23 Jun 2003 | Joshua Kaufman said...

Okay, so they messed up, but in general Apple does a very good job of creating simple and memorable URLs. I'm more inclined to congratulate them on this than gripe about when they mess up.

You can make some people happy all of the time. You can make everyone happy some of the time. But you can't make everyone happy all of the time.

I guess I'm in a zen mood today.

23 Jun 2003 | JF said...

Oh, no doubt.

23 Jun 2003 | Joshua Kaufman said...

Sorry, I missed the point there. It's not about getting everything right all of the time. It's about guiding the user appropriatly whenever they mess up. It's about contingency design. In that regard, I don't see why both URLs can't lead to the same page.

23 Jun 2003 | tim said...

It seems to me that /osx has worked in the past. I have a habit of simly typing urls to Apple pages because they normally are very good at human-readable urls.

I would guess, in this case, that Mac OS X is a more branding-friendly term, and that's why they made the switch.

I would agree with such a decision, but would prompt the user with the Yahoo solution for sure.

23 Jun 2003 | Mal Ross said...

If the Yahoo solution is akin to a spellchecker and not based on any hard-coded, common mistakes, then it's fine. But if you can definitely map, say osx to macosx, then why humiliate the user by showing them how dumb they are?

Word processors figured this out ages ago in their auto-correction and spell-checking facilities. If you can confidently redirect the user, do so. It'll spare them the embarrassment of a mistake and will save them time.

23 Jun 2003 | Mal Ross said...

BTW, what's the betting that the /osx URL suddenly starts working very soon? ;)

23 Jun 2003 | fajalar said...

Even with correct URLs, Apple's site is running mighty slow right now. I wonder why?

JF: iSight link in post doesn't work.

23 Jun 2003 | hurley #1 said...

Hm, looks like one of the copywriters at Apple needs some French lessons. They're calling Expos "Trs Cool" on the Panther site, but it should be "Trs Cool." Editorial quibbling aside, it is indeed very cool.

23 Jun 2003 | dmr said...

How bout dem G5s? (Prottly why Apple's site is runnin slow.)

23 Jun 2003 | hurley#1 said...

Actually for me the most exciting announcement was iChatAV. Instant, free high-sound-quality voice conversations anywhere, no long-distance charges. The only problem is, none of my close friends or business colleagues run OSX, so I can't actually use this feature. But it sure sounds swell. ;-)

23 Jun 2003 | fajalar said...

Even their ad text for the G5 calls it a G4.

Also, in-line with dinking Apple, why do all the image links on their store site have Alt/Title text of "Image." So much for accessibility.

Doesn't keep me from buying Apple though.

23 Jun 2003 | Mike said...

Sorry guys, I'm a pretty big Apple zealot, but I just don't like the new case designs. It definitely seems like a step backwards in terms of kick-ass Apple hardware design.

Form follows function a little too much for me in these big, aluminum, mesh enclosures.

Disappointing also is the absence of the rumored Aluminum 15.4" G4/G5 PowerBook, what happened to the year of the laptop?

The feature I was most looking forward to in Panther was the rumored Piles feature and dynamic folders... I guess basic productivity enhancements took a backseat to video conferencing "for the rest of us" ;)

Comments?

23 Jun 2003 | Paul said...

I think the beauty of the G5's case lies not solely in the aesthetics, but as you say Mike, the very "form follows function" attitude. I was initially underwhelmed by the appearance of the case's front - so very nondescript. But once the four levels of airflow were mentioned, I really started to like it a lot. I appreciated the idea behind it, and instantly the entire package seemed a lot more attractive to me.

I think that even in the time since the days of the gumdrop iMac, Apple's design has come an incredibly long way.

I might add that I've already found 2 rather lame and slightly annoying bugs in Safari 1.0 that weren't in the beta, and yes, they've been reported.

All in all, the keynote was quite fine. I wouldn't mind a dual 2GHz G5, no sir.

23 Jun 2003 | Darrel said...

Look! They finally have peripheral ports on the front! Woohoo!

'bout #@(%ing time!

23 Jun 2003 | ~bc said...

Hey Kids, just got back, we had a packed house in Cambridge. From the theatre to the front door, shoulder to shoulder. Our biggest crowd yet. Anyhow, I'm quite psyched about Panther. I'm very curious to see if it'll run on my old indigo iBook. In the mean time I save for a PowerBook. I'm most interested in the changes to the finder, esp. Expos and instant user switching. Any comments on the usability aspects of these? Mouse gestures make their first appearance in a major manufacturer's products (am I right?). And damn, them G5's fast. And cheap. 8gb of ram, anyone?

PS- Apple's site always bogs down on keynote days: everyone and their sister logs on for the new dirt.

23 Jun 2003 | Scrivs said...

Man, you Maclots should be happy that the only thing you have to complain about is case design.

23 Jun 2003 | JF said...

Expose looks so damn hot. Man will that be useful.

23 Jun 2003 | pb said...

Where is the new 15" PowerBook?????

23 Jun 2003 | hurley #1 said...

I still think iChat AV is going to be big. I could never get excited about internet telephony or video before, but all kinds of ideas are coming to mind: I'm already getting ready to test it as a way to give flute lessons to students who live far from me (e.g. other countries).

I even bet it won't be long before some people start using the video capabilities to take "phone sex" to new levels.

How about iChat AV as a tech support tool? Much easier and less disjointed than the IM technologies currently in use, plus the tech support person could have the camera pointed at their screen to illustrate what the user should be dong.

23 Jun 2003 | JF said...

We've already started using the audio-chat in iChat AV to communicate with our programmer in Copenhagen, Denmark. The quality is quite nice -- better than most local cell phone connections (we're both on 512K+ connections). Wow, what a productivity booster this is going to be.

23 Jun 2003 | fajalar said...

Safari gripe: Still doesn't tab from widget to widget. This is a major pain for me and people who don't like (or can't) use the mouse. It only tabs from text area to text area.

But I downloaded iChat AV, and am raring to test it. Step two of master plan: get friends. :P

23 Jun 2003 | Mike said...

That's what I'm sayin' PB... but here's the thing:

If they came out with a 15.4" PB with the new 970 processor at this conference, without updating the 12 and 17 inchers, how pissed off do you think owners of a souped up 17" (or even 12") are going to be when they find out they could have waited a few months to have something much faster?

I believe that at the end of the Summer/beginning of Fall, just when Panther starts shipping, Apple will come out with updates to all the PowerBooks: putting 970s in the 12 and 17" model, and upgrading the 15 to Aluminum -- complete with the new processor as well.

I'm really looking forward to the 15" AlBook!

24 Jun 2003 | Kyle said...

One thing that I would love to see in Safari, (if it isn't already there) is some way to navigate through open tabs with the keyboard. I think about it every time I use Safari.

24 Jun 2003 | * said...

How notebook friendly can the 970 be when it takes 9 fans to keep the thing cool?

24 Jun 2003 | rjs said...

One thing that I would love to see in Safari, (if it isn't already there) is some way to navigate through open tabs with the keyboard. I think about it every time I use Safari.

Cmd+Shift+Arrow (left or right)

24 Jun 2003 | Robb Beal said...

Mike, our Spring Universal Canvas for OS X has Piles-like functionality. We call them folder-less groups. Here's a screenshot showing folder-less groups and our innovative drag between feature.

See this UserCreations weblog post for elaboration.

24 Jun 2003 | Darrel said...

Speaking of tabbing through Safari, It'd be great if Apple made the OS, itself, much more accesible.

Got to take a class using Jaws the other day. It's a piece of screen reading software that seems to be mid-80's-war-games-era. Is this as far as we've made it in 20+ years of desktop OSes?

I think Apple could really take the niche market for those that need more accessible machines by pushing some OS-wide screen reading capabilities, better keyboard navigation, etc.

24 Jun 2003 | Michael Spina said...

I love the case design, including the air flow-through and USB jacks on the front. I love how it has 9 fans that come on when needed. Kind of reminds me of the twin-turbo concept; multiple smaller fans are better than one big one. Simple, sleek, effective.

24 Jun 2003 | Kyle said...

I think Apple could really take the niche market for those that need more accessible machines by pushing some OS-wide screen reading capabilities, better keyboard navigation, etc.

Apple is already doing a lot in this market...

24 Jun 2003 | Kyle said...

Thanks rjs! That makes my day. Now I'd like to know why i haven't seen that publicized anywhere...

24 Jun 2003 | Darrel said...

Kyle:

I wouldn't call that 'a lot'. It's some pretty basic things. Windows has had many of those options for some time.

24 Jun 2003 | Mick said...

I was really excited about these new machines, I love OS X but was worried about the speed difference between Apple and PC's.

Then I saw the specs and all was well. Why I didn't remember that everytime Apple releases specs they are skewed and end up being misleading I don't know, but this article about the testing and tinkering really pist me off.

I am sick of Apple lying to it's customers

24 Jun 2003 | ek said...

Of all the things Apple announced I think the most exciting is Xcode.

It's awesome to see Apple put the brainpower of their UI group into their development tools. I think the improvements in Xcode are going to have a bigger impact on Apple's future health than anything else they've done in the past couple of years -- seriously.

It's amazing that more companies don't put more time and energy into their development/backend interfaces. I'd guess that 99% of all intranets suck. Think of how much productivity is lost because of that?

24 Jun 2003 | dmr said...

I'm a little put-off by the notion that Apple may have disabled the FPUs of the Windows boxes when doing the tests. Was this true for those demos during the keynote? Boy, that would be rather distasteful.

25 Jun 2003 | yuckmouth said...

Not that benchmarks mean much to me, but here are two articles I ran across...

Apple defends Benchmarks from Slashdot.

A Take on that article from the Register.

25 Jun 2003 | Darrel said...

It bugs me that Apple even bothered with benchmarks, because they are, indeed, rather useless. I suppose they still need to battle the speed debate (why get a Mac, my PC is faster!) and so I'm sure the marketing crew thought the benchmark stats would be the best way to go about it.

The best way to go about it, if, indeed the Macs are faster, is to stick a Dell and a Mac side-by-side in the Apple store.

Anyways, interesting links, Yuckmouth...especially about the hyperthreading on the PC actually making the Mac's look better.

25 Jun 2003 | sperion said...

Hijacked from another message board...

Hyperthreading is a "software" emulation of dual processors that runs on the fly inside the motherboard and processor of a Pentium4 3.0 and 3.06Ghz. This emulation allows the processor to more effectivly use threading to maximize the potential of a single processor by by using the concepts of a dual processor system. Basically when a process or thread is busy accessing the hard drive, querying the OS or other such things, the processor is idle and could be used more effectivly by another thread. Hyperthreading is a compilcated thing that I have not studied front to back, however I feel I have enough information to make the following statments.

Hyperthreading was invented for the Pentium4 for the sole purpose of making a single processor emulate dual processors in order to more effectively use threads. This concept may work well for a single processor trying to emulate a dual processor, but it is not the same for a dual processor to emulate a quad. Standard SMP processes built into the motherboards and compilers should be able to more effecitvely use dual processor processing time than hyperthreading enabled processors in a dual configuration. In other words, the overhead involved in hyperthreading would compound the overhead in SMP, and performance would be lost, IMHO. If you are already running a dual processor system, it makes no sense to me that Hyperthreading would add any boost of speed. If there is clear and strong evidence to the contrary, I have not seen it

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16 Jan 2004 | Elias said...

If an application is designed well, the reward for users is that they will learn it faster, accomplish their daily tasks more easily, and have fewer questions for the help desk. As a developer of a well-designed application, your returns on that investment are more upgrade revenue, reduced tech support, better reviews, less documentation, and higher customer satisfaction. The rewards of building a good-looking Aqua application are worth taking the extra time.

16 Jan 2004 | Watkin said...

For example, if you see an AIM window peeking out from behind your browser and you click on it, that window will come to the front, but the main application window will not. The Mail.app/Activity Viewer is another example. The Aqua system of layers works well in many instances, but not in all. Thank goodness that the Dock is always there to come to the rescue. I know that clicking on an application icon in the Dock will always result in not only the application coming to the front, but also any non-minimized windows associated with it. And if the application is active but no windows are open, clicking on the Dock icon should create a new window in that application.

19 Jan 2004 | Asagai said...

iSight Work Around for machines running OS 10.3 that are below the 700MHz G3 minimum.

Hello Everyone:

So, for a few days I could not get the iSight to work again on my 400MHz B&W G3. I was baffled for days. Anyway, here is a simple solution I came up with.

With the machine "Cold". Make sure the iSight is disconnected.

Push the Power Button and wait about 10-15 seconds until you hear the OS begin to load. Once you hear it beginning to load, connect the iSight to the FireWire port on your machine.

The Green light on your camera should come on, and then go off.

Once your machine is UP, simply launch iChat.

When you RESTART your box, you should not have to disconnect your camera, but if you SHUTDOWN the machine, you will have to disconnect & reconnect the iSight to get it to work on machines below Apples 700MHz threshold.

My Machine Specs:
400MHz Blue & White G3
RAM 448mb
OS 10.3.2