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Developer Developments (3/22/98)
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Geez, we blinked for a second and suddenly the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference is almost upon us. And despite our shocked realization that May 11th is a scant seven weeks away (seems like it was six months away only, er, four months ago), for our money it can't arrive soon enough. Not, mind you, because we at AtAT are developers, because we're not-- our attention spans are so atrophied by years of mindless television that anything more complex than "Hello World" is slightly beyond our grasp. No, we're interested because it's the one time Apple is going to have to sit down and tell the world just exactly what its operating system strategy is going to be. And we admit to being slightly perplexed by Apple's incredible underplaying of Rhapsody for a long time now.
Rhapsody hasn't even been mentioned in the last two MacWorld Expo keynotes, the Seybold keynote, the November 10th "big deal," or any other high-profile Apple event that we can remember. We find it particularly interesting that as far as we heard, it was barely even mentioned in the Seybold address, since it's supposed to be an operating system both for servers and for power-users-- and few users need more power than the graphics folks. That's why we're looking forward to the WWDC, which, according to thessaSOURCE, Jobs claims will have a heavy Rhapsody focus.
We are still hoping that Apple has something very cool waiting in the wings-- namely, a version of the Mac OS that incorporates many of Rhapsody's most important user features and is also capable of running "Yellow Box" Rhapsody applications. It would be a smart move if Apple can pull it off technically. Users running the latest Mac OS could get preemptive multitasking and protected memory, run all their current applications natively, and still run new "Yellow" applications. Developers would use Rhapsody as their programming environment, which lets them deploy for Mac OS, Rhapsody, and Windows all at once. Could be neat. Here's hoping we find out in seven weeks.
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SceneLink (558)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 3/22/98 episode: March 22, 1998: The world gears up for May's Worldwide Developer Conference, which promises a beefier role for Rhapsody, who's been relegated to walk-ons and voiceovers lately. Meanwhile, a highly visible supporter of Rhapsody voices his frustration, and a wacky group in the Phillipines has less luck with the already-hackneyed "hit Bill Gates with a pie" routine...
Other scenes from that episode: 559: id Support Slipping (3/22/98) Evidence of developer confusion about just what's up with Rhapsody is perhaps best illustrated by John Carmack's .plan file, which has been posted at StepWise. Carmack, you may know, is the programming guru over at id Software, the company who brought you Doom and Quake... 560: Here Come the Copycats (3/22/98) We can't say we're particularly surprised, but we still think it's pretty odd that copycat pie attacks are now being launched against software mogul Bill Gates. You recall, of course, the original incident from early last month, in which Bill was hit with several cream cakes by an anarchist group in Brussels as he entered a building to meet with the Prime Minister of Flanders...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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