4 ms·

This quote jumped out at me: "..., Apple has proved that there are significant advantages to designing hardware and software together." I'm assuming the NYT i

by femto 14y ago

This quote jumped out at me: "..., Apple has proved that there are significant advantages to designing hardware and software together." I'm assuming the NYT is referring to "design" in its high-level context, as used by graphic designers, etc. and not its low-level context, as used by engineers? Apple has proved is that there are significant advantages to reusing other people's low-level designs, in the form of open-source software, such as BSD, but taking advantage of the source availability to control the high-level design. In this case, the low-level design has not been done in tandem with the hardware, since it preexisted the hardware.

ams6110 14y ago
The benefit of designing the hardware is that your driver support can be flawless, since you know exactly which devices you need to support. Things like sleep/wake that never freezes, squeezing the absolute longest life out of the batteries, etc. are all easier when you control the hardware platform.
SoftwareMaven 14y ago
Apple's industrial design is legendary and goes from top to bottom. In the end, it isn't just that the software is better nor is it just that the hardware is better; it's that both of them just work. That is the essence of good design. While Mach predates iOS, to say that iOS wasn't designed from the ground up for the environment it is running in would be a gross mischaracterization. The pieces exposed, the services provided, all reflect the realities of the hardware it is running on (eg highly constrained and battery driven).
mikeash 14y ago
There's more to design than just "how it looks" and "it's based on BSD". Apple's software is not just a bunch of open source stuff glued together as your post implies. The iOS kernel, for example, is substantially proprietary and heavily customized for Apple's iOS hardware. You don't get any lower-level than that, and that was definitely developed alongside the hardware.
- femto 14y ago
  That wasn't meant to be the implication. If I had my time again, I'd add the word "mostly" to the last sentence, but apart from that I'll just clarify. The point I was trying to make is that using open-source, in the way Apple has, allows the customisation to go beyond the mere gluing together of black boxes. The thing Apple has woken up to is that 95% of the black box is reusable commodity stuff and it's that customised 5% that makes it "sing" with your hardware. This level of integration just isn't possible without the source code. You can try writing everything yourself, but that blows time to market, and required development resources, out big time.

by femto 14y ago

ams6110 14y ago

The benefit of designing the hardware is that your driver support can be flawless, since you know exactly which devices you need to support. Things like sleep/wake that never freezes, squeezing the absolute longest life out of the batteries, etc. are all easier when you control the hardware platform.

SoftwareMaven 14y ago

Apple's industrial design is legendary and goes from top to bottom. In the end, it isn't just that the software is better nor is it just that the hardware is better; it's that both of them just work. That is the essence of good design. While Mach predates iOS, to say that iOS wasn't designed from the ground up for the environment it is running in would be a gross mischaracterization. The pieces exposed, the services provided, all reflect the realities of the hardware it is running on (eg highly constrained and battery driven).

mikeash 14y ago

There's more to design than just "how it looks" and "it's based on BSD". Apple's software is not just a bunch of open source stuff glued together as your post implies. The iOS kernel, for example, is substantially proprietary and heavily customized for Apple's iOS hardware. You don't get any lower-level than that, and that was definitely developed alongside the hardware.

femto 14y ago
That wasn't meant to be the implication. If I had my time again, I'd add the word "mostly" to the last sentence, but apart from that I'll just clarify. The point I was trying to make is that using open-source, in the way Apple has, allows the customisation to go beyond the mere gluing together of black boxes. The thing Apple has woken up to is that 95% of the black box is reusable commodity stuff and it's that customised 5% that makes it "sing" with your hardware. This level of integration just isn't possible without the source code. You can try writing everything yourself, but that blows time to market, and required development resources, out big time.