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App Store Poll
#14024 02/03/11 10:50 PM
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Okay so what do you think of the App Store so far?

App Store
multiple choice, up to 2 choices
Votes accepted starting: 02/03/11 11:46 PM
You must vote before you can view the results of this poll.

If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

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Re: App Store Poll
joemikeb #14029 02/03/11 11:58 PM
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I chose the "wait and see" response simply because there are no Intel Macs in this household, and thus no App Store transactions possible until such time as new computers become a necessity rather than an indulgence. wink



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Re: App Store Poll
dkmarsh #14040 02/04/11 10:39 AM
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I chose the "wait and see" because Apple lacks the demo/trial mode. Also, many third party developers offer "special" prices/sales or bundles not available through Apple. And finally, Apple charges sales/VAT (in Texas, 8.25%).


Harv
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Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: App Store Poll
joemikeb #14067 02/05/11 09:54 AM
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I just perused dkmarsh's linked articles, and they reinforced my reasons for selecting options 5 & 8.

As it has with people's private lives, Apple is becoming insidiously invasive into their computing lives, and I prefer to keep the beast at as looong an arm's distance as I'm able...to retain whatever control over my deuced Mac(hina) Apple has left me after Snow Leopard's "improvements."


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: App Store Poll
artie505 #14091 02/07/11 07:22 PM
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Jon

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Re: App Store Poll
jchuzi #14095 02/07/11 09:46 PM
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That's one of the thoughts that's crossed my mind, but not just in regard to Apple stores; it almost smells like they're looking to ultimately take complete control over all software that installs on a Mac.

I wonder whether they'll run into some sort of anti-trust or similar situation along the lines of the bundling issue?


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: App Store Poll
artie505 #14105 02/08/11 03:21 PM
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Originally Posted By: artie505
....it almost smells like they're looking to ultimately take complete control over all software that installs on a Mac.

Is that bad?

I would rather buy a piece of software that Apple has approved because I will then know that the developer hasn't taken shortcuts in the way that software interacts with the operating system. I assume that Apple is not going to endorse any software that affects the system.

I think back to computers "pre-Mac". I never had a computer before 1984 and chose to have a Mac because it didn't have all the problems that affected existing computers. For example, any new piece of software for those computers almost always meant a new learning process because they all worked differently.

The Mac philosophy was so simple that it's a wonder no one had thought of it before. No matter what kind of software a person developed for the Mac, it would work exactly the same as every other so that the learning curve was reduced.

A developer could not, for example, create Mac software whose windows worked differently than any other Mac software - no matter what it was. Ditto a whole bunch of other functions. The routines were contained in the Mac chips and the developer went to Apple to get access to them.

If Apple is going back to its roots to prevent the spread of problems, i.e. A developer cannot be endorsed if their software will cause the system to break, then it has to be good.

I doubt it will stop anyone from developing software outside the Apple circle but then the responsibility for problems rests with the person(s) who chose to install it.

ryck

Last edited by ryck; 02/08/11 04:03 PM. Reason: Grammar

ryck

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Re: App Store Poll
artie505 #14114 02/09/11 06:41 AM
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Originally Posted By: artie505
That's one of the thoughts that's crossed my mind, but not just in regard to Apple stores; it almost smells like they're looking to ultimately take complete control over all software that installs on a Mac.


I don't think that's Apple's goal, and I don't think it'd be possible even if it were. There's nothing to prevent anyone who doesn't like the App Store from getting software from other sources--and in any event, the App Store model really isn't appropriate for a lot of software (think Microsoft Office or Adobe Creative Suite).

Apple can lock down consumer electronic devices like iPhones, but they can't lock down full-fledged computers. Nor would they want to; a thriving software ecosystem is the thing that keeps the operating system relevant.


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Re: App Store Poll
tacit #14117 02/09/11 09:53 AM
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I'll respond to you and ryck at the same time...

The comment to which you responded was facetious; if Apple ever tried to do what I suggested they'd be anti-trusted so quickly they wouldn't know what hit them (which in no way means that they haven't got a legal team working on it wink ).

Hardware is Apple's real business, and I think that controlling which software runs on it should not be a part of their business model.

Sure, they can control parameters up to a point, but if I want to run APE (by way of excellent example) it's none of Apple's business.

I'm beginning to get the idea that "It just works!" has so infiltrated Apple's thinking that they've begun to believe it...forgotten that tag lines are for the marks...that believing them yourself is the first step down the road to nowhere.

Just because Apple thinks the newest version of a piece of software works, is an improvement, whatever, doesn't mean that everybody thinks similarly and wants the old version overwritten by default.

I think App Store.app would be a better piece of software if it offered users a pre-d/l "A & I" option (when feasible).

I wish ryck and those with similar attitudes good luck, but their's is not the route I'll take unless I'm dragged, kicking and screaming.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: App Store Poll
artie505 #14120 02/09/11 11:07 AM
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Quote:
Hardware is Apple's real business, and I think that controlling which software runs on it should not be a part of their business model.

Doesn't seem like Apple needs too much help with their business model. Or is your "should" intended to connote an ethical, rather than financial, obligation?

User Experience is Apple's business, not hardware, and I think "make it just work" is a design philosophy whose success is largely responsible for the company's ascendancy.

In another thread, you implied that you view Steve Jobs as such a visionary that the company would be in serious trouble without him. What, exactly, would Apple be losing? Not a hardware guy.



dkmarsh—member, FineTunedMac Co-op Board of Directors
Re: App Store Poll
dkmarsh #14125 02/09/11 02:43 PM
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Originally Posted By: dkmarsh
In another thread, you implied that you view Steve Jobs as such a visionary that the company would be in serious trouble without him. What, exactly, would Apple be losing? Not a hardware guy.

So who gets credit for the Flower-Power iMac and the "toilet-seat" (Clamshell) iBook then? wink

Re: App Store Poll
artie505 #14139 02/09/11 06:25 PM
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Originally Posted By: artie505
I'm beginning to get the idea that "It just works!" has so infiltrated Apple's thinking that they've begun to believe it...forgotten that tag lines are for the marks...that believing them yourself is the first step down the road to nowhere.

I think that Apple simply understands that they must cater to the largest group. That group bought Mac because they wanted to get away from having to learn more about their computers than they wanted, which included inputting arcane commands in order for it to work.

Allow me an analogy. People used to have cars with standard transmissions, having to clutch and shift for the car to proceed (Think: arcane commands). Then along came the automatic transmission and a large number of people, now absolutely the majority, decided that the automatic was much better.

The largest number of Mac owners just want to "put it in D and drive". I think Apple wants to be sure that, if an owner is going to add something to their Mac, it is installed and works in a fashion that facilitates continuation of the Mac experience.

Originally Posted By: artie505
I wish ryck and those with similar attitudes good luck, but their's is not the route I'll take unless I'm dragged, kicking and screaming.

Both pre and post the automatic transmission, there were people who liked to tinker under the hood. It's the same with the Mac - lots of people want to know what's going on in the background, and Apple does a lot to cater to that group as well. And, people like me are glad there's a site like FTM where the folks who know what goes on "under the hood" share their knowledge.

ryck

Last edited by ryck; 02/09/11 06:35 PM.

ryck

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Re: App Store Poll
dkmarsh #14140 02/09/11 06:31 PM
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Originally Posted By: dkmarsh
User Experience is Apple's business, not hardware, and I think "make it just work" is a design philosophy whose success is largely responsible for the company's ascendancy.

I agree. It's easy to look at what a company produces and not think of anything else as being their real 'business'. If I am allowed another analogy.......

I haven't been in a McDonalds for more than twenty years (last going when my daughters were children) but I do recall wondering why McDonalds was doing so much better than anyone else in the hamburger business. Let's face it, how tricky can it be to make a hamburger?

I realized that, while hamburgers were involved in the business transaction, McDonalds success was actually due to selling an experience that the kids liked, with bright colours, toys, a place they'd see their friends, et cetera.

Just as importantly, they were selling something else to the parents - cleanliness and a safe environment.

ryck

Last edited by ryck; 02/09/11 06:36 PM.

ryck

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Re: App Store Poll
dkmarsh #14158 02/10/11 08:27 PM
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Originally Posted By: dkmarsh
In another thread, you implied that you view Steve Jobs as such a visionary that the company would be in serious trouble without him. What, exactly, would Apple be losing? Not a hardware guy.


Hardware is Apple's business, but that doesn't mean Steve isn't an essential part of Apple's success, even though he's not really a nuts and bolts hardware guy in the sense of being a circuit board designer or a chip fabber or something.

His job at Apple, it seems to me, is bringing an almost monomaniacal focus on a certain design aesthetic to the table. He has very specific ideas about the way the hardware ought to look and ought to work, and judging from Apple's success, rather a lot of folks agree with him.

Programmers and compute designers tend, at the end of the day, to such--absolutely suck--at the aesthetics of design. When you let pogrammers and computer geeks do all the software, you get the user interface of Linux; when you let industrial designers and circuit board designers design your hardware, you get the hideous, overdesigned monstrosities of the Asus gaming laptops or the cheap, utilitarian, Stalinesque pragmatism of Dell systems.

Detractors of Apple like to say there's nothing that Apple does that hasn't been done before, and they're right. What they miss is that aesthetics and user experience matter.

Full-fledged operating systems on a cell phone have been done before. What Apple got right that Microsoft got wrong is that desktop systems and cell phones need different user interfaces; the Windows cell phones that have a "Start" menu and a Desktop are an embarrassment. The interface design simply isn't appropriate--something that it took the iPhone to make Microsoft realize.

Linux has had an "app store" of sorts for years; most major desktop Linux distros have long come with a program you can run to access lists of software stored in a repository and automatically (well, more or less, depending on various dependencies and versioning problems--I've never gotten WINE to automatically install correctly on Ubuntu without a lot of headache and hassle) install them on your computer. What they miss, and what Linux programmers always miss, is that presenting a window with a big long scrolling list of software packages in it isn't really a very good interface for an application repository.

Steve Jobs is neither a hardware designer nor a programmer; you won't see him with a soldering iron in his hand or punching code in Xcode. What he's good at, and where his value to Apple is, is that he can look at something and say "This is profoundly stupid design. Putting a Start menu on the screen that pops up a list of programs might be appropriate for a desktop computer, but it's totally wrongheaded for a cell phone. For a cell phone, a sideways-scrolling field of application icons is more usable." And he does that with a ferocity that's barely short of psychotic.


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Re: App Store Poll
dkmarsh #14164 02/11/11 08:00 AM
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Originally Posted By: dkmarsh
Quote:
Hardware is Apple's real business, and I think that controlling which software runs on it should not be a part of their business model.

Doesn't seem like Apple needs too much help with their business model. Or is your "should" intended to connote an ethical, rather than financial, obligation?

Be real for once! "Controlling" most assuredly implies an ethical issue.

Quote:
User Experience is Apple's business, not hardware, and I think "make it just work" is a design philosophy whose success is largely responsible for the company's ascendancy.

No! Hardware is Apple's business, and "It Just Works" is as you say, but "User Experience" is more appropriately tied to the interaction between Macs, "i" devices, and the world as Steve Jobs envisions it...a (so to speak) come-lately.

And I never suggested that there's anything wrong with "It Just Works" other than that Apple's current position is that just because Apple thinks it works and is good for you you don't need a means to undo the "good" even if you think it's bad.

Quote:
In another thread, you implied that you view Steve Jobs as such a visionary that the company would be in serious trouble without him. What, exactly, would Apple be losing? Not a hardware guy.

Thanks to tacit for beginning the support of my position that Steve Jobs is, indeed, a hardware guy; I'll expand on his excellent analysis, though, by suggesting that Jobs is also what I'll call a hardware visionary...a guy who is capable of looking down the road, envisioning a future, and visualizing the hardware necessary to achieve that future (forgetting altogether about whether or not his vision is shared by anybody else).

He's the guy who, 150 years ago, would have realized that the chemical and physical properties of the fraction of petroleum called "gasoline" suggested the automobile and would have put together a team to develop it regardless of the fact that he might not have know the difference between a screwdriver and a wrench.

Yeah... Steve Jobs is, first and foremost, a hardware guy, and his loss may ultimately cost Apple its ascendency; people talk about his team and how it complements his abilities and brings his visions to fruition in ways of which he's incapable, but I've never heard anybody suggest that there's a team-member who can duplicate, let alone expand on, what he is capable of doing.

I truly believe that Steve Jobs has envisioned "The Emerald City" of "Oz," that what we've seen so far is no more that the first few paving stones of the "Yellow Brick Road," that unguessed at paving stones are under development, and that the entire project may ultimately grind to a screeching halt sometime after the "Wizard" passes on. frown

Last edited by artie505; 02/11/11 10:22 AM. Reason: Little bit of cleanup

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Re: App Store Poll
ryck #14165 02/11/11 08:34 AM
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McDonald's... What an excellent and fortuitous choice for an analogy! (Unfortunately, though, you happened on McDonald's many years too late to appreciate its evolution into the place to which you took your daughters your daughters took you.)

McDonald's is, in its essence, a fast-food company...the creator of the fast-food concept, as a matter of fact.

Quote:
Quoted from McDonald's - Wikipedia:

The business began in 1940, with a restaurant opened by brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald in San Bernardino, California. Their introduction of the "Speedee Service System" in 1948 established the principles of the modern fast-food restaurant.

I remember the first McDonald's in Brooklyn (my neck of it, anyhow), which opened in the early '70s...

McDonald's tag-line at the time was (more or less) "You can feed your whole family, (of 4, I always assumed) with a $5 bill and go home with change."

You took your family to an impeccably clean and comfortable place, got served quickly, enjoyed your relatively good quality, good tasting meal, and went home with change from your fin.

It Just Worked!

[scratch...scratch] Now where have I heard that before? [/scratch]

Then, gradually - it was the result of an evolution rather than a single event - McDonald's changed...radically...from a place where you took your kids to a place where your kids took you.

All the original attractions were still in place (Well... The $5 evolved, too.), but, in addition, your kids played in the playground before and after eating their "Happy Meal," they went home with a toy and/or a promo item, and you went home with a scratch-off ticket and/or a promo item (in addition to the change from your $50 grin ).

User Experience!

I'll be damned... I've heard that before, too. confused

Similarly, Apple is, in its essence, a hardware company that, from its humble beginnings as a place where you wanted to be, because It Just Worked, is evolving into a place where you have to be, because it is a, or should I say the, User Experience!

"It Just Works" was on both drawing boards when McDonald's and Apple broke from the gate; "User Experience" was probably not even a pipe-dream at the time.

"User Experience" is the result of years of McDonald's and Apple's having analyzed, developed, and improved (theoretically, anyhow), their business models.

Last edited by artie505; 02/11/11 11:03 AM. Reason: Cleanup

The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: App Store Poll
ryck #14166 02/11/11 09:00 AM
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Originally Posted By: ryck
Originally Posted By: artie505
I'm beginning to get the idea that "It just works!" has so infiltrated Apple's thinking that they've begun to believe it...forgotten that tag lines are for the marks...that believing them yourself is the first step down the road to nowhere.

I think that Apple simply understands that they must cater to the largest group. That group bought Mac because they wanted to get away from having to learn more about their computers than they wanted, which included inputting arcane commands in order for it to work.

Allow me an analogy. People used to have cars with standard transmissions, having to clutch and shift for the car to proceed (Think: arcane commands). Then along came the automatic transmission and a large number of people, now absolutely the majority, decided that the automatic was much better.

The largest number of Mac owners just want to "put it in D and drive". I think Apple wants to be sure that, if an owner is going to add something to their Mac, it is installed and works in a fashion that facilitates continuation of the Mac experience.

Originally Posted By: artie505
I wish ryck and those with similar attitudes good luck, but their's is not the route I'll take unless I'm dragged, kicking and screaming.

Both pre and post the automatic transmission, there were people who liked to tinker under the hood. It's the same with the Mac - lots of people want to know what's going on in the background, and Apple does a lot to cater to that group as well. And, people like me are glad there's a site like FTM where the folks who know what goes on "under the hood" share their knowledge.

ryck

You've misunderstood my position (which I'll support with my own analogy...one that turns yours inside out).

I know a woman who drives a Porsche Carrera with, perish the thought, automatic transmission.

Porsche, like Apple, "understands that they must cater to the largest group," but, unlike Apple, Porsche also understands that the preferences of the minority must not fall victim to those of that group...

Porsche has not chosen to say that the Carrera performs best with a manual transmission and that, therefore, they do not offer it with automatic...a position that is diametrically opposed to that of Apple which has chosen to say that Macs and OS X perform best as presented, and if there's something you don't like, well...tough darts.

In fact, Apple is doing more and more to isolate users who like to tinker under the hood!

Last edited by artie505; 02/11/11 10:37 AM. Reason: Cleanup

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Re: App Store Poll
artie505 #14168 02/11/11 11:26 AM
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Quote:
No! Hardware is Apple's business, and "It Just Works" is as you say, but "User Experience" is more appropriately tied to the interaction between Macs, "i" devices, and the world as Steve Jobs envisions it...a (so to speak) come-lately.

Huh? When I got my first Mac in 1993, the compelling factor in my choice of platforms was the Macintosh user experience. Steve Jobs was off running NeXT (which, incidentally, had stopped making hardware altogether and was concentrating on further refinements to the operating system which lies at the core of OS X). The "i" devices weren't even on the drawing board yet.

And I was a (so to speak) come-lately; the "computer for the rest of us" campaign attracted lots of buyers to the original Macintosh who had no interest whatsoever in the DOS user experience. In the Mac user experience, by comparison, both the hardware and software were remarkably transparent. Folks without any background in either could just do stuff.

Quote:
And I never suggested that there's anything wrong with "It Just Works" other than that Apple's current position is that just because Apple thinks it works and is good for you you don't need a means to undo the "good" even if you think it's bad.

I'd love to see a parse tree for that sentence. wink

Actually, you said "I'm beginning to get the idea that 'It just works!' has so infiltrated Apple's thinking that they've begun to believe it...forgotten that tag lines are for the marks...that believing them yourself is the first step down the road to nowhere." I doubt I'm the only one who thought you were dismissing "It Just Works" as just so much hucksterism.



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Re: App Store Poll
artie505 #14170 02/11/11 05:50 PM
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Originally Posted By: artie505
Porsche has not chosen to say that the Carrera performs best with a manual transmission and that, therefore, they do not offer it with automatic...a position that is diametrically opposed to that of Apple which has chosen to say that Macs and OS X perform best as presented, and if there's something you don't like, well...tough darts

I'm not sure what a "manual transmission" version of a Mac would be but, since a transmission is associated with operation, it's fair to say that a manual version would involve getting to the same place but with more effort.

In that case Mac actually is a Carrera with both automatic and manual operating modes. You can do it the Mac way (automatic) or you can choose to run Windows (manual) on the same machine - with software provided by Apple.

ryck

Last edited by ryck; 02/11/11 05:52 PM.

ryck

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Re: App Store Poll
dkmarsh #14172 02/11/11 10:57 PM
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Originally Posted By: dkmarsh
".... the Macintosh user experience..." "....attracted lots of buyers to the original Macintosh who had no interest whatsoever in the DOS user experience. In the Mac user experience, by comparison, both the hardware and software were remarkably transparent. Folks without any background in either could just do stuff."

I agree 100%. In fact, that was the deciding factor for me in buying my first computer, a Mac.

In 1983 I was running a television production centre and would see people doing amazing things with spreadsheets, databases, word processing et cetera and I thought "I'd sure like to to have that analytical power at my fingertips".

Then there would be a loud and anguished cry as someone hit a wrong key: "@*&$%@#. I just lost two *@#^*&%ing hours of work. Aaaaargghhh!!" As much as I wanted the benefits of computers I didn't want that frustration. I stayed with pen and paper.

In January 1984 a production switcher told me that the computer for me was at a show up the street, adding something about a device called a mouse and a trashcan on the screen. That day I got my first Mac c/w MacPaint and MacWrite (MultiPlan was on the way) and the rest is history.

ryck


ryck

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Re: App Store Poll
artie505 #14174 02/12/11 03:52 AM
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Originally Posted By: artie505
In fact, Apple is doing more and more to isolate users who like to tinker under the hood!


That part, I don't agree with.

Every Mac now includes on its installer DVDs a complete suite of developer tools. Apple has always given away its developer tools for free, but it used to be you needed to go download them from its Web site or, in the days pre-Web, order the disks from Apple (or pick them up from a user's group). Now, they're right there on your installer disc.

And they're remarkably easy, to use, as developer tools go. Xcode is a first-rate IDE, with the level of polish and sophistication that other developer tools made by companies like Microsoft charge hundreds or even thousands of dollars for.

And your Mac also ships not only with the Terminal but also with a complete suite of command-line tools, and on top of that the ability, if you install Apple's Xwindows environment, to run Linux software, including Linux system and development tools.

So in that way, the modern Mac is much EASIER, not harder, to tinter with "beneath the hood."


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Re: App Store Poll
tacit #14175 02/12/11 06:45 AM
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What Tacit said!!!

I've gotten my sum-total understanding (as far as it goes) of BSD UNIX (and several versions of embedded Linux) from my time spent "tinkering under the hood" of the various releases of Mac OS X over the past several years....and while I haven't installed the developer tools, I have done a tremendous amount of digging around in and modifying the underlying UNIX code that provides the Mac OS X experience for the rest of us.

Having a smoothly functional UNIX installed base to explore using both online and paper-based textual resources for additional info beyond the installed "man" files has been very effective at developing a working understanding of the language "in-context".


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Re: App Store Poll
artie505 #14181 02/12/11 03:06 PM
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Originally Posted By: artie505
In fact, Apple is doing more and more to isolate users who like to tinker under the hood!

My version of that statement would be...

Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Apple is continually making it easier for the non-technical user to make full use of their computers and keep them up to date and at the same time providing unprecedented access to the internals of the system for technically inclined "power" users.

In support of that last statement I submit for your consideration Developer Connection, Apple Script, Automator, Developer Tools, Console, Terminal, MAN, etc. Short of being a member of Apple's development team you can't get any closer to the system internals than that. Of course, all of these demand more knowledge and skill than is possessed by probably somewhere between 80 to 93% of the user base. Based on those users I support, 100% are perfectly content not knowing anything about the internals of OS X, all they care about is "it simply works".


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: App Store Poll
joemikeb #14183 02/12/11 03:57 PM
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I'm replying to joemikeb's comment on Artie's post, but it applies equally to those of DK, ryck, Lee and tacit: in what way would you change your comments if you include hardware considerations? laugh


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Re: App Store Poll
alternaut #14186 02/12/11 06:45 PM
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Originally Posted By: alternaut
....in what way would you change your comments if you include hardware considerations?

I'm not sure if you mean from a "user experience" perspective or for "tinkering under the hood" so I'll answer both.

Hardware and User Experience - Unchanged view, except perhaps that the hardware has improved in a way that it further enhances the experience - faster speeds, better monitors, improved storage et cetera. I will concede that many things we buy these days - cars, communications, and so on - have been enhanced.

Hardware and Tinkering - The amount of tinkering that I would want to do is adequately covered with the DIYs that Apple provides for things like internal resets, memory upgrades, swapping hard drives.......and so on. (Supplemented with helpful tips at FTM)

It's not different than tinkering around the house. There are a number of things I will tackle, after buying code books and reading manuals, but there are also lines I just won't cross.

With Macs there may well be people who want to tinker with hardware more than I do, but they likely have steelier nerves than I. wink

ryck

Last edited by ryck; 02/13/11 03:19 PM. Reason: Grammar

ryck

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