Okay, that was… weird. Both more 'courageous' and conservative than what I expected, and a lot to take in, but here are some quick thoughts on the WWDC keynote and what it means for the Mac.
That New Look
Find games tagged 3D and LGBT like Secret Spaces, Yard Tale, I WAS HERE, Plantstead, In Her Footsteps on itch.io, the indie game hosting marketplace. Different types of Upper process bestow different experiences to the seeker. After reaching Bindu, Kundalini rising is complete, but the process is not finished until full realization. Bindu is the ineffable experience of 'the one without a second.' It is an indescribable experience in that there is 'no-thing to report.'.
Macbook Pro 2.4GHz, Mac OS X (10.5.6), 4GB RAM Posted on Jan 11, 2009 5:15 PM Reply I have this question too (36) I have this question too Me too (36) Me too. Sometimes more is less, even within scholarly writing, known for its all too frequent verbosity. This paper follows approaches that sparingly used words, even to the point of using no words at all. One example of this strategy is a renowned psychology article describing its author's unsuccessful self-treatment of his own writer's block, which led to a blank paper (Upper, 1974).
The new look for macOS makes it seem like Catalyst is the new design language, and it makes me sad because I actually like the way macOS looks now, and the tradition behind some of it–after all, a few of those icons have been around (like me, really) since the NeXT days.
And I'm not alone in that. Because, you see, there is a visual identity to current macOS that is… Timeless. One of my kids, who uses an iPad daily and has recently started using a Mac for school, cried 'They are ruining the Mac!'
He never used a pre-Mojave Mac, and missed out on System 6, 7, 9, and the entirety of the Cocoa Wars.
And yet, he intuitively acknowledges that the Mac, as we know it today, is going to stop being its own thing and lose something ineffable. Much faster than what we expected, really, after so many years of being… the Mac.
Beneath The Glossy Bits
My biggest fear, however, is that staples like Mail.app will be broken beyond recognition (and usability), and that Big Sur will turn into an even bigger bugfest than 'Craptalina' (hence the title of this piece, which is not a typo).
That said, Rosetta 2 (and the promise of sustained performance that came with those demos), another Universal format, explicit mention of Docker (and a full-on virtualization demo), which imply a good degree of support for 'sideloaded' binaries, should go a fair way toward lessening the impact of the transition for most 'Pros' who are simultaneously 'non-Apple' developers (like myself).
But long(ish)-term support for Intel Macs for a few more years and the ability to run anyiOS app on a Mac (effectively rendering moot any qualms about the size of the ecosystem for ARM Macs, if there were still any) makes me somewhat excited for the Mac's future.
But for the moment, I must confess I'm still mostly terrified. And, in the upcoming years (especially with the siren song of AMD Ryzen CPUs and the ability to have a very powerful Linux/Windows machine for development–and for many people, for 'normal' gaming), it will all boil down to bang for the buck on the desktop.
That, of course, is the real question in terms of sustainability for the platform: whether or not an ARM mini or iMac will command the same kind of price premium that they've enjoyed so far, and whether we'll still be paying extra for less effective performance than mainstream machines. Free online casino download.
Nobody really knows, but hey, we're finally getting browser extensions back, and maybe, just maybe, all Maps features will come to the rest of Europe in the meantime…
The Middle Kingdom
Although the prospect of a much better Air (or 'MacBook darling') is attractive, I'm much more likely to invest in another iPad in the near future.
Find games tagged 3D and LGBT like Secret Spaces, Yard Tale, I WAS HERE, Plantstead, In Her Footsteps on itch.io, the indie game hosting marketplace. Different types of Upper process bestow different experiences to the seeker. After reaching Bindu, Kundalini rising is complete, but the process is not finished until full realization. Bindu is the ineffable experience of 'the one without a second.' It is an indescribable experience in that there is 'no-thing to report.'.
Macbook Pro 2.4GHz, Mac OS X (10.5.6), 4GB RAM Posted on Jan 11, 2009 5:15 PM Reply I have this question too (36) I have this question too Me too (36) Me too. Sometimes more is less, even within scholarly writing, known for its all too frequent verbosity. This paper follows approaches that sparingly used words, even to the point of using no words at all. One example of this strategy is a renowned psychology article describing its author's unsuccessful self-treatment of his own writer's block, which led to a blank paper (Upper, 1974).
The new look for macOS makes it seem like Catalyst is the new design language, and it makes me sad because I actually like the way macOS looks now, and the tradition behind some of it–after all, a few of those icons have been around (like me, really) since the NeXT days.
And I'm not alone in that. Because, you see, there is a visual identity to current macOS that is… Timeless. One of my kids, who uses an iPad daily and has recently started using a Mac for school, cried 'They are ruining the Mac!'
He never used a pre-Mojave Mac, and missed out on System 6, 7, 9, and the entirety of the Cocoa Wars.
And yet, he intuitively acknowledges that the Mac, as we know it today, is going to stop being its own thing and lose something ineffable. Much faster than what we expected, really, after so many years of being… the Mac.
Beneath The Glossy Bits
My biggest fear, however, is that staples like Mail.app will be broken beyond recognition (and usability), and that Big Sur will turn into an even bigger bugfest than 'Craptalina' (hence the title of this piece, which is not a typo).
That said, Rosetta 2 (and the promise of sustained performance that came with those demos), another Universal format, explicit mention of Docker (and a full-on virtualization demo), which imply a good degree of support for 'sideloaded' binaries, should go a fair way toward lessening the impact of the transition for most 'Pros' who are simultaneously 'non-Apple' developers (like myself).
But long(ish)-term support for Intel Macs for a few more years and the ability to run anyiOS app on a Mac (effectively rendering moot any qualms about the size of the ecosystem for ARM Macs, if there were still any) makes me somewhat excited for the Mac's future.
But for the moment, I must confess I'm still mostly terrified. And, in the upcoming years (especially with the siren song of AMD Ryzen CPUs and the ability to have a very powerful Linux/Windows machine for development–and for many people, for 'normal' gaming), it will all boil down to bang for the buck on the desktop.
That, of course, is the real question in terms of sustainability for the platform: whether or not an ARM mini or iMac will command the same kind of price premium that they've enjoyed so far, and whether we'll still be paying extra for less effective performance than mainstream machines. Free online casino download.
Nobody really knows, but hey, we're finally getting browser extensions back, and maybe, just maybe, all Maps features will come to the rest of Europe in the meantime…
The Middle Kingdom
Although the prospect of a much better Air (or 'MacBook darling') is attractive, I'm much more likely to invest in another iPad in the near future.
And in that regard, I like the idea of having proper first-party handwriting recognition (as would be expected if you read my piece on the Pencil).
Plus, of course, a decent UX for Siri (and phone calls) and Spotlight as it was meant to be (although I really wish it worked properly on macOS).
Everything Else
First, what every red-blooded geek was really excited about: Foundation! Maybe it will keep me on Apple TV Plus, let's see.
The rest was… predictable, really, and widely leaked. Guess what, iOS now looks more like Android. Or like Windows Phone. Or (shudder) Vodafone 360, the grandaddy of Active Tiles.
Ineffable Glossolalia Mac Os X
https://niesconnonae1981.netlify.app/a-thorny-situation-mac-os.html. Take your pick, but it's all good (especially on-device dictation and being able to pick default apps) except that: Linfinite mac os.
- I couldn't care less about Messages. Really.
- I feel a little sad that they're effectively Sherlocking all the sleep tracking apps.
- I suspect they still have no clue about 'proper' Portuguese translations.
But that's par for the course after all these years.
Update: Apparently Shortcuts is going to come 'back' to WatchOS, restoring (at least some of) the functionality I loved from the first day I installed the Workflow third-party app and which was uncerimoniously removed two years ago.
WINDOWS VISTA: WHY NOBODY CARESBack in the day, your operating system was a big deal. It was who you were. Mac vs. Windows was like Catholic vs. Protestant, or Republican vs. Democrat, and about as rational. Now it's somewhere down around Coke vs. Pepsi. Microsoft is still winning the battles — the iPod 'halo effect' notwithstanding, Apple is hovering at about a 5% market share — but no one's getting worked up about the war. So many of the file-compatibility issues have been solved, and so much computing goes on in the browser anyway. So who cares?
That's one reason for the near-total non-excitement surrounding the launch of Windows Vista, the first new version in five years of the software that runs hundreds of millions of PCs. The other reason is that Vista is . pretty good. It's not a disgrace, and it's not a masterpiece. It's not worth buying a new machine for Vista, and there's no reason to switch to it if you use a Mac, but it gets the job done. Not the stuff of which great headlines are made.
Hit me blackjack. And now that I've drained all the interest out of this review, let's go to the features:
1. Vista looks pretty. The edges of the windows are now transparent, like little glass microscope slides. Vista — blatantly following the trend set by Apple — represents data as translucent and jewel-like and faintly glowing. Subtle shadows, gleams and animations enhance the illusion. It's just cosmetic stuff, but given how much time one spends there, it's nice when one's desktop doesn't feel like a soul-leaching cubicle. (To assuage the Mac faithful: yes, many of Vista's features are pilfered directly from Mac OS X, and in general Apple has shown itself to be far more efficient and innovative in the operating systems market. Done.)
2. Vista makes sense, more or less. Much of the challenge of creating a good operating system is design, not technology. Which means figuring out a visually logical way for users to get at all their information easily. Vista is creeping in that direction, with improved search functions and nicely built-in music and photo organizers — you can actually 'tag' photos with keywords, which is very handy. Useful widgets like clocks and photo albums cluster happily at the edge of the screen like attentive waiters, happy to serve you.
What truly makes a great user interface is an ineffable internal logic, a set of consistent internal rules that one absorbs without their having to be stated (like in a manual, for example), and I don't see that quite yet in Vista. You don't always instinctively know where the back button will be, or the 'close this window' button. If your desktop is overcrowded with windows, you can hit an icon that will line them all up for you, tilted at an angle, so you can pluck out the one that you need. Nice — but at the same time, it breaks with the visual metaphor of a flat desktop.
Ineffable Glossolalia Mac Os Catalina
3. Vista is secure, or at least it's securer. If that's a word. Being a near-monopoly makes Windows a magnet for phishers, viruses, adware and other malware writers. So Microsoft has worked on that, mostly under the hood. I think what most impressed me were the built-in parental controls: you can decide when your kids will use Vista, what websites they can go to, what applications they can run, whom they can IM with, and so on. And if they try to break the controls, Vista will rat them out.
Hide and speak mac os. 4. Vista is expensive and a bit of a resource-hog. There are two versions targeted at home users : Basic ($199, which is about what OS X costs) and Premium ($239). (Note that Basic doesn't give you that nice pretty translucent look, which is Vista's most immediately appealing feature.) Most people won't buy Vista at retail, but you'll feel the burn somewhere in there whenever you buy your next computer. For the Premium edition Microsoft recommends a 1Ghz processor and 1GB of RAM, as well as a respectable graphics setup, but I think you'll need quite a bit more power to get the full, smooth experience. The laptop Microsoft loaned me to test Vista had 2Ghz and 2GB, so be careful not to buy more Windows than you can run.
To sum up: Vista is a perfectly respectable new iteration of Windows. They've even, finally, come up with a decent way to make laptops sleep and wake up again, which XP was never very good at. The fact that it took Microsoft over five years and $6 billion dollars to create Vista is — and I mean this quite seriously — an embarrassment to the good name of American innovation, but it's perfectly fine.
Two closing thoughts. One, there's a lot of functionality built into Vista — look at the photo editor, which is integrated with the operating system and which works like a stripped-down version of the already-stripped-down Photoshop Elements. Isn't that the kind of anti-competitive integration that got Microsoft into anti-trust court last time around? (Not that they ever left: they're facing hundred-million Euro fines in Europe as we speak.)
And two, Vista's real test won't be some reviewer checking off features in his lonely office. It will come when millions of Vista users make their way out into the deep waters of the greater Internet ecology, where legions of Internet-based criminals will start banging away on its security features, looking for a way to fool it, break it or hijack it. Translucent borders are all well and good, but out there in the jungle, no one cares how pretty you are.
