Communicator to Ship with Mac OS XThursday July 8th, 1999Waldo has this great news for Macintosh Mozilla users. Waldo writes, "According to MacOSRumors, 'OS X is expected to ship with at least one Web browser (Internet Explorer if Microsoft ports it, Communicator 5 for certain, as well as a trial version of OmniWeb 3.0 quite likely)'. Cool! Mozilla shipping w/every new Mac 'for certain'. I like it!" Your first mistake (as you will soon learn) is quoting MacOSRumors. ;) While Fizzilla is up and running (and IE isn't), there are no official plans to bundle anything with MacOS X. Reality check, spud. I find that given the uncertain nature of its subject, MOSR has a pretty good batting average.. and I can see no reason why Apple *wouldn't* bundle popular browsers with its OS, just like it's been doing since OS 8 at least. I have to agree with the previous poster about the reliability of MOSR. Im sure though that Apple will ship MSIE and Mozilla/Comm5 or similar Netscape offering just as they always have. What concerns me about the reliablity of that MOSR report is the "...if they port it..." statement. What exactly does MS have to port? If they don't touch a thing it will run on the classic API's, if they clean it up it will run the Carbon API's, if they really want to "port" it they could use the Cocoa(YellowBox) API's. That just doesn't really strike me as an "informed" statement. I don't Mozilla Dev is very active on the Cocoa API's so at most when MacOSX is avalible I will be using the Carbon API's. All in all I hope MSIE just languishes on the Classic API's... I think it would be beneficial for AOL/Netscape to work out a deal with Apple to bundle 5.0 with OS X. Think about it -- Apple is at their highest stock value since 1991 nad is showing no signs of slowing down. Tons of people are buying iMacs and Apple is about to release a new notebook. I personally don't use a Mac but I do think that it would be a wise move to get Netscape bundled. It would be the equivalent of Microsoft bundling IE with Windows -- and we all saw what that did for IE, even if it is a piece of doo-doo!! Seems like now that Netscape is the underdog in the browser wars that they fit right into Apple's "think different" attitude with the whole open source movement. Hey, anything Apple can do to chip away at Micro$oft is good, right? I personally don't mind if a web browser comes with the operating system. What I *do* mind is if there are no ways of removing that darn application, like in Win98. (Yes, with 98Lite, but you can't remove that resource hog from a plain system without external tools) It really wouldn't make sense for Apple not to ship Communicator 5.0 with Mac OS X, since most Mac users love Communicator (Internet Explorer may have millions of features, but it doesn't make up for it's lack of speed on anything not Windows). iCab might have a future, but it costs money, and it doesn't support populuar internet standards (like JavaScript). Netscape products are so dominant on anything non-Windows, it is amazing. Some Mac sites report from 80 to 95% are all from Netscape Communicator. That's funny, because Apple installs Internet Explorer also with every Mac since Internet Explorer 2.0. I personaly like Netscape Communicator, because it's so cross platform. I love being able to use the same browser if I am using Linux/PPC or Mac OS. (I mean, when are we going to see a Linux x86 version of Internet Explorer, much less and Linux/PPC version). Mozilla is great news for everybody. Keep the great work up everybody; Andrew B. Arthur aka AArthur arthur99@global2000.net Hmmm, Developer Release 1. In other words MacOS is somewhere between 18-24 months from release. I just saw DR2 some where recent. Congradulations for spreading FUD! Max OS X Client is supposed to hit DP2 in September. If all is well, it should then ship in January. If something is wrong, it may ship a month or so late, but there is no way Apple will allow it to still be in development come WWDC in May. Perhaps you would like to enlighten people how a product (an operating system no less) can move so quickly from developer preview to release, a mere four months later? Anyone in the business would be tell you that such things are impossible unless Apple is going to release a bug-ridden heap of junk. Things go like this: Developer/Alpha releases Beta releases Release candidates Gold Each stage normally has 2 or 3 iterations, each taking 3-4 months a piece. At a squeeze, MacOSX might squeak through in 9-12 months from now but a January release just seems ridiculous to me. Here is how... (A) the "Developer's Preview" is far more stable and complete than what Microsoft and others consider a "DR". (B) Apple has better engineers. Frankly, most Microsoft Release Candidates are of DR1 quality. Very well said. Apple goes through the Alpha/Beta stage of its products extremely quickly. For instance, Mac OS 8.7, which hit Alpha (from Developer) in late April or early May just in time for WWDC, is now in late betas, and in a few weeks we should see final candidates coming our way. If you assume a similar timeline after Mac OS X Client hits alpha, we're on an excellent schedual right now. Also, Mac OS X Client is already remarkably complete. The two major things that need to be done before they can ship are (1) migrating to Quartz, and (2) stabalizing Carbon. The former is 2/3 complete now, according to Jobs, and the latter is coming along extremely nicely, if you look at the latest Carbon SDK. Once these two things are completed, the OS will finish itself remarkably quickly; the Mac OS 8.x utilities will be able to be moved in a matter of days over the Carbon infrastructure, and then the OS should be ready to ship. Any sane company would have dropped development on that project long ago. OmniWeb is actually a very good app, what I would like to see is OmniWeb incorporate and embed the Gecko engine, that would really put OmniWeb ahead of any other browser in terms of functionality and usability... Mozilla bundled with every OS, in some form. That's my hope. It will be fantastic if Apple does bundle a Mozilla browser into MacOS X. It might even be nice if they developed their own UI on the Gecko engine. I use Windows NT 4sp4 now, but I am seriously considering a move to Mac when v.X comes out, so I have personal interest in Mozilla on Mac. If anyone has any contacts or pull with Apple, encourage them all you can! :-) I know this is drifting a little off thread.. but I'ts amazing how many people have the same sentiments as you in considering moving to Mac and OSX when it is available. Lets face it, Windows is like a political party that has been in office to long. They are short of ideas and arrogant. Time for a change. (Hey Apple pay attention the world is waiting for you, how about getting Peter Mandelson to help with the PR drive for OSX) After DOS I moved over to the Macintosh (II, Quadra 840av) until around System 7.5 when I switched to Unix systems and then some NT (when 4.0 was in beta). I have an MCSE, but I do find Windows in any form quite frustrating, because it has so many holes (design inconsistencies as well as flat out bugs). I'll be glad to try out Apple again when they come up with a modern operating system (SMP, memory protection, etc). MacOS was an excellent OS when it came out, but hasn't evolved all that much except interface tweaks since MultiFinder. Im sure Apple will bundle Comm5 w/ MacOS X, as far as Apple putting it's own GUI on top of the Gecko engine that seems like it might be wasted effort. However I think Apple could do itself and Mozilla a favor if it incorporates the Gecko engine into its HTML help system. This would prevent Apple from having to waste time doing redundant development, but also give Mozilla some additional mindshare, not to mention any recipricoal development Apple could give back based on its implementation and integration. Wasn't there some "bundle IE" deal that went along with the "Gates saves Apple" deal a while back? I know a major chunk of the "requirements" was the dropping of Apple's Look and Feel Lawsuits, but I'm sure that there was some MS software bundle component too (specifically IE) The patent lawsuits of Apple vs. Microsoft weren't dropped. Microsoft paid an undisclosed sum of money to settle the dispute as part of the investment deal. It seems to me that IE on a Mac is just another piece of software which can be uninstalled or not used. IE on a Windows machine however is an integral part of the OS which requires a painful process to remove and it cripples the OS when you do so. So I think that IE wont stand in the way of Mozilla's success on Mac machines. The deal as I remember wasn't really a true "bundling" deal. If I remember correctly IE and Nav/Comm have always been avalible to install. IE just became the default, so if you did a standard install it gave you MSIE. I think however that anyone who was knowledgeable enough or determined enough to use a custom install so the whole thing would be moot... That's not quite right. Both Navigator and IE are installed by default. What "default browser" means is that, when a user clicks the "Browse the Internet" or "Mail" icons on the Macintosh desktop, Internet Explorer and Outlook Express launch, respectively, instead of Navigator. Of course, a user may very easily change this at any time via the Internet control panel, and with Mozilla, they'll have very good reasons to do so. Well, Netscape/Mozilla is the obvious choice since OSX is more Unixlike than anything else. However, OSX is supposedly not going to include an X server-- so will Mozilla need yet another front end, or will XFree86 for OSX be required to run Mozilla? It currently looks like Apple wil not be putting a X11 client (I understand the naming sceme, but still find it silly) into MacOS X Client, as they will be using the "Quartz" imaging system. I have taken a look into some of the aspects of Quartz, and there are some real benifits to the system, which, once put into practice will become "must have" features for future OS's (we have seen this from Apple many times before). But, it does have the issue that it will make ports difficult... Things like going from a rasterized integir based addressing system to a vector-floating point system will make multiple resolutions on screen old hat... etc.. To respond to that last post-- Just a guess, but I think the Mozilla version running on OS X would be the mac port (which uses MacOS apis) not the linux/unix port (which uses Xwindows) so you wouldn't need to install x on it. That make sense? Your correct. The Mac version of Mozilla will utilize Mac API's, regardless of how "Unix'y" MacOS X is. By utilizing the MacOS API's Mozilla will run on MacOS 8.x or MacOS X. Any program that uses either of these two sets of API's or the Cocoa API's on MacOS X will be utilizing MacOS X's own windowing system referred to as Quartz. As a related question to this discussion does anyone know which Mac API set Mac Mozilla is using or planning to use, Classic or Carbon? An unrelated point, since a lot of people here seem to be confused: MS didn't "save" Apple. The $150M that MS gave them is fairly insigificant; after all, Apple is worth billions and they have plenty of liquid assets to play with. It was a token, nothing more. What Apple *really* gained in the deal was assurance that MS would continue to port Office to the Mac for the next several years.. although I wouldn't be surprised if MS reneged on that pretty soon. Well, if we want to begin bracing for that inevitable outcome, we should start working now to get an OpenSource office suite ported to the Mac. My choice would be AbiSuite. (http://www.abisource.com/). Then, no one will care that M$ Word isn't available anymore. Lately I've been using Netscape 4.6 because it's not Micro$oft not because it's better than IE. IE has a Sherlock button, it lets you resume interrupted downloads and it supports the Mac feel in other ways such as it's use of drag and drop text copying (which Netscape STILL doesn't have). Come on and at least address the three things I just mentioned PLEASE. For now people use Netscape cos it's not Micro$oft, not because Netscape is better. IE is even faster than Netscape. Ever hit the back button? On IE the page appears instantly, on Netscape it takes forever. The current Netscape blows compared to IE. I want Netscape to win so I hope they make it more Mac-like. Internet Explorer for the Mac may be the single quality product that Micro$oft has ever produced. Mozilla for Mac needs: - Drag and drop text editing - A Sherlock button - Resumable downloads John don't forget better applescript support. But we do have a secret weapon-embeddable browser for the mac just like windows OS X is now shipping with OmniWeb .. If your referring to MacOS X Server yes. It it currently shipping w/ OmniWeb. In fact I believe its the only browser availible for MacOS X Server. I don't know why Apple would _not_ have some form of OmniWeb in the as yet to be released MacOS X Consumer. I don't know about that. Win2k (beta3) is pretty stable. So far just crashed once in 2-3 weeks of development. I don't know how the Macs are now, but back in the college days (when I worked as a computer lab assistant), Macs crashed all time. I used to see the little bomb on regular basis. Someone wrote: >>Here is how... (A) the "Developer's Preview" is far more stable and complete than what Microsoft and others consider a "DR". (B) Apple has better engineers. Frankly, most Microsoft Release Candidates are of DR1 quality. Macs are actually pretty stable nowadays. Memory protection and general stability have improved tremendously, and it is quite rare (about once every two weeks) that an application crash brings down the entire OS. In Mac OS X Client (and the currently shipping Server, for that matter), applications should pretty much not be able to bring down the OS. In OS X Server, after extensive working, I have been unable to crash the OS (except when in Blue Box, i.e., running old Mac OS apps, in which case, while Blue Box can crash, OS X Server is 9 times out of ten unaffected and simply reboots Blue Box). As for W2K's stability: I'll believe it when it's shipping and people in general find it to be "stable." I'm still scathed by the Win NT 4 server down the building that deleted my entire report. I don't think Mac OS X DR1 ships with a browser. Mac OS X Server ships with Omniweb. Omniweb will not run on Mac OS X DR1 at this time (beta 3 is faster than 2.x). Mac OS X cannot be viewed as a single OS right now. The shipping version (Server) is quite different from the DR1 release of the 'client'. Work on a YellowBox/Cocoa version of Mozilla is stalled, at least if you check the newsgroup. A Carbon vesion of Mozilla is a more efficient use of resources by being compatible with MacOS and Mac OS X. Mozilla is faster at loading pages in the Blue Box of Mac OS X Server than in MacOS 8.6. If a Carbon or YellowBox/Cocoa version of Mozilla is not available when Mac OS X (client) ships, it will not be a great loss. Im just starting to learn programing, I was wanting to know if Altivec could speed up Moz.5? Yes and no. AltiVec itself wouldn't really speed up much in Moz (it accelerates graphics stuff the most, and so theoretically the JPG, GIF, and PNG code could be optimized somewhat for it but not substantially [think MMX speedup]) unless Moz had a big graphic component (like a VRML viewer). AltiVec will REALLY rule in things like Photoshop, increasing rendering speeds by a factor of about 16. |