Less viable for consumers? But the Mac's now more compatible with the rest of the computing world than it's ever been
I'd love for someone with a greater knowledge than I to correct me, but from what I know, I don't think it's possible to do what the Mac does using existing technologies. At the very least, you're talking about significant changes to how the current toolkits do things.
As I mentioned, the GUI is wholly dependent on the capabilities of the technology it's built on. Why re-write what the Mac's already got? Also as I said before, even if Apple did take the time and effort to get Linux toolkits to provide similar services as Carbon and Cocoa, you've still got to re-write all those existing Linux programs to take advantage of these new services. Witness the friction between the KDE and GNOME camps. Massive duplication of effort, interoperability problems (why does my GTK+ app behave funny in KDE?, etc). This is great for the OSS style of gradual evolution, but absolute madness for a company to jump into and say: "Hey! We've got this cool system, now everyone re-write their apps for it!"
You could end up with a Linux system that superficially resembles OS X, but the 'linux technology' to do what the Mac does doesn't exist. And if Apple wrote it, there's no guarantee anyone else would use it. OS X is much more than a pretty interface -- it's the result of a phenomenal amount of development since 1988. Yep -- that's how old the concepts that drive OS X are.
If they can make the first consumer friendly Linux distro, thats big business we're talking about there.
Functionality-wise, and for desktop use, what does Linux offer that OS X cannot provide? Of course, I paid a heap of cash for my Mac -- just like I have on my PCs. But until Linux offers exactly the workflow and user interaction that Mac OS X does for free, then I still feel it's money well spent
I agree that it is currently as easy as it has ever been to port apps from Linux to OS X. However, once Apples market share has dropped below a certain critical point (say 1%), software companies wont bother porting regadless of the ease.
Firstly, commercial apps for OS X make quite a bit of cash -- high-margin products like Adobe CS products for instance. Remember also that broad market share figures don't mean a thing regrading software sales. Sure, the PC market is massivley greater than the Mac. But only a small percentage of PC users would shell out the money for the full Adobe Creative Suite. However, I'd imagine quite a significant proportion of Mac users do.
Also, every example I gave of software that has been ported to the Mac was open source, and performed by individuals or organisations, or just plain talented Mac users. Porting from Linux to OS X isn't just 'easy as it's ever been', but will soon become
trivial. Core Linux (or should I say, *nix-world) technologies are here right now on the Mac as I listed earlier -- X11, Qt, Tcl, GTK+, perl, the list goes on). Visit
Fink and you'll find 3527 GNU/Linux / OSS / *nix packages for Mac OS X. They even install using the Debian Linux 'apt' system. I'm not 100% on this, but with these components in place, UNIX developers may even end up with OS X compatibility 'for free'.
Additionally, once Linux is mainstream not all the software will be free.
I love Linux, but that's quite a jump to make
But heading down the hypothetical brick road...
Currently most software for linux is also opensourse. So any developer with the inclination to do so could port a Linux app (eg. Openoffice) to the Mac without too many problems. However, when large companies like Adobe and Macromedia get into the act they will have to decide whether to support the Mac or not. In many cases the will decided not too.
Macromedia and Adobe already support the Mac, but in this future where Linux is mainstream and commercially exploitable on the desktop, it's equally suggestable that OS X's unix layer was mature enough that Macromedia and Adobe would get OS X compatibility for almost zero outlay. Remember that Market Share != User Base. There's still tens of millions of people with Macs on their desktops
right now.
However, if Macs are running a custom version of Linux (custom to the extent that the interface has been customised using standard Linux technologies) any Linux compatible software will work on the Mac. This will make it a viable platform for anyone looking for a Linux machine (there will be a lot of these guys in the future).
It's already a viable platform for anyone looking for a Linux machine
Ok, that's a little flippant. But in some ways it's true. I'll also say again that the Mac interface could not be implemented in Linux using what they've already got. Remember: Linux is a *kernel*, not an operating system. The rest of what makes up a Linux distribution is pretty much runnable on a Mac right now.
I would also like to comment on the posts saying that profitability is important, not market share. I hope you realize that the two are completely linked. The only way that tha Mac can stay profitable is if there is a decent selection of software for it. Very few people will shell out $3000 for a machine so that they can run OS X, iApps, and a handfull of Apple pro applications.
Agreed. And I see no sign of OS X software drying up. The Mac software scene is more vital now than it was when I switched, and shows no sign of slowing (beyond Adobe culling a few apps that couldn't compete with other apps on the Mac ... Premiere vs. Final Cut Pro for example. I wholly believe the only reason Premiere's available on Windows is that Final Cut Pro *isn't* available on Windows! If it was, it'd wipe out Premiere just as it's done on the Mac).
The Mac is much, much more than the iApps. But they're very nice to have as well
It was recently announced (by some rather credible surveys) that Linux now has a larger installed userbase worldwide than the Mac. So if you dont think its starting to become a viable platform, you better re evaluate your position on the Mac as well.
To use a bit of an anecdote here: Apple is also the highest selling (by unit volume) commercial UNIX vendor. They sell a few hundred thousand UNIX systems a quarter.
The primary impitus for Linux right now is comming from Governments and Companies. Governments, particularly non US, are very weary of being dependant on an American company. There is a major issue of trust involved here. The Chinese, in particular, have adopted Linux as the standard OS for their government and are pushing it very aggressively in the general population (and you know how aggressive the Chinese government can be).
Partially true, I feel. More likely, is governments like the
price tag and the licencing. Linux (well, many unixes) make excellent learning tools. Unix and Free/Open Source apps also give the kind of education that Windows cannot. It shows you how things work rather than which boxes to click. But explain to me how China adopting Linux for nationalist reasons will affect Apple? Is this massive Chinese Linux userbase going to go out and buy Macromedia Dreamworks, thus causing Macromedia to abandon the Mac for Linux? Or (more likely) are Chinese developers going to be contributing to apps such as the Gimp, which runs just
fine on OS X.
I also believe that Linux will really take off in India. The Indians are in the process of becomming worldwide software giants. It is only a matter of time before they start churning out quality Linux distros.
Excellent! The more people working on good Unix software the better! It'll run great on our Macs.
One of the advangages Linux has is that it is completely customizable. Particularly in non western countries, using Windows or Mac OS can be a hassle due to language barrier. With Linux however, the distro can be customized to meet the regional needs of any particular country. It can even be customized for different professions and devices.
The Mac has (for the most part, albeit with a few annoying exceptions) very good internationalisation. The interface doesn't seem to support every language, but the input methods and fonts are a dream to use. Building compound characters with common-sense keystrokes is pretty neat, although I've not used this frequently enough to comment further first-hand.
Also, absolutely anyone can internationalise any Cocoa application. Just open up the app's .nib file in Interface Builder and hack away. Plently of people have released language packs for existing apps that Apple didn't wholly internationalise.
Oh, and Linux apps (at least those running within X) will preserve their own internationalisation within OS X, I believe.
Anyway, I dont want this to turn into an endless rant about Linux, however I am just trying to show that it will be the next big thing. The Chinese and Indians combined right now have a population of over two billion and a middle class of about 300 million. This is just two countries we are talking about here. If you don't think Linux is going to take over, youre dreaming. Apple may actually be in a better position in this new world if they play their cards right (and no OS X will not be good enough).
I still fail to see how OS X isn't 'good enough'. If I cared about what the majority of other users were using, I wouldn't be using a Mac
Apple are embracing the *nix world with OS X. It's a nice thought that not only is every new Mac running open-source code, but that Apple have also provided code for things like the Konqueror browser, in every distribution of KDE.
