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Apple Blows Another Great Opportunity

27
Oct
2007

I hate to be yet another blogger taking a potshot at Apple in the wake of the Leopard release, but I just have to say it: Apple, WTF are you thinking?!  There, I said it, now we can be rational about things.

For those of you living in very cramped fox-holes for the past two years, MacOS X 10.5 (Leopard) is Apple’s latest incarnation of the cult-classic OS, MacOS X.  It’s got multiple workspaces, file system versioning, read-only ZFS support and eye-twisting shadows which make your desktop look about half a mile thick.  It’s got a totally redesigned Finder (which coincidentally looks just like iTunes) and added eye candy for both the Dock and the menu bar.  What it doesn’t have is Java 6.

Sun released Java 6 back in what, last November?  Apple’s had quite a while to get their act in gear and bring the latest major release to the table.  In fact, they’ve had even longer than a year, since Java 6 was in open development long before its release.  Apple did release a few developer previous of Java 6 to ADC members, but they discontinued the practice several months ago and haven’t made anything available since.  It’s not as bad as all that though, the preview releases weren’t too much more than a renamed Java 5 with a few new generic APIs.  Either way, Apple really has no excuse for not having Java 6 ready at least to coincide with the latest version of its OS, if not sooner.

To be totally honest, I don’t see how Apple is even justifying this decision to itself and its stockholders.  Consider how many Java developers have switched to Macintosh over the last few years.  I can count on one hand the number of developers I know and respect who still use Windows or Linux as their primary development machine.  It’s startling the shift in the market which has taken place, partially driven by Rails’s major push of TextMate and the waves it caused throughout the rest of the development community, but also caused by the fact that MacOS X really is a very slick, very stable BSD incarnation which can run smoothly as a desktop.  Well, that and the fact that the Apple hardware just looks so cool.

The thing is, all of these Java developers who’ve switched to Mac recently are going to start second guessing that decision.  Java 6 is now a year overdue for the Mac platform, and Apple is giving no indication of rectifying the situation any time soon.  What’s worse, is the version of Java 5 which does come pre-installed on Leopard seems buggy and unstable (disclaimer: I haven’t actually tested this myself, I just have it on good authority).  Without a modern, stable Java, many developers will be simply unable to use the platform as their primary system.  And guess where these developers will turn?  Either to Linux and all the headaches thereof, or back into Microsoft’s waiting (and well-patented) arms.  Is Apple really so big that it can just give the finger to such a large market segment?

Consider too, what this is going to mean for the future of the Mac platform.  In the last couple years, we’ve seen a vast increase in the quality and quantity of applications available for Macintosh.  I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that this has correlated directly with the up-surge in developers switching their primary platform to OS X.  Think about it, developers who use a certain platform are going to write software with that platform in mind.  It’s only natural.  With more and more developers focusing on Macintosh, the quality of applications for the platform increases, as well as number of new projects focusing exclusively or primarily on the platform for final deployment.  In short, it’s exactly what Apple needs to make the platform a dominant player in the market 5 years from now.  By flipping off the developers, Apple is basically saying “Yes, we know you want to write state-of-the-art applications that run exclusively on our platform, bringing more customers to our outlet stores, but the fact is that we don’t want you writing applications for our platform.  Have you heard of Linux?”

Now I know that speaking out against Apple is like blaspheming a divinity, people have been stoned for less, but it still needs to be said.  For the record, I like Macintosh.  I like the Apple products, and I’ve always loved the Mac OS (ever since my first computer running OS 7).  That said, I have never liked Apple as a company, and this latest fiasco is reminding me why not.  Hopefully Apple will see the error of their ways and offer Java 6 as an update sooner rather than later.  And if not, there’s always Windows!

Filed in Java | Comments (14)

DZone Gets a Facelift

1
Apr
2007

Well, after months of development work, Rick and Matt have finally deployed their DZone site redesign to the production servers. It’s been running on a dev server for a while now, whilst those of us “in the know” tried to break it or offer constructive criticism. However, I think we’re all quite relieved that it’s finally up at dzone.com. So, without further ado, a brief look at the new look!

DZone New Look The first thing you’ll notice is that it’s blue, very blue. The old look was really more of a green and yellow deal with a generous dose of white (everyone’s favorite). The new look has blue borders, blue gradients, blue rollovers, and subtle blue-colored hovers. There are rounded corners galore, high resolution avatars, improved comments LAF and a neat new scrolling feature which I’ll touch on a bit later. Probably the second thing you’ll notice is that your voting options have increased, and your complain option has disappeared. People were overusing the complain feature (especially “just plain lame”), so it was removed and replaced with “down vote”.

This release also sees support for “unvoting”, both up and down. How many times have you clicked on the vote header when you were actually going for the thumbnail? Well, now, you can just unvote your mistake and move on (or more preferably, vote more accurately and more prolifically). This feature was discussed at length amongst the DZone staff, and it was decided that this really was a good idea. There are no restrictions on unvoting yet, but if we see a significant amount of gaming surrounding the feature, steps will be taken…

The scrolling feature is pretty sweet too. To test it out, scroll all the way to the bottom of the front page. After a moment’s hesitation, the next several links will load automatically and populate into your browser (by the power of the mighty AJAX). This works on any link aggregation page (FP, the queue, saved and shared).

I have one more feature to mention before I close this already lengthy writeup: sharing and saving. You can now share links (Google Reader style) easily as you traverse the front page (or more preferably the queue). Shared links go into your profile’s “shared” section, which has its own URL you can send to your friends. It also has its own RSS feed which you can use to more conveniently spread your links to the far corners of the globe.

Saving is a similar feature which allows you to mark a link for inclusion into your “saved” section, which is not a public area. This way, you can mark things as “for later attention” without having to vote, comment, share or otherwise publicly dog-ear the link. I don’t know about you, but I will probably use this feature constantly.

Oh, one important thing to note: everyone should re-upload your avatar. DZone used to only support 16×16 images for your avatar. The new maximum size is 80×80, but there are numerous scaled versions which are saved. If you have a high resolution image for your avatar, upload it asap to get the clearer quality on all your posts.

There’s so much more in this release that I haven’t had a chance to tell you about. Hopefully, one of the other DZone staff (I’m crossing my fingers for Rick) will do a more complete writeup in the near future detailing the new features more thoroughly than I could here. Enjoy the new interface!

P.S. I forgot to mention it. DZone.com now supports OpenID login. It only allows you to vote and comment on links, since OpenID doesn’t actually do anything more than authenticate you. To do anything more (like post or share), you have to upgrade your login to a full DZone username. But still, it’s a cool leap into a burgeoning new technology.

Filed in DZone | Comments (9)