5 ms·
how was the macintosh different?
by chillaxtian 10y ago
how was the macintosh different?
- jarmitage 10y agoI don't think he was saying that it was, only that at least the 1st time the vision was romantic and idealised by comparison. The second had no bones about ditching that to chase $$$.
- bitwize 10y agoFirst Steve and Second Steve were the same person. And he was always about the money, for as long as he'd been involved with Apple. Otherwise he wouldn't have had the Macintosh require a special case-cracking tool made only available to authorized dealers and repair shops to open. The Steve who was most passionate about starting a revolution with cheap, accessible computers was named Wozniak.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- ktRolster 10y agoFor one thing, it was open. You could install your own software on it.
- Gracana 10y agoFor a while at the beginning, you needed a Lisa to program one. Maybe things will change with iDevices and we won't need the mac anymore?
- ktRolster 10y agoI don't mind needing a Mac, it's the required signing that bothers me.
- chillaxtian 10y agoyou can run software on macOS that isn't signed by apple.
- ktRolster 10y agoNot on the iPhone, and you know it.
- mercutio2 10y agoYou can, for zero cost, run arbitrary code, without a paid Apple signature, on your own personal iPhone. You just need a Mac. What you can't do is distribute a binary for general use without paying Apple ($100/year) to sign your code.
- WayneBro 10y agoSeriously? Explain that to the 500 person company that I'm writing an app for. We have to pay $299/year to Apple just for the privilege of putting software on our own fucking devices. That's some bullshit right there. The free option is worth exactly shit for such a large organization. The $100/year is to get in the public app store where your app must obey every arbitrary rule that Apple invents. They actually have a clause that says they can kick you out of the store for any reason they want without justification. Why does anyone defend that sort of behavior?
- chillacy 10y agoIt was so open that your software which could write all over the memory space of other programs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_memory_management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_memory_management Then OSX introduced virtual memory. Programs became a little bit safer. Then in later versions, Application Sandboxing, code signing, etc. Every step of the way programs can do less but are safer for the OS.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago> Every step of the way programs can do less but are safer for the OS. The important thing here is that it's a tradeoff, not an universal good. And a tradeoff that I personally don't like very much. Doing fun and interesting things keeps getting harder and harder because you have to jump through increasing amount of security hoops. For instance, reading and writing memory of other programs enabled you to do tweaks that are now almost impossible to perform. I understand the need for change, now that a computer is expected to be connected and running untrusted third-party code by default. But we've lost something with that change, and I wish for a way to get it back.
- dunkelheit 10y agoEarly in the history of computing two camps formed: the 'AI' camp that proclaimed that computers would soon be able to figure everything out on their own and 'mind amplification' camp that held that computers would become an extension to the human mind. The whole personal computing movement and thus early Apple grew out of the second camp. Alan Kay is a great representative of the second camp. Of course, Apple soon figured out that what sells is not mind amplification tools but 'appliances' and under second Steve they became really good at producing those.
- dredmorbius 10y agoJobs explicitly compares the computer to the bicycle -- a machine which amplifies human action and capability and turns an ungainly biped into the most efficiently locomoting land animal (or any animal) ever. There's much to be said for the concept.