[Am-info] Jobs Touts OS, Unveils New IPod

[Mitch Stone]

On Saturday, July 20, 2002, at 02:59 PM, Paul Rickard wrote:

> ========== On 2002.07.20 05:35 PM, Mitch Stone typed: ============
>
>> To go up against Office the next version of AppleWorks would need to be
>> completely overhauled, and I don't see that in the cards at the moment
>> (unless it happens to be one of Apple's best kept secrets). Apple would
>> probably be better off throwing their weight behind OpenOffice for the 
>> Mac
>> -- but they haven't done that, either.
>
>      Not knowing the details of their Microsoft agreement, Apple might be
> contractually forbidden from putting any weight behind a 3rd party office
> suite. Again, we'll see in a few weeks. A new version of AppleWorks is
> due out this fall, so far I've heard nothing about what's in it. They
> might use the OS X strategy and build AppleWorks 7 on top of OpenOffice
> or something similar.

Well, it could happen, but Apple's been very quiet about AW 7 and the last 
two upgrades have certainly been less than dramatic, so I don't expect 
much this time either. First off the entire thing needs to be re-written 
as Cocoa. I'd be floored if they accomplished even that so quickly.

>
>> Apple hasn't ever offered its own web browser. We've been through this
>> several times before, but the late lamented CyberDog wasn't a browser, 
>> but
>> an OpenDoc container that functioned as a browser. In any event, with so
>> many superior alternatives already in existence, I can't imagine Apple
>> spending their limited resources in this way.
>
>      Browser or functioned as one, it was still there. I don't disagree
> with you, just don't think it makes a lot of difference either way what
> CDog was. Sherlock is already evolving into a more significant Internet
> client - version 3 will apparently have the ability to display content
> like maps and news. How much work does it take to go from that to a full
> blown Web browser?

At the risk of belaboring the belabored, CyberDog wasn't designed to be 
Apple's entry into the browser market, but as a proof of concept for a new 
breed of software. Browsing is something it just happened to do.

Sherlock 3 will apparently be functionally very similar to Karella's 
Watson. In fact when it was leaked out to the rumor sites a month or so 
back, it looked for all the world like Apple had bought Watson. According 
to Karella, this isn't the case. Odd, I thought, since the author 
demonstrated Watson to a very enthusiastic audience in a side-session at 
last January's MW. I used Watson for a month or so until the demo license 
expired and probably would have purchased it had Apple's plans for 
Sherlock 3 not come to light.

>
>        "The all new Sherlock is dramatically better than standard web
> browsers
>        at retrieving and displaying some of the most practical and useful
>        information available on the internet, like stock news, general
> headlines,
>        movie previews, locations and show times, yellow pages listings,
> eBay
>        auction activity and much, much more." (
> www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/sherlock.html )
>
>      Apple doesn't have to necessarily spend its own resources on
> developing a new browser, they can just use elements of Mozilla or some
> other open source product and add a new UI and extra features. Again, the
> same strategy used with OS X. The company should at least include iCab,
> OmniWeb, Netscape, Mozilla, and Opera on the install CDs once it no
> longer has to use IE as the default.

Possibly, but only one of these browsers is Cocoa-based, and that's the 
direction Apple wants to go with OSX.

Mitch