MacOS X , the True story. Whoever thought theyÕd ever get to see Apple co-founder and interim CEO Steve Jobs hamming it up for an overhead camera (in the middle of a demo of QuickTime Internet streaming)? Jobs did that halfway through his keynote address on the opening day of the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) at the San Jose Convention Center, May 11. That moment of levity was typical of the upbeat mood at WWDC. Earlier, demonstrating AppleÕs new Pentium-toasting G3 hardwareÑincluding the stunning new iMac computerÑJobs stoked the crowdÕs spirits even higher by showing the companyÕs new ad for the PowerBook G3 (for the benefit of those who donÕt watch television, the ad shows a steamroller flattening a row of Pentium notebooks). As the audience erupted in cheers, Jobs moved on to the companyÕs plans for QuickTime and Java. Embedded QuickTime The big news there: QuickTime is getting even more functionality (how does a live broadcast of a QuickTime movie embedded in a Microsoft Office 98 document grab you?), and AppleÕs implementation of the Java Virtual Machine will speed up. AppleÕs JVM currently lags some points behind Java implementations from Netscape and Microsoft as measured by the industry standard CaffeineMark benchmark, Jobs admitted candidly. ThatÕs the situation today, but not for long, he vowed: ÒI pledge to you, weÕre going to pick up those extra CaffeineMarks. Our goal is to be second to none in performance.Ó This was heady stuff, and the audience perked up noticeably. ÒThis is Our Crown JewelÓ The mood brightened even more when Jobs launched into what the developers had mainly come to hear: the companyÕs new OS strategy. Jobs made it clear that Apple is squarely behind the Mac OS. Calling the Mac OS Òthe most important piece of software weÕve got,Ó he noted that Apple had 22 million Macintosh customers, and double that many users. ÒThis is our crown jewel,Ó he said. ÒIt needs to be polished and extended, and thatÕs exactly what weÕre going to do.Ó In a word, forget the old dual-OS strategy: Apple is coming out with a modern operating system based on the Mac OS and RhapsodyÑand itÕs going to be an operating system that takes the Macintosh into the next century, Jobs promised. Whither Rhapsody? Good question. Steve Jobs had an answer: ÒRhapsody was great technology, a really good technology,Ó Jobs said. ÒThe problem was, when you ran the existing Mac apps under the Blue Box (part of the Rhapsody architecture designed to support a full version of the Mac OS, hosted on a modern kernel), it didnÕt get any of the new features. And to get the new features, you had to rewrite your whole app.Ó As Jobs explained, ÒRhapsody was going in the right direction, but it didnÕt go far enough. We decided to go farther. What do people want? They want an advanced OS that runs Mac apps.Ó Jobs continued in rhetorical mode: ÒWhat does Ômodern OSÕ mean? It means things like protected memory, it means things like a modern virtual memory system, it means things like multitasking (the ability to run two or more programs on your Mac at the same time) and multithreading (processing multiple transactions concurrently within a single application).Ó Big Leap for the Mac OS Jobs got more applause when he introduced AppleÕs next-generation operating system, Mac OS X (ÒXÓ is pronounced ÒTenÓ). And no wonder: Instead of requiring developers to rewrite hundreds of thousands of lines of code, Apple has found a way to leverage most of the code developers already have. ÒWe set out to think different,Ó Jobs explained simply. ÒWe set out to just do it. It is a big leap in the Mac OS road map. It takes the Mac OS into new territory in the biggest change itÕs had since it was first introduced in 1984.Ó ItÕs clearly time for change: In the 15 years it has been around, the Macintosh system has acquired some Òbarnacles and crust,Ó Jobs said. ÒThere are over 8,000 function callsÑover 8000 APIs in the systemÑand we went over them with a fine-tooth comb because some of them were preventing us from building these advanced features. And what we found was that over 2,000 of them were bad news.Ó Dramatic pause. ÒSo we decided to have the courage to get rid of them, and weÕre doing exactly that,Ó Jobs said, noting that Mac APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) have been reduced to a core set of 6,000. ÒWeÕve named that API set Carbon,Ó Jobs said, and quipped, ÒAll life forms will be based on it.Ó The Carbon Advantage Carbon-based applications will have clear advantages: Greater stability (preemptive multitasking and protected address spaces will help prevent misbehaving applications from crashing the system or other apps); improved responsiveness (each app will have guaranteed processing time through preemptive scheduling, resulting in a more positive user experience); and more efficient use of system resources (applications will use memory Òdynamically,Ó meaning that they will access RAM and other resources based on actual memory needs rather than on predetermined values). Carbon applications will run on Mac OS 8 as well; developers need not maintain separate source code versions of their apps because Carbon supports both the Mac OS 8 and Mac OS X runtime environments. According to a white paper distributed after the keynote, the level of programming effort required for Carbon compatibility will be about the same as was needed for converting 68K applications to PowerPC. (In fact, the white paper points to the smooth transition from 68K to PowerPC as AppleÕs model for the seamless path to Mac OS X.) Unlike the bad old days, when developers had to completely rewrite applications for a new OS, apps migrating to Mac OS X will require only a minimal amount of rewriting. A tune-up, not a rewrite, is what Jobs called it. PowerPC All the Way For the first time, the Mac OS will be fully PowerPC native, with no leftover blocks of the old 68000 code, although the white paper, Transitioning to Mac OS X (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader), identified Òmaximum source code compatibility with existing applicationsÓas one of the companyÕs overriding goals for Carbon. Apple has eased the job for developers by enabling them to reuse source code written to the current API (in effect, preserving their investment in the Mac OS). ThatÕs one of the reasons why Ben Waldman, general manager of MicrosoftÕs Macintosh Business Unit and MacromediaÕs Norm Meyrowitz strongly endorsed AppleÕs new OS strategy. And Greg Gilley, vice president of graphics products at Adobe Systems, reported that he had been able to port Photoshop 5.0 to the Carbon-based standard without making a serious dent in his MotherÕs Day weekend. Developers can build Carbon-based applications using existing development tools, Jobs said, and Apple is providing a Carbon Compatibility Analyzer to help them access the compatibility of their existing code and the scope of future conversion efforts. Of the 100 key applications Apple has tested, Jobs reported 90 percent compliance with Carbon APIs. (The compatibility analyzer will be available after WWDC at http://developer.apple.com/macosx/.) Real Artists Ship Apple will continue to develop Mac OS 8 for the installed base of Mac users, Jobs said, and proceeded to map out forthcoming system software releases: Mac OS 8.5 (a.k.a. Allegro), will ship in September, and Mac OS 8.6 will hit stores in Q1, 1999. ÒReal artists shipÓ had been the rallying cry when the original Macintosh development team raced to get the product out the door. AppleÕs software engineering team appears to have recaptured that spirit: Jobs surprised the audience when he announced that a beta version of Mac OS X will be ready not years from now, but by Q1, 1999Ñand the final version of Mac OS X will be ready to run by Q3 of next year. The news created quite a stir among developers who remembered Copland (the massive system software project that turned into the Bataan Death March before Apple finally pulled the plug on it and rolled its key features into Mac OS 8). Clearly this was a new Apple. An Apple that thinks different. 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