Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!rutgers!pyrnj!esquire!baumgart
From: baumgart@esquire.dpw.com (Steve Baumgarten)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Loss of Mac's 20%... the Mac's
Message-ID: <2178@esquire.UUCP>
Date: 13 Jul 90 16:44:39 GMT
References: <52331@<1990Jul8> <70400019@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Sender: news@esquire.UUCP
Reply-To: baumgart@esquire.dpw.com (Steve Baumgarten)
Organization: Davis Polk & Wardwell
Lines: 69
In-reply-to: gillies@m.cs.uiuc.edu

In article <70400019@m.cs.uiuc.edu>, gillies@m.cs writes:
>Third, many user interface breakthroughs arise in new application
>software, not from some user interface bozo in a think tank.  Is
>Hypercard the last piece of application software Apple will develop?
>Then you can kiss user interface innovation GOODBYE.  I'd like to hear
>you mention a "user interface breakthrough" Apple has made since 1987.

I've seen previews of System 7, and in my eyes System 7's publish and
subscribe technology counts as a breakthrough both in user interface
and operating system design.  It is easy, intuitive, much more useful
than traditional IAC designs (since the publishing application need
not be available at the same time as the subscriber), and in my
opinion quite a remarkable piece of work.

This technology will be available to every user on every Mac, just
like cut and paste is.  But the beauty of it is that you get greater
and greater benefit from it as you add to your hardware, or connect to
a network, etc.

>(Knowledgeable net readers know that most of the Mac II ROM
>innovations were copied from other systems).  In fact, if we discount
>tear-off menus, we can go all the way back to 1985.

I'd like to take issue with this, too.  I don't know of any other
system that allows for the use of multiple montiors with different bit
depths, or systems that allow you to change the bit depth or colors on
the fly.  That's a real advantage for the average novice user.  Though
PS/2 users can now take comfort from the fact that they don't have to
worry about DIP switches any more, they still can't add a new monitor,
and move windows between them just by using something equivalent to
the "Monitors" cdev.

>Fourth, it is apparent that personal users are still being milked to
>fuel Apple's push into the business market (i.e. some large fraction
>of every SE purchase is probably spent on postscript printer support,
>appletalk / appleshare upkeep, IIfx design, developer support for
>high-end Color Retouch & CAD programs, etc. etc. etc.)

It's rather hard to reconcile this with Apple's new Personal
LaserWriters, which are quite obviously not aimed at the business
market.  And developer support is developer support; so what if Claris
makes Claris CAD?  They also make MacWrite and MacDraw -- tools for
the rest of us.  Why shouldn't Apple spend money on developer support?
How else can they support their market (and our investment in Mac
hardware)?

I'd like to hear some support for your arguments.  In another posting
you claim that LocalTalk isn't a network.  I don't know what that
means -- we certainly use it as a network.  It's not fast, that's
true, but it's fast enough for our purposes and it has two great
advantages over PC networks:  It's free, and it's built into the
system.  So we can buy one LaserWriter and share it among several Macs
without having to know anything about networking or Ethernet cards or
system administration.  Just plug it all in and it works.  Where's the
equivalent functionality in Windows?

It's all fine and well to take Apple to task for high prices, but from
what I can see they still are really the only company that's spending
any time and effort to make computers more useful and more useable
for the entire personal computing population.  The fact that they're
not always 100% successful, or that they sometimes go more than 6
months without developing a major new technology shouldn't detract
from this.

--
   Steve Baumgarten             | "New York... when civilization falls apart,
   Davis Polk & Wardwell        |  remember, we were way ahead of you."
   baumgart@esquire.dpw.com     | 
   cmcl2!esquire!baumgart       |                           - David Letterman