I have a lot more respect for the ST now...

[mellis]

 

My point was the iPad OS is a version of a mobile phone OS it is NOT a full desktop OS like OSX/Linux/Windows. Had they put OSX in there then I would have had a modicum of respect for the product and its price, as it is yes it is just a toy and you are still tied to the Apps/iTunes store for your locked machine...fantastic

 

 

I'm not sure why you think that. All iOS devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) are running the Darwin variant of BSD UNIX ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system) ).

 

If you'd like to play with developing iOS software for one of these devices, you can see if it suits you by signing up for a free iOS developer account ( http://developer.apple.com/iphone/index.action ). Once you sign up, you can download some truly excellent development tools at no cost, and you can start playing with your app in the simulator. If you want to pursue putting the app on your own device, the cost is $99. For $99, you can create provisioning profiles for all of your personal iOS devices. Once provisioned, you can run any app you create on your device WITHOUT needing to have it approved by Apple. If you decide you want to distribute it to a wider audience, you must submit it to the app store and have it approved.

 

These terms seem quite generous to me.

[sack-c0s]

It's a common meme that all Apple do well is market things. It's rubbish of course - you don't get to be the most profitable computer company in the world by only being good at marketing. So here's the full disclosure: I work at Apple, and have done ever since they bought my small company 6 years ago. That being said, it means I think I have some insight into how the company works:

 

- User interface: Apple work harder than any company I have ever worked for at making the user interface work for both technically-orientated people as well as those not so familiar with computers. At Apple, user interface design doesn't mean slap-a-GUI-together... *everything* in the UI goes through multiple reviews, and everything has to be justified in a highly-critical interview-style meeting. Flashy effects are allowed, but *only* if they convey semantic information that helps users understand what's going on, not just flashy effects for effects sake. This just hasn't happened to that same extent anywhere else I've worked.

 

- Software engineering: Again, it comes down to hard work. Apple open sources it's own OS. They contribute to lots of OPen Source projects, and they're on the cutting edge of a lot of software engineering. Look up OpenCL, Grand Central Dispatch, LLVM, Clang, Core animation, Webkit, etc. And that's just the public stuff. I'm an engineer in one of the pro-apps, and there's a *huge* amount of effort goes into powerful apps that sell for $200 or so. When I used to work in the movie business, a "flame" suite from Discreet Logic would set you back a cool million dollars. Final Cut Pro does the same now for circa 200.

 

- Marketing: Yep, Apple does it well, but Apple's marketing budget is much less than most of its rivals. Apple gets lots of free marketing by virtue of the expectations people have for anything new from Apple, in turn making them keen to hear any news from Apple, in turn making the press go nuts over any Apple event. Look at that statement though, it doesn't stem from Apple hoodwinking people into buying stuff, it stems from Apple making things that people want to buy. That's the "secret". Of course, they want to buy it because of excellent user-interface design and software engineering ...

 

Staffing: Bottom line - Apple wants to make excellent products. In most places I've worked, that's just a management mantra, at Apple it's genuinely part of the company ethos. As a cynical Brit, this took some time to get used to - I couldn't quite believe it but it's true. Apple is one of the top 3 places on the planet (IMHO) to be a software engineer, they respect their staff, they pay well, they're generous with bonuses, but you work damned hard - which is fair enough, because the work is interesting and challenging.

 

Anyway, I didn't really want this to turn into an 'Apple is wonderful' screed, but it gets frustrating when people keep repeating that all Apple do is market stuff. The engineers here are the best I've ever worked alongside (which is saying something), most (like me) have a Ph.D or multiple degrees, and (again, IMHO), we as a company do good things.

 

What Apple doesn't do is compete where they don't think they'll win, so no mini-Mac-pro, no el-cheapo Mac at all, etc. I understand this frustrates people, but that's the way the company operates. Anyone is free to not buy the Mac if it upsets them that much, or if a competitor's product becomes more appealing because of that policy. As far as I can tell, Apple's just fine with not making that sale...

 

One last thing. I've written this post on the above-denigrated iPad, sitting in the back garden. Personally, I love the little thing, but each to his/her own.

 

Peace,

Simon

 

I didn't mean to knock Apple - I too have a slight bias in that direction seeing as I work for a company who Apple hold a stake in and who supply technology to them. I just think for it's time looking at the competition the Apple Mac was the weaker of the machines and the Apple that we know (and love?) today has come on in leaps and bounds from that point and the packages they produce is pretty damn good.

 

These days a mobile device is typically an ARM CPU, more often than not a PowerVR video chip and a lot of glue logic that binds it all together that is probably off-the-shelf. There's nothing much between an iPhone and any android handset out there on a pure hardware front. So why do I have an iPhone sat on my desk in front of me? Because it has a polished, consistent UI and it just plain feels good to use in comparison to anything else - the way android updates trickle out in a chaotic fashion makes me worry about being tied into a contract for 2 years for something that could end up with the wrong OS build after 2 months. Apple are getting it right these days. I think they probably got things right after a couple of iterations of the mac, went through a wilderness phase in the mid-90s, got their groove back with the iMac, then nailed it with the iPod, but I wouldn't say Apple have never put a foot wrong.

[eeun]

Like Nintendo who were almost bankrupt by Sony, they leaned hard on shitty pokemon and puke-o-vision original gameboy sales lol ditto with Apple and iPhone/iPod. The LC4 and then PowerPC Quadra years were very draining on Apple's finances. NEITHER Apple or Nintendo deserve to be here,

 

I'm sorry...if we're talking about bad business decisions, Atari reigns undisputed king amongst these rank amateurs of ineptitude.

 

it's all a style thing and inferior hardware.

 

Welcome to the real world.

[+wood_jl]

Without choosing sides - freely admitting shallow knowledge of and almost no expertise with much of this stuff - I declare this an intellectually-stimulating debate and I am really enjoying this. Bravo!

[OldAtarian]

Is this the point where a Mac fanboi points out that the bottom line is that Apple won?

 

Seriously, I always wondered if the real problem (well, it sold well, so maybe it wasn't a problem) was the idea of trying to CRAM all that new technology inside that tiny case WITH a monitor? That must have made hardware design a nightmare.

 

Personally, I would have preferred to see what Woz and the Apple II team might have been able to do if Apple didn't decide to go Mac, but oh well...

 

desiv

 

It's because Steve Jobs is an artist, not an engineer.

[OldAtarian]

And Apple did something right, what was it? Aggressive improvements of the Mac line perhaps (new models every year), but coming out earlier helped a lot too.

 

Giving Apple IIs away to schools years prior was a really wise move for Apple; it established their dominance as an "education" computer, familiarized the brand name with school administrators across America, etc. That, and the aggressive improvements! When the Mac II came out, I remember it was kind of eye-opening. Atari was considered a game machine brand, even if they'd have put a Cray in a little box. As for Commodore, I don't know.....Some schools used them (when they couldn't afford Apples) but not many.

 

It's funny how Tramiel let the arcade division go to Midway, discontinued all video game projects declaring "We're a computer company now!" and as soon as the NES is released scrambles to get the 7800 onto the market. So much for abolishing Atari's "games machine" image.

 

It's ironic that they dumped computers altogether to focus on the Jaguar, literally putting all their eggs in one basket, and when that failed it was the end, Tramiels "computer company" being brought down by the "games machines" that he hated so much. Games built Atari and games killed Atari.

Edited September 25, 2010 by OldAtarian

[OldAtarian]

You know, it is a ST forum, but I think all important US computer companies from the 80s would have had more success had they stayed with their original 8-bit platforms (Apple II, Atari 800, C64). I mean, not stayed in the 8-bit realm but expanded from there (Apple actually did that, but the IIGS was clearly never a priority).

Well, even if they had all gone over to the 65816, where do you go from there? There was never a successor to the 65816, so it would have just been another dead end. I think maybe a better option would have been for each company to include a "halfway" computer, that used a 68000, but also had a 6502 for compatibility with the previous generation. Apple actually did this via an add-on card. (Also, you might want to check out the C-65... it was never released, but there are some protos out there, and MESS can emulate it. It's a very advanced C-64 with some features that bring it awfully close to the Amiga line!)

 

I think the bigger problem for all three companies was trying to advance their 16-bit machines. Apple was the only one with a clear upgrade path. The Amiga kept throwing up roadblocks with incompatible expansion ports, and different graphics architectures that forced you to buy a whole new machine. The Atari ST seemed to hit a wall trying to grow beyond the 68000, and even when it did, the TT and Falcon seemed to only attract the hardcore fans of the platform. The fact that so much software was written directly for aging hardware made it much harder for the platforms to grow, while PC stuff was standardized enough that you could often just swap out a single part without affecting your older software, and without having to junk the whole machine and start over.

 

--Zero

 

There was never a successor to the 65816 because there were no customers for the 65816. The Super Nintendo and Apple IIGS were the two most prominent machines to use it. Had there been a larger market for the 65816 then there would have been a 32 bit successor, and in fact, there was a 65832 developed but never produced. Someone on 6502.org claims to have documentation of the chip.

 

http://forum.6502.org/viewtopic.php?t=1366

 

Scroll down to the post by TMorita

[+wood_jl]

And Apple did something right, what was it? Aggressive improvements of the Mac line perhaps (new models every year), but coming out earlier helped a lot too.

 

Giving Apple IIs away to schools years prior was a really wise move for Apple; it established their dominance as an "education" computer, familiarized the brand name with school administrators across America, etc. That, and the aggressive improvements! When the Mac II came out, I remember it was kind of eye-opening. Atari was considered a game machine brand, even if they'd have put a Cray in a little box. As for Commodore, I don't know.....Some schools used them (when they couldn't afford Apples) but not many.

 

It's funny how Tramiel let the arcade division go to Midway, discontinued all video game projects declaring "We're a computer company now!" and as soon as the NES is released scrambles to get the 7800 onto the market. So much for abolishing Atari's "games machine" image.

 

The dust hadn't settled from the shakedown that has since been called "the crash" of the videogames market. The NES was the instrument of recovery, but there was no way to know it at the time. Too bad hindsight didn't come until much later, so I can't blame Tramiel.

 

It's ironic that they dumped computers altogether to focus on the Jaguar, literally putting all their eggs in one basket, and when that failed it was the end, Tramiels "computer company" being brought down by the "games machines" that he hated so much. Games built Atari and games killed Atari.

 

What a last-ditch-effort, the Jag was. I can't for-sure blame them for this, either. What they might have done is beef up the PC-compatible line, but who would have known, back then? The Atari "PC4" specs out to be a nice machine for the time. From the time of the ST/Amiga to the demise of both, was tremendous change in the personal computer market. I don't think anybody in the time could have overestimated the change, so I can't really criticize them as such; I'm glad that from 1985-1990 they gave me something better than a Hercules or MDA graphics adapter. Bravo, ST (and Amiga, for that matter) people.

[Retro Rogue]

It's funny how Tramiel let the arcade division go to Midway, discontinued all video game projects declaring "We're a computer company now!" and as soon as the NES is released scrambles to get the 7800 onto the market. So much for abolishing Atari's "games machine" image.

 

 

Way way off on that. 1) Arcade division was kept by Warner and then sold to Namco, then an employee buyout, then back to Warner (TW Interactive), then finally to Midway in the mid 90's. 2) The discontinuing of all the projects is a rumor well discussed at AA already. That was simply not the case. The 7800 was Warner's property and stayed with them, with Jack/Warner/GCC entering in to negotiations over who owed GCC for MARIA's development, that lasted into 1985. 2600JR development also started up again right away that August of '84, Curt has the internal memos and emails. 3) Completely wrong on the NES, it's been well discussed as well.

 

 

 

Apple had unlimited resources AND was given the GUI OS from Xerox for free.

 

 

That's a bit missleading. They weren't given the GUI OS free from Xerox, what they were given was free access to the GUI OS's designers to ask questions on it's architecture and of course access to play around on it at Xerox. There was no code exchanged, Apple designed the Lisa's OS and the Mac's from scratch. And their designers are quite proud of that.

 

And in contrast, Atari Corp. purchased a full OS - GEM and CPM68K - which was then tooled specifically for the ST.

Edited September 25, 2010 by wgungfu

[desiv]

Seriously, I always wondered if the real problem (well, it sold well, so maybe it wasn't a problem) was the idea of trying to CRAM all that new technology inside that tiny case WITH a monitor? That must have made hardware design a nightmare.

It's because Steve Jobs is an artist, not an engineer.

 

True..

Funny, I was never really familiar with the IIgs, but I've just been watching some youtube vids on it..

 

That looks like it was actually a decent system. It's hard to imagine someone choosing a B/W small screen Mac over a IIgs with color and great sound...

 

Hmmmm.. Seems some people agreed. From the Wiki page:

The machine outsold all other Apple products, including the Macintosh, during its first year in production.

 

desiv

[OldAtarian]

As for the incompatibilities, the Mac went through those too, especially on the OS front. Seemed like every 6 months to a year there was a new machine, with a new OS, with a new goofy connection for a printer, etc. Even now you see that if you look at MacOSX 10.2 - 10.6. Literally machines that could accept an OS in one minor version weren't supported in the next one, especially when they went to intel processors. I'm not saying Commodore wouldn't have done this as well, I just think they weren't the only ones.

 

You might not like their numbering convention, but Mac OS X 10.2 (circa 2002) is a VERY different beast than Mac OS X 10.6 (current). You will find that there are roughly 18 months or so between 0.1 increments of Mac OS X, and all them are significant. The "minor versions" are the 0.0.x versions (e.g. 10.6.3), and those minor versions are supported for the hardware on which they originally delivered the major version (10.6, in this example).

 

I'm not asking you to like Mac OS X, but I think it is worthwhile to keep the facts straight.

Ok, even with what you said, you are saying that every 18 months the hardware is essentially being bricked, maybe 3 years at most. That is a serious problem considering how much you paying as a premium to have Mac products. Also, there are the constant hardware changes that literally send your investment to zero (or very close) as the coolness factor wears off. I am not saying PCs aren't like this either, but the rate is much slower and the replacement costs are far less, even for higher end machines.

 

My Powermac 7500 from 1995 runs OS X Leopard. It has a 1ghz G4, 1GB RAM and a Radeon 9200 video card. What's your 1995 DOS/Windows box doing now?

[akator]

My Powermac 7500 from 1995 runs OS X Leopard. It has a 1ghz G4, 1GB RAM and a Radeon 9200 video card.

 

That must be fun, considering the 7500 motherboard runs at 50 MHz. Putting a 1GHz G4 into a 7500 seems a little like shoehorning a 500 horsepower engine into a Yugo. Can't imagine that G4 upgrade was cheap, either.

 

How did you get 1GB of RAM into it? I've never heard of anyone getting over 512MB before.

[OldAtarian]

My Powermac 7500 from 1995 runs OS X Leopard. It has a 1ghz G4, 1GB RAM and a Radeon 9200 video card.

 

That must be fun, considering the 7500 motherboard runs at 50 MHz. Putting a 1GHz G4 into a 7500 seems a little like shoehorning a 500 horsepower engine into a Yugo. Can't imagine that G4 upgrade was cheap, either.

 

How did you get 1GB of RAM into it? I've never heard of anyone getting over 512MB before.

 

With these

 

http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/Upgrades.cfm?sort=pop&model=31&type=Memory&TI=0025&shoupgrds=Show+Upgrades

 

1gb in a 7500 is nothing, though, you can get up to 1.5gb in a 9500/9600.

 

 

And you obviously never saw the issue of Hot Rod magazine where they put a 500ci Cadillac engine into a Chevette.

Edited September 26, 2010 by OldAtarian

[+DarkLord]

And you obviously never saw the issue of Hot Rod magazine where they put a 500ci Cadillac engine into a Chevette.

 

Never had that issue, but once upon a time in my decadent youth,

I had a Coup DeVille with a 500 motor in it. Even in that big,

heavy tank of a vehicle, it pulled and ran good.

 

Not much for mileage though...what memories!

[carmel_andrews]

Someone mentioned the 65832 otherwise known as the terium (or was it terbium), well last time i checked WDC (western design centre) were still with us, so I guess they are working on perfecting it's design

 

Interesting point there is is that WDC now claim to be the worlds most successful manufacturer of 65xx and 65xxx compatible processors (overtaking the likes of MOS, Synertek and Rockwell) and also the worlds most successful 16bit version of the 6502 (65816)

 

Interesting though that the founder of WDC is one of the original designers of the MOS 6502 (William 'bill' Mensch)

[OldAtarian]

And you obviously never saw the issue of Hot Rod magazine where they put a 500ci Cadillac engine into a Chevette.

 

Never had that issue, but once upon a time in my decadent youth,

I had a Coup DeVille with a 500 motor in it. Even in that big,

heavy tank of a vehicle, it pulled and ran good.

 

Not much for mileage though...what memories!

 

I almost bought a 76 Coupe DeVille once but it had a blown rear main seal and poured oil everywhere. It wouldn't have been worth the cost to pull the motor just to replace a $5 seal.

 

My dad had a 77 Olds Vista Cruiser that he bought from a friend of mine who put a 425 Cadillac engine in it.