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With Tablet, Microsoft Takes Aim at Hardware Missteps

nytimes.com

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Re: With Tablet, Microsoft Takes Aim at Hardware Missteps

#11

Post by ams6110 »

femto wrote: post #9

This quote jumped out at me: "..., Apple has proved that there are significant advantages to designing hardware and software together." I'm assuming the NYT is referring to "design" in its high-level context, as used by graphic designers, etc. and not its low-level context, as used by engineers? Apple has proved is that there are significant advantages to reusing other people's low-level designs, in the form of open-…

The benefit of designing the hardware is that your driver support can be flawless, since you know exactly which devices you need to support. Things like sleep/wake that never freezes, squeezing the absolute longest life out of the batteries, etc. are all easier when you control the hardware platform.

Re: With Tablet, Microsoft Takes Aim at Hardware Missteps

#12

Post by SoftwareMaven »

femto wrote: post #9

This quote jumped out at me: "..., Apple has proved that there are significant advantages to designing hardware and software together." I'm assuming the NYT is referring to "design" in its high-level context, as used by graphic designers, etc. and not its low-level context, as used by engineers? Apple has proved is that there are significant advantages to reusing other people's low-level designs, in the form of open-…

Apple's industrial design is legendary and goes from top to bottom. In the end, it isn't just that the software is better nor is it just that the hardware is better; it's that both of them just work. That is the essence of good design.

While Mach predates iOS, to say that iOS wasn't designed from the ground up for the environment it is running in would be a gross mischaracterization. The pieces exposed, the services provided, all reflect the realities of the hardware it is running on (eg highly constrained and battery driven).

Re: With Tablet, Microsoft Takes Aim at Hardware Missteps

#13

Post by mikeash »

femto wrote: post #9

This quote jumped out at me: "..., Apple has proved that there are significant advantages to designing hardware and software together." I'm assuming the NYT is referring to "design" in its high-level context, as used by graphic designers, etc. and not its low-level context, as used by engineers? Apple has proved is that there are significant advantages to reusing other people's low-level designs, in the form of open-…

There's more to design than just "how it looks" and "it's based on BSD". Apple's software is not just a bunch of open source stuff glued together as your post implies. The iOS kernel, for example, is substantially proprietary and heavily customized for Apple's iOS hardware. You don't get any lower-level than that, and that was definitely developed alongside the hardware.

Re: With Tablet, Microsoft Takes Aim at Hardware Missteps

#14

Post by SoftwareMaven »

Is there a fire risk with MS building the cases out of magnesium? Magnesium fires are intense and difficult to put out.

I can't imagine MS is going to put out a product that oxidizes violently, so how will they prevent it? Can MgO retain the look (everything I've seen of MgO is a white powder)?

Re: With Tablet, Microsoft Takes Aim at Hardware Missteps

#15

Post by rweir »

WayneDB wrote: post #6
pippy wrote: post #2

This demonstrates everything that is wrong with Microsoft. They identified a problem, they couldn't get their products up to par with existing processes. So they go out of their way to copy their competitors. By following this methodology they'll always be worse or the same as their competitors. Eventually they'll find a way to lock them out, and then the market will suffer from stagnation. This to me is far more evi…

Meanwhile, Apple has hidden APIs that nobody is allowed to use to compete with Apple's software, they have stolen ideas from their own developer community and incorporated them into OS X and they are generally unfriendly to developers. I'm not sure why you respect them at all.

> Apple has hidden APIs that nobody is allowed to use to compete with Apple's software

which APIs do they not let others use (aside from the icon updating thing Calendar uses, siri, and weather/stocks)?

Re: With Tablet, Microsoft Takes Aim at Hardware Missteps

#16

Post by pohl »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #14

Is there a fire risk with MS building the cases out of magnesium? Magnesium fires are intense and difficult to put out. I can't imagine MS is going to put out a product that oxidizes violently, so how will they prevent it? Can MgO retain the look (everything I've seen of MgO is a white powder)?

I bet the temperature to get magnesium to ignite is much higher than the devices would naturally produce or be exposed to. The only burning magnesium I've ever witnessed was either ground into a powder or in thin strips. It probably wouldn't burn so well in bulk.

This was the first thing that popped into my mind on Monday, though. The original NeXT cubes were built out of magnesium, and after NeXT left the hardware business someone famously burned an old cube. If I recall correctly, it took quite a lot of effort to get it burning.

The tale of the burning incident is here:

http://simson.net/hacks/cubefire.html

As you know, years ago, when NeXT first contemplated making computers, Steve Jobs decided that machines should be in the shape of a cube, and that they should be built from cast magnesium. Although magnesium is a relatively expensive metal, it is remarkably strong and lightweight. No doubt, this let NeXT save on shipping expenses, although the added handling and manufacturing costs was one of the factors which led to the cube's high cost. At the time that NeXT brought their system to market, the only other company to incorporate a magnesium case was Grid, which was making a portable computer. (I am told that Apple also uses magnesium for the inside case of its Duo computers, but I haven't been able to verify this fact...

Re: With Tablet, Microsoft Takes Aim at Hardware Missteps

#17

Post by femto »

mikeash wrote: post #13
femto wrote: post #9

This quote jumped out at me: "..., Apple has proved that there are significant advantages to designing hardware and software together." I'm assuming the NYT is referring to "design" in its high-level context, as used by graphic designers, etc. and not its low-level context, as used by engineers? Apple has proved is that there are significant advantages to reusing other people's low-level designs, in the form of open-…

There's more to design than just "how it looks" and "it's based on BSD". Apple's software is not just a bunch of open source stuff glued together as your post implies. The iOS kernel, for example, is substantially proprietary and heavily customized for Apple's iOS hardware. You don't get any lower-level than that, and that was definitely developed alongside the hardware.

That wasn't meant to be the implication. If I had my time again, I'd add the word "mostly" to the last sentence, but apart from that I'll just clarify.

The point I was trying to make is that using open-source, in the way Apple has, allows the customisation to go beyond the mere gluing together of black boxes. The thing Apple has woken up to is that 95% of the black box is reusable commodity stuff and it's that customised 5% that makes it "sing" with your hardware.

This level of integration just isn't possible without the source code. You can try writing everything yourself, but that blows time to market, and required development resources, out big time.

Re: With Tablet, Microsoft Takes Aim at Hardware Missteps

#18

Post by SoftwareMaven »

pohl wrote: post #16
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #14

Is there a fire risk with MS building the cases out of magnesium? Magnesium fires are intense and difficult to put out. I can't imagine MS is going to put out a product that oxidizes violently, so how will they prevent it? Can MgO retain the look (everything I've seen of MgO is a white powder)?

I bet the temperature to get magnesium to ignite is much higher than the devices would naturally produce or be exposed to. The only burning magnesium I've ever witnessed was either ground into a powder or in thin strips. It probably wouldn't burn so well in bulk. This was the first thing that popped into my mind on Monday, though. The original NeXT cubes were built out of magnesium, and after NeXT left the hardware b…

Thank you for that link. It was a very entertaining read.

Re: With Tablet, Microsoft Takes Aim at Hardware Missteps

#19

Post by pyre »

rweir wrote: post #15
WayneDB wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, Apple has hidden APIs that nobody is allowed to use to compete with Apple's software, they have stolen ideas from their own developer community and incorporated them into OS X and they are generally unfriendly to developers. I'm not sure why you respect them at all.

> Apple has hidden APIs that nobody is allowed to use to compete with Apple's software which APIs do they not let others use (aside from the icon updating thing Calendar uses, siri, and weather/stocks)?

Off the top of my head, 'back in the day,' the transition animations on OSX were private APIs and only used by Apple software. Some smaller software products that did things like hack in virtual desktop support hooked into them, but it also meant that OS updates could break the software (mostly after major revision updates).

Re: With Tablet, Microsoft Takes Aim at Hardware Missteps

#20

Post by mikeash »

rweir wrote: post #15
WayneDB wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, Apple has hidden APIs that nobody is allowed to use to compete with Apple's software, they have stolen ideas from their own developer community and incorporated them into OS X and they are generally unfriendly to developers. I'm not sure why you respect them at all.

> Apple has hidden APIs that nobody is allowed to use to compete with Apple's software which APIs do they not let others use (aside from the icon updating thing Calendar uses, siri, and weather/stocks)?

Apple's iBooks app used a private API to allow the user to adjust the screen brightness in-app. This API was finally made public about a year and a half after iBooks shipped.

A more visible example is when Apple rejected a third-party camera app for using private API to allow the volume button to be used to take a picture, then not too long after incorporated that exact feature into the OS's built-in camera app.

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