On Mon, Jul 15, 2002 at 02:04:09AM +0800, Michael Peligro wrote: > Usability is no easy task.
The Mac developers have always had to comply with the Human Interface Guidelines, which was one extensively researched/evaluated document Apple produced. The original HIG that oversaw the older Mac OSs provided overall consistency and ease-of-use. The updated HIG pertaining to Mac OS X has some slight quirks which some developers don't agree with (much less adhere to), but generally it seems to be ok. > I'd like to think that Apple's developers are extremely lucky. > > They are both a hardware and a software team. This allows them to integrate > the machine's hardware and software setup more tightly. They have a very > limited set of hardware devices to integrate, optimize and support. This > saves them much time and effort in configuring a hardware and software > computing machine. This can be both a pro and a con. As Apple is the only company left "manufacturing the whole widget," it usually takes them much longer to provide new releases on hardware or software, as they have to make sure that the whole piece works as expected. But since its formation, they have been very successful so far. > For example, let's take the case of with the new iMac. The Quartz graphics > engine have been optimized only for GeForce-type graphics card. They have to > configure and setup the iMac to use only one type of rewriteable DVD. They > have to use only one type of LCD monitor. Quartz graphics engine has not been optimized for GeForce-cards alone. ATI is still a very strong contender in the Mac world, and their cards occasionally power middle-end/high-end configurations. Quartz Extreme is supposedly optimized for any AGP card with 32MB of RAM. And no matter how one puts it, on the Mac, ATI's 2D performance is far superior to that of NVidia's, especially when it comes to video playback, color quality, screen sharpness and the like. > > Contrast this with Linux distributions. << snipped >> But whereas Linux has all these different things, we have choice, and the flexibility to change from one to another if we so desire. This is also a good thing (but can also be kinda cumbersome). ============================ Gino LV. Ledesma Campus Network Group Ateneo de Manila University http://cng.ateneo.net/ _ Philippine Linux Users Group. Web site and archives at http://plug.linux.org.ph To leave: send "unsubscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe to the Linux Newbies' List: send "subscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
