Well, this is a surprise. Several websites have a preview up of Apple's next Mac OS X release - it's called Mountain Lion, and continues the trend of bringing over functionality from iOS to Mac OS X. Lots of cool stuff in here we've all seen before on iPhones and iPads, including one very, very controversial feature: Gatekeeper. Starting with Mac OS X 10.8, Apple's desktop operating system will be restricted to Mac App Store and Apple-signed applications by default (with an opt-out switch), following in Windows 8's footsteps.
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Member since:2005-06-29
The car analogy doesn't apply. A car does only one thing: go from a to b. That's it. No amount of fiddling is going to change that.
A computer is more than that. It can do a bazillion things, and a computer bought yesterday can be made more useful today just by changing the software.
Member since:2011-01-28
macUser,
"I agree with you that companies like Apple, and Microsoft (and even Google) are seizing too much control, it is something the masses will willingly give up so they don't have to deal with their machines. Most people just aren't interested in the innards of their computers to care."
Yes, I can agree with that. However there is a very big difference between designing an OS where users don't need to deal with the guts of the machine to use it (obviously good), and designing an OS where users cannot deal with the guts of the machine should they want to (obviously bad).
Keep in mind, even a technophobe has legitimate reasons to install third party software, and should not have to jump around walled garden hoops to do it.
I would much rather see apple & ms develop better application sandboxes which serve to protect the users from nefarious apps than to see them develop walled gardens which are difficult (and even against terms of use) to circumvent.
"Fortunately for those of you who base their bravado on their technical knowledge, there will always be a *nix out there you can do whatever you want with."
So far, for x86 this still seems to be the case. However I'm not sure there will be any commodity consumer-ready ARM hardware with explicit support for *nix. (Anyone?) ARM hardware with a bundled MS OS on them will be explicitly locked down. Ideally, one shouldn't have to break into one's own machine to program it.
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Google added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance."According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow."During its Keynote today, Google announced new features coming to its flagship search function - you know, that thing we all started using Google for. VP Amit Singhal spent some time discussing what Google's search functionality will eventually morph into. Google's strategy is summarized by three words: answer, converse, and anticipate. Singhal explained that many of the pieces of these upcoming changes can already be seen in products that Google has recently introduced - namely, Google Knowledge Graph and Google Now, with perhaps a splash of Google Glass, too." I hold on to my hat every time Google changes Search. It's such a vital product in my daily life.
Member since:
2006-12-15
People called me crazy when I said Apple would eventually include a switch like this. Now people are calling me crazy again? We all know where this is heading: full curation, similar to iOS. If you STILL want to insist there's no sign of this happening... Well, then I'm afraid you're a lost cause.
Like I said - as long as their freedom is taken away in small bits and pieces, people don't give a shit.
I'm not particularly fond of the direction Apple has taken with its OS, but most people I know are still terrified of their computers. This is exactly what they want, and while I agree with you that companies like Apple, and Microsoft (and even Google) are seizing too much control, it is something the masses will willingly give up so they don't have to deal with their machines. Most people just aren't interested in the innards of their computers to care. Just like they all drive, but can't explain the difference between a 4 stroke and a 2 stroke engine, or the difference between composite or component video cables, etc.. etc... etc...
Fortunately for those of you who base their bravado on their technical knowledge, there will always be a *nix out there you can do whatever you want with.