Mac Geekery

Well, it’s about damned time.

I’ve been wanting to write up some iPhone dev pieces for a while but pushed the idea aside because of the SDK NDA issue. Well, Apple’s finally come to their senses and removed the NDA so that developers can actually form a community now.

This is one of two major issues that have made developers uncertain about writing for the iPhone platform, what with Android coming very soon now. The other issue, which Apple has yet to deal with, is the rejection of applications based on unreleased criteria. There's more »

Earlier this week I left my job at Apple as a support monkey. It was time. As such, I’ll have much more time to work on things for the site, and I’ll be a little more human when it comes to answering questions, I suspect. Something about that job really killed me.

If you care to hear the long and evil story, I posted it to my After Apple blog, where I suspect I’ll talk a bit more about Apple as a company in the future. If you’re another Apple miscreant that wants to do the same, just sign up and join in.

Just as JC’s moved his Genius stories to Ungenius, I’ll likely move my opinion items to my After Apple blog, so go get that feed as well. We’ll try to keep MG technical as much as possible. There's more »

There’s a lot of people that misunderstand security risks. This includes popular bloggers on popular weblogs, like Infinite Loop it would appear.

And speaking of exploiting bugs, a related report on the increase of malware in the last year focuses on the doubling of Linux threats, but specifically warns that Macs are likely to become “the biggest alternative target to Windows in 2006,” between the errors made in system development, the recent processor switch, and the growing demand for zombie machines to spew spam and host malicious web sites, we could have a big problem on our hands.

Aside from being a run-on sentence, this statement is completely horrid in another way: it’s misleading. By default, Mac OS X does not ship with any network services running. None. Not a one. Out of the box Mac OS X is not sharing files, running SSH, sharing its printers, or even exposing the CUPS configuration page to anything but the loopback port — and most consumers are running it in that default configuration. If you portscan a fresh install of Mac OS X, you get bupkis. There's more »

It’s not the end of the world.

I’ve read around the web for the past day or so, as well as on several of the mailing lists I read, and I see some very pessimistic viewpoints of this release and especially the announcement that this will be a part of Leopard. Some are saying that it could ease the transition to Windows because companies would say “well, you can dual-boot, can’t you?” and then not release software for the Mac. Others are saying it’s the first step into Apple using Windows as a desktop OS. Still others think Apple’s turning into a Dell and will start to ship dual-boot machines out of the factory.

Mac Software is Safe

Anyone that reiterates the first argument has likely never worked for a software company before. You don’t have the clout — ever — to force a consumer to change operating systems to run your program. Adobe will not make designers flip to Windows to run one program and then flip back to run another (be it theirs or someone else’s). Aspyr will not be ditching the game-porting business. Apple is simply not going to lose application ground to Windows because … Apple is not really competing with Microsoft with this move. There's more »

Well, if this doesn’t qualify as a hack…

Apple just released a beta of Boot Camp. This is a BIOS-emulating EFI module, Windows drivers, and associated Mac OS X control and setup software that allows “legacy” OSes like Windows XP to boot on a Mac. This comes with an associated firmware update for each of the Intel Macs to allow support for this.

Boy, I wonder what the people that funded the “XP on Mac” contest feel about having an official solution now.

“If we’d just waited…”

Although, in all likelihood, it was the contest and the popularity of the solution that was probably the free marketing that brought this about. If the contest hadn’t existed, hadn’t been won, and hadn’t been popular afterwards then Apple probably wouldn’t have done this.

I do love that this completely proves my point, though. Apple is, as they’ve always said, a hardware company. And now they, instead of Dell, will dual-boot Mac OS X and Windows. Now Apple, instead of Dell, will sell machines that do a little bit of everything.

Now I really do need a new iMac…

I don’t hate Microsoft. I, honestly, don’t hate Windows. I don’t use it, but when I do use it I can see the sense in it. While I may rail on that Apple has a clearer idea of what people want out of computers, I won’t sit here and say that Microsoft is clueless. In fact, I’ll say that there are a lot of really smart people at Microsoft that are being hampered by process and egos. The same is true for a lot of companies, Apple included, but it’s rare for it to go unchecked so long as to make it a public fiasco and bring very bright lights to it.

This happened this past week to Microsoft. Years of project managers trying to one-up each other, adding and canceling features and projects, and putting out insane deadlines and requirements finally caught up with the company as they announced, again, that the next version of Windows would be delayed. Ouch.

This wouldn’t be a problem, in itself, if there wasn’t so much back-story to it. The short of it is that there was a version of Windows that ran on DOS and a version of Windows that ran on its own kernel (95 and NT, respectively). Then there was eventually one true unified Windows kernel (XP). When things got to that point, they realized that there were some problems with how they’d handled the transition and that they needed to stop, take a look at the product and the disaster it had become from a feature, interface, and manageability standpoint and re-write the system. There's more »

Have you purchased a new Mac in the last five or six years? You know, I didn’t think so. In fact, I’d be willing to wager that very few people have bothered to shell out the whole paycheck (or two!) that it takes to upgrade to a “modern” machine these days, which makes Apple’s decision to not support the PowerPC 604e processors even more insanely stupid. Oh, you didn’t know that they weren’t supported? Well, neither did I until I called Apple and they basically laughed at me and expected me to pay over $1,000 on a new computer in order to use the software I just bought. There's more »

Now that there’s a comparable operating system with comparable popularity to Windows out there that’s also running on Intel, the media and analysts have come up the arguments that Apple should release the OS for “normal” PCs and they’d make a killing off it. The assumption is that people would buy it up and Apple would make more money on the software sales from people that wouldn’t buy a Mac anyway. That’s the assumption, but is it true? History speaks to us on this topic.

Over 80% of Apple’s sales relate to hardware (Form 10-K, Dec 2005 ) which leaves about 20% for other things, such as software and the music store. This software would be items such as Mac OS X, but also software (with higher margins) such as iLife, iWork, Final Cut Studio and Mac OS X Server. From today’s numbers, software is not the most significant part of Apple’s sales, even though some of the prices dance dangerously close to the price of new hardware. This begs the question “what if software was a significant seller?” Well, let’s look at two companies that were created by ex-Apple employees who had the same idea. There's more »

Who really owns the Internet? Is it the telecom industry or the people? Is it something real and tangible, or could another one be made now that it’s been done? It’s something I’m sure we all have an opinion on (or would with a moment of thought) but does the cold, hard, capitalist reality stand up to it?

I was reading an article linked on TotalFark earlier today where yet another senator is trying to make a name for himself in the eyes of the consumer by unnecessarily stepping on the businesses that keep the Internet going. His claim is that legislation is needed to make it illegal for a telecom to accept payment on a promise to deliver a site to a home user faster than another because the idea has been bandied about by several telecom giants who, inevitably, say that they can do what they want because they own the network. There's more »

If you’re in the Austin area, don’t miss out on BarCamp Austin next week. There’s a ton of conferences out there, but not a ton worth going to. Get a bunch of geeks together and tell them to talk about anything they want and you’re just bound to have a good time at some point.

This kind of thing usually finds its way to Dallas for some reason (there are highways in hell; there are highways in Dallas) so if you’re in the general area of a Texas drive (300-400 miles) get on over there and help out.

What is BarCamp? Why, the companion to FooCamp, of course.

BarCamp is an ad-hoc un-conference born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees. All attendees must give a demo, a session, or help with one.

Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to join.

When you come, be prepared to share with barcampers. When you leave, be prepared to share it with the world.

Sound good? Sign up.