Apple's NeXT Step - Part 3

Before we delve deeper into NeXT this week, I'd like to make a correction. Last week. I said that each time you launched a program or opened a file it's icon appeared at the bottom of the screen and three dots in the lower left corner of the icon indicated the application was running.

As Chris at Apple Computer kindly pointed out, this is incorrect. Programs on the dock show the three dots when they are NOT running, and their icon appears at the bottom of the screen only when the icon is not located in the dock. This is what I meant to say, and I regret the error.

Now, lets look at some of the remaining items that NeXTSTEP/OpenStep will offer to Mac users.

Services
Ever since the first version of NeXTSTEP shipped back in the late 80s, all NeXTSTEP programs had access to a variety of services provided by the OS itself, including a dictionary, thesaurus, color models (including Pantone), and fonts. The idea was that each program should not have to incorporate all these features and their corresponding interface. Instead, these common services should be provided by the OS so as to let developers concentrate on making their program work without becoming bloated or unwieldy.

This was an excellent idea then, and it still is today. If Apple chooses to retain this part of OpenStep, then we can look forward to several programs shedding a few pounds and perhaps losing their bloatware status.

Power Tools
I have no doubt that Apple will include OpenStep's NetInfo tools for network administration. These have been included from the beginning with NeXTSTEP; they are powerful. They work by using a distributed object database, maintaining records of users, hosts and services. Using these tools, system administrators manage network security, control access to printers and file servers, and install software remotely over the network. If the power goes out or the network crashes, there is always a backup copy of the database.

Of course, it runs on several flavors of Unix, from Digital Equipment Corporation, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Sun Microsystems, so it's not for the average user--propeller-head status is required.

More for the average Joe are some other Unix tools that come with OpenStep, including Telnet and FTP clients. These let you start typing where you want to go in the Terminal window and suddenly, there you are, ready to login to a remote computer or download a file!

A QuickTime NeXTtime
If there is one set of Apple technologies that are sacred, it has got to be the QuickTime Media Layer, which includes QuickTime, QuickTime IC, QuickTime VR and QuickDraw 3D. Almost surely, these will become part of Rhapsody. Not to be outdone, NeXT developed its own media technology called NeXTtime, but as the consumer market began to disappear, NeXT stopped development work on it and never shipped it.

But NeXT did include the NeXTtime player in OpenStep. This lets you play QuickTime movies with OpenStep. And since QuickTime has been ported to other platforms such as Windows, it shouldn't be a major task to port it to OpenStep.

An added benefit to NeXTtime is that it uses much faster video-compression technique than QuickTime. NeXTtime can compress video at the same speed that it decompresses; QuickTime can't do that. The QuickTime technique takes much more time to compress an image than to decompress it (play it back), which is inadequate for real-time, interactive uses such as videoconferencing.

Parts is Parts
Since Apple already announced that it will not continue development of its component technology called OpenDoc, it leaves many people wondering what is going to replace it. From my perspective, OpenDoc was a seriously flawed technology, although the idea--to replace bloatware with smaller, self-contained components that could plug-in to other programs--was good. Since OpenDoc was developed by several companies, including Apple, they all had their own agenda to meet, and ultimately, OpenDoc was cumbersome, slow and bloated. To make matters worse, the few OpenDoc programs I saw on the market were less than exciting.

But if you look at the Mac market already, the OpenDoc idea has already been done. For example, Quark Xtensions, FreeHand and Photoshop Plug-Ins, etc. And NeXT did this years before the Mac with their Services menu, Objectware (reusable software components), along with other programs that could be used by any other NeXT program. So the death of OpenDoc is no great loss.

3D Man
One of the really nice things about NeXTSTEP was that it shipped with the Pixar RenderMan engine, which let you do incredibly realistic 3D photo-rendering. While it was included with OpenStep before version 4.x, it has been removed. It's possible that it will be included again with Rhapsody, but Apple isn't telling. If it were, it would be a great benefit for Mac users who have never had the tools or the power to get started with 3D rendering, as well as for Apple itself, by giving its installed base of 'content creators' another reason to stick with the Macintosh platform.

The Chinese Boxes
Perhaps one of the most confusing things about the upcoming Rhapsody OS is the constant references to so-called 'boxes' of various colors, that will let you do various things, depending upon who you talk to or what you read. Apple has not done a good job of making things clear; they only seem to have made matters worse. So, for anyone who is still confused, I'll try to make it understandable.

The Blue Box compatibility layer is really just a way for you, the current Mac System 7.x or Mac OS 8 user to take your existing software and run it in a separate window on your Mac, when Rhapsody ships. With very few exceptions, these programs should run as well as they do now under your current Mac OS version.

Likewise, the Yellow Box will let you take a current piece of OpenStep software and run it unmodified in its own separate window when Rhapsody ships. What's not clear is whether this compatibility applies to NeXTSTEP software as well. Since some things written for NeXTSTEP 3.3 run perfectly fine under OpenStep (they use the same shared libraries), compatibility with the Yellow box would seem to be guaranteed. But we'll have to wait and see about that.

Some Final Thoughts
It's clear that the purchase of NeXT Software by Apple has brought them a lot of choices about the future of the Macintosh OS. Some of these choices are easy and obvious, while others require much thought and consideration for the Mac user, as well as developers, who must ultimately embrace this new OS architecture to make it succeed. Avie Tevanian and his engineering staff have a difficult task ahead of them, not only to meet ship dates, which Apple has historically been unable to do, but also to make Rhapsody the best it can possibly be for both new and long-time Mac users.

If there is some specific feature that you would like to see incorporated into Rhapsody, you can send Email to rhapsody-dev-feedback@apple.com. They take all the input they get and consider it carefully. Since Rhapsody Unified isn't scheduled to ship before next summer, you still have time to be heard by the Apple engineers.

Until next week, keep sending your feedback. And if anyone at Apple wants to send some juicy, unreleased info on Rhapsody, you can do that too. I won't tell who sent it. :-)