
> "jos...@corporate-world.lisp.de" <jos...@lisp.de> writes:
> > Currently I see no way that the on-screen keyboard is as productive
> > for writing and editing text like a good external keyboard. It is
> > possible, but it is a bit painful.
>
> Let's be serrious:
> Where are the keys shift control alt meta super hyper?
> No such keys, no emacs, no editing.
Okay, serrious:
With an on-screen keyboard one can display in an
App any keyboard. iSSH for example provides such
keys.
The problem with the external keyboard is that
it seems to be difficult with the current oldish iOS 3.2
API to support those keys.
But:
Without a real keyboard (like my Lisp Machine
keyboard) with a sane placement of shift control meta
super hyper you can't use Emacs anyway. Mapping
Emacs keys to modern keyboards is a lost cause.
When it comes to keyboard mappings Emacs is stuck
in the past. The various keyboard commands of
Emacs are really really really ugly. Stallman
knew the Lisp Machine well, but all we got was a lame
Lisp dialect, no threads, no objects, worse
keyboard commands, worse extended commands, etc etc.
Even though the Lisp Machine had a window system end of the 70s
and Zmacs makes some mild use of it, the interaction
with Emacs is today still at a level that is only sad.
jos...@lisp.de
I don't know which Powerbook you had, there were many with many
different keyboards.
Here is the Bluetooth keyboard I'm using: http://www.apple.com/keyboard/
There is a similar keyboard with USB connector and numeric keypad.
Many people like it because it is low profile and the keys are easy to
type.
I have to agree. I like it, too.
>
> Tamas
Vend
Sure, enacting vendor lock-in, is in Apple's interest. I was
responding to the PR red herrings about interface integration and
battery life (which, by the way, boil down to "we must protect the
ignorant masses from themselves").
Anyway, what are antitrust agencies doing? Microsoft got under fire
for including a web browser in their OS, now we got Apple that sells
the hardware, sells the OS and development tools in a monopoly regime,
and retains the power to veto and collect royalties over third party
applications.
It seems to me like anti-competitive behavior to the extreme.
Tamas K Papp
I am not an expert in competition law, but I doubt that Apple is a
monopoly in any relevant market at the moment. They do have quite a
bit of market power, but there are also important competitors in both
the smartphone and the tablet market, let alone PCs.
Tamas
Tim Bradshaw
> Sure, enacting vendor lock-in, is in Apple's interest. I was
> responding to the PR red herrings about interface integration and
> battery life (which, by the way, boil down to "we must protect the
> ignorant masses from themselves").
Yes, that's the point I've been making as well - especially the second
point, that the whole interface integration/blah story leads to some
quite scary things quite quickly.
>
> Anyway, what are antitrust agencies doing? Microsoft got under fire
> for including a web browser in their OS, now we got Apple that sells
> the hardware, sells the OS and development tools in a monopoly regime,
> and retains the power to veto and collect royalties over third party
> applications.
> It seems to me like anti-competitive behavior to the extreme.
I don't think there's an antitrust issue here since there are
alternatives. If Apple (or any company) ever get to the point where
they own enough of a market, then there's a problem, otherwise, no.
Vend
I'm not an expert either, but it seems to me that Apple has a monopoly
in the market of OS and development tools for iphone and ipad, and
plays a controlling role in the market of applications for these
systems.
It could be argued that iphone and ipad are only a share, although
substantial, of the smartphone and tablet market, but then, any market
is a share of a larger market.
Tamas K Papp
If X is a brand, then the manufacturer of X is by definition a
monopolist in the market of X. I don't think that this is an issue
though, an investigation about the abuse of monopoly power would
always consider a larger market.
I agree that the "relevant market" is a fuzzy definition, but that's
what competition lawyers use. It has quite a bit of literature, and
even a wikipedia entry [1]. The concept is based on competition and
the possibility of substitution.
I would argue that the for eg the iPhone, the market of smartphones is
the relevant market: anything broader would mean that you don't get
the same kind of functionality. But I am not an expert on these
things, a serious investigation would look at the time series of
prices, market shares, estimate the price-elasticity of demand etc. I
don't have the data for this, so I am not going to speculate.
Best,
Tamas
Pascal J. Bourguignon
> I agree that the "relevant market" is a fuzzy definition, but that's
> what competition lawyers use. It has quite a bit of literature, and
> even a wikipedia entry [1]. The concept is based on competition and
> the possibility of substitution.
>
> I would argue that the for eg the iPhone, the market of smartphones is
> the relevant market: anything broader would mean that you don't get
> the same kind of functionality. But I am not an expert on these
> things, a serious investigation would look at the time series of
> prices, market shares, estimate the price-elasticity of demand etc. I
> don't have the data for this, so I am not going to speculate.
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relevant_market
So in a way, buyers of Android devices prevent Apple to become a
monopole with the iPhone in the smartphone market, and therefore
prevent us to reclaim the ability to install other systems than the iOS
on the iPhones et al.
jos...@lisp.de
wrote:
There is not only Google (which only makes an OS) and Apple.
Players in the Smartphone market are: Nokia, RIM, Google, Samsung,
HTC, Apple, Sony Ericsson, HP, ...
Tamas K Papp
That all depends. If you believe that
1. the market share of the Android (& other similar devices) is large
enough for Apple to successfully argue that it isn't a monopoly, but
not large enough to pose any real competition, and
2. if Apple happened to be an actual monopoly, then the US or the EU
would make them open up the device.
then the above claim is true.
(1) is a borderline case, and may not be relevant: what the regulators
look at is not whether you have market power, but whether you are
abusing it, and you don't need to be a monopoly for that. So if Apple
gets nasty, the mere existence of other alternatives may not be enough
for them to get away with it.
I am not sure about (2) either, but that could happen, if Apple gets a
whole lot of market share. I wouldn't expect that to happen though,
AFAIK Apple prefers to be the manufacturer of sleek devices that can be
marketed as somewhat exclusive and above the rest, so they are
unlikely to flood the market with their products anytime soon.
I don't own an Apple product at the moment, but AFAIK it is not that
hard to jailbreak iPhones. Last time I was shopping for a phone, the
shop attendant actually offered to jailbreak an iPhone if I wanted to
buy one (got a cheapo Nokia instead though, I am not a smartphone
person). And I consider other smartphones competitive - actually, if
I got a smartphone, I would probably get a Nokia because of their free
maps. So perhaps this whole discussion is speculative.
Best,
Tamas
Tim Bradshaw
> So in a way, buyers of Android devices prevent Apple to become a
> monopole with the iPhone in the smartphone market, and therefore
> prevent us to reclaim the ability to install other systems than the iOS
> on the iPhones et al.
Indeed they don't. If you want to change Apple's behaviour you can
simply buy devices from other vendors. If enough people do this, then
they'll either go out of business or change their behaviour. That's
what markets are for: antitrust legislation is there to deal with the
case where market forces no longer work. What you shoudn't do is whine
about Apple while not doing anything about it (I'm slightly guilty of
this, of course): vote with your money.
Raffael Cavallaro
>>
>> What was planned was even *more* restricive - for third party
>> developers, only websites, something Apple couldn't possibly exclude or
>> no one would buy the device.
>
> So the trend is that they open up the device based on consumer
> demand!
The current App Store for iOS is not "open" by any reasonable
definition of open, and it does *not* allow user installable software.
> It won't even be irrelevant. A Mercedes S-class is not irrelevant,
> just because the same company makes the Smart, the A-Class,
> even trucks and busses. Mercedes trucks are great.
Trucks are a small fraction of the overall vehicle market. The greatest
opportunities come from targeting the largest, growing market, not the
shrinking one.
In 2005 the combined PDA/smart phone/tablet market was less than 15% of
the total personal computer market but it has been growing at 35%-50% a
year. Jobs has said that he expects these markets to flip - for
tablets/PDAs/smart phones to become the norm, and PCs to become the
exception. In the future, we should see the numbers reversing - iPad
like devices sold by Apple should outnumber PC like devices sold by
Apple. Since Jobs runs Apple, it you want to target Apple hardware, you
want to target the market Jobs intends to be growing, not the shrinking
one. This means targeting a closed, App Store only OS.
>
> For the Mac the Appstore is a great new distribution channel.
> I see currently no reason why a Lisp app can't be sold there.
Yes, a great new distribution channel as long as you're not *too*
successful and Apple takes your idea, clones it, and kicks your App out
of the App Store.
Lisp has a better shot if it compiles to c rather than native code with
a runtime that uses undocumented APIs. Gambit or ECL is a safer bet
than ccl, and certainly a better bet than LispWorks which doesn't even
have an ARM/iOS port at all.
We've seen clearly that Jobs wants developers to use the Apple tool
chain. A lisp that integrates with the Apple gcc tool chain is more
likely to safely fly under the radar, will be easier to port to new
architectures, etc, than one that does not.
> Create an App on the Mac using Lisp and sell it through
> the Appstore. Where is the problem? Nobody will
> ever know that it is written in Lisp, unless one
> tells it or shows it.
Apple will know if the lisp implementation uses undocumented APIs and
the app will never get on the App Store.
All of this ignores the ominous fact that if an App becomes really
useful or suggests a truly new software category, Apple reserves the
right to yank it from the App Store and replace it with their own
version. You must agree to this or you can't submit an App to the App
Store.
So, in effect, what you're doing is prototyping and market research for
Apple. Come up with the next big thing, and Apple will say "thanks for
the demo, we'll take it from here," and all your work is for nothing.
>
> What will always stay is that I have to look down on the tablet
They're working on haptic feedback so that you can touch type. They're
also working on projected virtual keyboards so any flat surface becomes
a keyboard, so again, no physical, hardware keyboard necessary.
> and that the screen keyboard takes half of the screen.
for many, a reasonable tradeoff for not having to carry a hardware
keyboard, and as resolutions increase, less and less of an issue since
the half left for text will show more and more text as resolutions get
better.
>> Again, missing the point. Why was this obvious feature *removed* in the
>> first place? To keep users from installing whatever they please on the
>> device.
>
> I was not removed. The UI started from zero.
> Apple builds a new UI. They add new features
> as they can and want.
The UI was clearly not started from zero since the iOS frameworks
contain huge chunks lifted straight from the existing Cocoa frameworks
as you know. A design decision was made to hide obvious functionality
like access to the device's filesystem. Combined with the original
intent to keep *all* third party apps off the iOS, its clear Jobs
wanted users to *not* be able to write what they want, where they want,
on devices *they own!*
> The Enterprise Developer account allows installation of
> custom applications today. It allows to write custom applications
> that can be installed on iOS devices linked to that account.
But not distributed to the general public. Still no ordinary user
installable software.
>
> My prediction:
>
> I would expect that Apple adds a graphical programming system
> to the iPad. It's just that they don't have time now and
> that they don't want anybody else to enter that market
> before them.
>
> Think Automator meets Interface Builder meets Dashcode meets Quartz
> Composer.
Meets Apple-takes-the-best-ideas-and-shitcans-your-app-at-will.
>
> For me it is obvious that something like that will be added.
So we must wait for Apple. If we do something like this ourselves we
risk either:
1. it never gets approved for the App Store, so all effort is wasted
(most likely)
2. when Apple is ready to do something similar, they pull the non-Apple
graphical programming environment and all effort of making such an IDE
*and* the effort of any developers who used it is wasted.
>
>> They've already started this. Have you noticed that if you install an
>> app that is not digitally signed you get a scary potential malware
>> notice? Apple wants to make running unsigned software a second class
>> experience - like running a Java app, or an x windows app. (Is
>> compiling and installing x windows apps another feature that you expect
>> in future iOS releases?)
>
> Well, it makes sense to me. Sounds like a feature. The world
> around is changing and we need to adapt, too.
This is scary. When someone starts calling obvious big brother control
tactics a "feature," you know you're talking to one the blind faithful.
I own the device. I should be able to install what I want on it. Apple
are clearly moving toward a world where this is at first deprecated,
then later no longer possible at all, just like on the iOS.
>
>> At some point �iPad like devices will outsell what we now call Macs
>> (i.e., general purpose computers) by so much that Apple won't bother to
>> lock down Mac OS X - it will become commercially irrelevant - mac os x
>> as UNIX and machines preloaded with it will only be sold to developers
>> and extreme power users, not ordinary users. Ordinary users will run a
>> locked down os like the current iOS.
>
> One possible future. Even then we can write and use Lisp software for
> Appstores.
> Could. If somebody would do it. Until then it is all theoretical,
> based on fear that things get worse. There are even alternatives
> like Android or some other Linux-based systems. I haven't seen
> Lisp developers there, either.
Per Bothner's Kawa
<http://www.gnu.org/software/kawa/>
not only runs on Android, it is being used by *Google themselves* to
make their Android visual App Inventor:
<http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/>
lisp use is way ahead on Android compared to iOS, and the reason is
largely the FUD created by Apple wrt non-C/C++/Objective-C tools.
>
> Is the negative world view common right now? Am I too stupid because
> I tend to see chances and opportunities? In my view the Lisp
> 'world' was cold and lonely ten years ago. Today I see
> young people doing cool stuff and the state of the implementations
> has never been better. There might be even a way to quickly install
> Lisp libraries from the net. There might even be a complete
> land of Lisp.
There are opportunities - kawa on android looks very promising. I just
don't see as many lisp opportunities on Apple's major software/hardware
combinations because the open one (Mac OS X) is planned to be a
shrinking portion, and the closed one (iOS) is a growing one. To target
the closed iOS you really should go through C/C++/Objective-C, and this
limits your options for lisp - for example, no lisp that compiles to C
has a mature Cocoa bridge.
jos...@lisp.de
The difference between Google and Apple is basically this:
* the Apple iOS costs money, the costs are a part of the cost for an
iPhone/...
* the Google Android OS is 'free'
Now the following rule matches:
If you don't pay for something, then YOU are the product.
Google sells YOU.
Raffael Cavallaro
> What do you mean '*not* a general purpose computer' ?
A general purpose computer is one that you, the user, can put to any
purpose you wish. You can install any software you like on it,
configure it as you like, use it for any task at all.
A locked down computer (or "*not* a general purpose computer") is one
that you, the user, may use only to run software approved by the device
vendor, may use only to run software distributed through a channel
policed by the the vendor, may *not* put to any purpose you wish,
unless it is *explicitly approved* by the device vendor.
For the purpose of this discussion, distinguish between an ordinary
user, who cannot program, and a developer. Developers can, in general,
get non-vendor-approved software to run on their own personal devices
by compiling and installing it though means permitted to registed
developers, but ordinary users can only run what the vendor approves
and provides through the vendor's software distribution channel (such
as a vendor controlled App Store).
Raffael Cavallaro
> what the regulators
> look at is not whether you have market power, but whether you are
> abusing it, and you don't need to be a monopoly for that. So if Apple
> gets nasty, the mere existence of other alternatives may not be enough
> for them to get away with it.
There is some speculation that this has already happened; Adobe filed a
complaint with both the US DOJ and the European Competition Commission,
and once these bodies began investigations, Apple relented and allowed
non-apple developer tools and languages for the iOS. We don't know if
this was direct cause and effect, but it is quite possible that the
ongoing investigations into abuses of market power caused Apple to
change its behavior.
Raffael Cavallaro
> Now the following rule matches:
>
> If you don't pay for something, then YOU are the product.
>
> Google sells YOU.
Unless you're in Soviet Russia of course.
:)
jos...@lisp.de
<raffaelcavall...@pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
> Trucks are a small fraction of the overall vehicle market. The greatest
> opportunities come from targeting the largest, growing market, not the
> shrinking one.
Sure. We can sell mindmappers for 5 Euro a piece. That does not
invalidate the business of productivity applications on the Mac
that cost hundreds or thousands of Euros. With the Appstore
on the Mac and a huge enough number of installed Macs
one could even sell a Mindmapper for, say, twenty Euros.
...
> Lisp has a better shot if it compiles to c rather than native code with
> a runtime that uses undocumented APIs.
Why would a native runtime have to use undocumented APIs???
> Gambit or ECL is a safer bet
> than ccl, and certainly a better bet than LispWorks which doesn't even
> have an ARM/iOS port at all.
Gary Byers has CCL running on an iPad. Native. If he wants, has time
and gets paid for he probably could get rid of some of
the undocumented stuff he's using.
> We've seen clearly that Jobs wants developers to use the Apple tool
> chain. A lisp that integrates with the Apple gcc tool chain is more
> likely to safely fly under the radar, will be easier to port to new
> architectures, etc, than one that does not.
Apple recently has clarified their rules about this.
> > Create an App on the Mac using Lisp and sell it through
> > the Appstore. Where is the problem? Nobody will
> > ever know that it is written in Lisp, unless one
> > tells it or shows it.
>
> Apple will know if the lisp implementation uses undocumented APIs and
> the app will never get on the App Store.
What is your obsession with undocumented APIs? Why would Lisp
need to use them?
> All of this ignores the ominous fact that if an App becomes really
> useful or suggests a truly new software category, Apple reserves the
> right to yank it from the App Store and replace it with their own
> version. You must agree to this or you can't submit an App to the App
> Store.
>
> So, in effect, what you're doing is prototyping and market research for
> Apple. Come up with the next big thing, and Apple will say "thanks for
> the demo, we'll take it from here," and all your work is for nothing.
Alternatively one can sell it to them. Apple has bought several
small software companies in the past. iTunes is based
on a product from a small company which they bought, for example.
> They're working on haptic feedback so that you can touch type. They're
> also working on projected virtual keyboards so any flat surface becomes
> a keyboard, so again, no physical, hardware keyboard necessary.
Currently I have to look down to the screen where my fingers are
typing.
I haven't seen other products from Apple yet that are doing it
differently.
Neither I have seen any other vendor having a successful
virtual keyboard or similar. Can't say anything about a useful haptic
feedback screen - haven't used none, yet.
>
> > and that the screen keyboard takes half of the screen.
>
> for many, a reasonable tradeoff for not having to carry a hardware
> keyboard, and as resolutions increase, less and less of an issue since
> the half left for text will show more and more text as resolutions get
> better.
How would that work? How does the same screen size with higher
resolution
show more text? The text is already tiny.
> > I was not removed. The UI started from zero.
> > Apple builds a new UI. They add new features
> > as they can and want.
>
> The UI was clearly not started from zero since the iOS frameworks
> contain huge chunks lifted straight from the existing Cocoa frameworks
> as you know.
It is just that the Cocoa Touch UI looks and works totally different
from Cocoa on the desktop. It has been completely refitted to
touch devices.
> A design decision was made to hide obvious functionality
> like access to the device's filesystem. Combined with the original
> intent to keep *all* third party apps off the iOS, its clear Jobs
> wanted users to *not* be able to write what they want, where they want,
> on devices *they own!*
The main idea was to provide a user interface where files are
not needed by users. Similar to what the Newton had, which
used an object store instead of a file system. For
that Apple uses SQLite in some of their apps. Which
is the equivalent of Newton's soups. The Newton had
a great user experience, especially the later OS and
the later hardware. Still it had no files and no UI
to work with files. Apple's ambition was not to replicate
the Desktop/file based user experience on a
mobile device.
...
> > My prediction:
>
> > I would expect that Apple adds a graphical programming system
> > to the iPad. It's just that they don't have time now and
> > that they don't want anybody else to enter that market
> > before them.
>
> > Think Automator meets Interface Builder meets Dashcode meets Quartz
> > Composer.
>
> Meets Apple-takes-the-best-ideas-and-shitcans-your-app-at-will.
?
>
>
>
> > For me it is obvious that something like that will be added.
>
> So we must wait for Apple. If we do something like this ourselves we
> risk either:
>
> 1. it never gets approved for the App Store, so all effort is wasted
> (most likely)
> 2. when Apple is ready to do something similar, they pull the non-Apple
> graphical programming environment and all effort of making such an IDE
> *and* the effort of any developers who used it is wasted.
Or negotiate an agreement with them.
> >> They've already started this. Have you noticed that if you install an
> >> app that is not digitally signed you get a scary potential malware
> >> notice? Apple wants to make running unsigned software a second class
> >> experience - like running a Java app, or an x windows app. (Is
> >> compiling and installing x windows apps another feature that you expect
> >> in future iOS releases?)
>
> > Well, it makes sense to me. Sounds like a feature. The world
> > around is changing and we need to adapt, too.
>
> This is scary. When someone starts calling obvious big brother control
> tactics a "feature," you know you're talking to one the blind faithful.
> I own the device. I should be able to install what I want on it. Apple
> are clearly moving toward a world where this is at first deprecated,
> then later no longer possible at all, just like on the iOS.
I'm happy to know if some software I'm going to install may be
problematic from a security point of view.
> >> At some point iPad like devices will outsell what we now call Macs
> >> (i.e., general purpose computers) by so much that Apple won't bother to
> >> lock down Mac OS X - it will become commercially irrelevant - mac os x
> >> as UNIX and machines preloaded with it will only be sold to developers
> >> and extreme power users, not ordinary users. Ordinary users will run a
> >> locked down os like the current iOS.
>
> > One possible future. Even then we can write and use Lisp software for
> > Appstores.
> > Could. If somebody would do it. Until then it is all theoretical,
> > based on fear that things get worse. There are even alternatives
> > like Android or some other Linux-based systems. I haven't seen
> > Lisp developers there, either.
>
> Per Bothner's Kawa
>
> <http://www.gnu.org/software/kawa/>
>
> not only runs on Android, it is being used by *Google themselves* to
> make their Android visual App Inventor:
I'm pretty sure there are users of this Web application.
> > Is the negative world view common right now? Am I too stupid because
> > I tend to see chances and opportunities? In my view the Lisp
> > 'world' was cold and lonely ten years ago. Today I see
> > young people doing cool stuff and the state of the implementations
> > has never been better. There might be even a way to quickly install
> > Lisp libraries from the net. There might even be a complete
> > land of Lisp.
>
> There are opportunities - kawa on android looks very promising. I just
> don't see as many lisp opportunities on Apple's major software/hardware
> combinations because the open one (Mac OS X) is planned to be a
> shrinking portion, and the closed one (iOS) is a growing one.
The 'shrinking portion' is nicely growing in absolute numbers.
I bought a new Macbook Air, it is currently in transit to me. ;-)
I bought it because I can use productivity software with a
real keyboard, attached to a large screen in the office
and it runs stuff like 64bit LispWorks with the Cocoa UI
and the Open Genera emulator.
Raffael Cavallaro
> On 25 Okt., 18:02, Raffael Cavallaro
> <raffaelcavall...@pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
>
>> Trucks are a small fraction of the overall vehicle market. The greatest
>> opportunities come from targeting the largest, growing market, not the
>> shrinking one.
>
> Sure. We can sell mindmappers for 5 Euro a piece. That does not
> invalidate the business of productivity applications on the Mac
> that cost hundreds or thousands of Euros. With the Appstore
> on the Mac and a huge enough number of installed Macs
> one could even sell a Mindmapper for, say, twenty Euros.
Any way you slice it, targetting a growing market is better than
targetting a shrinking market.
>
>
>> Lisp has a better shot if it compiles to c rather than native code with
>> a runtime that uses undocumented APIs.
>
> Why would a native runtime have to use undocumented APIs???
ask Gary.
>
>> Gambit or ECL is a safer bet
>> than ccl, and certainly a better bet than LispWorks which doesn't even
>> have an ARM/iOS port at all.
>
> Gary Byers has CCL running on an iPad. Native. If he wants, has time
> and gets paid for he probably could get rid of some of
> the undocumented stuff he's using.
Maybe. Right now ther is a gambit based game already in the App Store.
>
>> We've seen clearly that Jobs wants developers to use the Apple tool
>> chain. A lisp that integrates with the Apple gcc tool chain is more
>> likely to safely fly under the radar, will be easier to port to new
>> architectures, etc, than one that does not.
>
> Apple recently has clarified their rules about this.
C is safe. That message has been received loud and clear.
>
>>> Create an App on the Mac using Lisp and sell it through
>>> the Appstore. Where is the problem? Nobody will
>>> ever know that it is written in Lisp, unless one
>>> tells it or shows it.
>>
>> Apple will know if the lisp implementation uses undocumented APIs and
>> the app will never get on the App Store.
>
> What is your obsession with undocumented APIs? Why would Lisp
> need to use them?
The only native ARM common lisp implementation is alpha pre-release,
and it uses undocumented APIs. Is this necessitated by the nature of
iOS on ARM? Maybe - we don't know yet.
>
> Alternatively one can sell it to them. Apple has bought several
> small software companies in the past. iTunes is based
> on a product from a small company which they bought, for example.
Apple *had to* buy SoundJam MP3 because SoundJam was developed on an
*open* OS, so the SoundJam developers didn't have to agree to a
contract that gave Apple the right to yank SoundJam from Mac OS and
create an Apple clone with no compensation to the SoundJam developers.
See the difference now between an open OS and one that is locked down?
You couldn't have picked a worse example.
>
> How would that work? How does the same screen size with higher
> resolution
> show more text? The text is already tiny.
The text is large enough that it can be made smaller on higher
resolution screens and still be quite readable. Look at the display on
an iPhone 4 - you can get lots of readable text on half that screen,
and it's a fraction of the size of an iPad.
>
>>> I was not removed. The UI started from zero.
>>> Apple builds a new UI. They add new features
>>> as they can and want.
>>
>> The UI was clearly not started from zero since the iOS frameworks
>> contain huge chunks lifted straight from the existing Cocoa frameworks
>> as you know.
>
> It is just that the Cocoa Touch UI looks and works totally different
> from Cocoa on the desktop. It has been completely refitted to
> touch devices.
Refitted, yes; from scratch, no. They quite intentionally removed
certain basic OS features from Cocoa to cripple the device in important
ways. This was not an accident. They've had 4 OS revisions over 3
years. If they haven't added back something as basic as reading and
writing files from and to arbitrary locations on the file system, they
aren't going to. They don't want users to have this capability. It
allows them too much freedom. It encourages them to think that the
device actually belongs to them. Mustn't allow that.
>
>> A design decision was made to hide obvious functionality
>> like access to the device's filesystem. Combined with the original
>> intent to keep *all* third party apps off the iOS, its clear Jobs
>> wanted users to *not* be able to write what they want, where they want,
>> on devices *they own!*
>
> The main idea was to provide a user interface where files are
> not needed by users. Similar to what the Newton had, which
> used an object store instead of a file system. For
> that Apple uses SQLite in some of their apps. Which
> is the equivalent of Newton's soups. The Newton had
> a great user experience, especially the later OS and
> the later hardware. Still it had no files and no UI
> to work with files. Apple's ambition was not to replicate
> the Desktop/file based user experience on a
> mobile device.
I know what the UI goal is. The question is, "why is it a goal for
users to not deal with files?" It can't be that it makes the UI more
convenient because it actually makes many UI tasks more difficult -
such as moving data from one device to another, opening data generated
by one app with another app, attaching data to emails and texts, etc.
The answer is "to remove the expectation that the user can do with the
device what the user pleases." The UI is designed to inculcate the
expectation that the device can only be used in prescribed ways.
>>
>> So we must wait for Apple. If we do something like this ourselves we
>> risk either:
>>
>> 1. it never gets approved for the App Store, so all effort is wasted
>> (most likely)
>> 2. when Apple is ready to do something similar, they pull the non-Apple
>> graphical programming environment and all effort of making such an IDE
>> *and* the effort of any developers who used it is wasted.
>
> Or negotiate an agreement with them.
With what leverage? In order to even pass GO, to even submit an app at
all, you have to agree to a contract that requires you to cede the
right to Apple to copy your app and kick it out of the store whenever
they please.
>
>>>> They've already started this. Have you noticed that if you install an
>>>> app that is not digitally signed you get a scary potential malware
>>>> notice? Apple wants to make running unsigned software a second class
>>>> experience - like running a Java app, or an x windows app. (Is
>>>> compiling and installing x windows apps another feature that you expect
>>>> in future iOS releases?)
>>
>>> Well, it makes sense to me. Sounds like a feature. The world
>>> around is changing and we need to adapt, too.
>>
>> This is scary. When someone starts calling obvious big brother control
>> tactics a "feature," you know you're talking to one the blind faithful.
>> I own the device. I should be able to install what I want on it. Apple
>> are clearly moving toward a world where this is at first deprecated,
>> then later no longer possible at all, just like on the iOS.
>
> I'm happy to know if some software I'm going to install may be
> problematic from a security point of view.
But this is not what's happening. Apple is not doing a virus scan of
downloaded software. It is simply labelling all downloaded software
that hasn't gone through Apple's certification as potential malware.
This is intended to make user installed software a second class citizen.
>
>>>> At some point �iPad like devices will outsell what we now call Macs
>>>> (i.e., general purpose computers) by so much that Apple won't bother to
>>>> lock down Mac OS X - it will become commercially irrelevant - mac os x
>>>> as UNIX and machines preloaded with it will only be sold to developers
>>>> and extreme power users, not ordinary users. Ordinary users will run a
>>>> locked down os like the current iOS.
>>
>>> One possible future. Even then we can write and use Lisp software for
>>> Appstores.
>>> Could. If somebody would do it. Until then it is all theoretical,
>>> based on fear that things get worse. There are even alternatives
>>> like Android or some other Linux-based systems. I haven't seen
>>> Lisp developers there, either.
>>
>> Per Bothner's Kawa
>>
>> <http://www.gnu.org/software/kawa/>
>>
>> not only runs on Android, it is being used by *Google themselves* to
>> make their Android visual App Inventor:
>
> I'm pretty sure there are users of this Web application.
?
>
>>> Is the negative world view common right now? Am I too stupid because
>>> I tend to see chances and opportunities? In my view the Lisp
>>> 'world' was cold and lonely ten years ago. Today I see
>>> young people doing cool stuff and the state of the implementations
>>> has never been better. There might be even a way to quickly install
>>> Lisp libraries from the net. There might even be a complete
>>> land of Lisp.
>>
>> There are opportunities - kawa on android looks very promising. I just
>> don't see as many lisp opportunities on Apple's major software/hardware
>> combinations because the open one (Mac OS X) is planned to be a
>> shrinking portion, and the closed one (iOS) is a growing one.
>
> The 'shrinking portion' is nicely growing in absolute numbers.
> I bought a new Macbook Air, it is currently in transit to me. ;-)
> I bought it because I can use productivity software with a
> real keyboard, attached to a large screen in the office
> and it runs stuff like 64bit LispWorks with the Cocoa UI
> and the Open Genera emulator.
I'm sure the new Macbook Airs are very nice machines, but I don't hold
out much hope going forward for Lisp on Apple hardware, since:
1. I honestly believe that Apple hardware will mostly be running a
locked down OS in the future.
2. It's not clear that lisp development tools will be tolerated on
Apple's locked down OSes in the future. They prohibited non-apple tools
and languages before, they can do it again.
3. It's not clear that Apple will let anyone become truly successful on
their closed OS. Apple may simply kick the popular app and replace it
with a clone, a right you must grant them just to get into the game.
wamest regards,
Ralph
--
Raffael Cavallaro
Tim Bradshaw
> With the Appstore
> on the Mac and a huge enough number of installed Macs
> one could even sell a Mindmapper for, say, twenty Euros.
You can already get one for a little bit less than that - indeed I have
one. There's nothing stopping people selling SW for whatever is
convenient already. I'm not sure what the least I've paid for
commercial SW on the Mac is, but it's certainly less than �10. All
without a central app store: fancy that! The internet is a wonderful
thing.
Pascal J. Bourguignon
Well, that's the problem. Apart some silly exclusion rules, they still
make the best hardware and software! So you want to buy then anyways.
Pascal J. Bourguignon
writes:
I guess that in a sufficiently closed sandbox, and perhaps a
sufficiently playful approach, one could provide a programmable
application to iOS users. For example, one could probably provide a
Hypercard-like application for iOS.
jos...@lisp.de
<raffaelcavall...@pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
> > On 25 Okt., 18:02, Raffael Cavallaro
> > <raffaelcavall...@pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
>
> >> Trucks are a small fraction of the overall vehicle market. The greatest
> >> opportunities come from targeting the largest, growing market, not the
> >> shrinking one.
>
> > Sure. We can sell mindmappers for 5 Euro a piece. That does not
> > invalidate the business of productivity applications on the Mac
> > that cost hundreds or thousands of Euros. With the Appstore
> > on the Mac and a huge enough number of installed Macs
> > one could even sell a Mindmapper for, say, twenty Euros.
>
> Any way you slice it, targetting a growing market is better than
> targetting a shrinking market.
Any way you spin it, the Mac is a growing market.
Apple shipped 3.89 million Macintosh computers during the quarter, a
unit increase of 27 percent over the year-ago quarter.
27 percent up from the year ago quarter. Hardly shrinking.
> C is safe. That message has been received loud and clear.
Developers have said loud and clear that they want more options.
Apple has reacted changing the license terms for that.
> The only native ARM common lisp implementation is alpha pre-release,
> and it uses undocumented APIs. Is this necessitated by the nature of
> iOS on ARM? Maybe - we don't know yet.
Maybe because it was a rough port and Gary didn't invest much time,
since it was originally done for another ARM device/OS combination?
> > Alternatively one can sell it to them. Apple has bought several
> > small software companies in the past. iTunes is based
> > on a product from a small company which they bought, for example.
>
> Apple *had to* buy SoundJam MP3 because SoundJam was developed on an
> *open* OS, so the SoundJam developers didn't have to agree to a
> contract that gave Apple the right to yank SoundJam from Mac OS and
> create an Apple clone with no compensation to the SoundJam developers.
> See the difference now between an open OS and one that is locked down?
> You couldn't have picked a worse example.
No, Apple bought the SoundJam company because they
had demonstrated the skills to develop iTunes, which Apple lacked.
Apple was looking at other companies also.
> > How would that work? How does the same screen size with higher
> > resolution
> > show more text? The text is already tiny.
>
> The text is large enough that it can be made smaller on higher
> resolution screens and still be quite readable. Look at the display on
> an iPhone 4 - you can get lots of readable text on half that screen,
> and it's a fraction of the size of an iPad.
I find the small text on my iPhone 4 painful to read. I'm definitely
not wanting smaller text.
...
> > The main idea was to provide a user interface where files are
> > not needed by users. Similar to what the Newton had, which
> > used an object store instead of a file system. For
> > that Apple uses SQLite in some of their apps. Which
> > is the equivalent of Newton's soups. The Newton had
> > a great user experience, especially the later OS and
> > the later hardware. Still it had no files and no UI
> > to work with files. Apple's ambition was not to replicate
> > the Desktop/file based user experience on a
> > mobile device.
>
> I know what the UI goal is. The question is, "why is it a goal for
> users to not deal with files?" It can't be that it makes the UI more
> convenient because it actually makes many UI tasks more difficult -
> such as moving data from one device to another, opening data generated
> by one app with another app, attaching data to emails and texts, etc.
How does it make it difficult? I use for example Goodreader
with its file system and its clear to see that it is
much more difficult to use, even the developers did a good
job trying to deal with those.
...
> > Or negotiate an agreement with them.
>
> With what leverage? In order to even pass GO, to even submit an app at
> all, you have to agree to a contract that requires you to cede the
> right to Apple to copy your app and kick it out of the store whenever
> they please.
Call the developer relations guy and give him a demo...
> > I'm happy to know if some software I'm going to install may be
> > problematic from a security point of view.
>
> But this is not what's happening. Apple is not doing a virus scan of
> downloaded software. It is simply labelling all downloaded software
> that hasn't gone through Apple's certification as potential malware.
> This is intended to make user installed software a second class citizen.
Wait, programs with a certificate have been gone through
Apple's certification? Is that new?
Or are we talking about code signing?
If that's the case, then you find a lot of people who think that is a
good thing.
Including me.
...
> > The 'shrinking portion' is nicely growing in absolute numbers.
> > I bought a new Macbook Air, it is currently in transit to me. ;-)
> > I bought it because I can use productivity software with a
> > real keyboard, attached to a large screen in the office
> > and it runs stuff like 64bit LispWorks with the Cocoa UI
> > and the Open Genera emulator.
>
> I'm sure the new Macbook Airs are very nice machines, but I don't hold
> out much hope going forward for Lisp on Apple hardware, since:
>
> 1. I honestly believe that Apple hardware will mostly be running a
> locked down OS in the future.
I don't believe that for Macs. For iOS the trend will be to open it
up.
> 2. It's not clear that lisp development tools will be tolerated on
> Apple's locked down OSes in the future. They prohibited non-apple tools
> and languages before, they can do it again.
More speculation.
> 3. It's not clear that Apple will let anyone become truly successful on
> their closed OS. Apple may simply kick the popular app and replace it
> with a clone, a right you must grant them just to get into the game.
More speculation.
Raffael, I think we are not adding anything more to the discussion.
Thomas A. Russ
> On 2010-10-23 23:17:41 +0100, Espen Vestre said:
>
> > My impression is that a surprising number of
> > users don't even know which version of Windows they're using.
>
> And, of course, we must prevent them from becoming educated and able to
> make complicated decisions like whether to use Flash or not.
I understand your sentiment, I think this is not likely to happen. I
believe that the majority of computer users really don't care what
technology is running behind the scenes of whatever application or web
site they are visiting. For example, it's not as if Flash applications
on the web announce the fact that they are flash applications.
So unless users actually do some investigation, they wouldn't even know
which web sites use Flash, which use dynamic html, which are Ajax-based,
etc. And lacking such knowledge, it would be difficult for them to make
an informed decision.
I remember thinking that one great benefit (to Apple) of OS X on the Mac
was the way the OS would stay up when an application crashed and a
window would appear announcing the demise of the application. Before
that, it seemed to me people would be using, say MS Word and things
would hang. They would often then say that "My Mac just crashed" and
reboot. With the newer, more robust handling, that changed to "Word
just crashed." I think the clear lesson here is that barring some
explicit indication of fault, anything that goes wrong with the computer
is usually attributed to the computer and not to the particular piece of
software that it is running.
So if something is making the system run slowly, it will usually be the
computer that is blamed for the slowdown and not the invisible
technology behind the application that gets the blame.
--
Thomas A. Russ, USC/Information Sciences Institute
jos...@lisp.de
<raffaelcavall...@pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
>
> >> Per Bothner's Kawa
>
> >> <http://www.gnu.org/software/kawa/>
>
> >> not only runs on Android, it is being used by *Google themselves* to
> >> make their Android visual App Inventor:
>
> > I'm pretty sure there are users of this Web application.
>
> ?
AppInventor is an experimental beta web application which runs at
Google.
You need to ask them to get access, you need a Google account.
The source for it has not been published, AFAICS.
They don't say that this service will stay up. The source code for the
apps
can only be compiled on their site. The app can only be generated
via Google's site and does only run on Android devices (or an
emulator)
with Google's special virtual machine (which is not
JVM compatible).
http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/termsofservice.html
From the terms of service:
4.2. Google reserves the right (but shall have no obligation) to pre-
screen, review, flag, filter, modify, refuse or remove any or all
Applications from the Service. Google reserves the right to directly
take down any Application that violates these Terms, any applicable
Program Policies, or applicable law or regulation.
Oh no! Sounds like Steve.
6.2. You may not (and you may not permit anyone else to): (a) copy,
modify, adapt, redistribute, decompile, create a derivative work of,
reverse engineer, or otherwise attempt to extract the source code of
the App Inventor for Android Programming Platform or any part thereof,
unless this is expressly permitted or required by law, or unless you
have been specifically told that you may do so by Google, in writing
(e.g., through an open source software license); (b) attempt to
disable or circumvent any security mechanisms used by the Service; (c)
use the Service to create an Application that performs a malicious
activity, including but not limited to spamming users, harvesting
usernames and passwords, performing unauthorized scans of machines or
ports; or (d) use the Service to create an Application that interferes
with, disrupts, damages, or accesses in an unauthorized manner the
servers, networks, or other properties or services of any third party,
including, but not limited to, Google or any mobile communications
carrier, or (e) upload or otherwise process any malicious content to
or through the Service.
9.2. You may discontinue your use of the Service at any time. Google
may, at any time, terminate your use of the Service and disable your
access to the Service at any time in its sole discretion with or
without notice.
---
;-)
Pascal Costanza
What do you mean by "reclaim"? You never had that ability in the first
place...
Pascal
--
My website: http://p-cos.net
Common Lisp Document Repository: http://cdr.eurolisp.org
Closer to MOP & ContextL: http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/
Tim Bradshaw
> I understand your sentiment, I think this is not likely to happen. I
> believe that the majority of computer users really don't care what
> technology is running behind the scenes of whatever application or web
> site they are visiting. For example, it's not as if Flash applications
> on the web announce the fact that they are flash applications.
That's fine. Natural selection will take care of those people as they
wander into traffic. The survivors will work out that if web site x
makes their battery life crap then they either need to stop using site
x or live with crap battery life.
Stop patronising users, why don't you?
Raffael Cavallaro
>>> Or negotiate an agreement with them.
>>
>> With what leverage? In order to even pass GO, to even submit an app at
>> all, you have to agree to a contract that requires you to cede the
>> right to Apple to copy your app and kick it out of the store whenever
>> they please.
>
> Call the developer relations guy and give him a demo...
Too late. You need to agree to let Apple clone your app and kick it
from the App Store in order to get the iOS SDK.
>
>
>> 2. It's not clear that lisp development tools will be tolerated on
>> Apple's locked down OSes in the future. They prohibited non-apple tools
>> and languages before, they can do it again.
>
> More speculation.
>
>> 3. It's not clear that Apple will let anyone become truly successful on
>> their closed OS. Apple may simply kick the popular app and replace it
>> with a clone, a right you must grant them just to get into the game.
>
> More speculation.
>
My speculation as you call it is based on Apple's past behavior. Yours
is based on Apple giving everyone a pony. In an industry where, as
Intel's Andy Grove put it, "only the paranoid survive," I think my
views are closer to reality.
warmest regards,
Ralph
--
Raffael Cavallaro
Raffael Cavallaro
> AppInventor is an experimental beta web application which runs at
> Google.
> You need to ask them to get access, you need a Google account.
> The source for it has not been published, AFAICS.
You're missing the point entirely. The status of lisp on the two
platforms is like night and day.
On Android, the platform vendor, Google, is *using lisp themselves* to
build one of their own tools. Devlopers are completely free to use Kawa
Scheme to write their own Android applications.
On iOS, the platform vendor, Apple, just spent 6 months where
applications written in lisp were *explicitly forbidden*. The only
reason they relented is because of competition concerns from regulators.
How do you not see what a huge difference this makes to lisp
developers. We can see clearly what Apple's true attitude toward lisp
is - they've already tipped their hand.
What happens if Android gains majority market share. Now Apple has no
fear of being accused of abuse of market power and they can do what
they really want to do and ban lisp (along with all other
non-C/C++/Objective-C languages of course). How can you not see that
this makes lisp (and other non-C-family language) developer extremely
wary of developing for that platform in a non-C-family language?
warmest regards,
Ralph
--
Raffael Cavallaro
markha...@gmail.com
Now if we can just throw a Gavino into the mix: "Who is more evil -
Larry Ellison or Steve Jobs?"
Xah Lee
wrote:
> comp.lang.lisp has been deprecated in favor of comp.lang.xah
>
> Now if we can just throw a Gavino into the mix: "Who is more evil -
> Larry Ellison or Steve Jobs?"
thank you. I'd give that honor to comp.lang.kenny. Am just a emacs
lisp scripter. Kenny actually code in Real Lisp.
Xah ∑ http://xahlee.org/ ☄
Xah Lee
∑ http://xahlee.org/ ☄ On Oct 25, 9:04 am, "jos...@corporate-
recently this tweet has been going around:
Welcome to 2010: Java is a restricted platform; Google is evil; Apple
is a monopoly; and Microsoft is the underdog.
Xah
jos...@lisp.de
>
> > On 25 Okt., 18:02, Raffael Cavallaro
> > <raffaelcavall...@pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
>
> >> Trucks are a small fraction of the overall vehicle market. The greatest
> >> opportunities come from targeting the largest, growing market, not the
> >> shrinking one.
>
> > Sure. We can sell mindmappers for 5 Euro a piece. That does not
> > invalidate the business of productivity applications on the Mac
> > that cost hundreds or thousands of Euros. With the Appstore
> > on the Mac and a huge enough number of installed Macs
> > one could even sell a Mindmapper for, say, twenty Euros.
>
> Any way you slice it, targetting a growing market is better than
> targetting a shrinking market.
>
>
>
> >> Lisp has a better shot if it compiles to c rather than native code with
> >> a runtime that uses undocumented APIs.
>
> > Why would a native runtime have to use undocumented APIs???
>
> ask Gary.
Gary just said this on the OpenMCL mailing list:
-
If CCL (the name changed a few years ago ...) or "something like it"
is using "undocumented APIs", I wish that someone would tell me.
-
So I'm asking you, do you know more about use of undocumented
APIs in CCL? If yes, please let Gary know. Thanks.
Espen Vestre
> And, of course, we must prevent them from becoming educated and able
> to make complicated decisions like whether to use Flash or not.
I didn't say that. But I think a lot of users don't want to educate
themselves, they think the technical details are very boring and just
want something that works painlessly. Not everybody needs to know what
ISO and f-stop means to be able to take postcard-size snapshots of their
beloved ones.
--
(espen)
Xah Lee
this quip been going around later: «Welcome to 2010: Java is a
restricted platform; Google is evil; Apple is a monopoly; and
Microsoft is the underdog.» (who first said it?)
to recap:
in the 1970s: Unix is the monopoly.
in the 1980s: IBM is the monopoly.
in the 1990s: Microsoft is the monopoly.
in the 2000s: Google is the monopoly.
in the 2010s: Apple is the monopoly.
i lol.
• 〈The Microsoft Hatred FAQ〉
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/mshatredfaq.html
Xah
Tim Bradshaw
>
> I didn't say that. But I think a lot of users don't want to educate
> themselves, they think the technical details are very boring and just
> want something that works painlessly. Not everybody needs to know what
> ISO and f-stop means to be able to take postcard-size snapshots of their
> beloved ones.
As I've tried to say several times, they don't need to know, or care
what the technical details are. If thing x uses technology y which
causes smoke to pour out of the device, while thing z uses technology t
which works as well but does not cause the smoke, then people who care
about not having the smoke will tend to use thing z, and they'll do
that without having to even know that technologies y or t exist. If, on
the other hand, it turns out that users flock to thing x then it's not
because, somehow, they are being forced to use t and the resulting
smoke, but because they're willing to put up with the smoke because
thing x gives them something they want (perhaps as a result of
technology y).
To put it in someoene else's words:
"By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he
intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a
manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his
own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an
invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.
Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was not part of it.
By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society
more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have
never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the
public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among
merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from
it."
Espen Vestre
> As I've tried to say several times, they don't need to know, or care
> what the technical details are. If thing x uses technology y which
> causes smoke to pour out of the device, while thing z uses technology
> t which works as well but does not cause the smoke, then people who
> care about not having the smoke will tend to use thing z, and they'll
> do that without having to even know that technologies y or t
> exist. If, on the other hand, it turns out that users flock to thing x
> then it's not because, somehow, they are being forced to use t and the
> resulting smoke, but because they're willing to put up with the smoke
> because thing x gives them something they want (perhaps as a result of
> technology y).
I'm not sure we really disagree.
My take on this is that the iPhone is the first really successful
handheld internet browsing device due to a unique user experience, and
IMHO it wouldn't have been able to provide that experience if it had
supported flash and java all the time. Simple as that.
--
(espen)
Tim Bradshaw
> My take on this is that the iPhone is the first really successful
> handheld internet browsing device due to a unique user experience, and
> IMHO it wouldn't have been able to provide that experience if it had
> supported flash and java all the time. Simple as tha
I'm worried. I have a copy of TCL on my Mac, which I've never used.
But perhaps it is spreading its infection and deah throughout the
system! Perhaps it wakes up in the dark hours of the night, and
lurches around the machine, covering my clean shiny windows with ICHOR
and CORRUPTING their PRECIOUS BODILY FLUIDS! How can I expunge this
appalling prehistoric horror? Can I sue Jobs? (May be I can get my
helicopters back?)
Pascal J. Bourguignon
I agree.
However, there's a strange turn. When announcing Back to the Mac, Steve
Jobs announced that they'll promote whole screen applications, such as
the newer iPhoto.
Of course, this is logical, in the context of iOS and small, windowless
screens. The great thing with windows is that they allow you to share
the screen amongst several applications at once, when you want to work
with several applications, but this grows older quickly, you can do only
so much with copy-and-paste, or even dragging. Since I use mostly
emacs, I'm a happy user of ratpoison and there the whole screen
application works nicely.
Notice that that means that an application must do all that can be done.
For example, iPhoto includes a mail UA to be able to send photos by
email. Of course, it's insufficiant, so they still allow for
multi-window use on MacOSX.
In anycase, the strange point here is that in a whole screen
application, user interface homogeneity doesn't matter anymore.
iPhoto doesn't feature a single normal Cocoa button. We're basically in
game mode here. You launch a game, it switches the resolution, and
activates OpenGL, and splashes whole screen with its own graphical user
interface toolkit and specific look and feel.
Then why not a McCLIM application? There would be no need to cater to
the Cocoa Toolbox. Just switch to whole screen and use your own
widgets. I think the only requirement would be to use black or a shade
of black and dark grey as background and some other flashy graphics or
useless animations.
Espen Vestre
> However, there's a strange turn. When announcing Back to the Mac, Steve
> Jobs announced that they'll promote whole screen applications, such as
> the newer iPhoto.
Yes, I thought that announcement was pretty weird.
Now, I already used the previous verions of iPhoto to a large extent in
full-screen mode anyway, and there's even a full screen mode in the
current version of the text editor Pages, so my next thought was:
"what's new?"
> Since I use mostly emacs, I'm a happy user of ratpoison and there the
> whole screen application works nicely.
I knew a lisp hacker whose X11 startup script just started one giant
Emacs filling the whole screen ;)
> In anycase, the strange point here is that in a whole screen
> application, user interface homogeneity doesn't matter anymore.
Or maybe what they want to do is introduce interface homogeneity?
One thing which does make sense, is to make current full screen apps
less alien to the rest of the OS. With iPhoto'09, if I command-tab out
of iPhoto to a different application and back again, iPhoto will have
left its full screen mode.
--
(espen)
Espen Vestre
> I'm worried. I have a copy of TCL on my Mac, which I've never used.
Don't worry, all macs are very dark at heart anyway - the come with perl!
--
(espen)
jos...@lisp.de
wrote:
> Espen Vestre <es...@vestre.net> writes:
> > Tim Bradshaw <t...@tfeb.org> writes:
>
> >> As I've tried to say several times, they don't need to know, or care
> >> what the technical details are. If thing x uses technology y which
> >> causes smoke to pour out of the device, while thing z uses technology
> >> t which works as well but does not cause the smoke, then people who
> >> care about not having the smoke will tend to use thing z, and they'll
> >> do that without having to even know that technologies y or t
> >> exist. If, on the other hand, it turns out that users flock to thing x
> >> then it's not because, somehow, they are being forced to use t and the
> >> resulting smoke, but because they're willing to put up with the smoke
> >> because thing x gives them something they want (perhaps as a result of
> >> technology y).
>
> > I'm not sure we really disagree.
>
> > My take on this is that the iPhone is the first really successful
> > handheld internet browsing device due to a unique user experience, and
> > IMHO it wouldn't have been able to provide that experience if it had
> > supported flash and java all the time. Simple as that.
>
> I agree.
>
> However, there's a strange turn. When announcing Back to the Mac, Steve
> Jobs announced that they'll promote whole screen applications, such as
> the newer iPhoto.
Yes, but that is just a reaction to the market trend. Many
applications
in the media production area have full screen user interfaces.
Especially
in the photo and video domain. Apple was lagging a bit behind that
trend. The idea is that you want to have the full screen for the
media data or the connected information (time lines, ...).
Main reasons: concentration at the task at hand, reducing visual
clutter
and reducing distraction from the content (by windows, borders,
desktop, ...).
Apple Aperture has that since some time, too. iPhote had a full screen
view, but one could not do much with it.
> Of course, this is logical, in the context of iOS and small, windowless
> screens. The great thing with windows is that they allow you to share
> the screen amongst several applications at once, when you want to work
> with several applications, but this grows older quickly, you can do only
> so much with copy-and-paste, or even dragging. Since I use mostly
> emacs, I'm a happy user of ratpoison and there the whole screen
> application works nicely.
It makes much sense in media production tools.
>
> Notice that that means that an application must do all that can be done.
> For example, iPhoto includes a mail UA to be able to send photos by
> email. Of course, it's insufficiant, so they still allow for
> multi-window use on MacOSX.
No, it can just switch. If you send mail on an iOS device, the mail
app comes to the front.
> In anycase, the strange point here is that in a whole screen
> application, user interface homogeneity doesn't matter anymore.
Wrong.
> iPhoto doesn't feature a single normal Cocoa button. We're basically in
> game mode here. You launch a game, it switches the resolution, and
> activates OpenGL, and splashes whole screen with its own graphical user
> interface toolkit and specific look and feel.
Wrong. The tools eventually will get a unified interface.
Apple has for example for the 'pro' applications a special
UI that is similar among application and uses the same
libraries.
> Then why not a McCLIM application? There would be no need to cater to
> the Cocoa Toolbox.
Use McCLIM with a Cocoa backend. There is only a sketch for that, but
the
idea is that CLIM runs on top of a native backend and uses
native buttons, windows, panes, dialogs, ...
> Just switch to whole screen and use your own
> widgets. I think the only requirement would be to use black or a shade
> of black and dark grey as background and some other flashy graphics or
> useless animations.
In media production applications the background is user settable,
usually
to some darker color, to reduce visual distractions while working
with photos, videos, ...
Note also that the UI for the Lisp Machine, especially the Symbolics
Genera UI,
is almost exactly like that. Full screen apps with panes and command
lines.
Swichting on demand with keystrokes or menus. Even changeable full
screen
pane layouts. It has been used in media production a lot. Symbolics
sold a whole suite of applications to control video recorders, frame
grabbers, 2d/3d paint, 3d modelling, 3d animation, and more.
Each of these apps were full screen and one toggles with the keyboard
or with icons. For example the document production tool
had four screens: an enhanced Zmacs, a page previewer, a graphics
tool,
and a book layout tool. There were icons in the frames to switch
between
those. This UI was written in a toolkit called 'Dynamic Windows'.
CLIM was supposed to be a portable toolkit on top of CL/CLOS and a
native backend (Motif, Windows, Mac, ...). Since the trend was
not full screen 'windows', the full screen UI of the Lisp Machine
was not used, since it would look alien on most desktop computers.
Looks like it has a come back and the old ideas are suddenly new.
An interesting thing is that these full screen user interfaces
reduce distractions and help to focus at the task at hand.
Even on larger screens. Note, this is not so much a tiled
window manager that puts various tools on a full screen
(which the Lisp Machine window system can do, too), but
single purpose applications that put full screen all
the tools into panes that are need for a certain task.
That includes a command line, a command history, various
settings, menu items and one or more content areas (for example for a
3d model and animation timelines).