Disgusted by security issues and poor performance, Winn Schwartau makes the switch from Windows to the Mac and details the bumps in the road along the way in his Mad as Hell series.
Disgusted by security issues and poor performance, Winn Schwartau makes the switch from Windows to the Mac and details the bumps in the road along the way in his Mad as Hell series.
Winn will find the same basic “American company” problems with Apple — undocumented programs which phone home, focus on DRM, requirements on Mactel to use TPM, etc. Just like Microsoft with MSN, Apple wants to read all your email with .Mac.
There is no magic security on Mac. Just run Little Snitch for a while and you will see the apps that phone home, including Apple’s. However, it won’t tell you when the OS phones home.
Having used both platforms for a long time, I would not trust either platform for anything important. Without a full open source chain and a reasonable number of people keeping a watch on it, there will always be abuse of power.
” * How many times does your OS crash in one month? If never, cool. You’re doing something really right.
* If your WinTel crashes, how much time do you need to spend to repair the crash and rebuild the applications, etc.?
* When your application crashes [or the OS], how much data have you lost that must be regenerated?
* How much time does it take to pout things back the way they were?”
I use a Win machine every day. It rarely crashes. If it does it’s usually my fault (beta driver, oveclocking, undecooling, etc.). When it does crash, all I need to do is disk checking on some partitions. I usually lose nothing and when I do, I always have a backup.
But if this guy can’t make Windows work, but can use OSX, good for him. Apple targets those users along with the video artists.
…and I had only 1 disk based virus 16 years ago.
Mac OS X is safe, fun and easy to use. Security is built right in.
The hardware is excellent looking, it can do just about all what a PC can do, there are over 10,000 software titles for Mac OS X and this time next year, with the switch to x86 based chips, will be able to run three operating systems. Mac OS X, Linux and Windows and all their software.
(I’m hoping Windows or their will be run in a protected enviroment like it is with VPC or preferably without Windows at ALL!, we quite don’t know what Apple is up to yet regarding this)
To see Mac OS X in action visit this site for screenshots
http://homepage.mac.com/hogfish/PhotoAlbum2.html
First you don’t have to subscribe to .Mac, it’s features are meant to synch your data between Macs so naturally it has to connect.
Second of all if you paid for your software and trust the sources of your applications then you shouldn’t mind them connecting over the internet to verify your installation or perform services or update checks.
Little Snitch is a outgoing firewall designed to prevent questionable software from making contact on the internet. So be careful what you use, just because you know it’s making a outbound connection doesn’t necessarily means its intention is malicious.
i love statements like these:
“5. My MP3 and video clips and movies should operate every time I click on them, regardless of format.”
mp3 != generic music formats. but hell, people refer to irc as mirc all the time and so on, why am i fired up about it? maybe because it makes trying to help them a living nightmare when you dont know what they are talking about half the time! atleast techies get it right, but then they dont need help noe do they?
I agree with B.S. that Linux is not ready for the average end-user desktop.
It will probably never be ready for this market as it is not a geek market.
And in the same sentence, I would say Apple is not ready for the mainstream desktop market either. As Apple’s market share has slid and slid and slid, most of the world has voted and agreed.
But more than that. I watch older people try and use a Mac for the first time and I just cringe. They have no clue what to do. There’s not even a “Start” button. The “dock” is a complete failure as far as “intuitive” UI goes.
For all the hype, Mac OS X is not easy to learn or to use. Apple’s take on user interface is nice looking, but simply does not work for the non-techie user. This is saying it nicely. Apple has fallen 20 years behind in user interface design with the stuff they put out these days. It is not innovative. It is merely slick eye candy.
I am disappointed in having a Mac these days. In many ways I wish I had sold mine before the Mactel announcement. Beyond it being obsolete hardware, the OS is just not evolving in any interesting manner. It is sort of like a Linux for techies that like shiny objects and a glacial pace of real change.
I disagree, Linux will get there on the user desktop front (look at all the articles in here about improving X, KDE, usability, etc) and is already there for the business desktop (browser,office,eclipse,kdevelop,flash,java,etc.).
The bumbs this guy’s experiences on the Mac are the same one will experience on Linux. You have to learn where things are and how to use them.
I, for one, could never get used to the silly Finder-bar-for-all-apps and resize-windows-from-one-corner-only that we have on a mac.
This is insecure, that always crashes, brandX is too hard. From what I can see, nothing has changed in the last 10 years or so. Find what you like for whatever task you desire. At home I have a couple of XP desktop sytems running behind a 486 running freebsd to keep the goblins out. On the side another bsd system to serve files localy. No problems. Everyone is different, we should know this by now. Alright, on to something a bit more Operating-System-News-like…
It’s unfortunate you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I’ve seen more “typical end-users” that work with OS X than technically-savvy users. My wife, a complete idiot when it comes to computers (bless her heart), couldn’t be happier with her 12″ PowerBook. She previously had a Sony VAIO workstation running Windows 2000 Professional that was always needing some sort of tweaking of drivers, recovery of corrupted files after crashes, etc. With her Apple, it JUST WORKS.
Of course, this goes for me as well, but I’m a savvy computer professional. You obviously expect as much. On the other hand, I’ve dealt with a number of users in various industries… government, education, publishing/marketing, wholesale, even distribution, that use Apple hardware and OS X and couldn’t be happier.
I find it sad that you resort to misinformation about the OS X experience. There is nothing difficult to learn about the user interface or applications. Everything about OS X is designed around the end user to create a fully functional and intuitive experience. To suggest otherwise just reveals you either don’t know what you’re talking about or are simply lying (for what purpose, I don’t know).
-fp
Umm.. goldstein, you have got to be a political spinmeister because you have basically said that apple’s interface sucks because there is not this “technological marvel” called a start button.
e3very OS requires time top learn, just because you can launch IE, or click on a menu right out of the box does not mean you know what to do.
a good interface doe snot lead the user around and tell them how to get work done, it keeps things the same all teh time for the user so that the user is not surprised by the way something works. it is up to the user to figure out how to deal with the system after that.
was this article void of any content, poorly constructed, and just YAR (Yet Another Rant)
You are not alone…
There’s not even a “Start” button.
LOL
Second of all if you paid for your software and trust the sources of your applications then you shouldn’t mind them connecting over the internet to verify your installation or perform services or update checks.
So if I am a law abiding citizen living in a democratic nation, I shouldn’t mind the police searching my home? I don’t think so. They used to say that a man’s home is his castle. Computers are an extension of the 21st century home: it is a place where we do personal things and store personal belongings. It is a place where we should have the right to privacy. Unfortunately, no modern operating system gives me that sense of privacy.
I would be scared to switch to Mac right now, I know Steve Jobs said they will make universal binaries but that doesn’t mean everyone else will. Xcode will have the option to not compile for PPC if you don’t want to but what if someone else makes a Mactel IDE that only compiles for Intel, and they will. I see Apple making universal libraries and other companies but the problem is not all people including 3rd parties will. They wasn’t universal binaries for BeOS but BeOS had programs compiled for both but not all 3rd party applications did compile for both. The same will be true with Apple, Apple will make universal binaries others will but not all will. Thats the biggest problem.
While goldstein’s mention of a start button spurred everyone to immediately dismiss his criticisms, there are serious usability problems with OS X, including the dock. “Tog” published a list of ten problems with the dock a few years back that still applies to Tiger in almost every aspect: http://www.shell-shocked.org/article.php?id=225 Shiny doesn’t not imply usability. In fact, for older/new users, it can actually be quite intimidating. My opinion is that right now all the platforms seem to fall short on the usability front. And frankly, the only groups I see attempting to improve the situation are the FOSS desktops. KDE4 is said to be focused almost solely on usability. And the GNOME camp has done a commendable job of integrating usability concerns into their common culture – leading to brilliant designs from both the corporate devs (beagle, g-v-m, etc.) and the grassroots (muine, tomboy, etc.). Apple has gone backwards usability-wise the past few releases (numerous different widget styles, inconsistent finder behavior, the unforgiving and mystery-meat navigation driven dock, etc.).
Just out of curiosity, for you people that say “windows crashes and needs to be fixed, etc”. When does this actually happen on your own computer?
I have yet to see a Windows “crash” that wasn’t related to bad hardware or bad device drivers(usually betas) since the days of win95/98/ME. I use my computer for at least 5 hours each day doing web development, and heavy graphics work.
For sensible users, I think it’s pretty easy to keep Windows happy and stable. I know Windows is very easy to infect with viruses/spyware/adware, but simple sensible choices in software eliminates a lot of these threats.
Now on to Macs:) I doubt the author will stick with the platform once he notices the following deficiencies (compared to Windows).
– Web browsing is slow. How? Slower at loading pages/rendering pages, whatever. It just feels slower. Compare a Windows system running Firefox beside a mac running Safari 1.2 or 2.0. The sluggish nature becomes _painfully_ obvious. This is fact, just try it. Even a much slower x86 system tends to do the job noticeably quicker than a fast mac running Safari. Firefox on OS 10.3/4 is also slower. I can’t understand why. Does anyone have an explanation?
– Scrolling. Even faster Macs running 10.3 or 10.4 still seem to struggle scrolling a large HTML page smoothly. Why?
– I’ll bet the Dock drives him crazy:) Lots of screen real estate, very little functionality for the room it takes up. For people that run only a few applications at once, with a limited number of files open, it’s great. Anything else and it becomes painfully obvious that it’s a poor application launcher, and task manager.
If you’re paranoid about your OS phoning home, I suggest you get a third-party firewall and block all your ports, or barring that, unplug the network cable. Problem solved. Honestly, Apple could give a damn about what you do. Do you think they really have the time and resources to spy on every single user?
There is one very important legitimate reason for the OS to phone home, and that’s software updates. You can, of course, disable automatic checking and set it to manual if you like. Unappealing as it is, some applications also phone home to see if the copy of the software you’re running is valid. I don’t like companies stooping to that, either, but that’s something I *can* block easily. You could always make sure it’s paid for, too; I’ve heard that works.
pop opera 8.01 on there. it’s much faster than safari and firefox…
By myself I’m mainly a linux developer, but have development experience with both win32 and mac. I don’t think mac can offer a better security and performance (!!!). Just enough to say that it uses dead m-kernel… Yet another “performer” couple is cocoa + obj-c – they just “fantastic”…
I’ve never tried Opera on Mac OS X. Opera costs money, unless you like watching ads the entire time you browse. I don’t consider this a very acceptable solution, especially when upgrading to Tiger isn’t exactly free.
Does anyone know why browsing on a Mac would be so much slower with Safari 1.x, 2.0, and Firefox?
I ran a caching nameserver(BIND) when I had a Mac, and that seemed to help a bit.
i agree to the most points… the UI if OS X is IMHO questionable, too much eye-candy-centered… Too much surface, less content.
> Even a much slower x86 system tends to do the job noticeably quicker than a fast mac running Safari. Firefox on OS 10.3/4 is also slower. I can’t understand why. Does anyone have an explanation?
The things you pointed out are IMHO true, i experienced slower x86 boxes outperform Macs, esp. regarding Screen-Redrawing, Scrolling etc.
The Reason? I’m no coder, but I guess it’s due to the more complicated nature of OS X ? …
It’s a slight joke to me that Apple is pointing out that Tiger now *has* smooth scrolling. That shouldn’t be an issue for YEARS.
Before some weenies crawl up: I use Macs… (I don’t own a x86 machine, but i have access to these, i compare a lot and build my opinion)
if you take someone who isn’t used to using a computer, they will get linux with no problem (my mother as example uses Mandriva)
My father knows a bit about windows and has his comfort zones…thus he doesn’t really want to go about the linux thing (no problem, his choice)
so as far as that goes…Linux can be a Desktop solution but might have issues filling in everyones comfort zones. Which even swtiching to OSX would have those issues…its just the order of things
Stop complaining and do something. Don’t just spend all day posting about how {Windows,Linux,OSX} sux sooo much, go try out the competition and leave us in peace.
His lack of understanding of computers make me worry that this guy is a security expert.
“i agree to the most points… the UI if OS X is IMHO questionable, too much eye-candy-centered… Too much surface, less content.”
Never used OS X, I see. Less content?! It’s got a helluva lot more content than Windows and you don’t even “need” a Start button. In fact, last time I checked, MS was scramblinig to incorporate many of Apple’s innovations into its Longturd OS.
Out of the box, a Mac gives you just about everything you need to organize and edit your photos, make music, listen to music, create HD movies, burn DVDs, surf the web. Guess what, it even comes with an awesome calendar and and e-mail client! And, did I mention video conferencing? Have you ever used iChat AV? It’s incredible. Oops, how could I forget Spotlight and Dashboard? The list can go on, but I hope you get the point…and a clue.
to answer ur question about a mac comeing with just about everything to edit photes and movies
if u buy i new mac then yes it comes with ilife itunes iphoto etc
but if u simple upgrade to a new mac os x all that is included is itunes for music u have to buy ilife 05 which includes iphoto gargeband etc
so get a clue
I read two of his X articles.. he can’t even run windows successfully. Based on his “Everything constantly crashes” comments, I would have to say if X millions of people use window everyday and it works, and it doesn’t work for you.. windows is not the problem.
If the only thing in common with all of your failed relationships is you, its time to focus on the source of the problem
I’m glad he’s going to Mac.
I would think that Linux will grow faster on the desktop than Mac, simply because a Mac is too expensive for most Indian or Chinese people. There it is either pirated Windows, or legal Linux, depends on how hard MS comes down on them. Being from the Linux camp I hope MS tries to really lock down installation procedures so that no illegal Windows can get installed.
If security and uptime are compared between Windows and Apple, and uptime is considered the most critical part thereof, then Linux also fares very well. I have seen computers with average uptime of few hours under Windows (ok, it WAS a obscure hardware mix), and upon installing of Linux it got completely stable. This lets me assume that Windows (and Windows drivers) get less real world hardware testing on different hardware combinations than Linux. Here the advantage of either apple’s (limited hardware choice) or Linux’s (someone HAS to have THE critical combination) approach are clearly visible.
Trevor Curtis: I have yet to see a Windows “crash” that wasn’t related to bad hardware or bad device drivers(usually betas) since the days of win95/98/ME. I use my computer for at least 5 hours each day doing web development, and heavy graphics work.
Excuse me: anyone who attempts to use a PC as a multipurpose machine, not just for some particular task, sees that sooner or later all sorts of problems come up, ALWAYS, every time, regardless of how good the hardware is. Windows simply isn’t resilient enough. It is not built to last. It is just a crude tool that is likely to break when you least expect it. You might disagree with the details of the personal experience of the author, but the conclusions are unavoidable: Windows is garbage. Even DOTNET must be garbage, since Microsoft decided it won’t be the basis of Longhorn. Microsoft keeps applying the same recipe: garbage operating systems and throw-away APIs.
I guess Trevor and I are really screwing something up then, because I do web development, programming, video editing, gaming, and multitrack audio recording all on the same obsolete Athlon 2500+ based machine, running XP, sp2.
Never ever crashes, and it’s been configured this way for about two years, and previous to that it just had a slower chip, but was otherwise the same.
Your statement is full of absolutes, none of which reflect a large userbase of Windows users that never have any trouble with their systems.
Opinions are great, but please don’t state them as facts. They’re not.
I love Linux too, but it’s not a full replacement for Windows on the desktop.
/me loves OSX
/me lives very happily with XP
/me is a CS student
/author is a “security expert”
/author says windows memory management sucks
/me realizes $author doesn’t know what he’s talking about
/me notices that $author uses dispregiative “Wintel”
/me goes for a coffee
Jeff:
I guess Trevor and I are really screwing something up then, because I do web development, programming, video editing, gaming, and multitrack audio recording all on the same obsolete Athlon 2500+ based machine, running XP, sp2.
Never ever crashes, and it’s been configured this way for about two years, and previous to that it just had a slower chip, but was otherwise the same.
I guess it is a matter of complexity and probabilities: the more applications you have, or the more PCs you support, the more you see, practically, the chances of screwup. I have got people who never have problems, just like you. Now, it may be that they know what they are doing, but most often they do not have problems because they do very little, or very simple stuff. On the other hand, some people who honestly try to get their Windows PCs to do useful work are permanently falling into the traps that the author was talking about.
I got SuSE a few years ago, SuSE 8.0 home for like $40.
“Your statement is full of absolutes, none of which reflect a large userbase of Windows users that never have any trouble with their systems.”
Exaggerating a bit, aren’t you? What you mean to say is that people who “know what they’re doing” have little or no trouble with Windows. But the bulk of Windows users are having quite a few problems with it. The kind of rant expressed in this article is hardly a rare thing among Windows users.
There may be one ring to rule them all in Lord of the Rings but there is no “OS for everyone.” Different people like different cars and just like that people like different computer operating systems. I routinely use eight different OSs at home and support three at work (XP, Mac OS 9 and X) and we are testing a couple Linux distributions.
It’s not surprising that most (% wise) of our trouble tickets at work are from XP computers. But based on # of XP computers and # of Mac computers the Macs need far less support. Mac OS X computers even less than Mac OS 9 computers.
As for the Dock in Mac OS X being confusing or hard to use. ARE YOU GUYS ON DRUGS? It is soooo simple to figure out. Put all your apps you normally use onto the dock. Do this by going to the apps folder and dragging the icon to the dock. Now click on it. The program runs and a little triangle appears next to it. This triangle says the program is running. DUH. Don’t want the icon on the dock anymore? Just drag it off and it’s gone but the app isn’t deleted on the computer as it shouldn’t be.
More dock – The dock makes TONS more sense than the way Windows does as I can organize my apps I use and they are always there and ready for me to click on them in the same order. In Windows the icons along the bottom are always in the order that you install the apps. That is just stupid.
Have you compared the quality of type between the two operating systems.
How about the detail of the icons? The smoothness of the GUI?
Mac’s are used in the graphics arts buisness extensively, it’s because of the richness of the detail of type and GUI that takes more processing power than some cheap bitmapped text and GUI of Windows.
Windows is cheap, utter crap. So are most PC’s, a Mac is so far ahead in quality, security, ease of use, functionality etc it’s not even silly.
It really doesn’t matter anymore. There are security holes in every OS. You open a port to the internet, you have a security risk. I don’t care what OS you’re running. Windows has problems, but what do you expect when millions upon millions of users are using the system? MS has made moves to clean up their code and increase their security.
As Linux and Mac gain in popularity, the security issues surrounding them will go up in proportion. You think Ma & Pa are going to do an su – to install their programs? Uh-uh.
You can secure any OS to keep attackers away. I’m frankly tired of people complaining about one or the other. Hardware is going to break. period. Programs are going to crash. period. Welcome to the 21st century.
I certainly have no trouble understanding how the dock is supposed to work. In my opinion, it’s the entire concept that’s flawed. I won’t waste my time typing though, many others have pointed out the dock’s flaws.
Here’s one of the better articles:
http://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html
http://frassle.net/top10Reasons