All-New PowerBooks, Web Browser Featured at Macworld 1095
The 17" model is 1440x900 resolution, 16:10 aspect ratio, G4/1GHz, SuperDrive, GeForce4 440 Go/64MB, and all the same ports, with the addition of line in and FireWire 800 (in addition to FireWire 400). It is less than 1" thin, and 6.8 lbs., and has fiber-optic lightning for the keyboard activated by ambient light sensors. It will be available next month for $3,300.
The 12" version is 4.6 lbs., and is smaller than the iBook in every dimension. It's 1024x768, G4/867, GeForce4 420 Go/32MB, and is AirPort-ready ($99 extra). It is $1,800 for a combo drive model, $2,000 for a SuperDrive model, and will be available in two weeks.
Both models sport the new AirPort Extreme (802.11g), which is 54Mbps, up from the 11Mbps of AirPort (802.11b). The base stations and clients are fully compatible with the old AirPort, handle 50 users, and support both wireless bridging (to extend the range by adding more stations) and can act as a USB printer server.
Jobs also introduced Safari, a new Mac OS X browser based on the KHTML rendering engine from KDE (and Apple will publish changes they've made to it). There's nothing especially great about it -- it's a web browser -- except that, unlike most other browsers, it is expected to be fast and work properly, as well as be fully integrated into Mac OS X. The web is a killer app, but pretty much all web browsers suck; Apple hopes to give us something that doesn't suck in Safari. It is a free download for the beta, starting today. This story was posted using Safari. W00p.
iPhoto 2 has been revamped, with iTunes integration (access to playlists, tracks, even searching) for slide shows; one-click enhance of photos; a retouch brush; archiving to CD/DVD; and more. iMovie 3 has added chapters, the "Ken Burns Effect" (panning through still images), and precise audio editing. iDVD 3 has added a ton of quite cool themes, which will look great the first few times you see them.
They are -- along with iTunes -- bundled with all new Macs beginning January 25 as "iLife". All but iDVD will be freely available online, contrary to previously published reports. The entire bundle of four apps will be available for retail purchase for $50.
For sale today at $99 is another new app, Keynote, which is the presentation software Jobs has been using for over a year for his own presentations. It includes all sorts of flashy features like textures and Quartz-powered 3D transitions, and can import and export PowerPoint, as well as export to PDF and QuickTime. It has an open file format (using XML).
Jobs also introduced Final Cut Express, a stripped-down version of Final Cut Pro, for $300, and noted other prominent third-party software recently released for Mac OS X: QuickBooks, Director, and DigiDesign Pro Tools (later this month). He noted that the number of native apps for Mac OS X jumped from 2,000 to 5,000 in 2002.
Meanwhile, the number of users of the OS went from 1.2 million to 5 million last year, and he expects the number to jump to 9 or 10 million in 2003.
Update: 01/07 19:37 GMT by Jamie (also posted with Safari): And thanks to the several Slashdot readers who pointed out a great but unannounced product: X11 (aka the X Windows System) for Mac OS X. It's in Public Beta right now. Great to see this, an Apple-supported X is greatly needed. I don't know why Jobs didn't at least mention this, it would have gotten quite the round of applause I'm sure.
Woohooo!! (Score:0, Insightful)
Safari rocks! (Score:5, Insightful)
Disinformation (Score:5, Insightful)
(Remember that laptop CPUs typically don't run as fast as desktop equivalents - especially when on battery. Most OSX laptops are as fast as PC equivalents. So the CPU gap doesn't apply)
I can't wait to download the new iApps (sorry, iLife) as well.
Re:agent identification for Safari (Score:5, Insightful)
12" Powerbook Very Cool! But... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, however, the notebook doesn't include DVI-out support, so my monitor [sgi.com] would fall back to VGA mode if I tried to use the notebook with it. Does anyone know if Apple or a third party plans to offer a PC Card with DVI support? Margi had one, but it's only 4MB... not quite enough for this particular monitor.
Also, one thing Apple keeps failing to address is the #1 reason I haven't switched to a Mac. Steve, where are the software trade-in incentives? I own Photoshop 6 and 7, Dreamweaver MX, and Microsoft Office XP for the PC. What on Earth is keeping Apple and/or other vendors from offering trade-in incentives? Why can I not trade in my two boxed Photoshop-for-PC copies and receive Photoshop 7 for Mac OS X? The same goes for Dreamweaver MX. The cost to move to a Mac is almost doubled by the $1500 worth of software that I already have for my PC.
Here's hoping Apple will start to address this issue, especially since the platform is geared toward video developers and graphic designers -- two markets whose people invest heavily in expensive software.
Bug Button (Score:5, Insightful)
My takes (Score:4, Insightful)
Addresses two key issues with Apple. First is slow cpu's. cpu speed isn't as big of a deal with laptop users, so the ghz gap isn't as pronounced here. Second, and most important, laptops have much higher margins than desktops. Apple already sells a higher percentage of laptops, this does nothing but help the bottom line and if they continue, the bottom line will still look good (even if market share drops).
Most dissapointing
No advancment on the ghz front. I just said that it doesn't matter _as_much_, but it's still dissapointing that Apple continues to lag here.
New FireWire connector. I know that this might not be Apples fault, but yet another connector type for 800Gb FireWire, ugh. Yeah yeah, an adapters available, but couldn't IEEE figure out a way to make the two compatable?
Most "interesting"
Safari. How does this fit into the big picture. Does Safari really make the Mac a sweeter deal for those who were fence sitting (or firmly on the other side)? Does what Apple gets from it outweigh the development costs of it? Is this another sign that Apple is distancing themselves from Microsoft? Now with Safari, Office is the only thing left that Apple has a dependency on M$.
Most likely to go "cube"
The 12" PowerBook. Yes portability is good, but does it sell in enough numbers to keep it alive. Will people want a G4 bad enough to pay the extra for the 12" PB vs the iBook? Subnotes/small notes are notoriously hard to sell, but I guess it does plug a hole in the Apple notebook strategy.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Keynote vs OSS? (Score:4, Insightful)
- j
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? (Score:5, Insightful)
What the hell were they thinking? Perhaps it's a little faster or smaller, but that sounds like a small payoff when you end up with a browser that is broken and doesn't work properly on a large number of sites. Chimera shows that Gecko can make an amazing browser on OS X so why they've jumped over is mind boggling.
Re:12" Powerbook Very Cool! But... (Score:2, Insightful)
17" Powerbook... drool.
Re:12" Powerbook Very Cool! But... (Score:2, Insightful)
Why would you ask Apple to take in software from some vendor, presumably just to throw it out, and GIVE you $1500 worth of some other company's software? Would you walk into Campell's headquaters, drop a case of opened cans of soup on their desk, and demand Progresso instead because you don't like the kind of bowls you bought to eat your soup in?
How about either 1) Ask the software vendors in question about a trade-up deal, or 2) Buy new software for Mac in the first place?
That's part of the TCO for owning a Mac, and one of the two big reasons (software availabity, especially games; plus hardware cost) that I finally abandoned Apple after 19 years of loyalty.
KHTML vs. Mozilla (Score:4, Insightful)
Mozilla is created as an alternative. It was not created to be the ONLY alternative. And assuming the world domination thing happens, IE dies off, we would have the same thing, but called Mozilla and hidden behind different 'skins' (front-end like Phoenix, Galeon, Chimera, Etc). I think those projects are great, but choice is what the entire Free Software movement is about.
I choose to run WindowMaker. I choose to use FreeBSD. I can choose to release my projects as either GPL or BSD, or even LGPL, or any of the other licenses. I choose to use an x86 based platform.
Why not let Apple choose KHTML? If we wake up one day and find that only Gecko is out there, IE died and Konqueror is "that other browser" (Like Opera and Mozilla are considered today, in the mainstream, although both are gaining considerable acceptance), where would we have gotten? Except for the fact it's open source, it'll be no different than IE.
Just my 2c.
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anatomy sized notebook (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, time will tell, but I think the new 12" PowerBook will do fabulously well. In addition to the faster G4, you get 802.11g vs 802.11b, bluetooth, S-video and VGA out, a bigger hard disk that's ATA/100, more memory, faster graphics, a lighter notebook, and QuickBooks bundled. Oddly, you don't get Firewire800. In my world, the total speed bump (which I'm guessing is substantial) is worth $300, 802.11g is worth $50, the bigger faster disk is $50 (it's a PAIN to swap an iBook disk), the memory is worth $30, and the S-video/VGA out (with true dual display) is worth $100. I personally don't care about QuickBooks. So, I think this will definitely be worth it to some people even before you get to better looks and snob appeal, although the 12 inch iBook is a beautiful product in its own right (I own one :-)). The odd computers out in this case are, I think, the 14.1" iBooks.
Re:Mac guys (Score:3, Insightful)
As for your 486 running faster than an 8600, do you mean for general OS performance, or for actual comparable applications? My 486 would barely run a graphics program, which the 8600s I've used handle passably (not wonderfully, but better). So at that point, it's subjective word-against-word.
In any case, that's all old news. The reason today's Macs excite us (or me, anyway) is that they offer very spiffy design on very solid, quick performance. You say Macs are not "faster, cheaper, more stable systems." If, for such systems, you mean Linux, I can't argue with you. I would claim, though, that the newest Macs match or best top-flight Windows systems for performance (thanks to G4/Velocity) and stability (thanks to OS X's BSD core). Then, what you get for the extra "expense" is a tastefully designed, fully integrated yet completely flexible computer and GUI. To re-iterate, over Windows, you gain even more stability, possibly some speed, and a full set of command line tools. Over Linux/other *NIXes, you get a snappy, consistent GUI and access to more applications.
Personally, I use all three, depending on the task. I mostly just find Macs a nicer environment to work in.
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? (Score:4, Insightful)
Mozilla may not have the greatest share of the market, but it may be the best browser available. This is why Apple DOES NOT want Mozilla. Sounds crazy? Not really.
Jobs realizes that competition will create better software. It would certainly be possible for Mozilla to become so popular and 'standardized' on the Unix and MacOS operating systems that development of KHTML would slow down and eventually die. If you have a company behind KHTML like Apple while AOL is behind Mozilla, you can expect a war to brew.
Mozilla is a great browser, KHTML is not bad.. but unless they become more popular and gain more press, Microsoft won't bother to compete.. they won't have to.
If KHTML and Mozilla begin a new browser war, first.. new OSX users will be using KHTML, Linux/Unix geeks will be using either Mozilla or KHTML. Apple still does have a large userbase, using KHTML could really put a dent in Microsoft. KHTML's competition would make Mozilla better and more popular, even in Microsoft Windows.
Apple may have just sparked not only a browser war, but a rejuvination of computing without Microsoft. I won't be surprised to see 30-40% of the web using non-IE browsers within a year.
Safari is NOT Gecko (Score:4, Insightful)
The choice of this K stuff over Chimera/Gecko is puzzling, but the performance is there.
Re:Mac guys (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:agent identification for Safari (Score:2, Insightful)
Me: If everyone coded according to the standards [w3.org] instead of using browser-specific hacks, its user-agent string wouldn't matter (except for logging, etc.).
Re:New screen (Score:1, Insightful)
All computer companies preach the lowest common denominator (in this case; people are stoopid).
Re:12" Powerbook Very Cool! But... (Score:2, Insightful)
A few thoughts... (Score:1, Insightful)
Many products already offer, explicitly or not, cross-platform upgrades. If you own Photoshop 6 for Windows, you can buy the 7.0 upgrade for the Mac and it will install using your serial number. I believe a number of major products will work this way, as long as they are serial-number based rather than checking for installed files-- even applications that don't advertise this as an upgrade option.
I agree, the cost of software does make it hard to switch-- but given that you can upgrade like this, it isn't a major problem. Here's another thought-- does Microsoft offer Photoshop upgrades for people switching from Mac to PC? As everyone is saying, this simple isn't a job for Apple.
iBook vs. PowerBook:
The iBook is the entry-level (consumer) laptop from Apple. The PowerBook is the prestige/pro laptop. Mac users have been asking for a small pro laptop since Apple canned the 2400. I think the 12" model, with its cooler case/keyboard, SuperDrive option, G4 processor, etc. is sufficiently differentiated.
Using VPC for Pro apps:
To the guy who suggested this: Are you nuts? Emulation in Virtual PC does not give you the performance you will need for serious apps, especially graphic-intensive ones. VPC is a great solution for dinky apps, personal finance, and small custom apps, but not for Photoshop.
Re:KHTML vs. Mozilla (Score:5, Insightful)
And assuming the world domination thing happens, IE dies off, we would have the same thing, but called Mozilla
Uh.... the same thing being a popular web browser? :)
I think those projects are great, but choice is what the entire Free Software movement is about.
Actually it's about freedom. The fact that choice/duplication of effort is often a side effect of freedom isn't really what it's about, it's just a sometimes pleasant consequence of the way the free software movement works.
Why not let Apple choose KHTML? If we wake up one day and find that only Gecko is out there, IE died and Konqueror is "that other browser" (Like Opera and Mozilla are considered today, in the mainstream, although both are gaining considerable acceptance), where would we have gotten? Except for the fact it's open source, it'll be no different than IE.
Well, uh, yeah, except that it's open source! That's the big difference. Nobody controls Mozilla, yes Netscape/AOL have a big influence on the project but you can always fork it. You can't fork IE. The fact that it's open source IS the big deal. A monopoly of Mozilla wouldn't be bad at all - there's nothing wrong with huge market shares if it happens to be the best product and the makers of said product are not trying to prevent competition.
I think you need to think about that one a bit harder. Choice is fine, but it's a means to an end, not an end in itself, and sometimes restricting it (ie technical standards) is a good thing.
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hold back your feelings. This is good. Yes, Gecko may be the superior engine. But diversity and choice are superiorer. Think about it: with Apple supporting KHTML and AOL supporting Gecko, there are two alternatives that enjoy major support.
This means that Microsoft, and more importantly, the mono- or duopoly web development mindset lose some of their strangehold on the market. And ultimately this keeps the web's promise alive better than just using a more compliant engine.
Re:agent identification for Safari (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Apple rolled their own X11 too! (Score:3, Insightful)
"And what's needed for X11 and other Unix apps (Gimp, etc)? X11."
Given that you talk about Apple "getting the chess pieces on the board to finally ditch Microsoft" I wonder why you cite the Gimp here given that Apple probably don't gives a rat's ass about it ('cause they got Photoshop) and why you didn't cite Open Office instead, which is probably why Apple is helping X11 to run smoothly on MacOS X.
This makes so much more sense if you think about it. Apple depends on MS for IE and Office. Now they are trying to get less dependent on IE with Safari, so what they need is a replacement for MS Office. Of course, they already have AppleWorks, but if it was able to make Apple independent from MS Office it would already have done so.
However, Star Office and Open Office have been gathering a lot of publicity and have the advantage of being crossplatform (so a company already using Open Office on Windows or even Linux can reuse that knowledge) and having X11 makes it that much easier to have a Quartz using Aqua looking Star/Open office without waiting for more than a year (which was the ETA for OO on OS X last time I checked).
eBay is your friend (Score:2, Insightful)
Why the release of OSX X11 is important (Score:5, Insightful)
OpenOffice isnt seen as a viable replacement among mac users because it uses X11, and looks decidedly un-maclike. With this new release of X11, thats fixed. Apple can now bundle open office with OS X, and they won't need to spend hundreds of man hours porting it to run under Aqua.
The combination of OpenOffice running under apples X11 implementation, Safari, and Keynote could be just the thing that apple uses to decrease (and perhaps ultimatley do away with altogether) its dependence on MS. And that, I think, is a Good Thing.
---
Re:My takes (Score:2, Insightful)
Here are some more details...
What's new about 1394b? [PDF] [1394ta.org]
What's new about 1394b? [HTML from Google] [216.239.57.100]
I think the distance was the biggest factor. 1394b is designed to last and be functional as a local backbone. B is supposed to be capable of 2Gbps speeds over a 100m hop without a repeater. A could only get 400Mbps through at most a 5m hop (a 20m hop if you drop to 100Mbps). To get the extra signal fidelity and really open it up for fiber media, they needed to add a few pins. Here's another article [twice.com] about that.
Yes, I definitely agree it sucks, but sometimes you've just got to bend over and take it... standards are made by committees, so I guess it's not suprising they don't always get everything right the first time.
Re:posting this from safari (Score:3, Insightful)
For so many reasons.
It saves me an incredible amount of time and enables me to manage viewing a substantially larger number of web pages. It's the only browser innovation in years that's excited me at all.
Re:Why the release of OSX X11 is important (Score:2, Insightful)
The effort of developing an Aqua interface for OpenOffice WILL have to be spent if there's any chance that any number of Mac user actually use it one day. Whether Apple will do it or the rest of the OpenSource community will remains to be seen....
Re:Not bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation: we realised that we had no chance of building our own layout engine or javascript engine, so we had to choose between Gecko/Spidermonkey and KHTML/KJS.
Why not use existing tools if they are good enough?
The Mozilla technologies were better, but we could understand the KDE ones.
Who wants to work with software you can't understand? 140,000 lines of code vs. bigger? I'd take 140,000 if I could, too.
In particular, Mozilla is full of cross platform code that makes it harder to adapt and integrate into our OS, and it relies upon its own portable runtime and rendering layers.
Who's fault is that? Certainly not Apple's.
When we started this project, Chimera didn't exist.
Who cares? Safari rocks. A big, bad commercial softwarre developer uses an open-source project and gives back to that community and there are still people who whine. It boggles the mind.
Re:Why are all Mac users fags??? (Score:2, Insightful)
They are doing exactly what the LGPL (as chosen by the KHTML authors) wanted them to do... improve KHTML, and use it.
Autoadjust not just cool, actually important... (Score:5, Insightful)
Lack of USB 2.0 (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? (Score:4, Insightful)
Please don't take offense to the following:
I just love it when people who have no business concepts come up with crackpot reasons for why corporations do what they do. A lot of times these people make me laugh with their logic.
First of all, Jobs doesn't want competition. He's the CEO of a multibillion dollar company. Do you honestly think he believes in a competitive, efficient market? Sure, he'll say and do whatever he can as long as MS is where it's at, but only as long as he's in second place.
Remember, the Macintosh computer is a franchise market (read: Harley Davidson) with Apple at the helm. Companies with a monopoly over a franchise market (which Apple has) have little that will erode their marketshare. The Harley Davidson example is the textbook case. Basically, Harley Davidson has 0 competition from Honda, Yamaha, whoever in their main market. Harley's main market happens to be "Harley Davidson Motorcycles". Similarly, Apple has 0 competition from other computer makers in the Macintosh market. Everytime somebody tries to release something that emulates a Mac, they get crushed by Apple's litigation thugs. Send an email to themes.org if you disagree.
Now if we can rule out betterment of society from CEO Jobs' goals, we should be able to assume that profit is his ultimate goal. All of his plans revolve around those little 3 step underpants gnomes plans. in this particular case, we have:
1. Use KHTML
2. ????
3. Profit!!
Now we just have to find the elusive step 2. from the 3 step plan. You, GiMP suggest that he wants a competitive browser market to create a better browser that will drive people to the Macintosh platform, thus, creating profit. Hmmm. I don't think that having the best browser will generate any profit. How much profit has MS made from IE (if we haphazardly assume it's the best browser)? None. Has dominance with IE led to profit with IIS? IIS has yet to generate profits for MS, so again, No.
Here's my idea of why Apple chose KHTML, and although it may be just as crackpot as yours, at least it's business based crack (the expensive stuff that Wall St Tycoons snort) as opposed to opensource hippie crack. I think that Apple sees a switch campaign as a good way to increase revenues so he needs to get more people to "switch". One main reason that people don't feel comfortable with OS X is because all of the browsers suck. I use OS X and I'm justified in saying that ALL CURRENT OS X Browsers suck. I currently use a collection IE, Navigator (chimera?), Mozilla, and OmniWeb. Every one of them sucks differently and together, there's usually one that's right for each job, but I can't use one for everything. Steve Jobs knows this and says, "Holy shit! How can convince people that OS X is the best platform when people can't even browse the fscking web?" CEO Steve is smart though. He realizes that the slow web browsers in OS X (IE and Mozilla) don't suck as much as the fast web browsers (Navigator and Omniweb). He decides that Apple's going to do it's typical amazing thing and surprise everybody with a fast webbrowser for OS X that doesn't suck! Has Steve succeeded? From other comments on this page I'd say not yet, but it's a beta version and CEO Steve put a serious team of hackers behind his browser.
Why did he choose KHTML? Probably because it was the easiest *fast* html renderer to modify and create a new web browser with. CEO Steve knows that reinventing the wheel costs too much in today's economy.
PS. I'm very happy that Apple chose an open source browser and is giving back to the community the way that they are. I'm happy for the KDE people (all of them) for creating a browser and desktop environment that was capable for a company like Apple to use the code base.
Why Tabs are Bad (Score:2, Insightful)
With tabs, closing a window can in fact remove the contents of many windows. Something that should only happen when you quit the application. Granted, adding this as a default-off feature might be okay, but I can just see all the grandmas wondering why all their different web pages went away when they only closed the front window.
There would also need to be a cycle-tabs keystroke, in addition to the cycle-windows keystroke. (Something that does annoy me when I use tabs in Phoenix.)
Re:KHTML vs. Mozilla (Score:3, Insightful)
Your agrument is flawed in the fact that Mozilla and other browsers don't have a whole lot of non-standards features built into them.
Who cares if a few other HTML engines die off and only Gecko based browsers are around. As long as they're standards complient, it doesn't matter. It would be completly different from the current situation with IE.
The only reason IE is pain in terms of people writing only for IE, is because IE dosn't support the standards as well as Mozilla, and it has it own little extentions the exclude other browsers.
A better question would be: Why re-invent the wheel? What is it that progammers say? Never write the same code twice?
I think Apple would have been better off working with the Gecko engine and making improvments to that. After all, it is generally accepted that it's a better engine in terms of supporting the standards compared to KHTML.
"Open Source - We Think It's Great" (Score:4, Insightful)
My point is, that by promoting the ideas and benefits of Open Source to Graphic Artists, Travelling Business People, "Creative Types" and the Casual Mac User(tm), Apple is doing more to promote open source among non-technical people than any other company out there - at least any other company my grandmother has heard of, anyway.
Here's a screen shot:
Apple Keynote Screen Shot [alternativelight.com]
Re:agent identification for Safari (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:No, they aren't. Maybe you are though. (Score:2, Insightful)
Know why a lighted keyboard makes sense?
Husband/Wife, one wants sleep. One wants to surf.
One wants the ALL of the lights off, right now, or there will
be hell to pay.
That's why
Hats off to OroborOSX (Score:5, Insightful)
They didn't bash it. They didn't knock it. They didn't even complain about it. They said something like, "How does this affect our project? We don't know. Download it. Check it out. Don't forget to back up the X11 directories beforehand, just in case." And they linked to a message forum thread on their site that had been created to talk about this new product from Apple. Even in the forum, there was very little criticism of Apple's X11 product, and everything critical they had to say was constructive.
Even though this product could completely obliterate the need for their software, they were open to an alternative. They didn't go into FUD mode and immediately issue press releases bashing the "competition".
One could argue that they have no reason to get upset or concerned, because they were giving their software away anyway. No money to be made or lost, right? So take your ball and go home. Not so. You can't tell me there's no pride in Open Source. These people found a void and filled it, and the void could very well be filled AGAIN by the very people who caused the void in the first place. It would be very understandable for the OroborOSX team to get a little miffed.
Hats off to these guys for representing the best of the Open Source Community, which most often really DOES seem to be about ensuring that we all have the very best software that we can get, no matter who makes it.
Now I'll check to see if my "optimization" is done yet, and I'll begin my little evaluation of Apple's new effort. But I will be very careful to REMEMBER who has already been here and to not forget the work that they have done. Now that they have been here, the bar has been RAISED for Apple and they will have to produce quality software. This is a great role for Open Source software, if nothing else.
Cheers,
RP
Re:agent identification for Safari (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, if browsers actually implemented the standards, then standards-compliant code would work cross-browser. Alas, it does not, so browser-specific code becomes necessary. However, doing this by detecting the user-agent string is ill-advised. Object detection generally works better.
Good Move! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:X11 "native" support just like Carbon (Score:3, Insightful)
Look and feel and expected behavior and interoperability are the point.
Ever tried to use an app that emulates your OS's native widgets with skins? It doesn't look right, it ignores global color and font settings, it ignores UI guidelines, it behaves differently when you drag the scrollbars, it uses its own oddball keystroke commands, you can't drag-n-drop to or from it... bleh.