Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 4th Feb 2009 07:05 UTC
Apple has always been about moving forward, about pressing customers to buy the latest and greatest. Product pacing has been high in Cupertino (except for the Mac Mini, obviously), and this is obviously a good thing if you're an Apple bean counter. Most Apple fans more or less accept this planned obsolescence without question, but the company may have just gone a little too far.
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Member since:2005-11-14
It's not true that they've been "artificially" killed. Apple did what almost every software company would do, and looked at the cost of supporting those platforms and the money they would make by doing so.
Also, you mentioned buying a "normal x86"... Macs now are normal x86 systems. The main reason Apple's cutting support for older systems is because they transitioned to "normal x86".
You also mentioned running a current Linux distribution on an old PC - can't you do that on the old Mac as well? It seems the only problem here is that Apple doesn't support older systems with newer software as well as Microsoft. That's pretty much a solid fact, but keep in mind that supporting a completely different architecture is not the same as supporting older and less powerful machines.
Apple's hardware and software have always been very much tied together, but people should start seeing things for how they are now. Apple sells computers that can run Mac OS X, Windows or Linux as well as any other PC.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 22:43 UTC
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 21:50 UTC
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.More News »
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Member since:
2005-06-29
Before we start his discussion, let me, your friendly neighbourhood editor, give you the opportunity to forfeit your point about running the latest games. Because, well, Mac and Games? You REALLY want to go there?
But anyway, well, to answer your question: yes. That machine on the left side of my desk is a machine I bought back in early 2003 (could be late 2002, even), and it has no problems running Vista and Windows 7, and the latest Ubuntu also runs without any problems, but with ALL the bells and whistles on both the Windows and Linux sides.
A Mac bought in that same year, or even during the 3 years after that, will not run Apple's latest software. Sure, I gave that x86 I mentioned a RAM and (minor) video card upgrade - but I can do the same on the Mac, and it STILL wouldn't be able to run the latest Apple software.
All because Apple places arbitrary and artificial restrictions, simply because it wants to shove more hardware up your ass.
When I was given the opportunity to buy a new computer a few weeks ago, I thought about getting a Mac. I like Mac OS X, I like the hardware design (I already own a few and have owned a few). Still, I'm not rich enough to join Apple's upgrade treadmill, and because of that, they just lost a customer. I'm simply not rich enough to buy a new computer whenever Apple decides to place yet another arbitrary cut-off point in its software.
So, I bought a generic x86. Not only is it cheaper, it's also a LOT faster than anything Apple has to offer me (only a custom Mac Pro would beat it, at 5 (!) times the price), and I KNOW that I will be able to install Windows 8 and Ubuntu Grizzly Grucktard on it when the time comes. It may not be the best and fastest computer by then, but at least Redmond and Shuttleworth give me a frakking CHOICE.
Edited 2009-02-04 16:49 UTC