“It’s no longer possible to write a single app that takes advantage of the full range of Mac OS X features. Some APIs only work inside the Mac App Store. Others only work outside it. Presumably, this gap will widen as more new features are App Store-exclusive, while sandboxing places greater restrictions on what App Store apps are allowed to do.” Anybody surprised by this, here’s the clue stick. Please proceed to hit yourself with it.
I like Apple’s design and the Mac OS X architecture, but somehow I am quite happy to be a Windows/UNIX user.
We as users need to make enough pressure so that other vendors do not follow Apple’s footsteps.
I imagine that Apple’s dreamworld is similar to what Games Console developers enjoy. Where every single application has to go through a certification process, after being able to get an approval from the console vendor.
MS already announced a similar position. Windows 8 Metro applications will be available only through the app store, and cannot be installed by way of untrusted third parties.
Yup, sadly MS is heading down the same path – although, it might be that you can still install Metro applications outside of the store if you so desire (like you will be able to with legacy applications). Not sure though.
I heard that that was just for ARM client Win8, not for x86. Win8 ARM reportedly doesn’t let you run non-Metro apps (because they aren’t including the desktop interface at all), and as a separate constraint doesn’t let you sideload apps from places other than its app store.
On Win8 client for x86 they are including the desktop interface and letting you run apps for it, and are letting you install apps from other locations. They haven’t said one way or another whether Metro will run unsigned apps, or whether you will be able to provide signed apps from other places like you can now.
On Win8 server, x86 or not, they haven’t said anything about this subject at all. There’s a good chance that Win8 server won’t get Metro at all, only desktop and the CLI. They certainly will allow at least self-signed apps because most business software is written in-house.
It is a mix:
1) ARM is Metro only.
2) ARM machines (including low power laptops as well as tablets and phones) are boot loader locked so you cannot swap the OS.
3) Legacy apps can be loaded any way you like, but Metro apps are from the app store only.
So, if you buy a low power ARM laptop (a category that Ed Bott claims doesn’t matter since it doesn’t exist yet), you can only install Metro apps from the app store, and can not even swap out for Linux if you get sick of it.
I expected Apple to do this first, with the way that iOS went, but I was wrong.
Metro should be available on Server if you install the full server role with GUI shell, and also available for Remote Desktop clients.
The question was addressed about 47 minutes into this session.
Windows Server 8 apps must run without a GUI – learn more now
http://channel9.msdn.com/events/BUILD/BUILD2011/SAC-416T
It was mentioned that the build of Server that the presenters were using (seemingly the DP) did not include Metro because it was reserved for the Client unveiling, but it would be available in later Server builds.
That’s not the point of the change. The point is that they want control over the APIs that are being used. They want to be able to deprecate Carbon and UNIX APIs in favor of Cocoa. They want people to use ONLY the new APIs that are 99% share-able with iOS and that are not difficult to maintain in the following years.
Microsoft’s difficulty is that their APIs are 20 years old and they can’t clean up their act.
I like the idea to keep the APIs used to only the newer ones. That means that apps are written better and the OS is legacy free.
The APIs that are App Store only are App Store related so those don’t really count.
There are other ways of doing it, like when they dropped support for Carbon in Lion.
No need to have certain APIs AppStore only.
When did they drop support for Carbon in Lion? last time I checked Microsoft Office 2011 was still a predominantly a Carbon application along with Adobe’s Creative Suite too.
Actually it is so since Leopard that Cocoa APIs are only partially available in 64bit.
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin/Concep…
Huh?
64-bit Carbon was never released. Lion is still capable of running 32-bit applications, even those using Carbon. Nothing has significantly changed about the availability of the Carbon API with Lion.
How is that related to the original statement you made:
They have ceased furthering its development but it is still supported as so far as receiving critical updates such as addressing security vulnerabilities.
As for the original point of deprecating API’s without making them Mac AppStore only – given that there is only a single reference to a persons experience and so far all searches seem to be pointing to this one story I really question whether one is getting the full story.
Sandboxing and restrictions on the API’s one can use if one sells via the AppStore – how is this surprising? one of the first things Apple said was ‘no private API’s to be used’ then said they were going to make sandboxing mandatory (November) but later back-pedalled (now March) given that a significant number of programmers didn’t have the time, resources and critical parts of the Mac OS X API were off limits of which their software relied upon to function. Even then there are exceptions one can invoke and as long as you can justify it to the AppStore curators then you’re good to go.
As for iCloud – it is their service and the last thing they want are third parties screwing it up; if there are third parties going rogue they can trace if back and take corrective action. Don’t think it’ll happen in the future? just you wait, when Google and Microsoft’s own cloud offerings before more sophisticated I can almost assure you that there will be a set of restrictions in place when accessing their services.
As I’ve said in the past, I know that all the ‘cool kids’ are beating up on Apple but lets stand back, take a deep breath, sip a cup of tea, nibble on some shortbread and chill out for a moment.
Edited 2012-01-27 14:24 UTC
iCloud API is not App Store related, though.
Yes it is. iCloud is tied to the AppStore on both iOS and OS X. The mechanism, by definition, is curated. The fact is that there is no way that Apple is going to let unsanctioned apps put data on their iCloud servers, nor should we expect them to. They are not Dropbox, after all, nor do they claim to be.
Microsoft is cleaning up their act with the new WinRT APIs in Win8. Metro apps will only have limited access to legacy APIs, only the safe ones. No matter how Metro apps are written – native, .NET, Silverlight, HTML/JS – they will all use the same WinRT code, perhaps with idiomatic wrapper APIs but the same code.
I haven’t heard one way or the other whether Win8 desktop apps can use WinRT yet, as the non-UI APIs should apply to desktop apps too. That would be nice to see, and a desktop-usable subset of WinRT might be portable to Win7 as well.
Metro is just surface stuff. The big change is WinRT.
Microsoft touted WinRT as a ‘native subsystem’ in its own right since it was launched it has since my shown that this so-called ‘native subsystem’ is in actual fact little more than a shim sitting on top of win32 given the number of WinRT frameworks that are still referencing back to GDI for starters (haven’t Microsoft heard of their own in house built API’s known as DirectWrite/Direct2D?).
Then there is the issue of the desktop – the desktop isn’t going anywhere but when are Microsoft going to provide a native alternative to the 30 year old common control and dialogues that are sitting on top of old legacy API’s such as GDI? it has been almost 5 years and Microsoft still has no road map to move away from the old and move to the new.
Lets get one thing straight, I am not expecting them to throw away backwards compatibility but what do expect at the very least is for Windows to have a clear line drawn in the sand between what is legacy and what is the future (so developers know what parts of their own software stack need to be moved over to the new API’s) and more importantly for all the built in applications of Windows to be moved over to the new API’s. Sure, have common control and dialogues dll’s for backwards compatibility but there is no reason why explorer.exe shouldn’t be making a single reference to these legacy API’s nor should there be a reason for internet explorer to make any reference or Windows Media Player etc. etc.
It is time that Microsoft got its act together because so far to me it appears that everything they’ve done so far is half assed and half baked – a friday job where the absolutely minimal amount of works is done in a hope that no one will noticed the rotting piles underneath the whole edifice.
This only shows how little you know about WinRT.
WinRT is a new Windows personality, as OS/2, Posix and Win32 are. As such it is built on top of ntdll.dll.
The DirectX APIs are also COM based anyway, and have been recoded for WinRT. The WinRT DirectX is not 100% like the Win32 WinRT.
Since Direct2D, GDI is considered legacy and might be gone in future releases.
If it is a ‘Windows personality in its own right’ then how do you explain the dependencies linking back to Win32 API’s such as GDI? if it were a clean break from the past then shouldn’t you see WinRT making calls to Direct2D/DirectWrite instead of GDI? Either it is a subsystem in its own right that is implemented in a pretty half baked fashion or it is merely a shim – either way the end result is the same, they haven’t made a break from the past because either way WinRT is still dependent on win32 or at least parts of it.
Which means very little given that one expects these sorts of things announced by Microsoft themselves rather than speculation by those if us in the enthusiast community.
Edited 2012-01-27 14:03 UTC
They kept the parts around that made sense – or are you arguing Mac OS X wasn’t a clean break because it still kept things like QuickTime, Desk Accessories, and more, from the MacOS days aound?
You’ve failed to address the question as to why WinRT depends on GDI when there is Direct2D/DirectWrite available. Regarding Mac OS X, unlike Microsoft, they killed things off and didn’t pussy foot around when doing it where as Microsoft seems to be like the parent who is scared to make a decision believing that if they make the wrong one their children won’t love them any more.
Edited 2012-01-27 14:28 UTC
Where does it depend on GDI?
Have you coded a Windows 8 Metro application and checked the dll dependencies to assert such statement?
Sorry for the slow reply, a combination of work (I do night shifts) and I was trying to find the article – maybe I got confused between GDI and USER but it does go back to my question as to where WinRT is for desktop applications. To me it appears that Microsoft has abandoned the desktop in pursuit of ‘sticking it to Apple’ but doing very little to address the short comings when it comes to frameworks for desktop developers.
Here is one link: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/toolsforwinapps/threa…
Now don’t get me wrong, if Microsoft is pushing some of those libraries out of win32 into some other category so that both Win32 and WinRT relies on them then I can understand. For example if Microsoft has pushed user32.dll into part of the ‘Windows native’ layer then sure I can understand but so far what the poster is pointing out is that WinRT is still dependent on some pretty low level parts of Win32.
Edit: Here is another link that might be interesting: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/lixiong/archive/2011/12/05/retrospect-diffe…
So what is it? a subsystem in its own right? sits in between Win32 and Windows Native? it seems that even Microsoft’s own employees are having difficulties making heads or tales of it.
Edited 2012-01-28 13:43 UTC
This seems to be a lot of what ifs from people without Windows 8 experience.
Even the fact that the Microsoft guy does not know the correct facts does not surprise. As it is quite common in such big companies. I remember from my Nokia days, that besides my building, people rarely would know what our product was capable of.
Sure the stack trace shows some references to User32, but without code, is a wild guess to be able to understand why it appears there.
So far I have been following all Channel9 videos and MSDN articles about Windows 8 since the BUILD event, and I plan to eventually change my laptop OS to Windows 8 Developer edition.
Then I will be able to understand if what Microsoft tells is really true or not.
Upon further searching it appears that rationale behind the use of user32.dll comes down to this:
http://www.clouditproonline.com/content1/tabid/3591/catpath/windows…
All I can say is that it is quite depressing – nothing on the desktop side, Metro being pushed no matter how impractical it is for real world applications etc. I was sitting back wishing that maybe WinRT will be a native top to bottom, desktop and metro API that would really given Mac OS X a run for its money but it appears that once again we’re stuck with a half baked technology.
Thanks for looking this up, but I have my doubts that the Steve you quote, knows anything about Windows development, specially because of two issues:
– he gets contradicted in the forum thread by other guys;
– any Windows developer worth its salt, knows that the DOS and Win16 support is gone in the 64bit editions
As I said, I am currently in the process to start learning WinRT, so in a few weeks time I will be able to know how this really works.
But also that older applications won’t work any longer, so I’m not sure this would be such a good idea.
Maybe this won’t seem a big deal to people used to the $0.99 apps, but other people have made quite an investment in software, you know? Not to mention that some applications are no longer maintained and won’t receive an update — and can’t be easily replaced anyway.
RT.
Apple don’t tend to care. They care about getting cash off of you quick. TBH if you want a cross platform app … make it some sort of HTML 5 thing.
Apple are doing quite well especially in the business sector.
http://www.reghardware.com/2012/01/26/good_technology_shows_apple_d…
Pretty much every upper management I know is requesting iPads and iPhones. While Android is outselling iOS … most of the people that are using their devices on the net are using iOS devices.
BTW I have worked at one large UK charity and now a large UK gambling company.
Edited 2012-01-26 19:27 UTC
Yes, because history has shown that old apps run perfectly on new software and hardware. I personally have a big problem with legacy applications. They always keep some other bigger projects from evolving because they require some ancient part of the infrastructure that is in dire need of an upgrade to still be compatible. Wether we’re talking about TLS/SSL3 support, NTLMv2, case sensitivity in file systems or many others you’re looking for trouble if you don’t use somewhat recent software.
All software products make assumptions about the environment that are not always going to be valid. Old games didn’t check the DirectX version on your computer, they only checked if you ran Windows 98 or NT. The end result was that they refused to install on Windows XP, that had a newer DirectX, but was detected as Windows NT.
Old software can come with a 16bit installer that doesn’t run on a 64-bit Windows. Old software may not be compiled for 64-bit, so we need to drag a copy of all our libraries in both 32-bit and 64-bit. I would love to see 9 years after the first AMD64 chips came out that we can have a Windows or MacOS without any 32-bit components.
Virtualize! Make a VM with whatever version of the OS you need and run it anywhere you want. Can’t your MacBookPro with quad-core, 8-16GB of RAM and SSD handle a lousy VM?
I’m running 5-6 VMs regularly on my laptop and it still feels snappy.
I’ve also found VMs to be more reliable than installed OSs. It seems that the never-changing virtual hardware has better drivers than regular hardware. You can’t realistically expect that the NVidia drivers that support hundreds of video card configurations and chips are as reliable as a VMWare driver supporting only one virtual VGA card.
How’s the kool-aid tasting today?
Hahahahaha
You actually believe this
They obviously want to have tight quality control over applications. The downside is that developers freedom is considerably reduced.
I don’t really mind though, as long as apple doesn’t do all it can to make itself impossible to avoid the way microsoft did.
I like the idea to keep the APIs used to only the newer ones. That means that apps are written better and the OS is legacy free.
The other side of that coin is an endless treadmill of buying new software when the API Gods deem the next set of culling necessary. Plus accepting that persons other than you decide what is possible when and where on a device you own and not you yourself.
Cushy convenience or empowering self-determination. Tough choice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPgCHsoU2wU
MacOS X is UNIX.
a UNIX
a schizophrenic UNIX
How much time is left until Apple will lock the bootloader on Macs making necessary to jailbreak/root the device if you want to install Windows or Linux or BSD ?
Isn’t being able to run Windows via Boot Camp or Parallels a selling point for Intel Macs? How many people buy Macs and don’t run OS X as the primary OS?
That’s me
I have 3 Macs and if they ever remove Boot Camp they will definitely loose me as a customer… I really just like the hardware.
To me OSX is like a really high-end Belgium Ale. I drink it occasionally and when I do I really enjoy it, but I can’t handle it every damn day. Most of the time I just want a Bud…
I’ve been a happy OSX user for years. But it seems more and more likely like this will be my last Mac.
Eventually Apple will only allow apps through the app store. I can understand it from a business point of view but I’m sure as hell not jumping on that bandwagon
Apple places a lot of importance on the user experience (note: user /= developer). That’s why they are where they are! (see recent market cap #’s) The app stores (iOS & OSX) gives Apple tighter control of the user experience. People want a consistent, intuitive interface that does no have a lot of crap on it or malware in it. More and more, John Q. Public, is sick of the windows universe and see the mac as a viable alternative and for the vast majority of individuals, it is! Customization, hacking or playing under the hood is of little or no consequence to them (or any manufacture for that mater).
This is just another logical step in Apples progression.
Not convincing. The fact that users can’t simply connect iPad to a USB doesn’t look like a great experience to me (and it’s crippled by design obviously).
This is the reason why I never got a second iPhone. As good a device as it is, the fact that I have no control over the way I transfer my files to it is a major con. I don’t use iTunes and I sure as hell am not going to purchase a copy of what I already have from it just so it can play on my phone.
I have no qualms using iTunes to play my media on the actual phone, but it’s daft to expect me to have iTunes installed on my Linux/BSD boxes (and no, I don’t see using some Mono-infested gtkpod app as a viable solution).
Well, the good thing about iOS5 is that you don’t need a PC/Mac with iTunes to update the phone, at least. But please, let me transfer my ripped/encoded tunes the way I want!!
[/rant] … sorry
Edited 2012-01-27 02:18 UTC
didn’t see any mono in gtkpod
More and more, John Q. Public, is sick of the windows universe and see the mac as a viable alternative and for the vast majority of individuals, it is!
For now. The problem isn’t that John Q. Public doesn’t tinker, so the Mac platform doesn’t need tinker options. The problem here is that Apple is slowly, but actively putting controls in place that puts Apple in the driver seat as the sole driver.
This is the difference between owning a car and getting a taxi. Both get you to your destination, but the car gives you full freedom to determine the way you want to get to a place, at the expense of a little personal effort. The taxi is very convenient, but you only get to state your destination and you pay handsomely for the privilege of being driven.
No matter how chushy Apple makes the vice, the moment the cushioning is unable to mask the pressure, the pinch will be felt. At what point does John Q. Public notice that they’ve traded one undesirable cage for another undesirable, but pretty gilded cage?
Keep in mind that the percentage of people that tinker is extremely low and of no concern to Apples bottom line. People in general are more interested in applications and couldn’t care less about tinkering.
Obviously not being able to connect to a USB device is not important to most people. Personally with the WiFi syncing I don’t care either.
Look to the car industry as a corollary… People use to tinker with their cars a lot (including me), now cars are so complicated you can’t work on one with out specific training… so very few people tinker anymore. The same is happening to the PC industry, it’s maturing.
After getting an iPad (1st gen) my time on my Mac has decreased by about 80%. I use to hack all the time (Linux then FBSD) now I don’t have the time or inkling because I have specific tasks to accomplish (including three kids) and hacking isn’t one of them.
Apple doesn’t force you into their ecosystem, you have a choice. I don’t see the restrictions as being all that constraining to what I want to do, so I put up with it. And “it just works” seems to be what JQP is after as well as me.
They might not abandon the people that kept the company alive so readily. All it takes is another few too complicated product lines and the company is back at square one. No one lives forever.
True, but what your asking is for them to fundamentally change from what got them to be the largest company in America (market cap). You can’t really believe they would do that, can you?
Apple never gets tired to take away as much control from users as possible. I wonder if Apple’s users will ever get tired of it?
Coming soon, a new revolutionary device from Apple. Nothing before has ever quite encapsulated the user experience like this. Nothing has let us interact with your money– I mean… you with your content… quite this way before. The new iDesk. We looked a the iPhone, and thought “What if we made it bigger? We gave you the iPad, you could hold the internet in your hands. We looked at the iPad again, and thought “Can we do it again?” With the iDesk’s new 26 inch screen, you can hold the internet in your hands, on your desk!
*cough*iSurface*cough*
Search iMat for some pictures.
Edited 2012-01-26 21:41 UTC
iWayrobbery, automatically skims 30% off your bank balance every month so everyone gets to feel like a developer or musician.
Maybe Apple can revive the iSmell device. Yes, that’s a real product and that is what they called it. Ah, the good old days of the dotcom boom.
I thought it was pretty clear at this point that, yes, they do have plans to do what you just described. It will not be an iDesk, but an iTV.