Did you read the column E-Mac, i-Mac, No
Mac by John C. Dvorak at PC Magazine? His way of thinking is kind
of odd, and John Cristie already addressed it
here at LEM.
What Dvorak says is that the Macintosh line of computers should be
discontinued, "put down like an old dog," because he can't see how it
can be developed further. He thinks it would be better if Apple used
its resources to developing something completely new instead of just
making improvements to the GUI introduced by the Xerox Star in the
1970s.
I don't agree with Dvorak, but I find one of the things he says
fascinating. What if we really are near a point where the
Macintosh - or let's say the personal computer, including Wintels -
can't be developed further? What if it is as good as it can be and
can't be improved much more in terms of functionality?
Imagine all of the software developers running out of new ideas, so
that they have no new features to implement.
Wouldn't that be great!
The software industry is plagued by bad quality (i.e., bugs).
Quality just isn't a big priority. It's the features that sell the
product. Software manufacturers can ship their products even if they
know the quality is low, because should a critical flaw be discovered,
they can always send out a patch to fix it.
They do this to keep up with the competition.
My prediction is that as long as everything moves as fast as it does
today in the computer industry, quality will not improve. But sooner or
later, when the feature race slows down, what will happen when the
personal computer becomes more mature: Quality will be a priority.
When the personal computer is developed enough feature-wise, the
bugs will begin to be squashed one by one. Eventually it will be pain
free to use all those features!
I just hope it'll be sometime in the next 60 years, so I have a fair
chance of being around to see it.
Share your perspective on the Mac by emailing with "My Turn" as your subject.
