The Next “Killer App” Will Be Developed on Apple’s OS X

Note: This article was first published on The Weekly Read (now defunct) over a year ago on March 11 2004.

There’s good reason to suspect that the net’s next “killer app” will be developed on Apple’s OS X operating system. Among many computer developers, there is a strong movement from Linux to OS X.

Why? First, OS X combines a open-source Unix core with the world’s best GUI and best-of-breed applications like iTunes and iPhoto. Rumors also indicate that Apple is going to be “integrating” Linux with OS X in their 10.4 revision.

OS X has relatively short application development times because it is heavily object-oriented. The OS is also improving very rapidly. Longhorn is going to be out in 2006 (maybe); meanwhile OS X has a major upgrade yearly and already includes components such as tight video card integration that Windows won’t have until Longhorn.

Developers spend a lot of time with their computers and they want a pretty one. Apple makes the only computers that could be defined as stylish.

These developers will naturally develop their apps on OS X first. The world’s first web browser was implemented by Tim Berners-Lee on NeXTStep, a direct ancestor of OS X. The seminal video game Doom was also developed on NeXTStep.

If VoIP and Video-oIP are the next killer apps on the net, Apple already includes truly turnkey VoIP and Video-oIP in OS 10.3. They will sell you the hardware (an iSight plug-and-play auto-focus video camera) that integrates Video-oIP directly into AOL Instant Messenger’s namespace. Watch for them to extend it to the PC platform like they did with the iPod.