3 ms·

My recollection is that you need a license to PDF patents from Adobe to implement those things, and Apple is somehow grandfathered themselves into those license

by evmar 5y ago

My recollection is that you need a license to PDF patents from Adobe to implement those things, and Apple is somehow grandfathered themselves into those licenses via NeXT. (But upon writing that I'm not sure where I got that impression from, and I can't find a citation for it right now, so treat the claim with skepticism.)

jd3 5y ago
ignoring the "thoughts on flash"[0] letter, the apple <=> adobe relationship goes back to at least the apple LaserWriter[1], so that would definitely make sense the Quartz compositor itself has "use[d] pdf internally"[2][3] ever since the initial launch of Mac OS X > By the time OS X came out, these were less the kind of features that "the next great personal computer operating system" should have, and more the kind that they all had. What was new included how Quartz, the engine for OS X's "killer graphics," was based on PDF. > "What does that mean?" asked Jobs. "You know when you go to the web and you see PDF documents? Well, that technology is now at the core of Mac OS X's graphics. So you can image PDFs instantly. So now all applications get this for free." > It's how, to this day, every Mac app can produce a PDF document without needing a third-party app.[4] [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20100531072734/http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ https://web.archive.org/web/20100531072734/http://www.apple.... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserWriter#Apple's_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserWriter#Apple's_developmen... [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko4V3G4NqII https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko4V3G4NqII / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-fkYFV7rOY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-fkYFV7rOY [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz_(graphics_layer)#Use_of_PDF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz_(graphics_layer)#Use_of... [4]: https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/03/24/apple-launched-its-revolutionary-os-x-20-years-ago https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/03/24/apple-launched-it... https://pspdfkit.com/blog/2020/apple-and-pdf-history/ https://pspdfkit.com/blog/2020/apple-and-pdf-history/

by evmar 5y ago

jd3 5y ago

ignoring the "thoughts on flash"[0] letter, the apple <=> adobe relationship goes back to at least the apple LaserWriter[1], so that would definitely make sense the Quartz compositor itself has "use[d] pdf internally"[2][3] ever since the initial launch of Mac OS X > By the time OS X came out, these were less the kind of features that "the next great personal computer operating system" should have, and more the kind that they all had. What was new included how Quartz, the engine for OS X's "killer graphics," was based on PDF. > "What does that mean?" asked Jobs. "You know when you go to the web and you see PDF documents? Well, that technology is now at the core of Mac OS X's graphics. So you can image PDFs instantly. So now all applications get this for free." > It's how, to this day, every Mac app can produce a PDF document without needing a third-party app.[4] [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20100531072734/http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ https://web.archive.org/web/20100531072734/http://www.apple.... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserWriter#Apple's_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserWriter#Apple's_developmen... [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko4V3G4NqII https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko4V3G4NqII / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-fkYFV7rOY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-fkYFV7rOY [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz_(graphics_layer)#Use_of_PDF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz_(graphics_layer)#Use_of... [4]: https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/03/24/apple-launched-its-revolutionary-os-x-20-years-ago https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/03/24/apple-launched-it... https://pspdfkit.com/blog/2020/apple-and-pdf-history/ https://pspdfkit.com/blog/2020/apple-and-pdf-history/