Volume Number: 15 (1999)
Issue Number: 8
Column Tag: Viewpoint

Aug 99 Viewpoint

by Nick DeMello

MacTech is growing. With the recent merger of MacTech and NetProfessional Magazines, the new MacTech is expanding its coverage to provide strong technical content on a variety of Macintosh related topics. From one viewpoint, we will be increasing our coverage to include content on systems development, web development, multimedia technologies, and hardware technologies, as well as continuing to offer the same quality of content for application developers and programmers we have since 1984. From another perspective, we are continuing to serve the same people we always have — the cutting edge solution providers who use and target Macintosh technology.

A computer, even Macintosh, doesn’t really solve problems — it doesn’t help you write letters, create graphics, read email, or calculate your budget. Instead computers and computer platforms serve as a foundation, a fertile starting point and a set technologies that invite and empower third parties to build solutions. The value of the platform is found in the quality and breadth of solutions on or accessed from that platform.

In 1984, when the first Mac introduced itself to the world, there was someone in that audience who saw things that weren’t there. That person saw solutions to problems that average people — folks who didn’t know a CPU from a CPA — had every day. Then he went out and built that solution.

He’s why the Macintosh has succeeded.

He’s why MacTech was started.

He’s why MacTech is now expanding.

In 1984, when the first MacTech appeared on the newsstands there weren’t too many ways to build solutions. To really appreciate the potential and to seize the opportunities that Macintosh technology offered you needed to develop applications. Since day one, developers have looked to MacTech for introductions to new technologies, presentations of the latest developer tools, techniques, tips, conference reports, leads, and perspectives. We’ve tried to get behind and support the folks, who got behind making the Macintosh work.

Today, there are more choices. Macintosh technology has grown in amazing and diverse ways allowing more types of Macintosh developers to provide diverse solutions. MacTech is simply growing with the expanding development community to address at least five key areas.

Applications developers will always be on the cutting edge of technology. These developers need the most reliable, most up to date, and most detailed information about new Macintosh technologies. They need to know what programming tools are available, and how they measure up. MacTech will continue to provide those resources.

Web development is also Macintosh development. Whether you’re accessing a solution from or on a computer is becoming almost transparent, and Apple has made it pretty clear that the Macintosh will be at the front of new and developing internet technologies. With the addition of the resources and staff of NetProfessional magazine, MacTech will be able to provide cutting edge content for Macintosh web developers.

Multimedia technologies are the Mac’s strong suit. Over the last year MacTech has provided articles on OpenGL, QuickTime, RealMedia, and other multimedia technologies. We plan to continue to explore and expand our coverage into authoring and programming options for multimedia developers.

Systems developers are finding the Macintosh to be a powerful option for providing network solutions. From a single user, one operating system personal computer, Macintosh has expanded to serve just about every type of network content available and host multiple operating systems. Powerful system command and scripting languages like Perl and AppleScript allow administrators and users to provide system level solutions in a fraction of the time it would require to develop application level solutions. MacTech has already expanded its coverage into many of these areas, and the system and network administrative experts and resources we’ve added from NetProfessional will let us go still further.

Hardware technologies and standards are blossoming at Apple. Not too surprising, Apple is a hardware company and it had never been timid about taking the lead in emerging hardware technologies. FireWire, AltiVec, USB, DVD, and wireless technologies are opening new opportunities for developers. MacTech will delve deeper into these standards and technologies with an eye to their application to Macintosh developers of all kinds.

I must have seen that clip of Steve Job’s unveiling his first Mac a hundred times. I firmly believe that Steve wasn’t trying to sell a single computer that day. I believe he was speaking directly to that one person in the audience. The one who saw things that weren’t there. He was trying to sell the idea of Macintosh, and in so doing ignite an explosion of development and innovation that fed on itself and kept growing, making the Mac a compelling product for consumers. By doing this he wasn’t going to sell a single computer, but he would sell millions.

The technologies are still coming, more rich and diverse than ever before.

MacTech will cover them.