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The iPad is unable to do many of the things I normally do on a computer. That's not a bad thing, it's simply out of the scope of the device. We still need "desk

The iPad is unable to do many of the things I normally do on a computer. That's not a bad thing, it's simply out of the scope of the device. We still need "desk" computers. I'm not excited by Apple spending less resources on OS X, surely they can do both?

api 17y ago
I'm not convinced that this rumor about OSX is true. Has Apple officially said such a thing? BTW, part of the problem with computers not progressing faster is that the software world is dropping the ball. We're not taking advantage of things like GPGPU, multicore, etc. because we're too busy building me-too whiz-bang webapps.
- roc 17y ago
  ... begging the question of whether me-too whiz-bang webapps are using things like GPGPU, multicore, etc. And the desktop software world has been consistently dropping the ball since the beginning. Today's wasteful code that ignores processing resources has solid company among yesterday's wasteful code that was pissing away ram and CPU cycles with locked-in middleware, sloppy code and the rest of our sins. It's nothing new. And it's not the fault of a shiny new horizon. Desk computers seem to have simply hit a local maxima. (What is virtualization but an industry-wide condemnation of the state of modern operating systems? We can't get a single box to run a dozen services reliably; instead we run a dozen isolated OS images on that same hardware and things are better.) The obvious ways to notably improve desk computing require massive change. But we can't quite sell the idea of massive change when things are working reasonably well and most of the planet is accustomed to the current, weird state of desk computing.[1] So the small incremental changes are the only things left. [1] I think mobiles and the web are so popular with developers right now precisely because they present the chance to work with and on platforms designed from the ground-up with modern techniques, for modern hardware and services and without all the cruft in the corners.
- harshpotatoes 17y ago
  Since I've started working recently, I've started reading a lot more about GPGPU. Now I kinda want to thrown down the money to build myself a new desktop so I can try to teach myself programming for CUDA... Still, Im very impressed with the sort of technology we can deal with in our own homes. It's insane to realize just how beefy gpu's are today. Yeah, it'll be a while before desktops are on the out and out. At that point, the few of us using them will be grateful linux can be installed on anything.
bjelkeman-again 17y ago
"surely they can do both?" Are you sure? Top quality engineers don't grow on trees and relegating Mac OS X development to second tier engineers because you don't have enough top engineers may be the road to ruin. Just having billions in the bank doesn't mean you get top engineers when you are hiring. I rather have a somewhat slower developing OS, if the result is good, than a faster developing crappy OS. I was going to compare to Windows, but that is slow in developing and crappy. Oh well.
- cobralibre 17y ago
  And I wonder if Apple's insular corporate culture discourages certain kinds of top quality software engineers from joining? I've been reading about Robert Merton's idea that a key motivator for practicing scientists is recognition, so I'm thinking in particular of software engineers who are accustomed to the norms of open source projects. This might tie back to John Siracusa's recent observation that Google is "a huge gravitational sink for engineering talent," and Apple is not. There's a small discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1257201 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1257201
  - bjelkeman-again 17y ago
    Yeah, but most of Google stuff is closed source too. There must be other things that attract engineers to Google than just some open source projects.
georgekv 17y ago
I don't think there is any cause for worry. Lets look at some dates... (1) Snow Leopard was released 8 months (Aug. '09) ago. (2) Leopard was out about 20 months (Oct '07) before that. Given that, Apple could announce 10.7 at the 2011 WWDC, release that Fall, and be within their normal timeframes. I think for Apple this is the "Year of the iPad (and OS 4)." We just have to get used to that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X

api 17y ago

I'm not convinced that this rumor about OSX is true. Has Apple officially said such a thing? BTW, part of the problem with computers not progressing faster is that the software world is dropping the ball. We're not taking advantage of things like GPGPU, multicore, etc. because we're too busy building me-too whiz-bang webapps.

roc 17y ago
... begging the question of whether me-too whiz-bang webapps are using things like GPGPU, multicore, etc. And the desktop software world has been consistently dropping the ball since the beginning. Today's wasteful code that ignores processing resources has solid company among yesterday's wasteful code that was pissing away ram and CPU cycles with locked-in middleware, sloppy code and the rest of our sins. It's nothing new. And it's not the fault of a shiny new horizon. Desk computers seem to have simply hit a local maxima. (What is virtualization but an industry-wide condemnation of the state of modern operating systems? We can't get a single box to run a dozen services reliably; instead we run a dozen isolated OS images on that same hardware and things are better.) The obvious ways to notably improve desk computing require massive change. But we can't quite sell the idea of massive change when things are working reasonably well and most of the planet is accustomed to the current, weird state of desk computing.[1] So the small incremental changes are the only things left. [1] I think mobiles and the web are so popular with developers right now precisely because they present the chance to work with and on platforms designed from the ground-up with modern techniques, for modern hardware and services and without all the cruft in the corners.
harshpotatoes 17y ago
Since I've started working recently, I've started reading a lot more about GPGPU. Now I kinda want to thrown down the money to build myself a new desktop so I can try to teach myself programming for CUDA... Still, Im very impressed with the sort of technology we can deal with in our own homes. It's insane to realize just how beefy gpu's are today. Yeah, it'll be a while before desktops are on the out and out. At that point, the few of us using them will be grateful linux can be installed on anything.

bjelkeman-again 17y ago

"surely they can do both?" Are you sure? Top quality engineers don't grow on trees and relegating Mac OS X development to second tier engineers because you don't have enough top engineers may be the road to ruin. Just having billions in the bank doesn't mean you get top engineers when you are hiring. I rather have a somewhat slower developing OS, if the result is good, than a faster developing crappy OS. I was going to compare to Windows, but that is slow in developing and crappy. Oh well.

cobralibre 17y ago
And I wonder if Apple's insular corporate culture discourages certain kinds of top quality software engineers from joining? I've been reading about Robert Merton's idea that a key motivator for practicing scientists is recognition, so I'm thinking in particular of software engineers who are accustomed to the norms of open source projects. This might tie back to John Siracusa's recent observation that Google is "a huge gravitational sink for engineering talent," and Apple is not. There's a small discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1257201 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1257201
- bjelkeman-again 17y ago
  Yeah, but most of Google stuff is closed source too. There must be other things that attract engineers to Google than just some open source projects.

georgekv 17y ago

I don't think there is any cause for worry. Lets look at some dates... (1) Snow Leopard was released 8 months (Aug. '09) ago. (2) Leopard was out about 20 months (Oct '07) before that. Given that, Apple could announce 10.7 at the 2011 WWDC, release that Fall, and be within their normal timeframes. I think for Apple this is the "Year of the iPad (and OS 4)." We just have to get used to that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X