UUronL

Right. I -own- a NeXTSTEP - heck, I have the manuals and media for NeXTSTEP R3.3 sitting right beside me as I type right now. It is running on a Sun Sparcserver 20 about 2 feet to the left of me too. It's a MACH based OS, with BSD networking. Not strictly Unix, but it handles so similarly that a lot of people get confused. We had one of the first OS X Server licenses back in the beginning of 1999, which makes it at least 8 years old - with full 1.0 release coming a scant 2 years after Apple purchased NeXT. The interface wasn't -exactly- the same as it is today, but it was OS X. I have played with Yellow Box Darwin on X86 hardware for years, I have access to OS X that will run on commodity X86 hardware... I could go on and on.


Anyway, it's either a testament to Jobs' vision in the mid 1980s or a testament to the laziness of the company now - but Apple is using a nearly unchanged OS from the one Jobs honed in the 80s at NeXT. The essential basics existed long before that. Heck - just look at some of the icons and screen shots. Apple didn't even bother to change many of the main constructs and icons.

I don't mind Apple products - I just dislike watching the widely perceived falsehood that they somehow "innovate" propogate among otherwise intelligent people. Re-warming a 20 year old OS with a few "widgets" is hardly innovation.


Any of this look familiar? 20+ years old...

das

Wow, where to begin.

Just because Mac OS X, OPENSTEP, and NeXTSTEP have a long history doesn't somehow make it "bad". What about Solaris? AIX? Linux? HP-UX? In fact, many view that as one of the general strengths of UNIX. All of these OSes - Mac OS X included - have greatly evolved from their roots, and have changed to include modern features necessary for and expected of today's systems, both on the desktop, and in the enterprise datacenter environment. And to say that Mac OS X is "nearly unchanged" isn't exactly accurate.

I don't know why you keep concentrating on age as if it's somehow bad. Yeah, we had Mac OS X Server 1.0, too, (pre Mac OS X 10.0). Mac OS X Server 1.0 was more similar to NeXTSTEP, interface-wise, and was absolutely not anywhere close to the Mac OS X interface that began with Aqua. And underlying-technology wise (other than basics like BSD and Mach), it wasn't similar at all. (And the OS X you have "access to" that runs on commodity hardware is a ridiculous hack that is actually laughable. Yes, Apple doesn't allow Mac OS X to run unmodified on commodity hardware. Know why? Because Apple has proven for two decades that the way to have things "just work" is to control the entire ecosystem. Computing luminaries like Alan Kay have understood this for nigh on three decades: when you care about having software that works, you need to control the hardware, too.)

You apparently aren't familiar with Mac OS X from a framework and development level, else you wouldn't be pooh-poohing it as the old, antiquated piece of junk you seem to think it is. I recommend Mac OS X Internals: A Systems Approach, by Amit Singh (of IBM Almaden Research Center and Google).

Also, Apple has endlessly innovated, and only people who are, and always have been, the Apple "haters" (who usually call anyone who disagrees with them Apple "zealots" or "fanboys") are pretty much the only people on earth who deny this. Apple didn't "invent" a lot of the things it "innovated". No; it just made them usable, made them inexpensive, and brought them to the mainstream. Examples of things that Apple didn't invent, but mainstreamed, often single-handedly:

- Graphical user interface for the personal computer
- Mouse
- System speech synthesis
- Multi-forked filesystem
- Laser printer with PostScript that humans could afford
- Industrial design
- Integrated TCP/IP support
- FireWire (IEEE-1394) (and no, USB didn't "win"...speaking of USB, Apple was the first company, again, to adopt USB and kill off legacy interfaces to help make USB a ubiquitous standard quickly, and is recognized as such)
- 802.11 (before AirPort, 802.11 was something relegated to corporate/managed settings, and even then, extremely rarely as it was extremely expensive and difficult to administer - Apple forced it into the marketplace, and shaved years off widespread WiFi adoption)
- iPod (click/touchwheel interface)

I could go on, but people who don't think of Apple as the clear innovator it is and has been for its entire history won't believe any of this, and simply refuse to give Apple any credit. Probably the same people who think Vista, as immense of an engineering effort it has been, is really the great OS, and that Microsoft is an innovator.

And finally, Apple doesn't have the "rights" to "use" the name iPod. It's their name. As to iPhone, Cisco won't be "sticking" it to anyone. The word "iPhone" is already in general use worldwide, as well as in the US, and trust me: this product will continue to be called iPhone. And even in the very unlikely chance that it's not, it won't affect the adoption of the product.

What's hilarious, even though it's clear that the iPhone is NOT a business smartphone and IS a closed platform, is that some people can just write off what the iPhone has done in its form factor as not a big deal. Industry executives from Nokia to Motorola were fucking floored when they saw this thing. They're going to be scrambling to respond for YEARS. It's really funny (and kind of sad) to me that people don't acknowledge that. I've noticed a trend in people who don't like Apple. A lot of times they'll say they really don't mind Apple, but they think that it's always "someone else" who has innovated, or has done the "real work", or has the "real OS". To them, Apple's just a toy, or a curiosity, and anyone who likes it or thinks Apple is an innovator is simply caught up in some delusion. The only delusion is continually discounting Apple and what it has done for the computing industry at large. The industry itself realizes it.

The hugest growth we see in adademic/institutional/government/research environments is of Mac OS X. And since all of today's Macs are literally essentially PCs (that happen to be made by Apple, with Apple's designs for customized components, industrial design, motherboards, etc.), any Mac can seamlessly run Mac OS X and Windows (XP, Vista, etc.), either natively, or in a virtualized environment side-by-side with Mac OS X with no performance degradation (or, more accurately: the exact same performance degradation you'd have running Windows in virtualization on a "real" PC). And when it's run natively, it's *literally* like running Windows on hardware with those specs, except that this hardware just happens to have an Apple logo on it. In addition, basically every x86 OS under the sun can be run in virtualization. Pretty much everyone we see buying Macs today has come to this realization, and that's our biggest growth segment. They see it as the best of both worlds, and nearly everyone who does this finds themselves running Windows less and less, and usually not at all. Windows PC volumes here, on the other hand, are flat.

I know it really kills some people to think that Apple is growing, and they're growing because they make products that aren't steaming piles of utter shit. No, they're not perfect, far from it, and Steve Jobs is an egomaniacal micromanager. The faults with Apple are countless. But to dismiss Mac OS X and/or the iPhone as a "20 year old OS", or to say that Apple isn't a clear innovator, or to basically say "yeah, it's interesting, but it's nothing to write home about" is to demonstrate a clear misunderstanding, or even denial, of the truth of the situation.

525iSE

das.. awesome write up, I can see your point eventhough I already love apple. I used to be someone who didn't support apple too, not for its technical stuff or engineering stuff, but when I got my hands on a PowerBook, I was like, boy, have I been missing out in the world. It was amazing. I've now quitted windows for good, nothing in my home is anything other than SONY and APPLE. Its really interesting how some people view apple as impossible, like it would never grow or its just the same old crap, but still I believe apple is the "new face" of technology, starting now. APPLE rules over all!!

UUronL

Well, I'm not nearly as fired up as you are - but I'll respond. Can't guarantee it will be as spirited though...

Wow, where to begin.

Just because Mac OS X, OPENSTEP, and NeXTSTEP have a long history doesn't somehow make it "bad". What about Solaris? AIX? Linux? HP-UX? In fact, many view that as one of the general strengths of UNIX. All of these OSes - Mac OS X included - have greatly evolved from their roots, and have changed to include modern features necessary for and expected of today's systems, both on the desktop, and in the enterprise datacenter environment. And to say that Mac OS X is "nearly unchanged" isn't exactly accurate.


Define greatly evolved. Hey, I just realized you got that one right... evolved - say it with me... evolved. The OS "evolved" as a result of Apple's efforts.


I don't know why you keep concentrating on age as if it's somehow bad. Yeah, we had Mac OS X Server 1.0, too, (pre Mac OS X 10.0). Mac OS X Server 1.0 was more similar to NeXTSTEP, interface-wise, and was absolutely not anywhere close to the Mac OS X interface that began with Aqua. And underlying-technology wise (other than basics like BSD and Mach), it wasn't similar at all. (And the OS X you have "access to" that runs on commodity hardware is a ridiculous hack that is actually laughable. Yes, Apple doesn't allow Mac OS X to run unmodified on commodity hardware. Know why? Because Apple has proven for two decades that the way to have things "just work" is to control the entire ecosystem. Computing luminaries like Alan Kay have understood this for nigh on three decades: when you care about having software that works, you need to control the hardware, too.)


You apparently aren't familiar with Mac OS X from a framework and development level, else you wouldn't be pooh-poohing it as the old, antiquated piece of junk you seem to think it is. I recommend Mac OS X Internals: A Systems Approach, by Amit Singh (of IBM Almaden Research Center and Google).

I am actually really familiar... and I really call your familiarity into question when you say things like "underlying-technology wise (other than basics like BSD and Mach), it wasn't similar at all." The BSD and Mach components are most of the OS! While changing the window system has vast coding and development ramifications, the underpinnings - the components that end up on a portable device like the iPhone, will be the same. These core components are pretty unchanged, and have remained so for a loooong time.

Let me address something you stated, because I think a lot of your response is based upon a misunderstanding that you admit to. You admit that you don't understand why I keep concentrating on age as if it is bad. This is unfortunate, because you spent a lot of time addressing things that I neither think, nor communicated. In an attempt to clear things up, I'll tell you why I off-handedly mentioned the age of the OS. I feel that while OSes of this nature are extensible and very adaptable, OS X may not be the best place to start when creating a PDA/Smartphone/Entertainment OS and environment. Making a better mousetrap - being an "evolver" of technology (not innovator) requires that Apple's interface be "right". They need to "get it right". Simple, yet it would be nothing short of a revelation. The fact that Apple states it's OS X - as if that is supposed to mean something special from a mobility standpoint - is ludicrous. Excuse me if I'm a skeptic, but it has taken the better part of a decade and countless iterations for the mobile community -as a whole- to reach the wretched usability we now curse every day. Many forms of many OSes have been used to reach "the next level" in mobile usability. Each have failed utterly. I'd love to see Apple (or anyone for that matter) solve the interface problem, but I was underwhelmed when I heard OS X would be the underpinnings. My gut tells me the thinking needs to be fresh in order to get the kind of paradigm changes that this product needs to introduce. Using OS X, while an admirable display of eating one's own dogfood, was kind of unnecessary - I see it more as a publicity and marketing move. Starting from that kind of a position doesn't give me reason to hope for too much. Sure, they "own" it and its royalty free, but a lot of mobile platforms are free and extensible.


Also, Apple has endlessly innovated, and only people who are, and always have been, the Apple "haters" (who usually call anyone who disagrees with them Apple "zealots" or "fanboys") are pretty much the only people on earth who deny this. Apple didn't "invent" a lot of the things it "innovated". No; it just made them usable, made them inexpensive, and brought them to the mainstream. Examples of things that Apple didn't invent, but mainstreamed, often single-handedly:

- Graphical user interface for the personal computer
- Mouse
- System speech synthesis
- Multi-forked filesystem
- Laser printer with PostScript that humans could afford
- Industrial design
- Integrated TCP/IP support
- FireWire (IEEE-1394) (and no, USB didn't "win"...speaking of USB, Apple was the first company, again, to adopt USB and kill off legacy interfaces to help make USB a ubiquitous standard quickly, and is recognized as such)
- 802.11 (before AirPort, 802.11 was something relegated to corporate/managed settings, and even then, extremely rarely as it was extremely expensive and difficult to administer - Apple forced it into the marketplace, and shaved years off widespread WiFi adoption)
- iPod (click/touchwheel interface)

I could go on, but people who don't think of Apple as the clear innovator it is and has been for its entire history won't believe any of this, and simply refuse to give Apple any credit. Probably the same people who think Vista, as immense of an engineering effort it has been, is really the great OS, and that Microsoft is an innovator.

I stated my position firmly and clearly on this. I'm well aware of their contributions. I simply don't call it innovation. It's evolution... a cobbling-together, a fine-tuning, "getting it right". Being the first and only "thing" in a line of similar "things" to achieve competence (if that is truly something these products have accomplished) isn't innovation. I won't re-hash my previous explanation. If you couldn't read and decode it on the first go-around, I doubt a second one will change the outcome. No, I don't think Microsoft is an innovator. I'm generally pretty let down by all new technology.


And finally, Apple doesn't have the "rights" to "use" the name iPod. It's their name. As to iPhone, Cisco won't be "sticking" it to anyone. The word "iPhone" is already in general use worldwide, as well as in the US, and trust me: this product will continue to be called iPhone. And even in the very unlikely chance that it's not, it won't affect the adoption of the product.

Lawsuit Lawsuit Lawsuit... The landscape and news on this matter seems to be changing daily. Despite Cisco's claim to the -Trademark-, it appears a judge may preliminarily rule that iPhone is too general...

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5693

...which would be funny, since it would mean you could use the name iMac, iPod, or iTunes - since they'd all be equally "general" and hence fair game. Apple just needs to pay. The consequences of such a ruling would hurt them more than giving up the money IMO.



What's hilarious, even though it's clear that the iPhone is NOT a business smartphone and IS a closed platform, is that some people can just write off what the iPhone has done in its form factor as not a big deal. Industry executives from Nokia to Motorola were fucking floored when they saw this thing. They're going to be scrambling to respond for YEARS. It's really funny (and kind of sad) to me that people don't acknowledge that. I've noticed a trend in people who don't like Apple. A lot of times they'll say they really don't mind Apple, but they think that it's always "someone else" who has innovated, or has done the "real work", or has the "real OS". To them, Apple's just a toy, or a curiosity, and anyone who likes it or thinks Apple is an innovator is simply caught up in some delusion. The only delusion is continually discounting Apple and what it has done for the computing industry at large. The industry itself realizes it.


Apple has done substantial work. No doubt. I just strongly favor an accurate characterization of that work. People can be floored - and often are by cool gadgets and slick marketing. Again, we differ greatly on the definition of innovation. With that out of the way, what has the iPhone done that's so incredible "in its form factor"? Other than connect to their closed-system of content, they have added the touch technology attributed via prior-art to a company called Fingerworks (Apple bought them recently). My friend had one of their keyboards - they were about $300 or so. 3 or 4 years ago. Great tech - good to see someone bringing it to a wider audience. But Apple will likely get the credit. People who really don't touch a lot of innovative technologies, or get a lot of sneak peeks behind closed doors don't often realize when something is just a rehash. One man's rehash is another man's innovation I suppose.




The hugest growth we see in adademic/institutional/government/research environments is of Mac OS X. And since all of today's Macs are literally essentially PCs (that happen to be made by Apple, with Apple's designs for customized components, industrial design, motherboards, etc.), any Mac can seamlessly run Mac OS X and Windows (XP, Vista, etc.), either natively, or in a virtualized environment side-by-side with Mac OS X with no performance degradation (or, more accurately: the exact same performance degradation you'd have running Windows in virtualization on a "real" PC). And when it's run natively, it's *literally* like running Windows on hardware with those specs, except that this hardware just happens to have an Apple logo on it. In addition, basically every x86 OS under the sun can be run in virtualization. Pretty much everyone we see buying Macs today has come to this realization, and that's our biggest growth segment. They see it as the best of both worlds, and nearly everyone who does this finds themselves running Windows less and less, and usually not at all. Windows PC volumes here, on the other hand, are flat.



How is this even part of the issue at hand? Oh, and you work for Apple? Please have someone fix ifconfig. PLEASE. The duplex switch not working used to kill us in the data center environment.



I know it really kills some people to think that Apple is growing, and they're growing because they make products that aren't steaming piles of utter shit. No, they're not perfect, far from it, and Steve Jobs is an egomaniacal micromanager. The faults with Apple are countless. But to dismiss Mac OS X and/or the iPhone as a "20 year old OS", or to say that Apple isn't a clear innovator, or to basically say "yeah, it's interesting, but it's nothing to write home about" is to demonstrate a clear misunderstanding, or even denial, of the truth of the situation.



I have no problem with the idea that Apple is growing. I didn't dismiss anything, I rather like OS X... I am simply skeptical that starting with that as the basis will yield "the ultimate" Smartphone/PDA/Entertainment experience. Yes, I think it needs to be "the ultimate" and not just a mild evolution with a few innovative technologies thrown in from various sources. It costs a ton, and does stuff a lot of other devices already do. It needs to do those things better - a lot better.

I have no problem with you, or with Apple. It generally bothers me when I see credit given for things that weren't entirely devised or produced by an entity. I often find the Apple marketing machine a good source of this kind of bothersome spew. Ironically, I find that due to my high expectations and demands on the technology that I use, these "innovative" Apple products never fail to fall short in my eyes. I -want- to like Apple products, I really do... alas, it's a love that is not meant to be. I completely understand the market they're in and the people their products are aimed at. I'm simply not one of them.

ImolaRedM

It looks like Cisco may have lost rights to the name last year. Apple was in talks with Cisco up until the night before the show but they failed to reach a compromise on a requirement Cisco was placing on the talks. So while Apple still has to show in court that Cisco failed to demonstrate continued use of the TM, it appears that Cisco may soon not have rights to the name anymore.

das

A lot of this can be semantic distinction. I'll agree there are a lot of people out there who blindly cheer Apple and think every single thing they do is the greatest thing ever. Steve Jobs could shit on a spoon, and they'd say, "Look! iShit is the best thing ever!" and line up to buy it at the nearest Apple Store. Yes, trust me, I understand.

The point about innovation is another semantic one. To invent is not to innovate. To understand how something can be shaped so that people understand it, so that it is pleasant and simple and transparent to use, to enable its widespread use and adoption. That's "innovation". If you're looking for "inventions", you'll see them at Apple, but look to the big research institutions or the old Bell Labs and IBMs of the world. If you're looking for "innovation", most people agree that taking these technologies and doing the things Apple has done is exactly that. If you want to call it "evolution", fine, but "evolution" is taking something that already exists and is well established and changing it slightly, sometimes unnoticeably. If you think that what Apple did with the GUI, the mouse, the LaserWriter, AirPort, iTunes Music Store, etc., are just "evolution" and not a big deal, we're probably just speaking in different terms.

As to Mach/BSD, I intensely understand the positioning, purpose, and functionality provided by the Mach kernel and the BSD layer, and core OS in general. But to say that Mac OS X hasn't really changed in 20 years...that's just...well, wrong. I mean, I know you know it has changed. But it's a lot different than the NeXTSTEP of two decades ago, and I'm not just talking interface and eye candy. At the core OS level, sure, it's the same basic fundamentals of the Mach microkernel from Carnegie Mellon starting in 1985. BSD, in general, has been around longer still. If that's the point you're making, fine. But that ignores what's gone on architecturally with "Mac OS X" for a decade, and totally writes off the importance of the higher level functionality, frameworks, and APIs that have been improved, extended, completely rewritten, and even created. I don't see how someone can look at (for example) CoreVideo or CoreAnimation and just say "ehh". Sure, it's eye candy. But the fact is, it enables functionality that can be easily tapped and leveraged.

I don't work for Apple. You can see what I do if you visit my web page. I'm assuming your work is related somehow to enterprise IT; mine is as well. We use Apple in environments ranging from the desktop, to the datacenter, alongside light to medium duty servers from Dell running RHEL or Windows, to big iron from Sun and IBM. We have people who even use Apple here like this: http://alienraid.org/article.php?story=200TBatUW (yes, that's also my site)...when most people who think Apple usually think "iPod" (and yes, I know 200TB isn't a lot...we've got our Tier 1 and 2 EMC SANs, but when's the last time you've seen 200TB of *Apple* storage anywhere in a single installation? And you know what? It's worked perfectly for their application, for less than $2/GB at the time).

As to the iPhone running "OS X", of course that was a marketing move. But, even as it will be a closed platform with new software only coming from (or via) Apple, at least for now, the choice to leverage what is essentially the core OS, libraries, frameworks, and APIs from Mac OS X tells a lot about where Apple is headed with Mac OS X in general. It's definitely nowhere near the full Mac OS X, but it is indeed much of it:

http://www.macworld.co.uk/ipod-itunes/news...fm?newsid=16927

It's also to get people to understand, hey, we're taking everything you love about OS X, and leveraging it on this device:



Sure, again, a glitzy marketing distinction, but the point is, hey, this is "OS X". Of course, most people only care about that if it means it can be developed for or your own applications can be installed. I'll be the first person to say that this is definitely not a business smartphone/PDA, but I'm sure they'll still sell a zillion of them.

UUronL

Cool. Glad we could clarify - I think we're basically of the same mind. I just had an immediate adverse reaction to hearing that OS X was being used. Since OS X had never really been used for a mobile small-form-factor device, the dev team would have had to spend time solving basic, solved problems. Stuff that has been worked out already in previous mobile OSes. Dev cycles don't come cheap, and I can't help but wonder what other goodies or interesting things those cycles could have been spent on.


I guess I'll restate and expand the point I made in my original post...

I feel that Apple takes bleeding edge technology that already exists - in effect "innovative" technologies, disruptive innovations, whatever - and combines them into a nice package that is easy to use and desirable to a large audience. This isn't a sin. But a class of user - the power user - doesn't need "it" to be easier. The power user can cobble together that functionality, sometimes years ahead of streamlined products - often times with more functionality and flexibility. If the benchmark for innovation is usability and mass adoption then I suppose Apple has been very successful.

Buying companies that have interesting technology isn't a sin either. It's just that the customary opinion one would hold of that kind of behavior wouldn't be that those activities constituted innovation. When Cisco buys a company that does "x", and rebrands or integrates the functionality, eyes roll. Apple is fortunate not to have been judged in the same manner when it has done similar things.

pinguhk

it only a 2.5g phone and it don`t have chinese vertion until 2008.

pinguhk

I will get 1 from UK but I wait for the crack 1st befor I get it.

Simple1

loads of good reading on this, so far UUronl & Das getting it on, I think the best part of the phone is bringing technology to the masses as Das & UUronl stated because the vast majority of people think, the current crap we have the market today is the way it is supposed to be. I mean look at the terrible state of browsing the web on these so called smart phones with WAP browsers & something as simple as adding someone to speed dial to a phone. Now these things don't sound complicated to us (also in the IT field), but there are people who don't use most of the settings on their phone not to talk about the features. Again iPhone isn't bringing any technology that will change the way we use the phone, it is just changing the way we are accustomed to using a phone (you know cursing, when things don't work ). I have a CRACKberry for work, worst phone ever, messages & emails clog the thing up and it slows down to a crawl and service is terrible (thanks to tmobile's terrible network in NY, no less), I'm just hoping this iPhone will change some of my current annoyances. One thing I can guarantee is the user interface will be much better than most phones on the market if not all.

UUronl, by the way Cisco is going to lose this case, Apple appears to have done their homework for this case. There are several products currently on the market (quick search on amazon) with the name iPhone which do exactly what's Cisco's iPhone is doing and none of them are licensing the name from Cisco. Cisco never used the name until they found out apple was bringing out their own product (rumors mills of course, almost 2 years in the making), so no prior use of the name sucks for them. Apple had already applied for the patent under another company (under some Asia company name slips my mind) and is next in line to acquire it after the patent expires (which it already has for Cisco). Apple's product is a cellphone and does nothing the Cisco iPhone does, but then again it's not a sure lock as cases you assume any sane judge should rule have gone the opposite way.

Again UUronl, apple is a consumer based company they are not making products for the people who already get it, it is all the other people (billions of them, i might add) who are used to the status quo of this is how it is supposed to be, that is Apple's market. Not that you don't know this, but I think you forget who their audience is.