TweetFollow Us on Twitter

Jul 98 Viewpoint

Volume Number: 14 (1998)
Issue Number: 7
Column Tag: Viewpoint

July 1998 Viewpoint

by Eric Gundrum, editor_emeritus@mactech.com

WWDC, What Apple Has Been Up To

WWDC is over, and I've just spent a full week listening to the official Apple message. Many weeks may have passed by the time you read this article, but my mind is still hashing out the things I heard just a few days ago.

I must admit, I attended WWDC 1998 with pretty low expectations. Last year attendees had Rhapsody forced on them as the only possible future for Macintosh development. This year was very different; Apple listened to developers and offered us several options for our future development. I am pleased with how well Apple handled the conference.

You may recall I wrote those same words immediately following last year's WWDC. As I was preparing this column, I thought I'd review what I wrote last year. I was quite surprised to find that the opening paragraphs of last year's column so accurately reflected my feelings about this year's WWDC.

Every year developers come away from WWDC excited about Apple's new strategies and technologies. Why should this WWDC be any different? This is the third year in a row that Apple has given us a whole new operating system strategy. So what's different about this year's conference?

Mac OS X, A Peak at the Future

By now you've probably read all about Apple's new OS strategy. Rather than give us yet another OS, Apple has mixed the best technologies of Mac OS, Rhapsody, Java and even a little of Copland. I am much more comfortable with these evolutionary changes than with last year's OS revolution.

In a nutshell, Apple is offering a way for existing applications to live side-by-side with Yellow Box applications running on the Rhapsody Kernel. Similarly, Java and BSD Unix programs also should work in Mac OS X. Existing Mac OS software will run in a Blue Box without any of the Rhapsody Kernel benefits. To be an equal player in the Rhapsody world, existing applications must be recompiled to work with the Carbon Toolbox, a subset of the existing Mac Toolbox with some additions. Because Carbon is only a subset, some additional coding will be required for most applications. The work should be minimal; much like the transition from 68K to PowerPC. The benefits of protected address spaces alone will likely save developers more time tracing memory errors than it will take us to rewrite the portions of our applications that rely on problematic APIs.

Apple will not release Carbon until sometime next year, but most of the necessary APIs are available today for applications running under Mac OS 7.5.5 and later. Developers can clean up their applications now and the applications should run in Mac OS X without further changes. The details are available from Apple's web site, and probably will appear in a future MacTech article. From what I've reviewed of the changes, most represent removing reliance on obsolete APIs (such as those superseded by System 7 improvements) and failed technologies (such as PowerTalk). Developers today can start preparing their applications to take full advantage of Mac OS X, and they will get cleaner running applications as a bonus.

The developers that have the greatest challenge are those who provide the extensions that we use to personalize our computers. As of WWDC there was no equivalent to the current extensions mechanism. Instead, we can extend some behaviors of Mac OS X using the Appearance Manager, drivers and faceless background applications. These should cover the majority of what programmers do today with extensions, and they are more stable mechanisms than the trap patches we live with now. However, these new mechanisms are not quite as flexible as patching traps, making it a bit more difficult for developers to release their creativity on the Mac OS. As I left the conference, there was a good chance that the Apple engineers, together with some experienced extensions developers were going to develop a clean, safe mechanism to let us hook in and provide new, unimagined extensions. I wish them luck.

A Future For Yellow Box?

The reasons to build in Yellow Box are not quite so compelling any more. Apple did not include Yellow Box in any of their keynote presentations, making many developers think the technology was canceled. However, Apple claims it is alive and well, and that Yellow Box is a strong environment for building new and multi-platform applications. This suggests to me that Apple might want to migrate developers to Yellow Box as the future Toolbox of Mac OS development, but Apple did not make that message very clear. Compound that with Apple's statement that Rhapsody for Intel will not be revised beyond version 1.0, and the future of Yellow Box becomes even less clear.

Maybe Apple is playing a game of wait-and-see: if enough products start to take advantage of Yellow Box, Apple will continue its development. On the other hand, our industry is pouring a lot of resources into making Java the multi-platform development environment of choice. With Apple's directing most resources to Mac OS technologies and substantial resources to Java, Yellow Box may not have such a strong future. If Apple can finally catch up their Java to the same version as the rest of the industry, Java will likely become the preferred environment for new development. While we wait to see how this shakes out in the next year, we can concentrate on some very interesting new Mac OS technologies just around the corner.

Extending Our Current OS

Apple appears to be listening to developers like never before. They heard our complaints about the forced transition to Yellow Box and gave us Carbon. Apparently they also heard our requests for certain Mac OS-based technologies; they have given us services we've been requesting for years.

One such technology is the new Window Manager including OS support for floating windows. Instead of developers having to muck around with an application's window list or other private OS data structures, Apple is giving us an API to identify which layer our windows reside in and the OS will manage window ordering and appearance for us. The new Window Manager contains many more useful services reminiscent of Copland.

Navigation Services is another new technology developers can begin using today. Nav Services is a non-modal and extensible replacement for the decrepit Standard File package. I've not look closely enough at the APIs, but I'm hoping that it also is replaceable. In the past developers have offered significant improvements on Standard File. I'd hate for Apple to cut out their market and eliminate the benefits of their products. As a user I want to choose the file navigation interface that works best for me. With Nav Services Apple has defined a standard interface. Now they should let anyone plug in an alternative if that is what the user wants.

Subwoofer is back in the form of URLAccess. With a very few simple API calls, any application now can do FTP and HTTP uploads and downloads. Imagine that your product can post user registration information automatically using a few simple calls. Best of all, the URLAccess technology is fully extensible; developers can write new modules for their favorite protocols and just drop them in. Hopefully Apple will also extend the list of protocols. I'd very much like to see at least SMTP Send support in the initial release.

After a very long sabbatical, the keychain is back. No longer will users have to remember all those passwords to AppleShare servers, FTP servers, or any other services requiring passwords. With a few simple API calls, we developers can look in the keychain for the password information instead of asking the user. The keychain can store anything the developer wants to put in it. As presented at the conference, the keychain has a long way to go to become a mature service, but I'd rather have a little bit now, than wait another several years for Apple to reimplement all of PowerTalk. What's missing: the keychain does not yet offer a standard, secure passphrase dialog to be used by all applications, nor does the keychain offer any protections against one application snooping the data inserted by another. In time I expect Apple with plug these holes.

In an effort to migrate the Mac from AppleTalk to TCP/IP, Apple is providing system-level services for registering and locating resources on any network, including TCP/IP. This technology has been a long time coming. Apple will be providing a simple API for applications to register their services on the network, and for other applications to find them. Soon users will be able to truly browse the Internet to see what services are offered instead of having to know the magic URL to get somewhere.

These are just a few of the new services becoming available in the next few releases of Mac OS. Apple presented several others I don't have space to list. You can bet MacTech will be covering them in articles as fast as we can get the details out of Apple.

A Blemished Apple

The one technology that had developers in the biggest uproar was Apple's claim to be removing support for OpenTransport Streams from Mac OS X. This was announced even while Apple presented one of the most clear and useful sessions ever on using OT Streams. Apple publicly argues that OT streams have not been widely adopted, and they claim they can provide sufficient functionality in Mac OS X using the BSD Networking Stack. (In case you don't know the history, XTI Streams, on which OT is based, were developed more than ten years ago to cleanly provide extensible networking that could not be had with the BSD Stack.)

Unfortunately the Apple Rhapsody networking group is in a tough spot. One choice they have is to move Rhapsody to Streams, but then they have to rewrite all their Rhapsody-based networking services such as NetInfo, Telnet, FTP and others. The other choice is to try to shim the OpenTransport client APIs onto the BSD Stack. This later choice eliminates the API calls used by products which provide low-level networks services such as PPP, secure (encrypted) networking, multi-homing, software routing and others. Rhapsody provides some of these services, but third parties will not be able to replace them with alternative services. (Such replacement of these services requires recompiling the OS kernel; we can't have users doing that.)

Developers made very compelling arguments for Apple to stick with streams and not step backwards to the days when every application contained its own networking stack. Unfortunately for Apple that means they may have to rewrite some of their own networked Rhapsody applications, because those applications did not use the public APIs as the rest of us must. I'd rather see Apple clean up their own mess than force developers into it. I'll even accept a significant delay in the release of all those Rhapsody-based services. 20 million Mac OS users won't mind waiting an extra six months for NetInfo and the like; it's the core OS we want. Apple promised they would revisit this decision. I hope they carefully consider how their choice will affect the next ten years of Macintosh networking; getting this far has been pretty painful.

In nearly all other areas Apple has demonstrated their willingness to listen to developers, providing us with some very compelling technologies I and others are anxious to take advantage of. Where networking is concerned, Apple seems to have made their decisions without having accurate information about the importance of this technology to developers and our users; we have now provided them with that information. I am confident that once Apple reconsiders their decision to remove streams support that they will not ignore such an important core OS technology. In fact, I encourage developers interested in networking to look at Apple's newly released OpenTransport documentation: Inside Macintosh: Networking with Open Transport and OT Advanced Client Programming. These two volumes represent significant improvements over what was previously available, allowing developers to write serious network-savvy code with a lot less effort. Apple has given us the tools to make the Mac the premier platform on the Internet; it's up to us developers to write the code to keep it there.

 

Community Search:
MacTech Search:

Software Updates via MacUpdate

ffWorks 3.3.5 - A Comprehensive Video Co...
ffWorks, focused on simplicity, brings a fresh approach to the use of FFmpeg, allowing you to create ultra-high-quality movies without the need to write a single line of code on the command-line.... Read more
Arq 7.19.11 - Online backup to Google Dr...
Arq is super-easy online backup for Mac and Windows computers. Back up to your own cloud account (Amazon Cloud Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Cloud Storage, any S3-compatible server... Read more
Opera 97.0.4719.28 - High-performance We...
Opera is a fast and secure browser trusted by millions of users. With the intuitive interface, Speed Dial and visual bookmarks for organizing favorite sites, news feature with fresh, relevant content... Read more
Google Chrome 111.0.5563.110 - Modern an...
Google Chrome is a Web browser by Google, created to be a modern platform for Web pages and applications. It utilizes very fast loading of Web pages and has a V8 engine, which is a custom built... Read more
Vivaldi 5.7.2921.65 - An advanced browse...
Vivaldi is a browser for our friends. We live in our browsers. Choose one that has the features you need, a style that fits and values you can stand by. From the look and feel, to how you interact... Read more
Ableton Live 11.2.11 - Record music usin...
Ableton Live lets you create and record music on your Mac. Use digital instruments, pre-recorded sounds, and sampled loops to arrange, produce, and perform your music like never before. Ableton Live... Read more
Adobe Acrobat DC 23.001.20093 - Powerful...
Acrobat DC is available only as a part of Adobe Creative Cloud, and can only be installed and/or updated through Adobe's Creative Cloud app. Adobe Acrobat DC DC with Adobe Document Cloud services is... Read more
Adobe Acrobat Reader 23.001.20093 - View...
Adobe Acrobat Reader allows users to view PDF documents. You may not know what a PDF file is, but you've probably come across one at some point. PDF files are used by companies and even the IRS to... Read more
Paragon NTFS 15.10.590 - Provides full r...
Paragon NTFS breaks down the barriers between Windows and macOS. Paragon NTFS effectively solves the communication problems between the Mac system and NTFS. Write, edit, copy, move, delete files on... Read more
Slack 4.31.152 - Collaborative communica...
Slack brings team communication and collaboration into one place so you can get more work done, whether you belong to a large enterprise or a small business. Check off your to-do list and move your... Read more

Latest Forum Discussions

See All

Recapping All the Best Drama – The Touch...
In this week’s episode of The TouchArcade Show we recap all the big drama of the week, because drama=clicks baby! I also talk about the new WaterField Magnetic Gaming Case for the Steam Deck, which just arrived in my hot little hands a couple of... | Read more »
TouchArcade Game of the Week: ‘Well Word...
We were already big fans of developer BJ Malicoat, who does business under the name Bird Cartel, due to the release of Pine Tar Poker late last year. Poker is one of those games that kind of is what it is, so it’s always very hard to come up with... | Read more »
SwitchArcade Round-Up: Reviews Featuring...
Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for March 24th, 2023. It turned out to be a fairly busy one today. We’ve got a little news to look at, plus a review from our pal Mikhail. After that, we get into the many new releases... | Read more »
‘Honkai Star Rail’ Release Date Announce...
Last month, Genshin Impact and Honkai Impact 3rd developer HoYoverse began pre-orders and pre-registrations for the upcoming space fantasy turn-based RPG Honkai Star Rail. | Read more »
Tactical Card Battling RPG ‘Black Book’...
Developer Merteshka and publisher HypeTrain Digital just revealed an iOS version of the card battling tactical RPG Black Book . Black Book is available on PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PS4 right now. It will be coming to iOS on April 21st with... | Read more »
Clue/Cluedo: Hasbro’s Mystery Game+ Is T...
Clue: Hasbro’s Mystery Game+ from Marmalade Game Studios is this week’s new Apple Arcade release and it is out now alongside some notable updates. Clue: Hasbro’s Mystery Game+ or Cluedo: Hasbro’s Mystery Game+ depending on your region joins the... | Read more »
‘Stakes Winner ACA NEOGEO’ Review – A Ho...
When it comes to the NEOGEO, a few genres come to mind. Fighting games. Side-scrolling action games. Maybe shooters and beat-em-ups. The usual array of sports. You probably don’t think of horse racing games, but this was an arcade platform that was... | Read more »
SwitchArcade Round-Up: Reviews Featuring...
Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for March 23rd, 2023. In today’s article, we kick things off with a couple of reviews. I take a look at Playism and kouri’s Ib, while our pal Mikhail has a look at the latest DLC... | Read more »
Snowbreak: Containment Zone is the lates...
Mobile gaming enthusiasts will soon be able to get their fill of sci-fi shooting, with Amazing Season announcing their upcoming game, Snowbreak: Containment Zone. Pre-registrations are now open for fans, and we also have their first trailer to get... | Read more »
Square Enix’s Card RPGs Voice of Cards:...
Back in late 2021, Square Enix released a new card-based RPG Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars on PS4, Nintendo Switch, and PC featuring some of the staff behind the NieR and Drakengard games. This included Yoko Taro, Yosuke Saito, Keiichi Okabe... | Read more »

Price Scanner via MacPrices.net

Shop our Apple MacBook Price Trackers for the...
We’ve updated our Apple award-winning MacBook Price Trackers with the latest information on prices, bundles, and availability for 16″, 14″, and 13″ MacBook Pros along with 13″ MacBook Airs from Apple... Read more
Back in stock: M1-powered Mac minis for only...
Apple has restocked clearance M1-powered Mac minis in their Certified Refurbished section starting at only $469. Each mini comes with Apple’s one-year warranty, and shipping is free. The following... Read more
Apple to release updated AirPods Pro 2 with U...
Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, in his latest post, suggests that Apple will soon release an updated version of AirPods Pro 2 with a new USB-C case, replacing the current case using an Apple Lightning... Read more
16″ M2 Pro MacBook Pros on sale for $150 off...
Apple retailer Expercom has 16″ M2 Pro MacBook Pros in stock today and on sale for $150 off MSRP, valid through March 28, 2023. In addition to their MacBook Pro sale prices, take $50 off AppleCare+... Read more
13-inch M2 MacBook Pros on sale for $100 off...
Expercom has 13″ MacBook Pros with Apple M2 processors in stock and on sale today for $100 off MSRP through March 28, 2023. Shipping is free: – 2022 13″ MacBook Pro M2 CPU/256GB SSD: $1199, save $100... Read more
Amazon is selling Apple’s 24″ M1 iMacs for $2...
Amazon has Apple’s 24″ M1 iMacs on sale for $200 off MSRP. Their prices are currently the lowest available for new iMacs among the Apple retailers we track: – 24″ M1 iMacs (8-Core CPU/7-Core GPU/... Read more
Apple’s 10th-generation 10.2″ iPads are on sa...
Amazon has Apple’s 10th-generation iPads on sale for $50 off MSRP starting at only $399. Their discount applies to all models and all colors. With the discount, Amazon’s prices are the lowest... Read more
Apple 13-inch MacBook Pros are on sale for $1...
Amazon has 13″ MacBook Pros with Apple M2 processors in stock and on sale today for $150 off MSRP. Their prices are the lowest currently available these MacBook Pros. Be sure to purchase from Amazon... Read more
Apple Pro Display XDR with Nano-Texture Glass...
Apple Authorized Retailer Adorama has the Pro Display XDR with Nano-Texture Glass on sale for $500 off MSRP today. Shipping is free: – Apple 27″ Pro Display XDR Nano-Texture Glass: $5499 $500 off... Read more
10-Core M1 Max Apple Mac Studio on sale for $...
Adorama has the base 10-Core M1 Max Mac Studio in stock and on sale today for $1799 including free shipping. Their price is $200 off Apple’s MSRP, and it’s the lowest price available for a new Mac... Read more

Jobs Board

Omnichannel Associate - *Apple* Blossom Mal...
Omnichannel Associate - Apple Blossom Mall Location:Winchester, VA, United States (https://jobs.jcp.com/jobs/location/191170/winchester-va-united-states) - Apple Read more
Hair Stylist - *Apple* Blossom Mall - JCPen...
Hair Stylist - Apple Blossom Mall Location:Winchester, VA, United States (https://jobs.jcp.com/jobs/location/191170/winchester-va-united-states) - Apple Blossom Read more
Beauty Consultant - *Apple* Blossom Mall -...
Beauty Consultant - Apple Blossom Mall Location:Winchester, VA, United States (https://jobs.jcp.com/jobs/location/191170/winchester-va-united-states) - Apple Read more
Sales Floor Associate - *Apple* Blossom Mal...
Sales Floor Associate - Apple Blossom Mall Location:Winchester, VA, United States (https://jobs.jcp.com/jobs/location/191170/winchester-va-united-states) - Apple Read more
Cashier - *Apple* Blossom Mall - JCPenney (...
Cashier - Apple Blossom Mall Location:Winchester, VA, United States (https://jobs.jcp.com/jobs/location/191170/winchester-va-united-states) - Apple Blossom Mall Read more
All contents are Copyright 1984-2011 by Xplain Corporation. All rights reserved. Theme designed by Icreon.