Re: Cocoa's Popularity
Re: Cocoa's Popularity
- Subject: Re: Cocoa's Popularity
- From: Matt Judy <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 18:09:07 -0800
email@hidden wrote:
Indeed! Keeping the Quartz vector scaling technology secret is nothing
short of bone-headed on the part of Apple. It's not like MicroShit is
going to steal it since they have no clue on how to develop a third
generation "drawing engine."
Microsoft obviously knows all about it... the genie effect is used in
the toolbars in Office X. Now, it is claimed that MS reimplemented it
all on their own, but I'm sure Apple let them reach into the
bag-o-tricks for that one ;)
I got into this Cocoa mess after reading
about Quartz; a killer app came to mind that requires vector scaling--aka,
the "genie effect"-- in order to work. It's been ~18 months now and
still there is _nothing_ out there so I make little progress on my
million-dollar idea because Apple keeps this to themselves for reasons
that are beyond comprehension. What a waste! The genie effect is cool,
to be sure, and gets the PC weenies to chew their livers in envy which
is nice, and I _love_ magnification in the dock, but there are tons of
places where this technology could be put to more important use--science
visualization to name only one!
These are all Core Graphics private API, and one can only hope that
Apple will see fit to share them someday. I guess if your app is
important enough to the platform, then Apple can be persuaded to share.
How one man can be responsible for the true elegance of a Ti Powerbook,
new iMac, iBook, and the look-and-feel of Aqua for that matter, and at
the same time allow such lame TV ads to be foisted on the buying public
is one for the text books.
Well, the simple fact is that it's not one man. Steve has told me
personally that he hates the "one man band" image that Apple has, and
that he wishes people realized how much he values his engineers and
designers. I mean, who would be better to do Apple commercials than the
marketing spin master himself? But he doesn't, mainly to avoid
perpetuating the one-man-show idea.
As for the products: It's pretty much just like any other company:
The wonderful stuff Apple does is produced by teams that have wonderful
management, and an intuitive connection to what Apple (nee, NeXT) is all
about. The crap that Apple produces is created by teams with incredible
engineers and designers, but middle managers who are in it for
themselves, not for Apple. They want *their* ideas in the product, not
necessarily the *best* ideas. They are clueless, devious, and very good
at sneaking things past Steve.
Nobody's perfect, and I think that, as a company, Apple is trying very
hard to excel. But sometimes, it seems like Apple's left hand doesn't
know what its right hand is doing. That's too bad, because the right
hand is the one that's stabbing Apple through the heart.
Apple is very lucky to have a developer community like us. People who
will, on blind faith, pick up a new technology (even a proven one), and
run with it with nothing but promises from Apple, which have been broken
so many times before. Steve knows our value, and Apple-at-large is
beginning to realize it.
I'm really excited about Cocoa, and even more excited about being part
of a developer community that is so unified in its desires and agenda to
improve the API. We're a force to be reckoned with, and Cocoa is
growing and changing because of it.
--Matt Judy
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