“We wanted basically to make the hardware disappear.”
Since when did minimalism become the central design goal of every design of everything under the sun? Immersiveness is fine but only up to a point. The UI is what gives the user control in the environment. He needs to see what tools are at his disposal. Should we blindly adopt a design principle whose most tangible benefit is to reduce manufacturing costs?
The way I look at a machine: minimum set-up hassles. I do not want to install my OS and spend half a week searching for its Wi-Fi chip driver. Yes, there was a time I loved such challenges, but not any more. If you’re expected to do serious work, you got to power up your machine and work on it right away (not spend the whole night figuring out why your network daemon gets killed only when you open a particular app).
It will help if device manufacturers concentrated towards making the “hardware disappear’ — figuratively, so to speak.
It is for the same reason, why the greatest programmer of this time, Linus Torvalds, is such a fan of Chromebook Pixel: http://www.zdnet.com/chromebooks-biggest-fan-linus-torvalds-7000012842/
There would be a reason behind the survey result which said more developers prefer Mac than Linux: http://www.zdnet.com/developers-opt-for-macs-over-linux-study-finds-3040093659/
Mohawke / April 11, 2010I love OS X for two reasons: 1. I can be pritdcuove with both open source tools as well as commercial tools. 2. I can use Apple’s GUI or revert to Unix and take full advantage of that power regardless of X11. I was amazed at how Unixy it is under the hood, including the file system, as I figured that would eventually be stripped out. You can run SSH and execute Linux apps on your Mac remotely, you have Nano, grep, wall, etc. at your finger tips all the time, the system is very stable and secure.To the comment about multiple desktops, it’s BSD and that was there the whole time! Job’s uses this as a marketing tool; Intel + PPC OS X anyone? When you understand Apple and you start to see this pattern, even on the iPhone. Similar to Microsoft’s pattern of monkey see monkey do I’ve been using open source since day one starting with Slackware and it’s always been a chore BeOS was better IMO and it was cheap compared to Windows and Mac. I recently moved from Linux for my day to day system at home for many reasons. I got tired of constantly fixing crap, setting up hardware manually, and not being able to use some really good commercial softwares, and dealing with the limitations in some of the open software I used.The OS has become trivial to me over the years anyway and while I would likely use Linux in my job (RedHat) over the expensive alternatives, it doesn’t really fit well with the typical home user or home commercial market place. Home users want games (Windows) or ease of use (OS X) with the ability to impulse buy at the local software store. Remember, most home users at this point are not computer geeks! As for impulse buying, I think the AppStore proves my point Operating Systems being treated as God to this tribe mentality is just so tiresome! Grow up people, would you poke fun at me if I told you I drive a Jeep Wrangler? Wrangler drivers all wave to each other like we are a tribe, but I don’t argue with Toyota drivers on the internet because they are not Wrangler drivers.If people running Linux enjoy freedom then let people have the freedom to use or like what they wish. I know many Linux users who run OS X for software and others who run Windows for gaming it’s all choice and each OS has it’s strengths, weaknesses, and philosophies so get over yourself and your tribes and use what makes you happy or pritdcuove and honestly, stop making people in the media gods! Do we need articles like this? I could care less what Linus thinks about OS X, I like it just like there are movies I like that some critics hate. Let’s recall something our parents likely told us once, if your friends jumped off a bridge would you follow? Reply