Mac pundit Stephan Somogyi takes another look at some of the good and bad things about Mac OS X in a new ZDNet AnchorDesk column entitled The Mac is dead! Long live the Mac!
Somogyi said that a recent column of his incited many Mac developers to write — and he noticed a clear difference in the feedback. Some are big fans of Mac OS X and Cocoa development. Others have a lot invested in development of software for older Mac OS versions, and have a very different take.
Somogyi said that Cocoa software development enables developers to create high-level applications, but developers need access to more robust tools to help create the range of applications that Mac users will need to make the switch to OS X. “[Cocoa] is useful for what it’s designed to do, but it’s not omnipotent, and hardly worthy of idolatry,” commented Somogyi.
“While I despair of OS X’s many and varied shortcomings — some of which are glaring — it would be unfair to condemn it totally in its current state,” said Somogyi.
Somogyi feels that it’s incumbent upon Apple to fix the gaps and problems with Mac OS X, and quickly — he notes that there’s a higher expectation of the capability of new operating systems now than there have been in the past. Somogyi also cites an example where OS X has saved him a great deal of time — data analysis that would have been significantly more cumbersome if he’d been forced to do it using Mac OS 9.
Somogyi is delighted that Apple includes development tools with the new operating system (Mac OS X includes development tools on a separate CD in the box), and hopes that effort will continue to encourage developers to release new software for the OS.
Those continued efforts from developers, combined with Apple’s own work to make OS X a better system, will hopefully yield positive results.
“OS X has a long and hard way to go, but it’s definitely showing promise,” concluded Somogyi.