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The points I wish to make here were
initiated when one of the staff here directed us to
an article entitled, " An
Everyday User Looks at Mac OS X". I write this
as a developer who works hard developing OS X software,
and frankly, the anti-X sentiment on the Mac Web,
as in this article, has grown tired on me. Mr. Champlin's
article doesn't help the Mac Community. (For the record,
we have contacted him and told him about our reply,
and he was friendly and open to it.) But I use this
article only as a stepping stone to larger issues
and more specfic points.
The Scarecrows
For starters, Mr. Champlin complains
about UI speeds. Well, "Aqua" is not something turned
on or off and is not responsible for UI slowdowns.
Aqua is just a theme. The root of the UI slowness
comes from no Quartz acceleration on current video
cards. Remember how long it took to get Quickdraw
acceleration from ATI? Not sure if anyone remembers
using OS 7.5-9 on a machine without QD acceleration.
Not blazing by any means. Actually, you can disable
your ATI or nVidia 2D Acceleration extension, and
then see how fast windows and menus are in OS 9. Quartz
is quite efficient in comparison to QD, even with
its more advanced visuals.
Mr. Champlin also starts to speculate
that Classic is an emulation, and then runs with that
speculation to declare an inferiority of this against
Windows running 16-bit applications (which is not
a big feat). The truth is that Classic is by no means
emulation, as there's nothing to be emulated. Mac
OS 9 is just booted into its own memory space; you're
running two OSes at once. Doing his homework could
have resulted in a much more credible article. He
may have, if he'd spent more time in OS X, and writing,
hit on real points and issues rather than speculate
where facts are available.
The article did not, and was just a
big OS X migrator scarecrow. His whole OS X experience
seemed brief and just enough to dig up some juicy
rant bits to accomplish the anti-OS X article he had
been planning the week before. Then he adds the little
cherry on top to validify the article with an "OS
X is looking good for the future".
I don't mean to sound cynical about
this article. As a developer I hear this kind of stuff
all day as others are trying to make the move to the
new platform. I also harp on Apple regularly about
short-comings in OS X. It's the lack of care, thoroughness,
and just fresh unique information that gets old in
these articles.
Also in the same format are articles
with this structure:
"OS X sucks because...
It's slow...
I tried this and it was bad...
Can't make my coffee or clip my nails with it...
Can't run Doilies Pro 1.0...
Some subjective rants...
Oh, but OS X has a bright future and is great..."
It would be more refreshing to see:
"OS X was difficult for me to use because I like
to do things this way...
I tried a different way which made things a lot
better but it still feels foreign to me...
Some of the GUI is slow because of the lack of
hardware acceleration. Nonetheless I missed OS 9's
snappy menus and outline dragged windows. Perhaps
future video cards will help this...
My favorite program, Doilies Pro, doesn't run
natively on OS X. But I found an alternative called
Yarn Magic that I think I'll try...
From my perspective, I'd like to see...
I appreciate the multitasking improvement. I had
to train myself to use it, but after that I grew
to love it...
All the white was annoying, but it works. Perhaps
we'll see themes in the future...
I'll miss OS 9 but I'm not afraid to make an honest
effort with OS X..."
I have no qualms over anti-OS X subjects.
It just bothers me as a developer to see inaccurate
or false claims made by those who have put no effort
or thought into what they say at the expense of OS
X's reputation. Someone new to OS X may come across
these and get bad information and develope wrong impressions
about Mac OS X, retarding its success.
Writers' Duties and Food for Thought
I believe it's a writers duty to provide
accurate information and spark reader thought,
not just rant on paper and stamp it as fact or quality
writing. Readers will respect you, no matter what
you write, if you're accurate and explanatory on your
points. I personally would like to see numbers and
examples when someone makes a point. Making vague
points are strong hints that the writer didn't do
his homework before grabbing his pencil.
It would be more constructive and refreshing
to present problems of each OS and discuss them. If
writers out there need a list to work from, I submit
the following. Let's see them intelligently discuss
these issues. Each has a positive side in OS X. So
I toss this meat out to editorialists, editors, columnists,
and such, to see if they will address some real
issues, instead of bitching a moaning all the time
in uninformed rant. I'll join the pro-OS X team to
balance things out:
Mac OS 9 Weaknesses
(1) Incredible lack of
pre-emptive multithreading: No thread of
execution can move in front of another. This leads
to allowing a singular application having sole hardware
control, eventhough it may be doing no work. Examples:
Hold a menu open; applications stop working; the
machine is doing no work for that period of time;
user will feel rushed to make a quick selection
to reduce no work time and may be mistake prone.
Application dead locks either from code hang or
waiting on a never occurring event; the current
thread of execution cannot be changed meaning no
other applications can do work at the moment; nor
can the current application be switched at this
time; requires reboot which requires time waiting
for something that has already been done earlier;
current unsaved work is gone and must be redone.
(2) No memory protection:
Applications are allowed to freely write anywhere
in memory; the leading cause for data corruption
and system crashes; one application can cause superficial
damage only enough to cause a saved file in another
to become corrupt or that application to crash from
no fault of its own; requires reboot which requires
time waiting for something that has already been
done earlier; current unsaved work is gone and must
be redone.
(3) Lack of OS level AltiVec
support: The powerful vector processing unit
of the G4 is mostly wasted sitting idle when it
has much to offer.
(4) Lack of OS level multiple
processor support: Second processor of dual
604e and dual G4s remain mostly idle while in Mac
OS 9.
(5) Not an attractive development
platform: Lacking any similarities to other
modern operating systems discourages developers
from pursuing the Mac platform. Examples: Maya not
for Mac OS 9, but for OS X. New game porting houses
now available, like Omnigroup, for Mac OS X which
were not available for Mac OS 9. Open source projects
adopting OS X compatibility.
(6) Many services need
to be implemented at the system level: Background
services and drivers are needed to be implemented
as system extensions adding possible instabilities.
(7) Not 64-bit clean:
Rules out use of 64-bit processors; could be incompatible
with G5; limits RAM to 4GB; limits future growth.
(8) 32 character filename
limit: Cannot use filenames longer than 32
characters.
(9) No local file permissions
support: Users can freely modify, read, and
destroy data; makes multiple user environments difficult.
(10) Poor virtual memory
implementation: When physical RAM is exhausted
new applications are ran from hard disk while idle
applications still sit in physical memory; cannot
clean up physical memory fragmentation causing false
out-of-memory errors; cannot dynamically grow with
system needs.
(11) Poor multilingual
support: Cannot switch between languages
on the fly; makes multiligual home and work environments
difficult; requires specific language kits to be
installed which usually cause software compatibility
problems with some languages.
(12) Poor memory management:
Allows memory fragmentation and cannot recover leaks;
limits machine's run time; endangers stability.
Think that's enough for now! I could
go one about UI design, but that's all subjective,
and it's no use to argue who makes the best burgers
in town.
Some Roots of the Problem
What I'm trying to get at is that writers
scaring everyone away from Mac OS X is not going to
achieve anything constructive. People need to look
at all the points such as: what's different about
this between OS X and OS 9, does this causes a problem,
is it a legitimate problem, are there solutions, is
this just another case where people want OS X to mimic
OS 9, and would this be realistically possible to
implement, ect?
Don't misunderstand. Nowhere have I
said it's time for everyone to make the move to OS
X and that OS 9 is no longer valid. I have discouraged
the majority of my friends from making the move yet
as I know they'll run into problems with the lack
of software that they need. I'm also very aware that
my situation is one of the few that allows near 100%
use of Mac OS X.
My concern is with people making erroneous
remarks about OS X which they've never really used,
given an honest effort to use, or even seen. Hearing
such talk is obvious when you hear it. It's like hearing
someone talk bad about your best friend, eventhough
they've never met or spent the day with him. I see
the same thing in these kind of articles. They use
Mac OS X for a few hours, with 10% effort, and become
an expert on it.
If you think I am just blowing hot air
here, take a look at John Farr's uninformed
rants over at Applelinks — he has never used
OS X but swears OS 9 is easier to use!! This is just
silliness, idiocy, and highly unprofessional; maybe
he will respond to some of my 12 points if he has
the expertise to do so.
Some compare their five minute OS X
experience with their 5 or 10 years of Mac OS Classic
experience. This is what bothers me. They need to
have a talk with the Apple I and II guys about when
the Mac OS was released. There was even a war between
employees at Apple during that time. Such events only
come from closed minds and bloated egos of misinformed
people. In the end there was one clear winner that
carried on a 16 year and counting legacy. And don't
forget that OS X shares the same father.
It all leads to a lot of misconceptions
out there. One is that you have to give up OS 9 to
use OS X!! But: You can keep your OS 9.0.4 system,
have an OS 9.2.1 classic only system, and OS X on
the same partition. You'll be able to freely boot
between each. Bet you didn't know that! 12GB is enough,
depending on how much is left after you have all of
your software installed. If you don't like it, OS
X and OS 9.2.1 go in the trash. I can't see where
an update to Mac OS 9.2.1 can cause problems. It's
not a major update, despite the version number. There's
also no changes that should cause general software
compatibility problems. But to be safe, you can have
separate OS 9.x systems on the same HD. There is some
work on the setup, but after that, everything should
be easy to maintain. The Mac OS X purchase includes
a full version of Mac OS 9.2.1, not like the half
version that comes on the software restore disks with
new machines. The simple fact is that you don't have
to give up OS 9 to seriously start using and getting
used to OS X.
And we'd better get used to it —
it's the future like it or not.
Many don't like moving to new things.
I know many people who still use ancient versions
of software because they are afraid of moving to something
new. For instance, one friend still uses MS Works
3.0, eventhough he has Office 98 installed. He's tried
MS Word 98, but really had no intent of converting.
He didn't even bother to see if it's comparable in
features, or look at any of the features for that
matter.
Others genuinely can't adopt because
90% of their work applications don't run on OS X or
have similar counterparts. Or maybe their hardware
can't support it. I understand.
Using X
But those can adopt shouldn't be afraid
of change. When I got the Public Beta, it seemed strange
to me too. But I guess I wanted to get to know it
because I knew what was there and what it had to offer.
After a couple months of forcing myself to
stick with it, I finally understood it. At that point
I realized how antiquated OS 9 was and the ugly habits
I had from using it.
I also saw that trying to do work the
OS 9 way in OS X didn't work. Using OS X in the OS
X way, rather than in an OS 9 way, was, in the end,
much more efficient than using OS 9 the OS 9 way.
For instance, at first I would wait for applications
to finish loading on OS X before doing anything else.
This was a habit I got from OS 9. Now I'll commonly
fire up a few applications and start working on something
while they're loading. Also, I used to quit applications
when I was done with them for the moment, as in OS
9 open applications are memory and CPU. On OS X I
learned that I can leave all of them open and not
have to worry about memory or CPU usage. The OS is
smart enough to prioritize the applications that I'm
using. I also used to wait while applications were
working. Now I learned to plan my events ahead and
say, "I'll start Quicktime on this export, switch
to OmniWeb and start loading the 3 sites I want to
read, answer the email I just got, switch back to
OmniWeb and start reading the sites that are now loaded,
start loading a 4th site while still reading the 2nd,
switch back to QT to check over my export." I could
never do this in OS 9, I'd be at step one waiting
for the movie export to finish. At the beginning of
using OS X, I would have waited there needlessly,
out of habit.
So I think many go into OS X with their
OS 9 habits which don't mesh. Then they go running
back to OS 9 screaming exaggerated stories of their
short, no effort experience.
I'm honestly not an OS X or Unix zealot.
(Long sentence ahead!) To be honest, I've never purchased
a non-Mac OS computer, never purchased or downloaded
a Unix OS besides Mac OS X, have maybe used Unix for
100 hrs before Mac OS X, never seen NeXTStep or OpenStep,
have more Windows experience than Unix and Mac OS
X combined, am a closet Mac OS 7.6.1 zealot, was very
anti-Mac OS 8, was still running OS 7.6.1 long after
OS 9's release, laughed at FreeBSD users for their
lack of multimedia capabilities, scratched my head
at Windows looking for the attractive part of it that
warrants a 93% platform share, wondered why I had
to go 7 windows deep on Windows to change a network
setting, wondered what Apple was smoking when they
released OS 9, sad that After Dark didn't run on OS
9 and my new G4 didn't run less than OS 9, developed
a software package to run OS 8.6 on these G4s which
made many people happy, realized why Apple didn't
want OS 8.6 to run on these (USB stunk, slower than
OS 9 on G4), had a custom Kaleidoscope theme made
by me, was embarrassed when the system crashed in
front of people and played it down, used voice recognition
to impress PC users eventhough it was a time wasting
feature... Well, you get the point.
So all I, or we at Applelust, ask is
that OS X coverage be more balanced and be based in
informed opinions, not just opinions. What you have
to remember is that most people out there don't use
Photoshop everyday, or have to wait for Dreamweaver
before they can switch (both work fine in Classic
though). Most consumers, the ones Apple has been aiming
at since the iMac, can perfectly email, surf, write
a letter, print it, do some graphics work, and listen
to music (basically the only things they do) right
now in OS X. Most have very low-level needs in fact.
The problem is that those writing on the Mac Web about
OS X are not part of this group! They are the ones
that need Photoshop and the big name apps, that have
to worry about translating between text-types, and
doing color separations. These are the ones with the
loudest voice, and this is giving OS X an undeserved
reputation. Do your homework, and take what you read
with a grain of salt. The best way to learn is to
get your hands dirty and see if OS X will work for
YOU.
Mike Vannordsel
Mike is the author of UnivertX
a conversion utility, and Firewalk
X, the popular firewall for OS X.
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Fireworks
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The last app I needed to convert entirely to OS X delivers in upgrades and
features as well...
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product, Macromedia made sure that Dreamweaver MX was the killer app for web
design.
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III v.3 (8-16-02) Dr. Neale Monks. Carina's Voyager is the grandfather
of Mac planetarium programs, but does it still have what it takes to keep
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CodeWarrior
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look at Strata DVpro, Strata's pro-level non-linear editor for digital video.
Stargazer's
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to the big commercial astronomy software packages? Neale may have found one.
TheSky
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program for the Mac.
NI
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DX7 synthesizer for a test drive.
The
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encyclopaedia and space flight simulator all rolled into one - could The Digital
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After
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version of After Effects and likes what he sees.
InDesign
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part of our review of Adobe InDesign 2.0 for Mac OS X, Pierre Igot looks at
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Corel
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OmniGraffle
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Watson
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it's called Watson.
