Given his legacy and focus he might be right but who can tell unless a lot of people get to try it out. I can't see there being any value in Apple changing everything.

He should create an alernative "shell" for OSX that lets people experience and play with his main concepts. If he is right then it will take hold and be a see to fuure demand.

I need to introduce Jeff to my little sister (a high school teacher). She bought an HP about a year ago, and this summer she got so frustrated she gave it away and bought an eMac. Tell her there's no difference! Every time I see her she thanks me for offering her a bite of my apple. She got where she would actually dread having to use "that thing" to even pop in and check her email. But now she's even making her own photo CDs all on her own (ok, not a big technical hurdle for you & me maybe, but for her she was tickled to death).

Yeah, right. No difference.

Is this not the same Jeff Raskin who had his chance with eazel for linux, If you took a look a eazel you will see that this guy is just bitter and is not relevant anymore, the eazel interface had nothing new at all and was just warmed over stuff this guy is a relic of the past

Well Jef Raskin is not like most people. His brain is occupying a different time and space - this is clear from a visit to his site. That being said, it makes me wonder how much of his thinking applies to what most people are doing in their lives.

I think he needs to get out more. A brilliant man, sure, but a total nerd/geek in the fullest sense.

I'm sure I've read that a lot of other members of the team refute a lot of what Raskin has said about the early development of the Mac. He does seem to be the missery guts of the team.

Folklore is a good site if you want to read stories of the early development. I think Andy Hertzfeld makes good reading.

http://www.folklore.org/

Find the article See I invented Burrell and you'll smirk.

There's also an interesting article by Bruce Horn here

http://mxmora.best.vwh.net/brucehorn.html

"Raskin was opposed to a mouse and a graphical user interface...and favored a squat design." It is clear that quite a bit happened after Raskin's departure from the Mac group."

Jef had left by mid-1981, and the company by early 1982

Raskin is the guy who didn't want a mouse on the original Mac.

What did he want? A command line interface?

He doesn't know what he's talking about. We can all be glad Steve took over the Mac project.

When I bought my first Mac almost a year ago, I ran out and bought Pogue's Missing Manual for Panther. At the time, I figured just like all computer platforms, those thin books that come with the computer just weren't going to cut it. But, you know, I've never even cracked it open once. So much for needing a 1000 page manual for a Mac...

To say that there is little difference between Mac and Windows it like saying that there is little difference between driving in the UK and in the US. Actually it's worse than that because both driving in the UK and in the US works.

Jeff Raskin certainly deserves a chest full of medals for the original Macintosh. But he became the jilted lover and I'm sure some of his angst towards the currnet Mac OS X is part of that hurt. I'd gather from these remarks he'd love to be back at Apple working on the Mac.

Lets look beyond that.Raskin says he's developing cross-platform. Jeff, what are you developing that is better?

SHOW US ALL!

It's been quite some time since you've been at Apple and you've had enough time to have produced something you consider better. Don't moan and complain, just show us all what is better. That's a better litmus test.

Open the Control Panels for both Windows and Mac OS X.

Now tell me which networking port is actively in use and what the IP address is for it.

And tell me the other *available* (real, existing, but not in use) networking ports, if any.

Apple may have a lot of issues with parts of Mac OS X (Finder, Safari) but overall it is much easier to get at the stuff most users need on the Mac than any version of Windows.

Granted in some cases the Mac's oversimplification can shoot users in the foot, but on balance I'd take a Mac running Mac OS X over any version of Windows.

Am I the only one who immediately thought of Ralph Nader's declaration that there isn't any difference between the Democrats and Republicans.
Ok, so OSX isn't perfect, but it is pretty damn good (a nice balance between power, flexibility, and ease of use) especially when fairly judged against other OS's.

...his point likely is that personal computing UI has not progressed to the level of seemlessness that he would have expected by now.

Regardless of whether he's ranting or not, the "modern" UI still gets in the way of everyday tasks. Computers don't have ANY AI in them that allows them to learn your habits and preferred way of doing things. Like the computing cousin of Tivo, the future Mac (or PC) should work almost invisibly in the background, optimizing your experience, anticipating problems (and avoiding crashes) based on its "experience" , and just let you sit down and immediately let you get your work (or play) done. It should be your HELPER.

So here we are in 2004, living in the futuristic 21st century, but when all is said and done, our computers are still REALLY dumb boxes that STILL give us pointless messages like "the application unexpectedly quit."

Well, WHY, dammit? I want my computer to be smart enough to warn me with: "Excuse me. There is a 90% probability that this application will crash within the next 2 minutes. I took the liberty to save a copy of your current work as a precaution. Would you like me to quit this application for you for a moment and fix the problem?"

Is that too much to ask? Apparently so.

Yean, I love my Mac, but we've got a loooong way to go before we have a truly easy to use computer, and I think that's where Raskin was heading with his comments. I guess I'd be disappointed too if I'd been there at the genesis of all these ideas. However, why isn't HE leading the way after all these years then, huh?

-Ken P

You'll understand a lot better where he's coming from, where he's right and where he's wrong.

And he *does* love to rile people up, hence the "OS X no different than Windows" comment. At least it gets some people *thinking* about it.

Keep in mind the perspective Raskin's coming from: a programmer and designer. Fundamentally, there ISN'T a huge difference between Windows and OS X. They're both GUIs. They both work pretty much the same way. The difference is simply that OS X is better.

Now, to average users, that may constitute a "huge difference". But I think when Raskin thinks "huge difference", he's thinking DOS vs. Mac OS 1.0. THAT was a freakin' HUGE difference! The Mac was completely different; it wasn't merely better.

I love OS X. But let's face it, there's nothing really revolutionary about it. It's just like a better (much, much better) version of Windows.

I think he's getting way more flak than he deserves, here.

Clearly Mr. Raskin is off base when he says there is little difference between Macs an PCs. Probably there is some bitterness there. His own effort to make a word processing appliance (Canon Cat) did not meet with market acceptance. I think he (and some others) put too much emphasis on trying to make the computer interface invisible.

Let's speak about simplicity, shall we? Jeff Raskin is all about simplicity but his own web page is a mess. Try finding something on it. Then he speaks of this revolutionary OS (THE) he's working on that has been in early alpha for YEARS. 2 years ago I tried looking at this program and he's hardly developed it. You click on several links leading to the download page and then your told it's not available for download. He speaks of an OS that has to be as easy to use as a piece of paper. Then why did it take me hours to try and understand his OS and then I just gave up a deleted it. If it was as easy as using a piece of paper then I should have known how to use it right away.

Jeff Raskin is a whiny baby that hasn't accomplished anything worthwhile except for writing books about something he invented 25 years ago. Here's something really simple... Steve Jobs is a billionaire and Jeff is not. Get up off your arse Jeff and do something. You'll be dead before THE gets off the ground.

The only thing I agree with Raskin about is that stupid Unpredictable Green Window Resize Button that does something different in every OS X app. Sometimes it fits window to contents (Finder), sometimes it goes full screen (Apple Mail), sometimes it gives you compact mode (iTunes).

Otherwise, I think Raskin one of the old guys in that Simpsons episode that walked defiantly with Grandpa Simpson out of their nursing home to freedom, only to stop at the door, look around, and say "It's cold...and I'm scared!" and walked right back in.

Jef said, "A third party manual (Pogue's The Missing Manual) is nearly 1,000 pages."

Hmm...I recall The Macintosh Bible ran well over 1,200 pages even in the days before Mac OS X...

Give me RC any day over this, Bryan.

What ever happended to the promising voice controlled interface? Have not heard of anyone using it. *S* ViaVoice does not seem to be the answer.

Jeff,

Have you learned Objective C and the Cocoa framwork? The is not all looks.. sure, it came from NeXT, but this is what the mac is today. Cocoa is powerful and so well designed I laugh when I use it.

Chris

C Weed ... Since you have "The Missing Manual" it's time you read it - seriously you'll be stunned at what you pick up.

Using a Mac the Windows way is like swimming in clothes.

He was at the front counter with sweatpants(!) and a goofy bluetooth headset behind his ear totally yelling at the poor counter girl who screwed up his order. It seems as though Mr. Raskin ordered a Whopper Jr. with cheese, but they screwed up and gave him a Whopper Jr. without cheese. Well, he was standing there saying something about how Burger King isn't at the level it should be in today's world, and how McDonalds is overtaking their market share. He then proceeded to argue with the manager about what kind of system they use in this place that would screw his order up. He started saying that if they used bluetooth to place the orders, this would never happen. I said, "Hey pops, can we get a move on here? I'm really hungry." He just turned to me and stared me down with that big bald head turning more red with each second. I think the guy may be some kind of freak, but I can't be sure.

I did some timing between a 3.0GHz Pentium 4 and a dual 1.8 G5, compressing a long (42 minute) video into two different streams for the web. The PC took 5:10 hours, the G5 took 2:37 hours. 50% faster is a big difference of my time!

To paraphrase Senator Lloyd Benson: I know Mac OS X, and Windows is no Mac OS X.

Or further:

Jef, I serve using OS X. I know OS X. *OS X is a friend of mine.* Mr Raskin, Windows is no OS X.

I'm an unabashed mac fan; loved OS-X ever since it was called NeXTStep. But Jef has a (minor) point. Most mac users are running apps that cross-platform these days (office, adobe-CS, browsers). There are, I believe, compelling advantages to the mac, but the differences are not as great as they once were.

In his characterization of OS X as a "mess," Raskin seems to make no allowance for the fact that it is a fundamentally different kind of operating system from Mac System 1, 2, and 3 (and, indeed, even 9). Yes, OS X requires more documentation than System 9.2, but then the blueprints for a skyscraper or cathedral will likewise be more extensive than those for a modest house.

It's easy to fall prey to nostalgia or revisionism; but OS 9 and the other former Mac operating systems -- while historic for their time -- are the tinker toys of a bygone era. Is OS X revolutionary in the way the original Macintosh was? Within the UNIX community, I would say yes -- though in the industry in general, no. But merely because something falls short of revolutionary is not then to qualify it as a mess. Commonplace though these things are today, it's hardly messy to support a kernel architecture with hardware abstraction, task scheduling, process management, pre-emptive multitasking, and multithreading.

OS X is far from perfect; but when you build a more sophisticated technology, then more often than not it will require more documentation. This does not mean it's harder to USE but only that there is more to document -- which is only to say that the OS can do more. So, yes, in its underpinnings, OS X is more complex than the first Mac operating systems, and, yes, it requires more evil documentation. But this means neither that previous operating systems were cleaner nor that they could do more than OS X.

Besides, there is no ideal human interface anyway because we all learn and interact with computers in different ways. Thus the best UI is the one that does not impose a one-size-fits-all approach upon the user but instead which supports a multifaceted GUI, text interface, voice interface, and more. Many roads lead to Rome, and if that's a mess, then so be it. Better to have options than to have only a single dogmatic vision enforced on everyone.

Raskin ought not to mistake an abundance of power and user flexibility for a "mess" or a lack of elegance.

Jeff Mincey

...if delivered rather ineloquently.
Afterall you can say that there is little difference between a Porsche 911 and a Ford Focus, being that they are both combustion engines that relate to the driver in nearly exactly the same way. Although the actual experience is very different, the interfaces are the same: gas pedal, brake pedal, shifter, steering wheel, etc.
Raskin is right in that the computer, even with the most modern OS, is not a seemless experience, but requires a whole host of specific knowledge and paradigms to deal with it: the mouse, the dock, Mail, are all paradigms that require a abstract way of thinking. Raskin believes in a system that goes beyond these abstractions.

It was predicted we'd be talking to our computer by now - and I don't mean the universal mantra "bloody hell, NOW I will throw you out of the window". And just point and look at the objects we work with, and have REAL handhelds that would talk us through confusing airports and get us exactly where we'd have to be, and video conferencing would be common place and and and a lot more that may exist but be bloody hard to do or still doesn't seem to be possible or financially viable.

Compared to that very realistic vision from no other than SUN - and beautifully rendered in a short movie by among others ex-Apple employees - both Apple and MS have disappointed. And fundamentally, while the Mac is better in oh so many ways, there's not a lot of difference between both OS's. I'm with Raskin. My wife is too, she uses XP because it's cheaper to use a work portable than to buy a mac. It's a pain in the thingies, but it works.

Quote

pyxl8 wrote:
...Computers don't have ANY AI in them that allows them to learn your habits and preferred way of doing things. Like the computing cousin of Tivo, the future Mac (or PC) should work almost invisibly in the background, optimizing your experience, anticipating problems (and avoiding crashes) based on its "experience" , and just let you sit down and immediately let you get your work (or play) done. It should be your HELPER.

-Ken P

Raskin is not merely saying that the user interface of computers should be farther along today, nor that computers should be self-diagnosing and self-maintaining today. If this were his only point, I would agree wholeheartedly. Raskin is instead characterizing OS X as a "mess" and that it is not materially different from the Windows experience. And yet many posters here seem to feel Raskin is making the former point rather than the latter.

Now it's true that both OS X and Windows make use of a mouse and keyboard, menus, dialog boxes, etc. So does the new Java OS, for that matter. But the story doesn't end there. The Windows UI gets in your way. It is wizard-happy and is onerous to use because of its step-by-step, serial approach. Windows are always popping up in your face and the OS actually interferes with the work one tries to do. Plus its native color scheme look like a tinker toy erector set. Apple takes a more minimalist approach to its aesthetics, and it doesn't get in your way.

Now I would like to think there is a team of people working on a revolutionary new concept in operating systems -- of course. Let's develop a computer which tracks eye movements and correlates that to the motion of the cursor and pointer. Let's build artificial intelligence into operating systems with some kind of neural interface to the human brain so our every thoughts are read and implemented on the spot by the computer. No input device of ANY kind. There's a revolution for you.

But we don't live in a StarTrek world yet; and merely because something is not revolutionary does not then make it a MESS or indistinguishable from other alternative products. Raskin is over the top and intemperate in his characterizations -- and, frankly, it still smacks of a leftover personal vendetta. It's time for Raskin to move on.

Jeff Mincey

The OS X finder has been limited to the same three things as the Mac OS: 1) Dock (previously the apple menu), 2) menu commands, 3) windows. There's a lot of ways to play within those, but that wasn't messed with. Interesting!

Dock: I think they (Apple) have done a good job of having the user think "dock, dockety dock-dock" when they want to launch something, or use a shortcut. It's as good as the Apple menu in that respect. But it's been exploded, so that the contents can be exposed. I think that's sensible, intuitive, and faster. It comes with challenges - it's icon-based, not text-based, but that's a choice, not a design flaw. Personally, I like it more than the text-based (and oft-truncated) Windows task bar. By the way, I find the task bar to be quite good, too. Sometimes lifting good ideas is the right thing to do!

Menu commands:
They didn't mess with perfection. (But I sure would like it to have a search field, or a hot-key to drop all menus down temporarily to find a command.)

Windows:
At first, I found column view to be mildly offensive (stuff shouldn't be sliding around in an interface!), but now I find it's bliss. There are problems: new users will never think to change the window to list or icon view when it's appropriate. I can't imagine how they figure out to move a file around, unless they're shown how spring-loaded folders work, or they think to just open another window. But once it's figured out, the benefits last a lifetime, and the problems are gone. Now, I can't live without it. Flipping open triangles, or double-clicking folder icons is like hitting a wall of molasses. Column view goes as fast as I go, and there's nothing as fast on PCs. There comes a time when *fast* becomes more important than *intuitive*.

OS 9.1 and prior editions were more self-evident, yes. But OS X designers understood that 1) most people are not new users, and will be able to take another leap in complexity to gain functionality, 2) the added functionality is worth the one time cost of figuring it out. For example, I can't live without column view now. Flipping open triangles, or even to double-click folder icons is like hitting a wall of molasses. Column view goes as fast as I go. And there's nothing as fast on PCs. There comes a time when *fast* becomes as important, or more so, than *intuitive*.

Whatever Raskin's contribution, the orginal Mac was a thing of beauty. But so was the first bicycle. Today, we see people pounding up hills in the biggest gear of their modern pedaling machines. Does that mean gears are bad? Sure, for them, gears are bad. The rest of us are happy to figure it out, let it become second-nature, and reap the rewards.

Ok, JR gave the Mac its name, but even the first Mac had virtually nothing to do with his vision. The Macintosh was created by a team of brilliant people relentlessly driven by Steve Jobs. Raskin's Mac project was something else entirely and I don't believe it was ever practical or commercial and is nothing but an interesting footnote in Silicon Valley history. Jeff's interface proposals have never seemed anything more to me than desperate and impractical attempts to be different. I'd like to see him show us how he can change the world without bashing the baby that was never really his. So far, it looks like the only way he can get anyone to listen is to claim he created the Mac and then pee on it. What have you done for us lately, Jeff?

I know Al Gore invented "created" the internet as we know it and also the iPod.

Folklore.org has a story that suggests that the graphical Finder and dragging icons around was very nearly an afterthought that programmers hid from Steve Jobs until they had something to impress him with. I suspect that if Raskin thought windowing was a good idea, he would have supported a light-pen over the mouse because it at least seemed to make more sense to eliminate the dissociation between the device and the cursor (except that the ergonomics of using a light-pen would be somewhat questionable).

Still, he is correct that the potential efficiency of computer design has not been approached. There are way to many roadblocks that we have learned to quickly navigate, especially the nifty components that one huge software company puts in to try to help the user. I do not want to replace my mouse and keyboard with a microphone ("switch to the Mozilla window TMO, now save the fourth link at home/Documents/TMO Stories; go to Finder at /Volumes/iPod/savedStuff/, select file..."), at least not until such time as it would make doing what I do significantly easier and more natural. Yet, the issue revolves around one tired little buzzword that the aforementioned large software company wants us to think is a synonym for "imaginitive" when all it really means is "a little more cleanly hacked". There is precious little real progress in computing these days, and part of it relates to IP: in the 70s, computers were primarily either academic or Pong, and software was not a property but a collection of ideas to be passed around and improved on; great strides were made in those days (remember when fire was discovered?), but since then we have languished in the commercial doldrums.

When the Mac was created, the engineers were working at a very basic (not BASIC) level, but things are so complex and entrenched these days that there is precious little room bold and creative advances that might surpass the existing paradigms. I guess what we have is good enough until the great energy crash of '07 swallows it all into a morass of cold grey despair and endless "shoulda"s.

Guess that makes some people bitter, and jealous. Any merits to his point could've been expressed more realistically and effectively if he weren't so negative and, frankly, off-the-wall.
No visionary here- check your ego at the door first!

On the subject of voice interfaces, I actually agree with the frequently insufferable Jakob Nielsen: they're useful only for fairly specific applications, and the notion that we'd use them for everything is an example of the "Star Trek fallacy": the utility of some technology as a science-fiction storytelling device does not mean it is actually good to use. Having the computer primarily speak and listen makes it possible to treat it as a character in a TV story. But in real life, you don't necessarily want the computer to be like a character.

In those applications, limited voice interfaces have been around for years. If your Mac has a microphone, you can turn on voice commands now and use them to do stuff in the Finder. I actually did this for a while under Mac OS 7/8 in the mid-1990s: I lived alone, so barking commands to my computer wasn't a freaky thing to do (after moving in with my girlfriend, now my wife, I tried to get it working in an early OS X build, and she thought I was having a stroke). Also, I didn't have anything like a good dock/launcher utility.

These days I use DragThing instead.

http://a772.g.akamai.net/7/2047/1141/300_04/neo.qtv.apple.com/secure/oct/itunes_europe/itunes_300.mov

I think your point was excellent! It seems that computer technology has fallen into the dismal quagmire of "oooo look how cute I am", and has lost sight of the "higher calling" of technology in general; that is, to be a "helper" not just a source of glamorized buttons, windows, sounds, and lights. I look forward to the day; if we are all here, when computers have such a keen AI interface that while a person is typing a lettter, not only will it automatically correct spelling errors; instead of just underlining the word, but will also anticipate the appropriate "writing style" you would use according to the person/business you are writing to.


But that's probably a few decades away....

If that happen, computers and robots need to interchange social position. Human to be slaves and cells for them.

Bill Gates is also a billionaire. What does that prove?

i've not owned a mac and the one i just ordered won't be here for another week, but WHY is the OSX just like Windows XP but MUCH MUCH better? What features give it it's immense loyality, it's infalability, it's shining armor?

OK ALL YOU COMPUTER GEEKS. I'm tired of all these up the butt picky morons who have nothing better to do than observe every little flaw on their MACHINE. yes people machines are not perfect... personally just be happy with whatever works with your needs. no one needs 700000 MB of memory, so get over it. Windows is the crappiest thing that is sold for everyday people to buy. Apple has reccently pulled their game up, to sell BETTER products that took more thought and time to make... yes they are pricy, but they are trying harder to make it affordable. WOW for once we are being offered a well made product, take it. Mac is an amazing computer... the future of computers is promised to be with Mac, not windows.