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I think he meant "crashes logged on Mac OS" not that the operating system itself crashed

kbenson 9y ago
That's definitely not what that phrasing means, and I find it hard to believe that it would have been accidentally overlooked in a PR piece like this. To me that means the likely explanations are that either it actually caused Macs to crash (which I seem to recall from experience it could, at least occasionally), or that Jobs is purposefully trying to shift OS instability blame to an application, which I think is possible. Or some combination thereof.
- nardi 9y ago
  As is common, Apple uses the term “panic” to describe the OS itself failing. “Crash” is reserved for applications.
  - jacoblambda 9y ago
    I believe that also applies to most UNIXes and UNIX-likes. <rambling> I really like that terminology though, it makes quite a bit of sense. When you witness a crash(you are not part of the crash, you were simply witnessing/interacting with the thing that crashed. You are not necessarily harmed), it is not like the whole world is falling apart. There was a crash, it is horrible and now you have to save what you can. This applies both digitally and in real life. Think crashing a drone or watching a plane crash. You rush to the scene and call for help, but you are not harmed. Now when the OS fails, it stops everything and can potentially result in significantly more data loss than a standard application crash. Much like when a person is in an accident involving a vehicle. It is no longer just a crash, it is now a panic. When you end up in an accident you don't think "oh ya that crash" you think panic, not the word, the feeling. </rambling> Sorry for the rambling on, it kinda just happened. But ya that terminology is great.
  - kbenson 9y ago
    If that's so, then the way it was worded seems needlessly unclear. It specifically says it caused Macs to crash. The normal terminology (and proper English) would be to say "cause Mac applications to crash" when referring to the applications and not the OS or hardware. It's like someone saying "Windows crash" is supposed to refer to Windows applications because people say blue screen instead of crash usually. Even if you accept the terminology, it's applied to the wrong subject. As I said, I can't imagine that distinction having escaped notice in a PR piece such as this.
    - snowwrestler 9y ago
      You need to let this go. You're trying to argue something that everyone understood well at the time. Thousands of news stories followed up on every detail in that letter and it was very clear what Apple meant.
    - wooter 9y ago
      a kernel panic is a specific type of phenomena
      - kbenson 9y ago
        > a kernel panic is a specific type of phenomena Yes, but he didn't say panic, he said crash. Crash is often used to refer to both application crashes, and os crashes, which are also often called kernel panics. Saying something causes "Macs to crash" when you mean applications running on a Mac, as people are suggesting, is very unclear.
        wlesieutre 9y ago
        I agree, the wording isn't great. Kernel panic is a specific thing, yes, but there are other system-wide crashes that are much more common on Macs than kernel panics. "Sleep Wake Failure" comes to mind. When the 2016 MBP was new I'd get one literally every night that I left my computer asleep. It's now much less frequent (a couple a month, still more than it should be), but more often than panics (haven't had one yet).
- kbenson 9y ago
  > That's definitely not what that phrasing means To clarify, because I think people may be misinterpreting what I meant by that. I wasn't implying a definitive intent to the statement, but stating that the suggested interpretation is not what that statement means in English, as the the subject is a "Mac", which could logically be construed as the OS, the hardware, or both, but not an application running on a Mac. So either it means something other than the suggestions put forth (that he's referring to application crashes), or it's a misstatement, on purpose or not.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- abiox 9y ago
  > That's definitely not what that phrasing means i invite you to learn about idioms! they're interesting. equivocating over idiomatic language is basically a waste of time.
wlesieutre 9y ago
This was also published not too long after Snow Leopard came out (August 2009), which is when Safari first split plugins out to a separate process, as long as you were running it in 64-bit mode. Before that it could bring down the whole browser, after it would only kill itself and require pages to be reloaded. So it's not like Apple wasn't doing anything about it. Obviously a positive change in general, but the push to prioritize that and get it done must have been 99% aimed at problems caused by Flash. And even after that was implemented, an ad crashing flash in one window would still bring down a video player in another, if I'm remembering right. Still a crappy user experience.

That's definitely not what that phrasing means, and I find it hard to believe that it would have been accidentally overlooked in a PR piece like this. To me that means the likely explanations are that either it actually caused Macs to crash (which I seem to recall from experience it could, at least occasionally), or that Jobs is purposefully trying to shift OS instability blame to an application, which I think is possible. Or some combination thereof.

nardi 9y ago
As is common, Apple uses the term “panic” to describe the OS itself failing. “Crash” is reserved for applications.
- jacoblambda 9y ago
  I believe that also applies to most UNIXes and UNIX-likes. <rambling> I really like that terminology though, it makes quite a bit of sense. When you witness a crash(you are not part of the crash, you were simply witnessing/interacting with the thing that crashed. You are not necessarily harmed), it is not like the whole world is falling apart. There was a crash, it is horrible and now you have to save what you can. This applies both digitally and in real life. Think crashing a drone or watching a plane crash. You rush to the scene and call for help, but you are not harmed. Now when the OS fails, it stops everything and can potentially result in significantly more data loss than a standard application crash. Much like when a person is in an accident involving a vehicle. It is no longer just a crash, it is now a panic. When you end up in an accident you don't think "oh ya that crash" you think panic, not the word, the feeling. </rambling> Sorry for the rambling on, it kinda just happened. But ya that terminology is great.
- kbenson 9y ago
  If that's so, then the way it was worded seems needlessly unclear. It specifically says it caused Macs to crash. The normal terminology (and proper English) would be to say "cause Mac applications to crash" when referring to the applications and not the OS or hardware. It's like someone saying "Windows crash" is supposed to refer to Windows applications because people say blue screen instead of crash usually. Even if you accept the terminology, it's applied to the wrong subject. As I said, I can't imagine that distinction having escaped notice in a PR piece such as this.
  - snowwrestler 9y ago
    You need to let this go. You're trying to argue something that everyone understood well at the time. Thousands of news stories followed up on every detail in that letter and it was very clear what Apple meant.
  - wooter 9y ago
    a kernel panic is a specific type of phenomena
    - kbenson 9y ago
      > a kernel panic is a specific type of phenomena Yes, but he didn't say panic, he said crash. Crash is often used to refer to both application crashes, and os crashes, which are also often called kernel panics. Saying something causes "Macs to crash" when you mean applications running on a Mac, as people are suggesting, is very unclear.
      - wlesieutre 9y ago
        I agree, the wording isn't great. Kernel panic is a specific thing, yes, but there are other system-wide crashes that are much more common on Macs than kernel panics. "Sleep Wake Failure" comes to mind. When the 2016 MBP was new I'd get one literally every night that I left my computer asleep. It's now much less frequent (a couple a month, still more than it should be), but more often than panics (haven't had one yet).
kbenson 9y ago
> That's definitely not what that phrasing means To clarify, because I think people may be misinterpreting what I meant by that. I wasn't implying a definitive intent to the statement, but stating that the suggested interpretation is not what that statement means in English, as the the subject is a "Mac", which could logically be construed as the OS, the hardware, or both, but not an application running on a Mac. So either it means something other than the suggestions put forth (that he's referring to application crashes), or it's a misstatement, on purpose or not.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
abiox 9y ago
> That's definitely not what that phrasing means i invite you to learn about idioms! they're interesting. equivocating over idiomatic language is basically a waste of time.

wlesieutre 9y ago

This was also published not too long after Snow Leopard came out (August 2009), which is when Safari first split plugins out to a separate process, as long as you were running it in 64-bit mode. Before that it could bring down the whole browser, after it would only kill itself and require pages to be reloaded. So it's not like Apple wasn't doing anything about it. Obviously a positive change in general, but the push to prioritize that and get it done must have been 99% aimed at problems caused by Flash. And even after that was implemented, an ad crashing flash in one window would still bring down a video player in another, if I'm remembering right. Still a crappy user experience.