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An API By Any Other Name (5/10/99)
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One of the things we always look forward to at WWDC is an influx of new names. For instance, until WWDC last year, the Mac world was still anxiously awaiting Rhapsody Premiere and Rhapsody Unified; after the keynote, suddenly it was Mac OS X we all wanted and craved. And writing software for Mac OS X was as simple as bringing existing application code in line with a new set of APIs, called Carbon. Snazzy new names make the world go 'round-- nothing makes us sit up and take notice like a catchy appellation, or maybe a bright, shiny object.
And this year was no disappointment, according to MacInTouch's in-depth report from the WWDC keynote address. First of all, Apple's starting to distance themselves more and more from the original Rhapsody operating system plan by renaming its components. Remember the Blue Box? Well, the Mac OS compatibility environment formerly known as "Blue Box" henceforth shall be known as "Classic," just like the original Coca Cola formula. (Well, not the original original formula, 'cause that one had cocaine in it, but you catch our drift.) Remember the Yellow Box? It's yellow no more; now that it's received Java APIs in addition to its native Objective C roots, it's been renamed "Cocoa." And let's not forget the new stuff, too-- Mac OS X ditches Rhapsody's Display Postscript imaging engine in favor of a PDF-based architecture that Apple's dubbed "Quartz." Whoa! Cool name overload!
So why all the new names, name changes, and the like? Why, purely for our personal entertainment, of course. That, and possibly to buy a little more time now that the new additions to Mac OS X's architecture have pushed the SuperOS' release date forward into next year. But that's okay-- we don't mind waiting. Anything that has components with such cool names as "Carbon," "Quartz," and "Cocoa" is obviously worth waiting for. (See? It's working already.)
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SceneLink (1521)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 5/10/99 episode: May 10, 1999: Another WWDC keynote has come and gone, leaving a trail of newly-released software in its wake. Meanwhile, Apple plays the name game once again in an attempt to keep us all interested, and a local ice cream proprietor catches iMac fever...
Other scenes from that episode: 1520: Asleep At The Wheel (5/10/99) So we decided to spend the whole day offline to deal with personal issues and get caught up with a dear old friend, because we just assumed not much would be going on-- did we miss anything? That is, other than the introduction of the new lighter, faster PowerBooks; the official release of Mac OS 8.6; the surprise announcement that Dragon Systems plans to release a Mac version of their continuous speech dictation software by the end of the year; the introduction of the 1.0 release of Apple's OpenGL implementation; official confirmation that Sears will start selling iMacs by the end of the month; and the distribution of the Developer Preview 1.0 release of Mac OS X... 1522: Good Taste, & Good Taste (5/10/99) Wouldn't you know it? We spend another day touring the city of Boston and its surrounding environs, and the iMac sightings just increase. This time, we saw them in a very cool place-- literally. It is perhaps not universally well-known that some of the very best ice cream in the world comes from Toscanini's on Main Street in Cambridge, just about in Central Square...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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