The last one is always a good point. I probably should reread Medina's book too since I left a sentence midway on my original post.
(something about multitasking...) Btw, there's a good dvd version of the book too as well as website.
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Any sign that the OS X team has taken it's head out of it's behind in ML?
- Thread starter blow45
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(something about multitasking...) Btw, there's a good dvd version of the book too as well as website.I'm not attacking "other users' real os problems with sarcasm", i just hear the same thing from the same users constantly.
Apple is making better software in my opinion, just not yours.
I bought AAPL at $210 a share. Your damn right I like Apple. Apple makes money thats what good companies do. Me, my family, and friends don't deserve Apple's money, they earned it, we didn't.
I can't really wade through the whole topic, but I wanted to comment on one part of the starting rant:
Anyway, the very fact that CoreStorage exists (and that Apple has file-system specialists to work on it) implies that they have much more planned. After all, whole-disk encryption, as much as I love the feature, isn't really a big selling point for a consumer OS, especially when FileVault 1 worked just fine for the majority of users. Sure, it had its flaws, but instead of trying to hack on more improvements to it Apple decided to create the barebones of a logical volume manager and handle encryption at the volume level; I don't think they'd have bothered doing that unless they had bigger plans beyond replacing disk images-based FileVault encryption.
While the file-system may actually remain HFS+ in practice, if they do extend to a full-fledged volume manager then we may see file (or rather block) integrity features, compression, and other goodies. After all, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with HFS+ as a file-system, especially if a volume manager can add the integrity, encryption and other features it needs.
Regardless of what exactly they're planning; be it full volume manager or all-new file-system, or both, neither is something that can just be rushed out. As far as I can tell Apple was trying for ZFS support all the way up until Snow Leopard, so the fact that they have CoreStorage ready to handle encryption for Lion is pretty significant progress, as something as important volume management needs to be heavily tested, as even the smallest bug could mean the loss of every piece of data you have.
It's clear that Mountain Lion is probably too early to see anything new from CoreStorage, I believe its on the way. Another interesting piece of information is the fact that CoreStorage doesn't quite work with AppleRAID; it's possible to make a logical volume from one, but it requires a little trickery, but to me this implies that Apple has its sights on replacing AppleRAID eventually.
If you've followed the ZFS thing then you'll know why Apple hasn't been able to add it. However, there is clear evidence that Apple may have something on the way, as it's not in their best interests to remain with the venerable HFS+ regardless of their real market, as a new file system could probably optimise better for SSD's, handle backups more seamlessly, and also maintain file integrity; as files get bigger and drives get denser, file-integrity becomes more and more important so it's not like Apple can just ignore it.
Anyway, the very fact that CoreStorage exists (and that Apple has file-system specialists to work on it) implies that they have much more planned. After all, whole-disk encryption, as much as I love the feature, isn't really a big selling point for a consumer OS, especially when FileVault 1 worked just fine for the majority of users. Sure, it had its flaws, but instead of trying to hack on more improvements to it Apple decided to create the barebones of a logical volume manager and handle encryption at the volume level; I don't think they'd have bothered doing that unless they had bigger plans beyond replacing disk images-based FileVault encryption.
While the file-system may actually remain HFS+ in practice, if they do extend to a full-fledged volume manager then we may see file (or rather block) integrity features, compression, and other goodies. After all, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with HFS+ as a file-system, especially if a volume manager can add the integrity, encryption and other features it needs.
Regardless of what exactly they're planning; be it full volume manager or all-new file-system, or both, neither is something that can just be rushed out. As far as I can tell Apple was trying for ZFS support all the way up until Snow Leopard, so the fact that they have CoreStorage ready to handle encryption for Lion is pretty significant progress, as something as important volume management needs to be heavily tested, as even the smallest bug could mean the loss of every piece of data you have.
It's clear that Mountain Lion is probably too early to see anything new from CoreStorage, I believe its on the way. Another interesting piece of information is the fact that CoreStorage doesn't quite work with AppleRAID; it's possible to make a logical volume from one, but it requires a little trickery, but to me this implies that Apple has its sights on replacing AppleRAID eventually.
Thanks for the informative post, I enjoyed reading it.
Yup I 've followed the zfs debacle but I can't say apple ever provided a satisfactory answer as to why it didn't happen. What probably did happen was that sun asked apple for compensation and apple asked for exclusivity and support, and the things got stuck on the exclusivity bit. Some people at apple I remember reading rationalized this away as zfs being too bandwidth costly for the os x kernel to handle well anyway and not worth the effort for anything but the server market and of no benefit to the "average" user, whatever that might mean, if they could implement some features of the fs such as instantaneous snapshots and clones as say "versions" on a top layer.
You have an optimistic take on what apple might be doing, and there are some indications that they might be working on something, I hope you are right, because whatever they are working in terms of a fs is by now overdue.
I have to disagree however that whole disk encryption is not a big selling point for a consumer os, it's not a big selling point for an os that sells to soccer moms mostly, but to pros or for that matter anyone valuing a secure quality os backbone it is. And it was long overdue as filevault 1 had a lot of problems in terms of security. At least we got some computer technology with lion too, sadly on an area where open source third party solutions such as truecrypt worked just fine. Pity though lion hasn't done much in terms of core os work such as memory management, and you can tell. You can also tell not enough people are involved with its development.
Yup I 've followed the zfs debacle but I can't say apple ever provided a satisfactory answer as to why it didn't happen. What probably did happen was that sun asked apple for compensation and apple asked for exclusivity and support, and the things got stuck on the exclusivity bit. Some people at apple I remember reading rationalized this away as zfs being too bandwidth costly for the os x kernel to handle well anyway and not worth the effort for anything but the server market and of no benefit to the "average" user, whatever that might mean, if they could implement some features of the fs such as instantaneous snapshots and clones as say "versions" on a top layer.
You have an optimistic take on what apple might be doing, and there are some indications that they might be working on something, I hope you are right, because whatever they are working in terms of a fs is by now overdue.
I have to disagree however that whole disk encryption is not a big selling point for a consumer os, it's not a big selling point for an os that sells to soccer moms mostly, but to pros or for that matter anyone valuing a secure quality os backbone it is. And it was long overdue as filevault 1 had a lot of problems in terms of security. At least we got some computer technology with lion too, sadly on an area where open source third party solutions such as truecrypt worked just fine. Pity though lion hasn't done much in terms of core os work such as memory management, and you can tell. You can also tell not enough people are involved with its development.
Dude, If you don't get why HFS is bad and desperatley in need of replacement, you're not even worth my time tbh.
My biggest beef with OSX is the inconsistency in UI design. Some of the built-in programs go the route of iTunes toolbars/icons, simplified and monochromatic... while some still have hold-overs from older versions of OS9/X, more detailed and colorful.
The 'brushed metal' look is overused... something like Safari's toolbar, bookmark bar and tab bar is nothing but a sea of gray, gray, gray. Also, some UI elements are outright microscopic on a monitor of average resolution (23", 1920 x 1080) -- like the formatting bar in Mail messages or in TextEdit.
The 'brushed metal' look is overused... something like Safari's toolbar, bookmark bar and tab bar is nothing but a sea of gray, gray, gray. Also, some UI elements are outright microscopic on a monitor of average resolution (23", 1920 x 1080) -- like the formatting bar in Mail messages or in TextEdit.
If you think HFS+ (Journaled) is such a bad FS, erase all your HFS+ formatted disks and use ZFS/NTFS! Thank you very much! ;-)
Lol, how about you read up on HFS, here's a great link;
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7/mac-os-x-10-7/12#hfs-problems
the link doesn't seem to be working right now, but I highly doubt Arstechnica deleted it, probably server maintenance.
That wasn't quite what I meant; what I was trying to get at was that with FileVault 1 we already had user-folder encryption, which is all the majority of users would ever really need in practise. It definitely had its problems, but Apple could have spent a smaller amount of time tweaking it to make it more efficient, easier to backup etc. Instead they went along the more significant route of CoreStorage with full-disk encryption.
It's kind of evidenced by the fact that the iOS features are the ones that get all the attention, rather than FileVault 2, since it's essentially a feature that we already kind of had. It was my main reason for upgrading, but probably not for the majority of consumers who may not have appreciated the real degree of difference between the two features, only that it was a little bit easier to use.
Seems to me you should just use Linux if you don't want a "nanny OS". Windows/OSX have always been consumer OS'es. Linux on the other hand is for the people who actually want total control of everything.
I disagree, a commercial os doesn't have to be a nanny dumbed down os. OS X was certainly not a nanny dumbed down os in previous versions.
I was using ubuntu for quite some time, I still have it installed in one machine I own, but let's be honest here, if one doesn't have enough capital for os development which is the case with every linux distro it's close to impossible to maintain a proper os without offloading the work to the user or the community. (btw, even if you do have enormous amounts of capital it's not beyond an os manufacturer to offload the work to the user or the community as showcased by the considerable debugging efforts we've been doing for apple with lion...)
Sadly linux hasn't developed to what we were hoping it would, maybe if google pick it up and do an android for the desktop/notebook segment (and not chrome os) it will have some future in the mainstream. At this stage I really can't rely on linux for my daily productivity. One needs to run office apps, one needs to run commercial apps, one needs to have a guarantee there will be a driver for a device, hard disk, camera, nas, etc. etc. they buy...at least I do.
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swingerofbirch
macrumors 68040
It's not that they have their head in their as*, they literally lost their head: it was Bertrand Serlet.
Yeah but I don't think he was the great "father of OS X" that Serlet was. I always figured when Serlet left it meant OS X was now second class within Apple and he saw the writing on the wall.
Would you want to stay at a place where your "life's work" was now sidelined and subjugated to a mobile consumer product?
Yes. Desktop computers are boring. Years ago we had more upstarts:
AIM - Apple, IBM and Motorola pushing PowerPC RISC based computing
You had the high hope for Exponential
Or even the Elbrus technology
Then it all died and became the Intel roadshow. ARM is the only credible threat to Intel right now and their primarily mobile and that's where the money is thus software/hardware development.
Of course not, one can't stay to see OS X being a kernel behind ios...
He left like the gentleman that he was and his departing note didn't leave any hint of dissatisfaction. But it should be evident by apple's lack of focus on os x and, by now, the end product that is lion what the reasons behind his departure, and the results of his departure have been.