What should Leopard steal from Vista?

[discodave]

I get it, but you don't quite get how computers work... the technology may /improve/ but it still must fall into one of the three categories above.

Classic is a virtualization technology, for example. Rosetta is sort of the opposite of API Emulation, where the APIs are the same, but you need to translate the executable (and doesn't apply to a situation of Windows on OS X).

The 'problem' of running Windows apps on OS X is actually pretty simple one at a high-level, but horribly complicated in implementation.

You have an executable file (app.exe) that you want to run. It differs from an OS X executable (app.app) in two ways:

1) The format of the file, and how code, data, and links to libraries work.

2) The sets of libraries that it links against, and how it talks to the OS.

#1 is relatively easy to solve. It has been solved numerous times. #2 is the harder part. How do we handle #2?

Well, we can replace the libraries themselves (API Emulation). Wine already does this, but doesn't do it very well, and there are so many APIs that it is a fool's errand to take this route. But the up-shot is that you can make an app run natively in OS X without the need for Windows at all. Odds are that compatibility here will be horrible.

We can replace what the libraries talk to (can be both API emulation and virtualization, depending on the tactic used). However, this is VERY tricky, as an OS tends to be huge. Drivers in the Windows kernel define new interfaces that libraries talk to. So, not only are you trying to write a new kernel that runs on top of OS X, but you need to emulate all the drivers a Windows system might need. You won't get 100% app compatibility this way, either. It also requires that you copy files from Windows itself to work.

We can just take the libraries, and everything attached to them, and run them in a box. This is virtualization. With a little more effort (custom drivers, and the like), we can make virtualization seem pretty native, a la Parallel's coherence mode. This requires files from Windows to work, but it is also the best way to get near-100% compatibility.

It isn't like there is some magical way to break out of this. Classic was interesting because it used virtualization in a new way to make apps seem native. Rosetta is interesting, but at the same time, not much different from the old 68k emulator during the PPC switch.

There are lots of different ways to interpret and attack this problem, but in the end, it is all some form of Virtualization or API Emulation (or even a hybrid). Yes, there will be new ways to run Windows on OS X... but they will all be evolutions of the core principles (just like we get new programming languages, but they are still built on the same core principles and building blocks as all languages).

Arrogant, and quite simply incorrect. Well not all of it. However to say that something new cannot be invented is absolute BS. Do not tell me I know nothing about how computers work, I likely know more than you know.

Please don't give me another essay on how the current systems work, I explained in my first post that I already knew about them and was talking about something previously undiscovered.

Calm down your arrogance a little, please.

 

[dylan]

Per app volume control.

An ideal implementation would be shift+volume keys to only affect the current app. The apps windows would dim as the volume is lowered and would be black when the volume is muted for feedback. They would, of course, return to the regular brightness after a second.

 

[View]

"OSX" Genuine Advantage

 

[bloodycape]

The ability to add printers. I find it is easier to add usb and network printers on XP and specially vista.

 

[Dustman]

I kinda like how in vista, when there is an important warning that the operating system wants u to see (like cancel or allow ) that the whole screen dims to grey except for that one window, drawing in your eye. sounds like something apple would have come up with

 

[a456]

USERS AND THEIR MONEY

 

[Dustman]

USERS AND THEIR MONEY

pfft, give it time

 

[roland.g]

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

However, I would like to see the finder improved with a double finder window interface. So you can have two sets of column or folder/carrot view or icon view windows so that I can navigate to a from folder as well as to a to folder all in one split pane window, with a slider for adjusting relative pane size. Then I can move items from one folder to another easily without spring loading other folders and stuff like that. If I need to change either location easy to do as normal and continue on moving files.

I often find myself making two finder windows, each half the screen, either wide and short, or tall and narrow to accomplish this. It would be nice to have this in one window.

 

[clevin]

I often find myself making two finder windows, each half the screen, either wide and short, or tall and narrow to accomplish this. It would be nice to have this in one window.

there is an app called xfolders, exactly meet your need.

 

[Dustman]

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

However, I would like to see the finder improved with a double finder window interface. So you can have two sets of column or folder/carrot view or icon view windows so that I can navigate to a from folder as well as to a to folder all in one split pane window, with a slider for adjusting relative pane size. Then I can move items from one folder to another easily without spring loading other folders and stuff like that. If I need to change either location easy to do as normal and continue on moving files.

I often find myself making two finder windows, each half the screen, either wide and short, or tall and narrow to accomplish this. It would be nice to have this in one window.

u must have a rather large monitor.. that would be rather pointless on my 15inch crt hahah

 

[sushi]

The user base!

Succinctly put!

 

[ata]

- Microsoft Paint.
- Notepad.
- The ability to make it look like an ugly decade-old version of itself.
- The seven (?) different editions all but one of which are arbitrarily and artificially crippled in order to justify making the higher-level editions more expensive. (How can Apple compete if they don't have an edition called "Ultimate"? All they need to do is jack up the price a couple hundred dollars and release six less-expensive versions with various features disabled!)
- If you're like me, you're still mad at Apple for ceasing to bundle Mac IE 5. They should restore it, even if it's not going to be updated and always has to run in Rosetta.
- Plus, I'm sick of how every new version of OS X works even better than the previous on most existing hardware. Every new release should require substantial hardware upgrades.
- OS X doesn't have enough "wizards". It's not "enterprisey" enough. In OS X, to install a program, you just drag it to your Applications folder -- how unprofessional! Windows has supported unnecessarily long, modal, condescending installation processes for over a decade now. Grow up, Apple!
- OS X should have all its native software run in a virtual machine, like .NET does. OS X is not slow enough yet.
- OS-level (or, even better, hardware-level) DRM support for all applications! We need them to protect us from ourselves, after all!
- Notifications of new things detected by the system. How am I supposed to know if I just plugged in a scanner if it doesn't pop up a little box to tell me?!
- Why have submenus show up immediately if you can have them take half a second to fade in?
- Apple should inconvenience their legitimate paying users and only slightly delay 'pirates' by including an easily circumvented "Genuine Advantage" system.
- Apple's security practices are rather disrespectful toward the antivirus software industry. People should have to pay extra to secure their operating system.
- Apple should try to hire some of Microsoft's legendary graphic designers and user interface architects away from them.
- This is a criticism of Microsoft, actually: they should bring back the little dog who would talk with speech balloons in Windows XP's search window. It's much harder to search your hard drive if you're not assisted by an infantilizing cartoon character. Then Apple should steal it. Maybe it could be a little talking apple. Or a talking leopard!

 

[Krevnik]

Arrogant, and quite simply incorrect. Well not all of it. However to say that something new cannot be invented is absolute BS. Do not tell me I know nothing about how computers work, I likely know more than you know.

Please don't give me another essay on how the current systems work, I explained in my first post that I already knew about them and was talking about something previously undiscovered.

Calm down your arrogance a little, please.

Calm down yours, and I will calm down mine. If you want to get into an authority waving fight... feel free to PM me, and you can get a copy of my resume and my recent (shipped) projects I have finished for my current employer. I am a lot closer to this sort of technology than you assume, working with it first-hand.

Not only is it arrogant to assume that technology will not advance, it is also arrogant to assume technology will break through certain barriers without help from the hardware side of things. Even hardware won't save you from having to deal with a massive moving target of APIs, or the large bloated mess that is called an OS. You cannot remove Windows from the app and expect very high compatibility, no matter the technique. Any API can potentially have behaviors not clearly stated, and any app could be depending on that particular behavior, and you have no way of knowing. Any app that does that will /need/ the original libraries, as-is, to function correctly.

 

[roland.g]

u must have a rather large monitor.. that would be rather pointless on my 15inch crt hahah

I have a 19" CRT. And I'm sorry you're still using a 15" CRT.

I want a 23" ACD but not a Mac Pro and won't be keeping my Mini past WWDC. So at that point it will either be a 24" iMac or a 15" MBP (or MacBook) and a 23" ACD unless Apple surprises us with a midrange tower.