4 ms·

Hmm, scaling back on innovation in the desktop OS is a bit unsettling. The end of the desktop may be here in 5-10 years, but surely there are still interesting

by cpr 17y ago

Hmm, scaling back on innovation in the desktop OS is a bit unsettling. The end of the desktop may be here in 5-10 years, but surely there are still interesting things left to do there? Perhaps the ultimate simplification of computing (iPad and derivatives) is the only thing on Jobs' agenda now, innovation-wise.

blasdel 17y ago
I can't really think of any other foundational APIs that would be worth it for them to integrate into OS X at the expense of their infant mobile platforms that still have years of iteration and several more major releases before they're nearly as 'mature' as the platforms they're displacing. OS X is incredibly mature now, while there are still warts (Spotlight is relational with fixed indexes, mobile.me sucks and isn't freemium, etc.), the iPhone OS has those warts too, it's more important to fix them there than on the desktop, and there's tons of incomplete/missing features on top of that that need iterating on. I certainly wouldn't want to see the kinds of consumer-facing features they'd have to pull out of their ass to justify a 10.7 release in the next year or two.
- Perceval 17y ago
  I'm perfectly fine with future updates more along the Snow Leopard line than more normal updates with major features and UI changes. Add new goodies under the hood, make it faster and more secure, and charge me $29. Couldn't be happier.
  - blasdel 17y ago
    The problem is that for outfits like them shipping anything takes a huge amount of effort, and they're kind of short on under-the-hood goodies to add. They're also kind of constitutionally incapable of shipping security updates, though it's probably better overall that they don't do ubuntu's 10-updates-per-day regimen. I'd rather they spent their efforts iterating on their mobile products. They have a ton of challenges still ahead of them there, like whatever they're going to try to replace the hierarchical filesystem UI with, synchronization, their mobile ads platform, fixing their notifications UI, integrating browser tabs into the app-switching UI (like WebOS and ChromeOS), etc.

by cpr 17y ago

blasdel 17y ago

I can't really think of any other foundational APIs that would be worth it for them to integrate into OS X at the expense of their infant mobile platforms that still have years of iteration and several more major releases before they're nearly as 'mature' as the platforms they're displacing. OS X is incredibly mature now, while there are still warts (Spotlight is relational with fixed indexes, mobile.me sucks and isn't freemium, etc.), the iPhone OS has those warts too, it's more important to fix them there than on the desktop, and there's tons of incomplete/missing features on top of that that need iterating on. I certainly wouldn't want to see the kinds of consumer-facing features they'd have to pull out of their ass to justify a 10.7 release in the next year or two.

Perceval 17y ago
I'm perfectly fine with future updates more along the Snow Leopard line than more normal updates with major features and UI changes. Add new goodies under the hood, make it faster and more secure, and charge me $29. Couldn't be happier.
- blasdel 17y ago
  The problem is that for outfits like them shipping anything takes a huge amount of effort, and they're kind of short on under-the-hood goodies to add. They're also kind of constitutionally incapable of shipping security updates, though it's probably better overall that they don't do ubuntu's 10-updates-per-day regimen. I'd rather they spent their efforts iterating on their mobile products. They have a ton of challenges still ahead of them there, like whatever they're going to try to replace the hierarchical filesystem UI with, synchronization, their mobile ads platform, fixing their notifications UI, integrating browser tabs into the app-switching UI (like WebOS and ChromeOS), etc.