5 ms·
I was another former Be "power user." And I think that was probably accurate -- if you weren't in the "BeOS lifestyle" during the admittedly short window that i
by chipotle_coyote 7y ago
I was another former Be "power user." And I think that was probably accurate -- if you weren't in the "BeOS lifestyle" during the admittedly short window that it was possible, it's hard to understand how much promise it looked like it had. When I tell people I ran it full-time for over a year, they wonder how I managed to get anything done, but...
- Pe was a great GUI text editor, competitive with BBEdit on the Mac
- GoBe Productive was comparable to AppleWorks, but maybe a little better at being compatible with Microsoft Office
- SoundPlay was a great MP3 player that could do crazy things that I still don't see anything doing 20 years later (it had speed control for files, including playing backwards, and could mix files that were queued up for playback; it didn't have any library management, but BeOS's file system let you expose arbitrary metadata -- like MP3 song/artist/etc. tags! -- right in file windows)
- Mail-It was the second-best email client I ever used, behind the now also sadly-defunct Mailsmith
- e-Picture was an object-based bitmapped graphics editor similar in spirit and functionality to Macromedia's Fireworks, and was something I genuinely missed for years after leaving BeOS
And there were other programs that were amazing, even though I didn't use them: Adamation's video editor (videoElements? something like that), their audio editor audioElements, Steinberg's Nuendo, objektSynth, and two programs which are incredibly still being sold today: Lost Marble's Moho animation program, now sold by Smith Micro for Mac and PC, and the radio automation package TuneTracker (incredibly now being sold as a turnkey bundle with Haiku). Also, for years, there was a professional-grade theatre light/audio control system, LCS CueStation, that ran on BeOS -- and it actually ran Broadway and Las Vegas productions. I remember seeing it running at the Cirque de Soleil permanent installation at Disney World in Orlando.
At the time Apple bought Next rather than Be, I thought they'd made a horrible mistake. Given Apple's trajectory afterward, of course, it's hard to say that looking back. It's very possible that if they'd bought Be, they'd have gone under, although I think that would have less to do with technology than with the management they'd have ended up with (or more accurately, stayed with). But it's still an interesting "what if."
- jonny_eh 7y agoYou may have hinted at it, but I think Apple's subsequent turnaround after acquiring Next was mainly due to their founder, Steve Jobs, coming back to Apple.
- chipotle_coyote 7y agoAbsolutely. Even though I honestly think Gil Amelio gets dumped on more than he deserves, I doubt he could have really saved them in the long run.
- jonhendry18 7y agoJobs helped enormously, of course, but if Apple was still trying to sell classic MacOS in 2005 I'm not sure even Steve Jobs could have kept them afloat long enough to ship an iPhone.
- jonny_eh 7y agoBut the choice wasn't Next vs MacOS, it was BeOS vs Next.
- rvz 7y agoThat's true, but most keep forgetting that even before his comeback, Apple was very close to filing for bankruptcy and who knows what would have happened without the intervention from Gates. Microsoft was the only juggernaut who's fate was never doubted in the 1980s - 1990s. NeXT hardware also failed but was the rightful choice for Apple over Be due to getting NeXTSTEP and Jobs again. But even after the war is over, we're now all generals.
- nickik 7y agoWhen was Sun close to collapsing? I want to learn more about this history.
- Corrado 7y agoI actually toyed with the idea of starting a radio station based on the BeOS MP3 player + file system. The thought was to have a system without human DJs that used a simple web interface to gather "votes" for songs/genres, and to use the metadata in the file system to queue up the songs. If I remember correctly, BeOS also had a macro programming interface (ie. AREXX) that could be used to glue things together. This made BeOS (and BeBox) a great product in my mind; the ability to use it in unexpected ways.
- sedatk 7y agoNetPositive was much better in Internet Explorer compatibility than Netscape when it used to matter.
- colinstrickland 7y agowow, this list is bringing back all the memories. You're right, there was a short wave of enthusiasm, and some apps which were actually very innovative for the time. I remembered that it was actually used in some pro audio and lighting stuff, but I'd forgotten most of those apps. I remember playing around with Moho. what's the name of the 2d illustration software that modelled real wet paint brushes and textured pencils? That was unlike anything I'd seen at the time, I remember putting quite a lot of effort into finding a compatible wacom.
- chipotle_coyote 7y agoGosh. I remember the illustration program you're talking about but can't remember its name, either. :) I was surprised that it seemed to take so long for that concept to show up on other platforms, though -- other than Fractal Design Painter, it didn't seem like anyone on the Mac or Windows was really trying for that same kind of "real ink and paper" approach.
- outadoc 7y ago> Pe was a great GUI text editor, competitive with BBEdit on the Mac Why wasn't it called BeBeEdit?!