AnandTech has published a very, very in-depth (17 pages) review of Apple's MacBook Pro. "With the MacBook Pro the desire to upgrade is even tougher to resist because Apple switched to a significantly faster processor than what was in the outgoing PowerBook G4. Honestly, as tempting as this new model may be to upgrade to for existing PowerBook owners, I would recommend waiting for a Merom version if you can. By the time Merom is introduced later this year there will be even more Universal Binaries available for the platform and hopefully by then all of the issues with the current MacBook Pros will have been worked out." In the review, Parallels's virtualization tool is compared to Apple's Boot Camp, and AnandTech concludes that it is already amazingly close to running Windows 'natively'.
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Member since:
2005-07-06
Member since:
2006-04-15
Now what you really want to do is Virtualize XP and integrate your Windows desktop into OS X, kind of like this:
http://66.207.121.60/danm/sadmac.jpg
What allows the desktop-less XP window on a OS X desktop (a la Classic) is the latest rdesktop CVS. It compiles cleanly on my iBook so an Intel Mac should be fine. If rdesktop's RDP implementation can be extended a little further you'd truly have the best of both worlds; though I'd be careful to somehow sandbox XP's access to resources or you'd have the -worst- of both worlds!
I can see it now: XP Dashboard widget. Hehe...
D.
Member since:2005-11-10
Member since:
2006-02-22
It's funny to see how a site like Anandtech doesn't compares the MacBook pro with the Latest PowerBook G4 models... but with a one-year-old PowerBook G4...
Well thank you very much, it's clear that in such way, the macbook pro suprasses in every point!... Get Real Anandtech! most of the PowerBook G4 flaws, as the Latches of the screen, have been corrected, the newest powerbook models are more thin that the one you use to compare, and, they have a 1.67GHz PPC... instead of your 1.5GHz... Bah... this comparison is, in a certain way, pointless...
Member since:2005-10-05
I'm sure if you were willing to send Anandtech the extra money to go and buy a brand new G4 laptop, he'd happily do the comparison on it. As they stated in the article, Apple doesn't send them the hardware, they have to go and shell out their own personal money to get it.
170Mhz won't make that much of a different anyway. It doesn't answer that most of the benchmarks, especially where threading is involved, the MBP leaves the old G4 in it's dust.
RE[2]: LOL this is a Lame comparison
Member since:2005-07-06
You need to grow up, and then actually read the review.
The newest PowerBooks would make little changes, if any, to the outcome of the review. This is a review of the MacBook after all, not the PowerBook.
You make do with the hardware that you have. Review shops aren't all-around wealthy, and the reviewer can't just go off to the nearest Apple Store and pick up a new $1,500 machine.
Member since:2006-02-08
"You need to grow up, and then actually read the review.
The newest PowerBooks would make little changes, if any, to the outcome of the review. This is a review of the MacBook after all, not the PowerBook.
You make do with the hardware that you have. Review shops aren't all-around wealthy, and the reviewer can't just go off to the nearest Apple Store and pick up a new $1,500 machine."
And there is a perfect example of the pathetic clowns who need to believe these bogus benchmarks.
Grow up you sad little clown!
Member since:2005-07-06
Coming from someone who's name is "MediaSex". When will the painful irony end?
I'm not "believing" any benchmarks, because I'm never going to buy this revision of MacBook Pros. I was merely responding to someone who thinks that the inclusion of the latest PowerBook generation would actually change the outcome of the review.
Don't even try to lecture me about reviews or benchmarks.
Member since:2005-11-06
Sure, a comparison with the last PowerBook model would have been nice, but the one they did is of more practical value. Namely, people who just bought a PowerBooks a couple of months ago are in no need of an upgrade, whereas people with older models will certainly be more interested to know how their PB compares with the Mac Book Pro.
Me, I'm still waiting for the new iBook [aka Mac Book sans Pro].
RE: LOL this is a Lame comparison
Member since:2005-10-13
First, you complain these benchmarks are bogus and that Anand is apparently trying to convince the world that Apple didn't get dumped by IBM. Why? Well, I guess he's just evil that way... Then you say they cost too much and have bad battery life. Did you even read the article? The battery life was talked about, and Anand said he was disappointed in it. I guess he's just trying to lull you into trusting him, so he can fool you more easily, right? Also, the benchmarks were all either single-threaded, in which case a dual-core cpu doesn't do anything, or included an intel chip with only 1 core working and the other turned off. Still every test was won by Intel, and don't try to convince anyone that a measly 167MHz upgrade is going to nearly double the performance which is what would be needed. Now I'm sure the newest PPC chips can outperform these low-power chips from Intel, at least in some situations. However, it isn't a conspiracy that they aren't being tested. THEY AREN'T BEING REPLACED EITHER. They are still available, and only the old chips are being replaced. Therefore, only the old chips are being compared against their replacements.
To be honest, I feel a little silly about even writing this post, since what I'm replying to is obviously a paranoid, delusional fanboy.
Member since:
2006-01-01
Member since:
2006-04-11
Member since:2005-07-07
XCode is your best bet. It's free (http://connect.apple.com) and I've written a rather popular tutorial at http://www.otierney.net/objective-c.html if you want a primer on the objective-c language.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:
2006-04-11
Member since:2005-10-05
You really should check out Objective-C, it is much nicer than C or C++.
It does memory management (reference counting) so you don't need to always be bothered to remember to free things.
Mono (C#) is also available on the Mac, so you could head that way.
Obj-C is going to be faster than a language in a VM, because it's still compiled.
Member since:
2006-04-11
I get the impression that there is not much support (as much as Linux has) for non C and non Java languages on OS X. If this is the case maybe it would be a good thing that Microsoft port .NET over to OS X but even then there would be little support from Apple in providing API's.
Member since:2005-07-06
I get the impression that there is not much support (as much as Linux has) for non C and non Java languages on OS X.
Ruby's native platform is OS X, and there's RadRails for OS X:
http://www.radrails.org/
Member since:2005-06-29
"Ruby's native platform is OS X ..."
That's incorrect, Ruby is equally portable to several platforms and not exclusively native to any one of them (if it could be said that interpreted code is native at all).
If you mean to say that there are many Ruby bindings for Mac OS APIs that may be true, or if you intended to say that Ruby is a popular programming language for Mac OS X that may be true too. But it's most certainly no more native to Mac OS than to any other platform it runs on.
If you want to see my source, check http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/20020101.html : "Ruby is highly portable: it is developed mostly on Linux, but works on many types of UNIX, DOS, Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP, MacOS, BeOS, OS/2, etc."
Member since:
2006-04-11
C# I am interested in but where can I find bindings for OS X API's? I guess we are stuck with GDK on OS X?
Member since:2005-10-05
http://www.mono-project.com/CocoaSharp
There ya go. Cocoa bindings for C# 
Member since:
2006-04-11
Member since:
2006-02-06
Just curious, the previous poster said that Ruby's native platform is OS X, and yet on Ruby's website I read:
"Ruby is highly portable: it is developed mostly on Linux, but works on many types of UNIX, DOS, Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP, MacOS, BeOS, OS/2, etc."
To me this sounds like Ruby's native platform is Linux, which sounds right to me. Can someone confirm?
Member since:2005-06-29
Really what that tells you is that Linux gets the most attention, but there really is no "native" platform. I don't think interpreted code ever gets to be called "native".
Either way I've used Ruby on Windows and Linux and I can tell you that Windows support is good, although some of the toolkits slow down your mouse scrolling speed while the apps are running. If I'm not mistaken that is a side effect of compiling applications using X11 libraries in cygwin, but that's just a theory of mine.
Member since:2005-07-06
Just curious, the previous poster said that Ruby's native platform is OS X
Err yes. I recall reading somewhere that Ruby was first developed for the Macintosh, by Yukihiro Matsumoto (so 'native' was perhaps a misnomer), but right now, I can't seem to find any source for this. Perhaps I remembered wrong.
Member since:2005-12-18
Ruby was actually developed 11 years ago on a Linux platform.
It achieved a native compile on Windows about 2 years ago, and can be natively compiled on MSVC.
Ruby is definately available on OSX (which is my platform), and ironically it installed *by default* on OSX 10.4 Tiger!
I've compiled a later version to support Ruby on Rails, but 1.8.2 is installed by default.
neptune:~ nighty$ ruby -v
ruby 1.8.4 (2005-12-24) [powerpc-darwin8.5.0]
neptune:~ nighty$
Apple even has a Ruby page: http://developer.apple.com/tools/rubyonrails.html
Member since:
2005-07-09
I don't think you could say ruby has a native platform.. and it's definitely not OSX if there is one because the ruby it ships with is kind of broken.
You will find that most of the people doing ruby on rails development are using macs though. For what reason, I don't know. Textmate probably has a lot to do with it
Member since:
2006-04-11
I get the impression alot of non Apple tools and non Apple supported languages require us to go to the shell to install / uninstall / compile etc. How many of these integrate into xcode or alternative IDEs? The last thing I want is the user to have to open a shell to run my app!
Member since:2006-01-14
There are nearly all common prorgamming languages available for Mac OS X.
C, C++, Objective C, Java (ported from Apple)
perl, php, ruby, python (also ported from Apple)
Fortran, Pascal, Oberon, Modula, Lisp, SmallTalk, RealBasic (from third parties)
As far as I know Microsoft is going to port .Net to Mac OS X (maybe they need it to get a future Office version running)
There are languages that can not call Mac OS X natively, that mean that they have no access to the Aqua GUI or even don't support a gui at all.
However, there are tools to easly call command line tools (as Apple calls non gui apps) from the desktop.
There are also tools to make Java Applications double clickable desktop applications.
Some third parties have also ported their gui environments to Mac OS X (TrollTech QT,tcl)
If you just don't want to use the command line for the development cycle you should be able to build Xcode templates for other languages (or even use Eclipse).
