Most of us who work on the Mac DevCenter believe that Mac OS X is going to spur a whole new generation of Mac applications. In my opinion, one of those breakthrough apps is available right now: OmniWeb 4.0.
Among other things, this native Mac OS X browser uses Quartz's built-in text anti-aliasing, and the pages it renders look terrific. We thought that the OmniGroup president, Wil Shipley, who designed and coded the UIs and front-ends for OmniWeb, would be a terrific guest on Writers' Talk. Wil agreed to join Aqua columnist Alan Graham and me for a chat about his OmniWeb browser, the IE 5.1 competition, and the evolution of NEXTSTEP that has led to the birth of Mac OS X.
We met online, Tuesday evening, May 8, 2001. Here's what we discussed.
OReillyMac: Welcome to Writers' Talk, guys!
wilshipleyatomni: Thanks!
alanosx: Thanks. Glad to be here.
OReillyMac: Wil, I'm really anxious to hear just a few words about the creation of OmniWeb. I think it's a terrific Mac OS X browser.
alanosx: Agreed!
OReillyMac: Could you give us a thumbnail history?
wilshipleyatomni: Glad you like it! We started OmniWeb back in 1993, under NEXTSTEP.
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wilshipleyatomni: Not everybody knows it, but the World-wide-web was actually invented on NEXTSTEP machines at CERN (The Centre Européen de Recherche Nucléaire)
wilshipleyatomni: Which was a weird coincidence, because CERN was using NEXTSTEP machines because of a program I helped write (a tiny bit of) at the Stanford Linear Accelerator...
wilshipleyatomni: It helped physicists figure out what happened when high energy particles collided. Kind of a specialized program. So SLAC gave the program to CERN, and CERN started using NeXT machines.
OReillyMac: That's really cool. I had no idea ... That sort of leads to my next question ...
wilshipleyatomni: Yes?
OReillyMac: When I first used OmniWeb, I thought it was very refined for a "new" browser. That's because it isn't new, right? Of course if I paid attention to the version number, I could figure that out ...
wilshipleyatomni: Right, it's 8 years old.
OReillyMac: When did you decide to port a version to OS X?
wilshipleyatomni: We started it before Netscape spun off from the NCSA.
OReillyMac: NCSA?
wilshipleyatomni: We started it LONG before Microsoft bought Spyglass Mosaic and turned it into IE 1.0.
wilshipleyatomni: National Center for Supercomputing Applications.
wilshipleyatomni: It's been a long time, but if I'm recalling correctly then, Marc Andreesan came from NCSA.
OReillyMac: That certainly explains some of the refinement ...
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wilshipleyatomni: We were given the chance to make up some of the metaphors of web browsing that people now take for granted.
wilshipleyatomni: Like hierarchical bookmarks -- seems obvious, we were the first to do it.
wilshipleyatomni: Before us, bookmarks we just a huge long list in a menu.
wilshipleyatomni: And dragging and dropping bookmarks -- that came in OmniWeb 2.0.
OReillyMac: Mine are still a long list ... Another question ... I'm sure you've heard the word on the streets that IE 5.1 isn't as strong on Mac OS X as it is with other operating systems. Alan, have you heard that too?
alanosx: I have heard that. One of my biggest pet peeves though is what we see in the MS IE...
OReillyMac: Go for it!
alanosx: is more Miscrosoft bloat...Omni is refreshing in that it has taken a step back it seems and that less is more...what do you think?
wilshipleyatomni: I think Microsoft definitely made some missteps in earlier versions of the browser -- channels come to mind, for instance.
OReillyMac: I think so too, and btw, I really like the way OmniWeb renders web pages. Wil, how do you do that?
wilshipleyatomni: We actually just use Quartz's built-in text anti-aliasing, and it makes pages look better.
wilshipleyatomni: I feel kind of bad that IE takes it in the chin for this, because they are using Carbon's text rendering, and it's just not as good, but that's hardly their fault.
alanosx: I have a question that pertains to this...
OReillyMac: go!
alanosx: What really thrilled me about Omniweb from the start was not only its well developed interface, but its use of Quartz. I have always disliked the look of html text.
alanosx: I felt it was the first time that the web looked like the printed page or watching television. Are we starting to see the evolution of the web on some level?
wilshipleyatomni: I always thought that prettier pages would come when the web went to PDF, but that standard didn't really take off.
alanosx: People are saying that the images are fuzzy...but personally...I think that people just aren't use to seeing the web look so good.
wilshipleyatomni: One problem up to now with rendering pages has been that all the browser writers have had to slavishly imitate what the leader does, down to the pixel, so there hasn't been much room for improving things.
wilshipleyatomni: I know Jim Grewal from the IE team wants to use Quartz fonts, but the problem is they are of slightly different metrics than Carbon fonts...
wilshipleyatomni: and so pages will look slightly different, and lots of web authors erroneously depend on font widths to be exactly what they wrote the page with.
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wilshipleyatomni: One problem with generating PDF from pages is most pages don't separate out nicely into printer-sized pages.
wilshipleyatomni: People make their pages 22" high and 8" wide, and so full of tables that there's no algorithm in the world that could do intelligent page breaks.
OReillyMac: That's true from my experience too ... but I still like the functionality.
alanosx: One major step forward using pdf...
alanosx: is that in order to make text appear attractive...
alanosx: we always had to use gif based text...which of course limited our file sizes...and restricted us...
alanosx: by putting more burden on the PC and less on downloads...
alanosx: we get beautiful text that can reflect what we want to get across.
alanosx: now we don't have to trade-off quality for size, scaling down isn't necessary anymore.
wilshipleyatomni: Yes, we're having to re-educate even our own web people here. Since most of our customers are on OS X, and
wilshipleyatomni: we have a TON of built-in, gorgeous fonts on OS X, we don't really need to make the big GIF headers any more.
wilshipleyatomni: Which is great not only from a load-time point of view, but also being able to quickly change the content on your site.
OReillyMac: I'll tell you though ... when people look at pages on my OmniWeb browser, they're impressed. And the typography has a lot to do with that.
alanosx: I agree.
alanosx: I was astonished.
OReillyMac: And the PDFs look great too, even with the funky breaks
wilshipleyatomni: That's awesome to hear!
alanosx: You know what shocked me the most with OMNIWEB?
wilshipleyatomni: But IE is going to catch up to this in a couple of releases.
wilshipleyatomni: Well, assuming they don't all quit and go home. :)
OReillyMac: That leads to my next question ...
alanosx: Is that your interface design is so professional...I was so impressed.
wilshipleyatomni: (shock?)
wilshipleyatomni: Thanks! I hired Rick Roe after seeing his work on the web... he runs icons.cx.
OReillyMac: Before I ask my next question, I have to agree with Alan here about the interface design.
alanosx: It looks and feels like a million dollar program.
wilshipleyatomni: He's a nut, in the best way. When I found him he was making replacement icons for IE and Adobe Photoshop and other apps, just for fun.
wilshipleyatomni: And they looked 10x better!
wilshipleyatomni: I wrote him the same day and said, "Come work for me."
wilshipleyatomni: I honestly think he's the best UI and icon guy in the business right now.
OReillyMac: Seems to me there's a window for "new" developer teams that can get apps out the door in Cocoa. Do you think you can be the "other" browser?
wilshipleyatomni: I think we already are the "other" browser.
OReillyMac: And make money?
wilshipleyatomni: We distribute OmniWeb through three different methods, two of which we can't track.
wilshipleyatomni: But the one we can, we had about 150,000 downloads of the RC1 release.
wilshipleyatomni: In a couple of weeks.
OReillyMac: RC1?
wilshipleyatomni: (Release candidate 1)
OReillyMac: Ah!
wilshipleyatomni: That's not including the people who went to Apple's site and saw us on the downloads page -- we can't track those.
wilshipleyatomni: Or the people who grabbed it off their iDisk.
wilshipleyatomni: So, I think we have about 300,000 people actively using OmniWeb right now.
wilshipleyatomni: This is on an OS that's sold maybe 500,000 copies.
wilshipleyatomni: That is AWESOME market penetration.
OReillyMac: Alan, what do you think about this?
alanosx: Well...what I think is....that Mac users have high standards...
alanosx: and that people are always looking for the MS alternative...and...
alanosx: people always recognize quality...for example...
alanosx: if you released your browser...and it looked like you invested a weekend of time and $100 in materials...people...especially mac people...
alanosx: will turn their heads...but...
alanosx: you've made a piece of software that looks better and in many respects works better than a company...
alanosx: that has invested perhaps billions to push their product...and you've already begun to catch on.
alanosx: mostly by word of mouth.
alanosx: that says a lot.
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OReillyMac: i have to say, the first time I saw an OmniWeb page, I thought, "this is the way the Web is supposed to look."
wilshipleyatomni: There was a poll on some website recently, and something like 70% of people on OS X said OmniWeb is their favorite browser.
OReillyMac: that low?
OReillyMac: ;-)
alanosx: With the advent of Quartz and Apple moving towards blurring the line between the net and the PC...
alanosx: do you understand what Jobs is going for and will the browser play a role? What role? Will you be there?
wilshipleyatomni: Well, I can't really speak for Jobs, for a number of reasons, least of all because I can't read his mind.
wilshipleyatomni: We obviously want to be close to Apple, and we always have been very close in terms of being able to talk to engineers.
wilshipleyatomni: It's only in the last six or so months we've finally gotten to know some of the managers and support people at Apple, and that's made our lives 100x easier.
alanosx: Yeah...but I think we are starting to see some hints at where Apple is headed. Any insight into that?
wilshipleyatomni: In particular our Worldwide Developer Relations guy, Skip Levens, is a godsend.
alanosx: Just from your experience with the new hardware and OS X.
wilshipleyatomni: OS X is a strange beast for Apple.
wilshipleyatomni: It's a server-class OS under the best consumer interface ever written.
wilshipleyatomni: How do you market such a beast?
wilshipleyatomni: There's still some of the myth that "OS X is for professionals only."
alanosx: I see that.
OReillyMac: We're working on dispelling that myth
wilshipleyatomni: To which I respond, "Then why does every game we port run 10% faster than the OS 9 port?"
OReillyMac: Everything in Cocoa, though, right?
wilshipleyatomni: The amazing thing is that the Wall Street Journal published this big piece on how OS X wasn't ready for consumers because you couldn't burn CDs.
alanosx: I think there is too much geek spin on X and not enough evangelism for the consumer.
wilshipleyatomni: Well, six months before, you couldn't burn CDs in Mac OS 9 out of the box, either!
alanosx: And really...it is a third party issue...not Apple.
wilshipleyatomni: On the other hand, it's nice to get a somewhat slow introduction to the mass market.
OReillyMac: This sounds like a running conversation that Alan and I are having ...
wilshipleyatomni: There were real bugs and problems in 10.0.0, and I think Apple's grateful that it's only 100s of thousands of people who need to upgrade to 0.1 and 0.2, instead of millions.
OReillyMac: One more question, Wil ...
OReillyMac: Do you communicate with the Microsoft team? And where do you think they're going with their browser for Mac OS X?
OReillyMac: Are they serious about it?
wilshipleyatomni: I've spoken with Jim Grewal a couple of times now. He's a really good guy, and has, quite honestly, been a real gentleman about some of the crap I've given him over IE's bugs.
alanosx: I think they are use to hearing it.
wilshipleyatomni: There's no doubt he's serious. They were the first people to adopt Carbon, and they've borne the brunt of getting the bugs shaken out.
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OReillyMac: You know, that's a good point.
wilshipleyatomni: As he wrote to me, why do people blame Microsoft when the same IE code from the 9.0 port (that runs great) sucks under X?
wilshipleyatomni: That's really Carbon's fault, by definition.
wilshipleyatomni: And Apple is working on it, but I think in the meantime he shouldn't get beat up.
OReillyMac: How much harder is it to go Cocoa than Carbon for apps this size?
alanosx: I will say...the Apple team at MS is a totally different animal from the rest of the company.
OReillyMac: Agreed!
alanosx: Look at Office 2001.
wilshipleyatomni: Cocoa is SO MUCH EASIER it's crazy.
OReillyMac: Why would you choose Carbon, then?
wilshipleyatomni: But if you're starting with 10 million lines of Carbon code, then staying in Carbon is the only sensible thing.
wilshipleyatomni: What ticks me off is that Maya, a BRAND-NEW app for OS X only, decided to use Carbon.
wilshipleyatomni: WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?
OReillyMac: Really? I didn't know that.
OReillyMac: I just assumed ...
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wilshipleyatomni: On MS: I think the worst thing the Mac market can do is alienate the Macintosh Business Unit at Microsoft.
wilshipleyatomni: Because if they stop making good products for the Mac, it's game over.
wilshipleyatomni: We're done.
alanosx: I agree...in the past...
alanosx: it was a love hate relationship...but many of the new products...really reflect the Mac feel.
OReillyMac: Yup. That's why we were holding our breath at Macworld. Waiting for MS to commit to Office for Mac OS X.
alanosx: I have a quick question...
wilshipleyatomni: The rumors I've heard is that a lot of the MS guys are just refugees from Claris.
wilshipleyatomni: So they really love Apple deep.
OReillyMac: Yeah Alan
alanosx: IN our last piece...we talked about what we love about OS X...we should get some of that input from Wil.
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OReillyMac: Yes! Great way to finish
wilshipleyatomni: Cocoa, Cocoa, Cocoa!
OReillyMac: LOL!
wilshipleyatomni: Call it NEXTSTEP, NeXTstep, OpenStep, Yellow Box, or whatever, it's the best.
OReillyMac: What else?
wilshipleyatomni: I've been working with it since 1989, and then and now I believed it was the future of programming.
wilshipleyatomni: We have a very smart gang here, but the reason we are able to put out professional-quality apps with teams of 1 or 2 people is all Cocoa.
wilshipleyatomni: It's not because we're super-geniuses (although I think we are...)
alanosx: Also...smart move by Apple including the developer tools with OS X...and they are great.
wilshipleyatomni: I've been waiting TWELVE years to bring Cocoa to a mass audience.
wilshipleyatomni: And now, finally, people are seeing what a small team can do, and they're looking around and blinking and saying,
wilshipleyatomni: "Hey, maybe Jobs was right 12 years ago, maybe this IS the future!"
wilshipleyatomni: I mean, Java was largely inspired by Objective-C and the NEXTSTEP interfaces, but it didn't go quite far enough.
wilshipleyatomni: The libraries with Java were so abysmal that the advantages of it being truly OO were kind of lost.
wilshipleyatomni: And Sun spent SO LONG promising Java 1.1, 1.2, 2.0, whatever would be so much better, we swear, just wait, any day now.
alanosx: What about OS X features...any favorites?
alanosx: And finally from me...what message would you give users about what OS X means?
wilshipleyatomni: I've been using UNIX since I was a squeaky-voiced lad, and so I'm pretty darn happy to have a full UNIX under the hood.
wilshipleyatomni: OS X means: Speed. Stability. Beauty.
alanosx: hear hear.
wilshipleyatomni: Your operating system should make you smile. It's as simple as that.
OReillyMac: That's a great way to end guys, what do you say?
alanosx: sure thing.
wilshipleyatomni: Thanks, it was a lot of fun!
Derrick Story is the digital media evangelist for O'Reilly. He is the author of The Photoshop CS4 Companion for Photographers, The Digital Photography Companion, and Digital Photography Hacks, and coauthor of iPhoto: The Missing Manual, with David Pogue. You can follow him on Twitter or visit www.thedigitalstory.com.
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