This is sort of true, but not in the way it's used by the right-wing authoritarians. A more accurate formulation in the context of the OS:
"Apple is nimble, and can get away with more."
For mostly historical reasons, Apple does have an easier job developing the OS than does MS. (These are the very same historical reasons that gave MS the PC OS monopoly in the first place.) Apple doesn't have to provide a completely robust driver architecture; it doesn't have to support every bit of crufty old hardware in the known universe (installed a third-party video driver for OS X lately?). Apple has always had control over the hardware.
By the same token, Apple has exponentially fewer resources than MS does, so they'd better spend their R&D money well.
A word about Tevanian, the jarring note in that list of 'researchers and artists': talk to some Apple engineers. He was not helpful. It's good that he left. We would have had some of Tiger sooner.
by Chris — Sep 06
This is sort of true, but not in the way it's used by the right-wing authoritarians. A more accurate formulation in the context of the OS:
"Apple is nimble, and can get away with more."
For mostly historical reasons, Apple does have an easier job developing the OS than does MS. (These are the very same historical reasons that gave MS the PC OS monopoly in the first place.) Apple doesn't have to provide a completely robust driver architecture; it doesn't have to support every bit of crufty old hardware in the known universe (installed a third-party video driver for OS X lately?). Apple has always had control over the hardware.
By the same token, Apple has exponentially fewer resources than MS does, so they'd better spend their R&D money well.
A word about Tevanian, the jarring note in that list of 'researchers and artists': talk to some Apple engineers. He was not helpful. It's good that he left. We would have had some of Tiger sooner.