Apple is spreading applications

chevy

chevy

Marvelous Da Vinci
Staff member
Mod
How do they do that ?

during years, Apple and others tried to put more functions into one application to have everything working together well, under one interface, one file format... kind of document-centric-inside-one-application. And now Apple recreates tons of different specialized applications that are able to operate together... much more flexible, much lighter for the OS... where is the trick ? Where is the hidden link ? Is it related to the UNIX background of OS-X ? I looks like the computer is now "result-centric": it exploits all available information (sound, images, effects) and puts it together using a multitude of softwares to create one result (Movie, DVD, CD, Presentation, ... or other).
 
Chevy, that's an execllent observation.

The whole soul of UNIX is 'lots of little useful things that work together to do big useful things'.

That spirit does seem to have spread.

bear
 
ffmpegX is a very good example of such a "controlled collection of little usefull things". Under one simple user interface, tenths of small specialized software bits read and convert nearly any video format to nearly anything. All using more of less standard source, intermediate and target formats.

The same does apply to the iApps. And now the sound and video creation software.
 
I'm not sure what you mean. I still use each application as a stand-alone app, I don't see where the integration exists.
 
all share the same address book
iSynching gets your Safari bookmark on a window with direct webmail access
iMovie can read images from iPhoto and songs from iTunes and push the result to iDVD
 
The Newton OS, which was RAM-based instead of hard drive-based, was incredibly good at this kind of integration. Every app knew what what was going on in every other app.

I think Windows Longhorn is somehow going to be trying something similar. Should be interesting, at least.
 
Originally posted by chevy
How do they do that ?

during years, Apple and others tried to put more functions into one application to have everything working together well, under one interface, one file format... kind of document-centric-inside-one-application. And now Apple recreates tons of different specialized applications that are able to operate together... much more flexible, much lighter for the OS... where is the trick ? Where is the hidden link ? Is it related to the UNIX background of OS-X ? I looks like the computer is now "result-centric": it exploits all available information (sound, images, effects) and puts it together using a multitude of softwares to create one result (Movie, DVD, CD, Presentation, ... or other).
Click to expand...
You have stumbled onto the Macintosh. This is the way the Mac worked way back when. It is the way the Mac was always intended to work. MacOS X facilitates this, and maybe takes it to a new level, but by no means did the "result-centric" nature of the Mac begin with the introduction of MacOS X.

Take a look at two major events in the life of the Mac. The first was its birth back in 1984. The orginal 128 K Mac shipped with two applications, MacPaint and MacWrite. With MacPaint, you created a graphic. With MacWrite, you edited and formatted text. However, you were able to copy a MacPaint graphic into a MacWrite document. You could do the same thing with MacPaint and MS Word 1.0, and later MacDraw and WriteNow. Small applications doing specialized tasks with the ability to read file formats across applications was what the Macintosh was all about at the very beginning. The second major event was the dawn of the desktop publishing revolution. PageMaker was not good at editing text. It didn't create elaborate graphics. The PageMaker user imported wordprocessing documents from MacWrite or MS Word and graphics from MacDraw, MacPaint, or Cricket Draw. These documents were laid out using PageMaker. It worked because the Macintosh was designed to allow easy communication between applications.

For the most part, the large bloated application that tries to do everything is a carryover from MS-DOS. Virtually all DOS file formats were proprietary. There was no way that HarshWord could read EZgraphics files. Therefore, sophicated tasks in DOS required each application to try to do the entire job. When Windows superseded DOS, this culture moved over to Windows. It was encouraged because Windows file format standards were not enforced by Windows users with nearly the same vigor that Mac users enforced Mac file standards. Also MS did not enforce Windows standards with the same vigor that Apple enforced Macintosh standards.
 
And, not so off-topic, Apple once invented OpenDoc (and scrapped it later on). It was a try to be completely document-centric. The goal was that you start with one Container application, say, a text editor. You would then add functionality to your document (!) with other OpenDoc applications. However: The few companies that actually used OpenDoc all made container applications, which basically wasn't what the concept was about.

But you're right, Chevy, Apple has really started to integrate those things very, very well. QuickTime is a big example of this, too. It's at the core of the operating system and provides many, many file formats to the developer and, thus, to the user.

Similarly, Apple now has WebKit (the Safari engine) as a framework for other developers (and thus other applications).

And don't forget OS X' text handling features, which can be used by any application. A developer of a word processing application can rely on those. Doesn't have to start from scratch but can implement his/her ideas of an innovative word processing application. Now that this framework has Word compatibility, too... I guess we'll see a 'pro' version of TextEdit rather sooner than later. (Not before Panther, though.)
 
This is a little more off-topic, but I still have trouble fathom why Apple has such a small piece of the market still with all of these innovations.
Naturally, I have a Mac bias, but I've worked with PCs and the Windows platform, and while it's getting better, it's still so far behind Apple in effectiveness, but so far ahead in usage.
I realize it's the age-old question, but there are times that it truly baffles me and I can't rationalize it no matter what arguments I use against myself.
 
Randman, I've asked myself the very same question several times, and I use Mac since 1984. Asking the guys from IT I understood 2 things: they feel they had problems to administrate groups of Macs and to get these machines under control; and price.

Price is a 2 folds issue: hardware rpice is the easiest to notice, but software price too. Not because Mac software is more expensive than PC software, but many people used to copy the software they had at work and then use it at home. This is more difficult now, but still the copied software is a big boost for the PC market.

Fryke, yes, I remember OpenDoc. This was a great idea... like the Newton... but at that time Apple didn't have the leaders and the money to transform these into success, like today's iPod and Music Store.

Hulkaros, Services... the concept is great... is it used ? Are applications designed to exploit this incredible facility ? Indeed it's the UNIX equivalent to the Clipboard: a standard format series for interapplication data management.
 
Originally posted by chevy
one application to have everything working together well, under one interface, one file format... exploits all available information (sound, images, effects) and puts it together using a multitude of softwares to create one result (Movie, DVD, CD, Presentation, ... or other).
Click to expand...

You just described exaclty why a lot of the people today are buying Macs more so than in the past.

A lot of people can't see it right now, but Apple, as a whole, has the mind of god. The computers they make are stylish, fast, small, and quite affordable for anyone. The programs they make are all inter-linked, they're affordable for a lot of people, and best of all: they work.

Sorry if this seemed a little off-topic, I was just so suprised at this idea.
 
Not sure about the affordability factor. Sure, you get your money's worth, but for a lot of people, a PC clone is much more affordable. Same with the iPod. It's the best mp3 player on the market, but you can get less and stay cheaper, and many people will take that route.
 
I think Multimedia has transformed into a consumer need. Apple created demand where there was none. *has been said cajillion times*
In Mac OS 9 things worked together for the professional or if you knew how to flick the right switch in extensions.
The macintosh was always easy to use. However, there has been nothing as compelling as iLife or iChat AV.

Rufff ruff ruff ruff!

ahem..yes.
 
Don't you think they are simply doing the same thing as Microsoft... moving the functionality out of the Applications and into the OS?

Making these things API accessable parts of the OS means lots of programs can tap into the functionality and still have a very low overhead.
 
I remember when OpenDoc was launched, I thought it was a really exciting concept, its a shame that it got ditched. I think it was the last Mac Expo I was at (way back!) I noticed some developers working on OpenDoc but we know what happened to it. Does anyone remember CyberDog? I'm really interested in all the funky Apple technologies that got lost, like the CHRP platform and Copland. But was it more it exciting back then? 40MHz Quadra 840AV! I had a Colour Classic at the time. Slow but possibly the coolest computer ever made :)
 
Still have a Colour Classic in my apartment. :) Such a sweet machine. Sadly, I can't find an Ethernet card, or it would still be nice to write some of my stories on it (and then transfer them to my other computers)...

This is, of course, off topic. And I'm sorry about that.
 
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