Live data from Hacker News

OS X is now macOS and gets support for Siri, auto unlock

techcrunch.com

391–400 of 578 posts

Re: OS X is now macOS and gets support for Siri, auto unlock

#391
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't really replace the underlying tools, you'd want to install the new versions in a different folder and update your Environment to point to those executables. EDIT: I'm wrong, didn't realize homebrew-dupes actually is meant to replace the OS X utils.

So effectively, it's only one step better than installing Cygwin on a Windows machine? Can someone please remind me again why the MacBook is such a preffered machine for software development? For years I've been told, " You get a shell! ", and " It's UNIX under the covers ", etc. Except that the shell userspace is antiquated, and the UNIX flavor is BSD rather than Linux. Meaning that I'm just as out-of-sync with my t…

> Except that the shell userspace is antiquated, and the UNIX flavor is BSD rather than Linux.

Few people use advanced features of those utilities. As a result, these two points don't make any difference. At least for me.

Re: OS X is now macOS and gets support for Siri, auto unlock

#392
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The doc https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/content/docum...

Apple lists a few limitations for APFS, one being: "Filenames are currently case-sensitive only." My thought: hey, that is a feature!

It seems phrased in the particularly Apple-y style that usually means "we're seeing whether we're allowed to throw this legacy feature away or whether something will force us to put support for it back in."

Re: OS X is now macOS and gets support for Siri, auto unlock

#393
post #175
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Metal is a proprietary 3D technology ported from iOS. Apple chose to do another closed tech instead of adopting Vulkan or fixing their slow OpenGL implementation. If you look at the numbers, you'll see that Metal is about 30% faster than OpenGL on OS X, which is interesting because OpenGL is about 30% slower on OS X than on Windows. Which means they're forcing developers to use their proprietary API to get comparable…

To be fair (regarding "closed tech"), Apple was hardly the only one to release a propriety Vulkan alternative (there's also Mantle and DX12) and Apple released Metal to developers almost two years before Vulkan 1.0 was released.

Basically making it like OSX's implementation of EFI vs. UEFI, or their Lightning cables vs. USB-C:

1. Apple creates their own implementation of something and pushes the industry forward;

2. Everyone else realizes it's a good idea, and standardizes on something slightly different/incompatible (usually with Apple on the standards committee!);

3. Apple continue using their own thing that Works For Them rather than adopting the standard.

Re: OS X is now macOS and gets support for Siri, auto unlock

#394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. What is it about the licensing of _user space_ tools that prevent their being used?

Nothing. Apple is just being overly paranoid or hoping to some day do things that GPLv3 won't allow them to do. Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Intel, IBM; all of these companies have some interaction with GPLv3, but Apple staunchly refuses to even touch it. It's a real pity, because Apple's popularity is sending some message that GPLv3 is poisonous, when it reality it's only a problem for them because they chose to mak…

> because Apple's popularity is sending some message that GPLv3 is poisonous

Doesn't Linus' refusal of GPL3 damage its reputation much greater than Apple?

Re: OS X is now macOS and gets support for Siri, auto unlock

#395
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Will they update the unix layer? A lot of the CLI tools there are positively prehistoric. They won't, they don't want to touch any GPLv3 code.

Why would they touch GPLv3 code when perfectly good BSD tools available from FreeBSD?

If you're being serious here: bash is IMO the most glaringly old utility you get in an OSX install, and it's GPLv3.

Re: OS X is now macOS and gets support for Siri, auto unlock

#396
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, it's probably stomping iMessage because you can also talk to people who didn't buy the same electronics brand.

Well, for Messenger to work you can only talk to people on the same social network. Honestly, MMS/SMS, and email seem to work fine for me. Though I am a little bummed that we're not all on an end-to-end encrypted XMPP standard communication by now...

> Well, for Messenger to work you can only talk to people on the same social network.

You can casually install Facebook Messenger on your device. You can't casually have a second phone.

Re: OS X is now macOS and gets support for Siri, auto unlock

#398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to use a phone number for iMessage and FaceTime, IIRC it also supports email addresses.

Then it would be nice if Apple simply supported your preferred email address wholeheartedly and didn't keep trying to always rope you into an icloud email. Seriously, those are dark patterns that people hated (and still hate) about Microsoft and Windows.

My Apple ID is a Gmail address. Never saw a problem with that.

Re: OS X is now macOS and gets support for Siri, auto unlock

#399
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

homebrew is your friend. They are not going to upgrade anything that has gone to GPL3.

Any reason why they can't fork it and port all the new stuff? I'd imagine for legal reasons they will have to hire devs who haven't looked at the GNU source code.

What's the return on investment on that? A huge undertaking, bring features many people do not care about, and the only benefit is that the few people who do use those new features can have it the instant they install the OS rather than after they type `brew install bash`.

Re: OS X is now macOS and gets support for Siri, auto unlock

#400
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Apple's mobile devices but ever since the iPad turned out to be a giant iPhone instead of a true desktop/mobile hybrid, I'm scared as hell that they will lock down their desktop/laptop ecosystem the way they do with mobile. It's clear now that iOS is absorbing everything Mac. Now I'm trapped between MacOS, Windows 10 and maybe Google's Chrome environment. Linux, please take off. I wished the open source commun…

> Linux, please take off. Sorry, no can do. We have to complete the process of breaking everything with systemd, then as soon as that's done rewrite KDE and Gnome from scratch again .

I swear, I must be the only person on the planet satisfied with the current state of systemd and GNOME 3. Fedora 23 is my main workstation OS and I have the least amount of friction getting my work done on it compared to either Windows or macOS these days. Then again, I mostly spend my day in IntelliJ, DataGrip, PyCharm, Firefox, a terminal, and a Windows VM for when I'm forced to open Visual Studio.
Post reply on HN