What you say is true. However, I think that at some point, concessions have to stop being made. There are companies out there who still use DOS-based software, and are trying to run it on Vista! I don’t know which is more foolish – trusting your business to 25-year-old technology, or updating past Windows 98 if you want to use DOS. It is folly to expect full OS support for such extreme cases. In many ways, I think Apple is right to pressure its users to move along and leave outmoded crap behind. Of course now that I’ve said that, my favorite apps will not be 10.6 compatible ;)

The biggest strength of the Windows OS for Microsoft is the overwhelming (though not perfect) backwards compatibility. This allows people to keep using the software for long periods of time, unmodified. This provides a lot of stability that a lot of people demand of their infrastructure.

The biggest weakness of the Windows OS is also the same thing: this makes it nearly impossible for them to move forward quickly and make any meaningful changes to how things work, if it would break software compatibility. The amount of testing that needs to be done to verify that is immense, even for Microsoft and all their people.

The biggest strength of the Mac OS X variants (and this was also true of the pre OS X Mac OS) is that Apple can more readily break away from backwards compatibility: this allows them to make changes faster, and keeps things comparatively lean by not retaining backwards compatibility hacks.

The biggest weakness in the corporate world of the Mac OS has also been its biggest strength: corporations don’t like replacing their software frequently, so this makes it more of a chore to keep things updated. Thus, you have people working with stuff like Adobe that’s now having problems because the platform is moving forward without it coming along as fast as it should. Adobe software isn’t custom in-house software: it’s more general market, and has a much larger budget available to update it to the latest API mutations, and if they’re being responsible, they’ll do it proactively. However, constant modification for new mutations of an OS and its API just isn’t something that’s easy to justify to bean counters for in-house software.

So, you have two choices: pay the price of bloated backwards-compatible Windows OS mutations that makes hardware groan, as well as developers, as a result of the byzantine API, or keep on the treadmill of OS X for keeping up to date, and not having long-term backwards compatibility. They both have their prices, and the question is whether you want to pay one price or the other, or you can afford to.

The new store is called AppStore… not iPhoneAppStore.
So, why they should use iTunes store to distribute software if they have a whole store to sell software?

It sounds like several oldies rehashed and served up as a nice WWDC-eve stew.

Ingredients:

1. Leopard is the new Vista. Ergo: “Leopard is broken and needs a service pack!”
2. Adobe must die. Therefore: “Adobe must too!”
3. Leopard’s delay was humiliating. So: “Apple are rushing out the next thing to save their blushes!”
4. Windows 7 > 10.6. Hence: “10.7 by 2010. Hell, even 2009!”

Here’s how I see it:

1. A sneak preview of 10.6 *may* be given at WWDC.
2. The next OS X will be more comprehensively Cocoa, including the Finder and Apple’s Pro apps.
3. Carbon IS NOT being taken out back and shot. If it is, so too are Photoshop, Illustrator and Office. Apple has given it a timeline of doom, but won’t kill Carbon apps any release too soon. The Cocoa thing is about *their* software, not Adobe’s.
4. More code will be shared between iPhone and Mac, at every level. Synergy between the platforms will be emphasised. Indeed, they will ultimately become one.

Alas, such details as Apple’s software strategy are lost on far too many Mac commentators, yet alone TUAW. Written in refrigerator magnets indeed … wakey wakey Jacqui.

Although they will never ever admit it, I think Dan’s “me-too” naming theory might not be a million miles away from the truth.

I already expected you to announce this one: “One core change already in progress relates to kernel managed security features.” and here you go!

Yes this is interesting, absolutely fascinating, because it can change the business model for computer software. I would expect Apple is progressing stepwise and very careful. The introduction of iPhone apps might have been prepared long before when Steve Jobs wants it to look like. Now they will try out how it really works on the iPhone, how software developers react, how customers react. They will adapt, fine tune the model. And when it works well, why not restrict Mac software to signed software. And what about the role of Apple’s retail channel, the iTunes store, in distributing this software …?!

Apple has to move slow because there are a lot of interests at stake in software business.