main page   Information briefs • macos x server • macos x (client) • darwin • netboot   Installation reports • PHP 3 • PHP 4 (Zend) • MySQL • Python (coming soon)   Special Reports • Apple Media Event 10/99 new iMacs and MacOS 9 • 1999 wwdc keynote • Quick and Dirty MacOS X Server Installaion Guide   Articles   News Archive • 1999 • 1998 • RhapNet (coming soon)   Advertising info   Contact Us   About Us   Links   The Tweak List			Keynote 104: Beyond the Hype Greetings class. I assume that all of you have done your homework and watched the keynote or followed the coverage of the keynote of the 1999 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, given by Steve Jobs and Avadis Tevanian with some help from Phil Schiller and others. …of course, I don't assume you all have. I know how it is to be young, and that many of you have been sucked into that nasty trap of being hopped up on dope and booze 24/7/365. So, I cannot assume you all have followed the coverage through clear eyes…so we will break down the keynote as it pertains to MacOS X Server and MacOS X. I'll even try to speak slowly so that those of you hungover either from Jobs' charisma or Cuervo can keep up. Since following the coverage and being knowledgable of events are two separate and seemingly unrelated ideas, we will be breaking down the coverage of the keynote and subsequent developer conferences as best we can. We will draw both on reports sent to us, and reports of the conference posted by other online information sources.   The keynote itself is of course written and presented as a ringmaster would conduct a circus, or a master of ceremonies would a formal gala. There is no negativity, and at times, we must cut through the rosy words to find the true meaning underneath. This isn't to say that keynotes and the ilk are inherently evil, just that their purpose is to make sure that the audience is happy and pleased, leaving them with a satisfied feeling afterwards. This is important both for Apple's PR and for the collective happiness of Apple developers and users everywhere. In general news: • Apple had a marked increase in attendance in WWDC attendance. Much of this has been attributed to increased confidance in the Macintosh platform, as well as the active incorporation of former NeXT developers into the MacOS X fold. • Apple did not announce the consumer portable, and has said that it will be released sometime later this year. • Announced was the next generation of PowerBooks. The new PowerBooks are faster, sleeker, smaller, lighter, and pack a wallop. Referred to as the "Bronze" PowerBook, the new line adds newer Apple-standard features such as USB and Firewire ports. • MacOS 8.5 has sold very well, and announced at the same time was the release of MacOS 8.6. • QuickTime 4 is being downloaded at an astounding rate, and Apple is receiving good feedback and praise for the very emphatically beta version of the software. • The Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace trailer has been downloaded a ton, and Jobs quoted the total number of bytes transferred in terabytes. He also noted that the downloads are usually of the high-quality (and therefore large filesize) trailer. • The iMac is still a big hit. Sales are still high, and Apple has enrolled Sears as a new national sales outlet for the computers. iMacs will start debuting in Sears stores later in May, or early June. • Apple has a ton of cash reserved, and is quite pleased with its current financial status.   Now, on to the good stuff…the reason why we're gathered here today:

 

			One of the major announcements of the entire keynote was the immediate availability of MacOS X Developer Preview Release 1 for developers. All registered developers in attendance were encouraged to pick up a CD from a large stack in the keynote room, and all other developers will apparently be receiving their copies in the next developer mailing. Some of the bigger announcements regarding MacOS X and its architecture: • MacOS X will have speech recognition! - Dragon Systems announced that they will be bringing their very popular voice recognition to the Mac platform by about the end of the year, with international versions to be available early next year. • The kernel will transition from Mach 2.5+ to Mach 3.0 - While definitely not a surprise to any in attendance, Apple made official that they will be transitioning the kernel which lies under MacOS X (and eventually MacOS X Server as well) to the more advanced Mach 3.0 kernel. The transition should be almost painless for developers, but will mean a delay in the MacOS X Client release schedule. • A new compiler for the new OS - Following some outspoken requests for it, Apple will be replacing the GNU C/C++ Compiler (usually referred to as gcc or g++) with the newer GNU compiler known as egcs. Apple will be working to fine tune the egcs compiler on its PowerMacintosh hardware both for MacOS X development and the Darwin project. • Kick ass Java - Apple's Macintosh Runtime for Java (MRJ) is currently up to Java 1.1.7, and there is already a very early Macintosh version of the Java 2.0 standard released earlier this year. Speed continues to keep climbing all the time, and work continues forward all the time. While the current version of the Macintosh Java runtimes still lag behind the Windows versions, Apple is positive that the gap will be closed in a fairly short timeframe. Apple is working on bringing Apple's Java to Java 2.0 but acknowledges that getting there is less important than making sure that pre-Java 2.0 is still optimized. Some mentions to the effect that Java 2.0 is an evil spec were implied, but Apple did say that they will work toward Java 2.0 so that they can accommodate developers and users alike. • Quartz - the new 2-D imaging model (more below) • Cocoa - the piecing together of what had been referred to as Yellow Box, Java, and more (more below) • Carbon - the old MacOS API brought into the 21st-century (more below) • pre-MacOS X technology creeping downward - Sonata (referred to by many as MacOS 8.7, but as yet unnumbered) will include a number of new features, including a brand spankin' new login screen for the use a Sonata workstation to function for multiple users. Those who have seen it say it very closely resembles the current login for MacOS X Server. Also, other technology such as keychains for username/passwords (a remnant of the since-retired PowerTalk technology), and the Carbon libraries will work themselves into Sonata giving the old-school Macs their first bite at Carbon. The keychains should also be easily brought to MacOS X and should be a helpful addition. • Delayed, but not denied - Due to a number of decisions made recently within the engineering corps working on MacOS X as well as other teams working on MacOS X technology, Apple has revised their timetable for the release of MacOS X and its developer releases: MacOS X Developer Release 1 - available now to all developers MacOS X Developer Release 2 - After a period of comments coming back to Apple from developers and partners, Apple will combine bug fixes, features, and more into DR2. Should be available sometime in late Fall '99. MacOS X Official Release - MacOS X is now on schedule to ship in "early 2000". It will be delayed by engineering additions and more to the operating system. Jobs and Tevanian did do what they could to reassure that this was not a creeping schedule, but a move toward additional quality and support within the operating system. Got that? Good. Write it all down, and we'll move on… Now let's focus on some of the more specific issues raised during the keynote as well as subsequent information.

 

			For those of you who have been following the codename whirlwind associated with MacOS X and MacOS X Server, you have already heard about Quartz (not the name, but the technology). For those of you who haven't: Harken back to the NeXT purchase. Part of what Apple bought was an operating system which used Adobe's Display PostScript imaging system. The big plus was that OpenStep, and by extension Rhapsody, were built-in WYSIWYG systems. Essentially, any layout on the screen will by nature be what will print out on a PostScript printer. This is a big plus for the perennially graphics/prepress oriented Macintosh platform. The main drawback was, however, the licensing fee which Adobe required for each system shipping with Display PostScript inside. This fee, as many reasoned, would end up being prohibitive to Apple's future efforts and was an unnecessary long-term cost. So, last year, Apple announced a new graphics system which would be at the heart of MacOS X. Instead of the fee-laden Display PostScript or the nice, but apparently underfeatured, QuickDraw, Apple decided to split the difference and create a new imaging engine which would incorporate all the power of Display PostScript as well as other advanced features found in QuickDraw, QuickDraw GX, and other technologies which Apple already had. All told this new Enhanced QuickDraw would usher in a new era of powerful display technology in the Macintosh platform, and position the company with a high-octane, 21st-century level display system which would set it apart from other platforms. After deciding to make it a truly amazing graphic system, they added a few more goodies like system-level alpha channels and more. And inline with previous statements to the effect, Apple also announced that the display system would be PDF-based. This new Quartz engine will fuel the two-dimensional rendering on screen for window and text layout in addition to other 2-D features. As for 3-D, no surprise, just a release. Apple announced OpenGL 1.0 for the Macintosh platform. The new library allows properly equipped PowerMacintosh computers to utilize Apple's OpenGL library for games or other intense 3-D oriented applications which utilize OpenGL. By all accounts, the performance and quality are amazing.

 

			Carbon. The next frontier for traditional Macintosh programmers. It's not news, but its use has been cleared up some recently. Apparently, Apple is currently hard at work to make sure that any Carbon application is binary compatible with MacOS 8.1 upwards as well as on MacOS X. Such services as Navigation Services, Icon Services, and others are being worked into the mix to bring the UI on pre-MacOS X applications in line with the new and improved MacOS X interface. Metrowerks has committed to developers looking toward Carbon application development. Starting with version 5, Code Warrior will ship with Carbon application libraries, and the ability to remotely (as in another physical computer) debug applications. These add-ons will also be available for those who already have purchased version 4. Carbon, like Cocoa/YellowBox, will utilize Quartz as its display system, and will be able to draw on Quartz' amazing graphics capabilities. In addition, Steve and Avie noted that Carbon and the renamed Cocoa will be linked together at many points in the higher levels - that is, Carbon and Cocoa will share a number of programmatic resources in order to keep code bases reasonable and operability top-notch. Two applications were demonstrated during the keynote. The first showed some of the power of Quartz and Carbon together. Schiller dragged a PDF file into a window where he had already typed some text, and what we saw on the screen was the instant import and anti-aliasing of the PDF file, and the automatic alpha-channels, compositing, and other very fancy graphics effects which were applied to text and PDF file alike. A proof of concept and progress app, it showed fairly well how far along Quartz and Carbon are. The second application is the one that is starting to cause some stir among the Mac faithful. Yes, Apple announced formally that they are creating a whole new "Finder" written in Carbon to run in MacOS X, and displayed a very early version of the software. In what appeared to be a combination of the OpenStep/MacOS X Server File Viewer and the MacOS' Finder, the new Carbonized "Finder" had a couple of new tricks up its sleeve. Apple has integrated a nice drag and drop shelf into the single-window display. For those of you unaware of what a shelf is, it is a graphical bookmark file. You can drag or drop a file, drive, or other type of icon into the shelf. Then whenever you want to use it, you just select the icon in the shelf, and you are instantly transported to that file, server, or whatever. Depending on personal preference, this is a great thing or a feature destined to take up too much space on your screen. The first potential battle of the landscape is the overall look of the new "Finder." While the icons and "look and feel" are very MacOS-like, the functioning of the screen is much more like the OpenStep/MacOS X Server File Viewer where files are listed vertically and the folder/server hierarchy is listed horizontally. No new windows for new folders. All actions are based in the single window view. Now, noting again that the new "Finder" is nothing close to feature complete, Mac users will not have to get used to boring textual listings of file names. There is, like in MacOS X Server's File Viewer, an option to view the contents of folders in Icon View. This is much more Mac-like, and with a little getting used to, will probably be a nicer way to work than with individual windows like under the MacOS. As it is, make no decisions one way or the other on what Apple showed us. Instead, if you would like to be heard, make your hopefully intelligent and thought-out opinion heard through any of a number of Apple channels. All in all, the demonstration of Carbon was a success, and seems fairly promising.

 

			For those of you who are familiar with what Yellow Box is/was, it is a set of rich programming tools which had been part of NeXT's warchest. Following Apple's purchase of NeXT as subsequent Rhapsody strategy, Yellow Box became the way to program in the new operating system. Long used by NeXT programmers and WebObjects developers, the programming tools often utilized the Objective-C language. Objective-C is a variant on classical C which adds a true object-oriented language and environment to the old C syntax. It has been hailed by many as a great language with a huge upside, but has not necessarily caught on in a big way in the world of programming. It's not an outcast, it's just different. When Apple looked to the future, the decision was made to bank on the growing popularity of Sun's Java language. Reasoning that with the popularity of Java and the endless possibilities for applications these days that Yellow Box would be opened up to the Java language. The Java access to Yellow Box gave developers two different languages to program with, and allowed for the flexibility and ability of the programmers who would eventually make or break this new platform. And while, granted, it is also possible to program some of Yellow Box in C++, and to a lesser extent C, Objective-C and Java were and are the big two languages. Following the cancellation of the MacOS X Server for Intel, many wondered when Apple would release Yellow Box for Windows as had been promised for some time. NeXT had provided OpenStep for Windows - a set of software that allowed users to use OpenStep (the predecessor to Yellow Box) while running Windows at the same time - for years, and Apple had promised to keep this option available. On Tuesday, we learned the fate of this often-underrated technology. Apple has chosen to take the Objective-C interface to the Yellow Box and bundle it together with the new "hip" Java interface to Yellow Box. Together, with some additional technology, Cocoa will be an amazing, long-term, object-oriented environment which will be not only powerful, but will have access to the amazing functionality of Quartz and AppleScript and other technology. What does this mean? Well, frankly, we think that the rebundling is a way of pointing to developers that you can have interfaces to a set of APIs which look nothing alike in the actual typed code, but which can be utilized by programmers in whichever language they prefer. In essence, it is not Apple's job to answer any sort of language religion fight, but instead to open up the MacOS X platform to whatever developers wish to come aboard. Cocoa will also utilize Quartz for it's 2-D graphics, and most likely OpenGL for it's 3-D graphics. The only real changes in the Yellow Box portion of Cocoa will be fine-tuning for use with Quartz and other new technologies which will show up for the first time in MacOS X. Apple has committed to writing, maintaining, and bundling a Cocoa e-mail application for MacOS X. This is another part of Steve Jobs' assertion that to be successful, Apple must not only create powerful development interfaces, but must also utilize them themselves. This new application, which seemed to be very similar to Mail Viewer, will include the such cool features as AIAT searching of mail, the ability to display inline media content (such as PDF files) via Quartz, POP3, IMAP4, LDAP for address books, and more.

 

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