If things keep going the way they're going, Apple fanboyism will become less and less of a problem among hackers. Apple appears to be in a gradual transition process from MacOS computers to iOS "Don't worry, just watch the pretty pictures, and we'll tell you which PAY button to press" devices. Windows, not wanting to be left behind selling computers instead of devices (Yuck! Computers! That's SO 20th century), is making the same transition to Metro.
It appears that both of the major computer platform makers have come to the same conclusion: they don't want to make computers that their customers can program for their own purposes; they want to make ever-more-tightly-sealed point-of-sale devices for buying digital products and services from the device maker and its partners.
In other words, if you think the sealed iPhone, tethered to giant companies with strict rules about what you may and may not do with it or put on it and its design esthetic of "enjoy the beauty, stop resisting, do exactly as we say, and why not buy something with it, you'll feel better" is your idea of a great "pocket computer" for hackers, then you should be happy about where our computers are going. Otherwise....
I think we hackers are going to be driven to Linux on the desktop over time, which I would have no objection to if only there were an "Apple for Linux" company making the hardware and matching drivers of Apple-level quality. I can live without MacOS, but the hardware is a big deal.
The move toward integrated, worry-free, easy to use products for consumers is a good thing.
In order to keep such things being developed, Apple will need to provide an adequate development environment.
Thus, Apple has an incentive to keep both worlds alive.
The only thing to worry about is that, because they only have the incentive to keep their development ecosystem merely adequate, we won't see much improvement in developer tools – just slow, linear change. Fortunately Xcode has competition from Visual Studio to keep it going, but whether they will continue offering a competitive BSD development environment is a legitimate question. Most Linux distributions already provide a better experience in this respect, having package managers and user communities and such.
Ultimately, I find the attitude you present here to be a bit overreactive. Lion and Mountain Lion introduce a number of iOS-like features and integration, but as far as I know, the developer tools were not crippled in any way, only improved, a bit.
Apple decoupled the compiler/command line tools from Xcode specifically so that projects like MacPorts and HomeBrew can continue to exist on the Apple platform. There was a post on this a while back on HN!
I absolutely love HomeBrew, it is modeled a lot after MacPorts/FreeBSD ports tree and provides a way to compile packages from source (some are even hosted as bottles... no compiling required). It is an excellent tool to download and install libraries and do development with. Will Apple keep all those tools around? Only time will tell, but so far it is looking good and I don't think it is in their best interest to move away from it.
I actually think that besides performance issues on older macbooks, Xcode has developed quite nicely in the recent updates. At least for obj-C it's a pretty productive and powerful environment. I definitely prefer it over VS2008 and lower, haven't yet had the chance to work with the newer VS versions though. I like eclipse too, however the panel management in XCode is so much easier - I don't see anymore why you would need a fully controllable widget-docking space that you have to micromanage until everything works the way you want it.
I'm actually a designer and musician. Apple's recent media production tools are excellent. Logic, FCP, iMovie, Keynote, Quartz Composer, etc. are best in class. The move toward iOS influenced software is a net win IMO. Fewer details to worry about, more fluid interfaces, and command line utilities from the Linux community aren't going anywhere.
I used Aperture and Keynote a lot, and I liked them. But Aperture has gone down the drain - there were lots of regressions of Raw support for various camera's (search the discussions forum for plenty of examples). Also, it has become slow, the interface regularly freezes, and feature-wise the gap with Lightroom widened (e.g. denoising in Lightroom is far and far better). Since Apple didn't seem to care, I switched to Lightroom.
Keynote was and is a great presentation application. But PowerPoint 2008 surpassed it, PowerPoint 2011 even more. The only major feature missing from Powerpoint is magic move. Other than that, PowerPoint has better table and chart tools, better graphics, and at the very least adjusts font sizes automatically when necessary.
I think you're underestimating how much of an obstacle a traditional filesystem is to most people. The cloud integration and appification that seems so restricting to you is sweet, sweet relief for a great deal of people.
By catering to them, Apple doesn't take anything away from you; though they do eventually entrap you as well with all that shiny and convenience, which I can understand being resentful about. It's a bit disempowering when a company thinks it knows what's good for you better than you do, and ends up being kinda right about it.
I completely agree with you that making the computing experience simpler, more like poking buttons on a high-end blender, is what most consumers need. Satisfying what most consumers need is most likely what the companies need. The companies have as much right to want what's best for themselves as I do. They're not doing anything wrong, IMO.
That does not automatically make their design decisions a reflection of their superior knowledge of what's good for me, even "kinda".
Linux-like customization on top of Apple-quality hardware/driver foundations in form factors like the iPhone, iPad, MacBook Pro, and MacPro, would be what would be good for me, but I'm not saying anybody owes it to me.
I am thinking, though, that as the two major personal computer platforms become more closed, it gradually opens a market for some savvy company to go in the opposite direction: targeting those who want more customization, not less, without sacrificing hardware quality.
If that ever does happen, that will be what's good for me.
Even customization is becoming easier. Consider the ease of jail breaking iOS vs rooting an Android device along wth the push button tweakability that is Cydia and you quickly realize that even the tinkerer/customiser world is headed for liberation from complexity.
The world of code and hackers and the purity of possibility will always be there but bringing greater Technological ability to all people is an important goal, a worthy challenge and one that the major players all seem to be taking on.
This is a very, very good thing because the dream and power of technology is far too great to be bound to the world of 'power users' and the like. The are wonderfully intelligent and creative people in the world who happen to fall outside of that category and we all stand to gain from their contributions.
It's not abut what's good for you. It's about what good for us.
Certainly there are periods of time when it is possible to jailbreak a device over the internet(!!), times when it is possible locally, and times when it it, for months, not possible at all.
My point (poorly made perhaps) is that I have heard people say, "Oh, don't worry about Apple's walled garden, anyone with technical knowledge can be out of it as soon as they want, with jailbreaking". However, there are clearly long periods of time when that isn't true.
Incidentally: I found myself in exactly the same position with iPad 2. It seemed as if it was all hinging on release date of the next iteration of the OS and I did wonder at tine if Apple had perfected their game of cat and mouse.
>I am thinking, though, that as the two major personal computer platforms become more closed, it gradually opens a market for some savvy company to go in the opposite direction: targeting those who want more customization, not less, without sacrificing hardware quality.
All 10 of them? Maybe VA Linux has a market after all.
Yes, traditional filesystems have lousy usability. That's orthogonal to whether it should be a federal crime to run unapproved software on "your" hardware, which Apple believes should be the case with iOS.
From the sales charts, it seems this is what the customers want, too. For some reason folks like to believe that Apple is somehow "fooling" customers into buying that experience. What if it's simply what non-developers want? Isn't that a simpler explanation?
The objection is that this isn't mutually exclusive. You can provide all the niceties, and make it so that there are still ways in to the simplified UI so that a nine-year-old can set out on their own and learn things about how the machine works. The companies are using this paradigm shift as an excuse to lock us in a box, they are not locking us in a box because the tech or the experience is only available if they do so.
They're eating the seed corn, but they don't really care since they won't feel the effect for 15 years or more. I personally don't care much either, unless they manage to fully legislate their locked boxes as the only option... which they are trying to do whenever we aren't looking, by the way, the most recent being with Microsoft locking out other OSes on their ARM boxes.
Yes, you can do both, but if consumers aren't demanding you do so, why do it? Ultimately it costs more to deliver that experience, so from a business perspective it doesn't make sense to do it if you're not losing a material number of product sales without it.
The companies are using this paradigm shift as an excuse to lock us in a box, they are not locking us in a box because the tech or the experience is only available if they do so.
Yes. It's clear that Apple considers the relative openness of Macs a defect which they're only keeping around for backwards compatibility.
unless they manage to fully legislate their locked boxes as the only option... which they are trying to do whenever we aren't looking
Or even when we are. Apple has been quite open about their desire to destroy Android with IP lawsuits, which would leave no significant mobile platform where you can legally run software of your choice. And I won't be at all surprised if the next version of OS X removes root access and the ability to run unsigned apps. (Neither of which you actually need in order to develop software for the app store; your test apps can be signed with a machine-specific key).
That said, I'm still getting the retina MBP as an upgrade from my 2006 model. AFAIK it still supports booting Linux if OS X becomes too user-hostile. It would be nice if every other PC manufacturer hadn't spent the last 5 years making their laptop displays worse, but oh well.
>It's clear that Apple considers the relative openness of Macs a defect which they're only keeping around for backwards compatibility.
This is not remotely clear. Do you really think Apple wants the App store to dry up because they are the only people left who can develop for it? The Apps make the app store and they know this.
False dilemma; that is not the other alternative. The other alternative is that only a certain set of people bother to purchase the license to create apps, mostly for professional reasons, and plenty of apps are still created. But not by curious teenagers who want to learn about how things work.
Most of my audio gear doesn't work at all and graphics drivers, while much improved as of late, are still woeful.
I Hackintoshed my desktop (because we're never getting another Mac Pro) specifically because of driver support. It's actually better in Hackintosh-land than on Linux.
Linux + webapps will be the only way to combat the locked-down, run-only-what-we-allow-and-give-us-30% mentality eventually. iOS has proven that regular customers can have their computing freedom trampled on as long as you give them pretty buttons to press while it's happening. Insert other assorted not-far-off-doomsday-conspiracies-here.
It appears that both of the major computer platform makers have come to the same conclusion: they don't want to make computers that their customers can program for their own purposes; they want to make ever-more-tightly-sealed point-of-sale devices for buying digital products and services from the device maker and its partners.
In other words, if you think the sealed iPhone, tethered to giant companies with strict rules about what you may and may not do with it or put on it and its design esthetic of "enjoy the beauty, stop resisting, do exactly as we say, and why not buy something with it, you'll feel better" is your idea of a great "pocket computer" for hackers, then you should be happy about where our computers are going. Otherwise....
I think we hackers are going to be driven to Linux on the desktop over time, which I would have no objection to if only there were an "Apple for Linux" company making the hardware and matching drivers of Apple-level quality. I can live without MacOS, but the hardware is a big deal.