Apple CEO Steve Jobs touts new features for OS X, unveils new lower-cost iPods–including one for Windows, and a 17-inch flat panel iMac. Read more in a ZDNet News Focus. Our Take: So, no G4 speed bumps? And no word for the G5s, still? BTW, that new Sherlock 3 looks like a Watson replica.
MacWorld: New iPod, Focus on Jaguar, Larger LCD for iMacs
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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If you look at the release cycles with Apple, not everything comes out at MacWorld. Earlier this year, when the 15″ iMac came out, there was no speed bumped G4 Towers either. Then in a month or two, Apple released the revised G4 modems, including the 1Ghz Dual model. They probably will have a speed bumped unit sometime in the future, just not today.
Vaporware or what? Will steve ever introduce it on a mac? Is it really 64 bit? How about performance? Any more leaks (if it exists).
Maybe jobs is waiting on the G5 to introduce new towers.
Seems to me that if apple users were in reality smarter (as some poll that was jumped on by MANY websites mentioned), they:
(1) Wouldn’t be paying out the wazoo for services already offered (.mac? don’t most ISPs provide most of these services anyway?)
(2) Wouldn’t pay for an OS that charges YOU when they patch holes. I mean, OS X is based on FreeBSD 4.4. Find a 500 mhz p3 or better, load FreeBSD, install KDE 3, and Voila! I mean, you might not be able to run photoshop on it, but that’s about all you can’t do.
Seems to me like apple hired the guy that used to work for SGI that ran them into the ground (were an NT shop, no were an IRIX shop, no were an NT shop agian, wait, what about linux…). Doesn’t that guy have a cush job at Microshaft now?
Apple does a lot of retail research and they probably concluded that this recession sucks and they don’t want to play anymore.
How many of you would actually buy a new Mac? I know I wouldn’t, G5 or no G5. I don’t know any people who have $2k to blow on a machine when they already have one which does what they want.
I also think Apple wants to get away from this deadly cycle of Expos where their customers don’t buy any Macs in the preceeding two months because they’re anticipating newer better Macs. You can already see this trend developing when they revised the PowerBook and PowerMac lines, and it wasn’t in an Expo.
Allstar, you’re a class A moron!
FreeBSD? KDE? WTF?!
Dude, Mac users don’t give a flying crap what kernel Mac OS uses. The kernel does not make the computing experience.
KDE sucks, it behaves like Win3.1 |-p
Ha Ha. Allstar. Strobe is dead on with his/her comments…
Peace
What is your problem? Leave allstar alone. In reality FreeBSD w/KDE3 is far more preferable to the propritary and dumbed down OSX that is supposed to be for “smart people.” OSX does look good, but thats it. The bottom line is simple, Apple can’t compete head to head w/ pcs because they are not suited for highly customized and dynamic environments. Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, BeOS, etc….. are.
I agree that Mac users don’t care about the inner workings of their computer (and they dare say they’re smarter??) and to a Mac user who’s already familiar with the Mac GUI, sure KDE would be dreadful to them.
But Allstar does have a point. There is nothing unique or special about the Mac except for the so called “user experience.” The way I see it, Mac users are paying big bucks just for the experience, NOT for a better product. Whether Mac OS is better than Windows or Linux or what have you, that’s arguable. Feature-wise, nothing special.
Allstar said: “you might not be able to run photoshop on it, but that’s about all you can’t do.” Well, what if you *need* to run Photoshop??? Or have an iPod. as Jason Rubenstein said recently, you need the right tool for the job at hand (http://tonecluster.com/2002_07_07_tonecluster_archive.html#85238539). I only have to things against a Mac. It is too expensive, and too slow. I’m a student on a limited bugdet but if only I had the money… The speed issue should be solved soon. With better graphics cards comming and whatever optimizations 10.2 will bring it will be better soon… I hope. Now if only I could win the lottery 🙂
WindowMaker would be a much better choice for MacOS X user…they’re based off of the same technology (NeXT)
frankly, KDE needs to become a lot more stable for me to wanna use it on a daily basis…way too many bugs in 3.0 for my taste…
WindowMaker’s only at what? 0.80 but it feels so much more mature than KDE to me…
that’s just my $.02
and FreeBSD is very very solid!!! love it a lot
First of all, here’s a really good read on Mac users and their expectations for MacWorlds:
http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2002/07/MacWorldRumors.shtml
I don’t expect miracles every six months, but this was still a pretty lackluster MacWorld. $129 for Jaguar would seem reasonable if they didn’t charge full price for 10.1 just nine months ago (the $20 upgrade price was a short-lived promo for right after 10.1 came out). Somewhere around $50 seems more reasonable when the rate of release is so quick. Some great things in there, to be sure, but they announced many things that will require 10.2. Just like many things 9 months ago required 10.1. Is there going to be another $129 “not-mandatory-but-close” upgrade nine months from now? It’s great to see such progress with the OS, but Macs are rather expensive as it is; you’d think some of the upgrades could come for free (or cheaper) as a benefit of purchasing the hardware.
Also, I still love the iMac design, but the prices are too high for what you’re getting. The new 17 inch iMac now has a very nice screen, but an 800 mHz G4 and 100 mHz is hardly respectable in today’s market, and a GeForce4 MX440? That’s a rather weak card; why couldn’t they at least use a GeForce3 Ti200? They’re just about as cheap. Obviously, a lot of people will retort with “it’s a consumer machine, stupid,” but you’d think that for $2,000, you’d at least get a machine that can play games well.
The most disappointing news, of course, was the $100 .mac announcement. For years Apple’s been telling people, “Hey! Get and use a free @mac.com address!” Sure, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but Apple told people to switch and then pulled the rug out from under them. I’m sure some modifications to the plans will come about due to what is sure to be a huge swarm of protests, but you’d think they could at least offer a limited e-mail service either for free or for a very cheap price. To use a non-tiered system is asinine; most people probably couldn’t care less about most of those features and simply want a good e-mail account.
I have no doubt that we’ll see new desktops in a month or so, but still…they need to infuse some new life into their line, fast.
There’s a lotta information coming outta the Apple camp today and a whole lotta Apple users are getting rather miffed. You can check elsewhere if you need details, but here’s the summary:
1. iTools are no longer going to be free. This includes the anti-virus software, the free .mac address, the free iDesk storage, and a couple of other things.
Apple will begin charging $100.00 a year for such services (without offering any incentive to pay up other than “if you like it and wanna keep it, pay us”. No increases in storage size, or additional features, just “We want money, and taking advantage of our existing customer base is the easiest route to this).
Since the majority of the iTools users do so for the free .mac address, and since there’s literally dozens, if not hundreds of more cost affective alternatives out there (Hotmail anyone?), I see this move as only hurting Apple as existing users will now begin to research non-Apple solutions to these problems.
Similarly, if Apple had dropped the prices on their outrageously priced PC’s in accordance with iTools now being a pay-for feature, they could have softened the blow, but no.. You’ll still pay the same price, but now you receive aproximetly $100.00 less value for those dollars.
Oh… and if Apple hadn’t let this slip out BEFORE Mac World, they probably could have saved some face. But they didn’t…
2. iPod’s now available for Windows!
Of course they don’t tell you that the same iPod won’t work with both Windows and Mac’s. Instead, you’ll have to buy two of them if you want to use them with both boxes (There’s a thread over on /. if you want to read more -This is supposebly straight from Apples customer service line).
3. Apple is moving up to a 17” monitor for it’s iMacs. But you also have to pay more for this, and in addition, the monitors still tied to the damn PC. If you get a surge and your monitor suffers a blowout, you’re now stuck with a box that runs, and no way to view and/or interact with it. Nice…
4. The Superdrive remains unchanged. No support for DVD-RW as many had hoped.
5. Bus speed stays… The same! Want to use that cheap, fancy new & fast DDR memory that your PC using friends are raving about? Sorry… You’re still stuck at 133mhz tops. Try again next year.
6. G5? Hahahaa… Enjoy our overpriced dual G4’s if you want to approach modern PC speed. If you’re looking for faster CPUs, well then see the end of point #5: Next year maybe…
7. Price cuts across the board to go with that stupid new advertising?? Sorry… Steve knows that if you’re really so dumb that you can’t figure out WinXP, that you’re equally likely to pay him his price just to send email to your Grandma.
As much as I hate Microsoft, I’d love to see an ad parody from them showing “every day people”, as per the Mac commercials, explaining how they’re too dumb to understand a two button mouse, or that it’s so much easier to wait for processing to complete, rather than be faced with dealing with the PC again due to it’s processing power getting the jobs done faster.
Come on… WinXP isn’t the end-all of OS’s by far, but those ads make the people look like complete morons to anyone who’s used a modern PC just once in their life.
——————–
I could go on, but whatever… Apple’s missed it’s mark this time, and if the amount of irate Mac users is any indication, you’ll see ol’ Steve-o up on stage in a month or so touting some great new feature that in reality is just making up for todays round of mistakes.
Which sucks… I really want an OSX box for some reason (BSD with an elegant GUI: Ahh…)but Apple’s just going in the wrong direction for me. More money and less featuers will NOT increase my desire to spend money on a company ran by some elitest moron.
Bill Gates is starting to look a little more reasonable, no?
Perhaps Steve and him aren’t as different as Steve would lead you to believe.
8)=
It is kinda interesting though… I’ve never seen the entire Mac community so up-in-arms. Perhaps there’s a chance they’ll be able to shake Steve outta his coma and cause him to re-think his original goals w/Apple vs. where he’s taking the company currently (to the Dot Com graveyard!)
Dustin:The bottom line is simple, Apple can’t compete head to head w/ pcs because they are not suited for highly customized and dynamic environments.
What kind of technobable is this? For all the reasons why Apple may not be able to compete with PC’s, that’s the best you could do? If that were true, you wouldn’t see any Windows PC’s either. Apple’s biggest problem at this point is price/performance ratio for their hardware. It gets worse every day and they have to do something about it.
I did not expect any speed bumps in Powerr Macs at MacWorld. The general consensus is that they will come next month and that there may be new Apple monitors too.
Regarding the G5, all the more conservative rumor mills have talked about the beginning of 2003 for the G5.
Apple continues to try and build the digital hun into the OS. Third party developers must not be too happy about that. However, it sounds like 10.2 will be much faster with 150 new features. Apple programmers have not been idle.
It must be remembered that, despite the huge slump in PC sales, Apple made a 22 million dollar profit this past quarter. Even if it is in a more limited way, they are still on a roll.
Good, solid commercial apps. It’s nice being able to walk into a store and buy stuff that works. Lots of stuff. ‘Course, I might think it’s lots ‘cuz I used my BeBox from ’97-2000, BeOS only.
Mac OS X is all about the integration. For folks who want to use a non-integrated window manager that crashes, or the actual server that crashes? More power to ’em. Maybe some people enjoy download -> compile -> curse -> configure ->
check list to make sure hardware is supported -> download driver -> compile -> run. Not everyone does.
I personally don’t like the industrial design of the machines, but I’m lead to understand that some folks do.
Macs are more expensive. They aren’t for folks who build their own systems. If you want the cheapest system, build it. If you want Mac OS X, buy a Mac. Simple, really.
And the G5 isn’t vaporware (least Apple-related) ‘cuz nobody from Apple ever mentioned it. Thank the rumor-sites for the confusion
Gah, it was simpler when it was OS 9 (and I *hate* Mac OS 9) and every unix geek didn’t feel the need to bash the Mac.
If you want, grab darwin, install it with the X server of your choice and shut the frell up
The choice is there, y’all.
Peace,
‘Rithm
If you want, grab darwin, install it with the X server of your choice and shut the frell up
The choice is there, y’all.
Do people actually use darwin on intel boxes? I don’t see any advantage to that…just grab FreeBSD instead
Eventually other armchair CEOs (what, you’re not admitting you’re one too?) will figure out what Apple’s whole marketing thrust is. Most of them won’t like it, but that’s life.
As for no G5s, no speed bumps, no dramatic price cuts, etc., etc., eh. It’d have been nice, but on the former (G5s and speed bumps) Apple doesn’t control Motorola’s production lines and one suspects they’re not going to (deliberately) announce products they can’t deliver in quantity, and on the latter, Apple will <em>never</em> compete with commodity PCs. Price wars are a losing proposition for computer manufacturers–big companies are barely turning profits or noticeably bleeding, and those are the survivors. Apple is big, but they’re <em>not</em> a commodity PC company–the only way they stay in the game is by keeping those high margins so many armchair CEOs think they “must” cut to stay competitive. If they tried to go head-to-head with Dell and Gateway, the snazzy design work people love or hate would be axed, they <em>still</em> wouldn’t be able to compete at the price levels PCs can (the volume on components simply isn’t there), and their hardware profit would flatline. In short, they’d have their entrails handed to them on a platter.
Does anyone think that really makes good business sense?
There’s a reason Apple Stores tend to appear in the high-end malls. The ones that also have the Bang & Olufsen stores in them. Like I said, you don’t have to like it–but your disappointment in Apple’s “boutique computer” approach doesn’t mean it’s a stupid one. Given all that they’re up against now, I’d suggest that it’s a very savvy once–just an iconoclastic one in this industry.
There is nothing unique or special about the Mac except for the so called “user experience.” The way I see it, Mac users are paying big bucks just for the experience, NOT for a better product. Whether Mac OS is better than Windows or Linux or what have you, that’s arguable. Feature-wise, nothing special.
I sort of agree with you but I come to completely different conclusions. Feature wise, nothing special: That’s right at the guts of it darn near every computer is essentially the same. CPU, Memory, Various peripherals, etc. They all have the potential to be the best or the worst.
Another area where you are also right is price. The apple product line as a whole is more expensive than equivilant PC’s. Granted there are some exceptions where price is competetive but for the most part you are paying a premium.
A premium for what? User experience. Just like you say. People are out there throwing away good money just to have a better user experience on the Mac. You seem to discount user experience as being secondary to other factors, to what I am not sure (Price/performance ratio?, 3D Fill rate? Quake Frame Rate? Other things?). While all these things are import, and at the same time the Mac may not come out on the top of any of these comparisons, I actually think user experience should not be discounted. It has value.
I was / am still a PC user. I built them from scratch and I could always get them to do whatever I wanted them to do under Windows/Linux/BeOS etc.. But you know what happened? I found the BeOS and it amazed me how easy it was yet powerful at the same time. At this time OS X was not out and I had used OS 8.x and 9.x in school and had no love for them at all, but BeOS just seem more smooth, more elegent. Granted there were capabilities that it lacked, but everything it was capable of doing, it did so effortlessly.
Know that you could accomplish your task any number of ways on any operating system, but choosing to do it on one because it makes it seemless. That is User Experience and that has value because it doesn’t just work for people who could do it anyway, it works for everyone.
When Mac OS X came out, the buzz was that it had this kind of user experience like OS 9 didn’t. You don’t have to be granny AOL user to appreciate being able to do something quickly and easily. As I get older even this tech guy likes avoid doing things the hard way.
-Jason Stiles
Man.. I can’t count on both hands how many incorrect or just plain false statements in your arguement.
Just to point out a few.
the same iPod will work for both Mac/PC.. its just an adapter that allows you to plug in a PC Firewire slot
“3. Apple is moving up to a 17″ monitor for it’s iMacs. But you also have to pay more for this, and in addition, the monitors still tied to the damn PC. If you get a surge and your monitor suffers a blowout, you’re now stuck with a box that runs, and no way to view and/or interact with it. Nice…”
Of course the 17″ iMacs cost more then the standard 15″? What are you retarded? If JVC makes a 46″ TV, its going to cost more than the 40″ .. If i need to further explain.. you don’t need to know. As for the monitor blowout.. I could come up with any number of worst-case scenarios for _any_ computer.
“6. G5? Hahahaa… Enjoy our overpriced dual G4’s if you want to approach modern PC speed. If you’re looking for faster CPUs, well then see the end of point #5: Next year maybe… ”
How bout you check out some performance benchmarks. I’ve never owned a Mac.. so i’m not some mac-zealot. But i’ve used 550Mhz models that perform much like 1.6ghz P4 PC.
Your entire first issue is all wrong too. You’ll have to pay more for special services.
I’d love to continue but I have to get going.. have fun
Hi bytes256,
Unfortunately you got something wrong; WindowMaker is an OpenSource project (by volunteers, not using any Apple/NeXT technology) that tries to imitate the look (and just partly the feel) of the NeXT desktop. It is just a WindowManager and does not even contain a file manager. It lacks too many tools, applications, GUI libraries etc to make a complete desktop! But it is small, fast, and very stable
Thats the reason why I use it on all of my FreeBSD and Linux computers at home.
If you want to use something similar to the ‘NeXT technology’, you should try out the GNUstep project!
greetings max
Find a 500 mhz p3 or better, load FreeBSD, install KDE 3, and Voila! I mean, you might not be able to run photoshop on it, but that’s about all you can’t do.
s/about all/not all/
Let me clarify some of my earlier comments:
(1) When I said to put KDE 3 on top of FreeBSD, I meant it in the way that mac users seem to lean toward “pretty” desktops. Don’t get me wrong, I love pretty desktops! I just thought that would be the prettiest.
(2)I also agree Windowmaker would be a good choice. But new users might have a hard time understanding it.
(3)If your email address ends in @mac.com, don’t make anti-anti mac (that was a mouthfull) comments. (Strobe…)
ooops! I meant to say GNUStep and WindowMaker…together they are supposed to give you a NeXT-like experience or so i am told…i’ve never used a NeXT box so i can’t really say
thanks for clearing that up max
1. the same iPod will work for both Mac/PC.. its just an adapter that allows you to plug in a PC Firewire slot
You can dig for the thread if you want it, here’s the basics:
YOU CAN’T USE THE SAME IPOD ON WINDOWS AND MAC (Score:2, Interesting)
by Krashed on Wednesday July 17, @12:05PM (#3902189)
(User #264119 Info)
I just got off the phone with Apple and they said “you’ll have to buy two ipods if you want to use them on Windows and the Mac.” Damn it, why can’t Apple just for once make it easy.
I am putting off my order of the iPod until I find out if there is a workaround for the “feature”. That really bytes too cause it looks like the Apple Store is also offering a free car power adapter with the purchase of the iPod.
If the thread’s wrong, I am, but the followup threads support this fact.
Good evidence of knowing your facts before posting (I noticed you were kind enough to supply backup for all of your rebuttle. Good post “jls”! Good post…)
2. Of course the 17″ iMacs cost more then the standard 15″? What are you retarded?
Unfortunately, yes. I wish I was as smart as people like yourself, and could dispute postings without providing facts to back them up, but I is obviously too dumb.
It’s not easy typing out these big words, but I’m sure you know what I’m talking about (Presuming “jls” is short for ‘Joyless’ or something). Equally hard is counting with just two hands, which you’ve pointed out at the beginning of your thread is hard for you.
I’d suggest trying using your feet next time. It’ll get you 10 more digits (potentially more than that based on how you come off with your reply).
By the way, I’m sorry that I didn’t spell out my comments more for people such as yourself. What I meant by “It’ll cost more” wasn’t so much the fact that “yes, you have to pay for more screen real estate”, so much as it was a comment about how Apple continues to dangle carrots in front of it’s users, without giving them the ‘big picture’, much less giving them a break and saying “Yes, we are overpriced, but now for your money we’re going to give you this and this and this, in addition to the same quality you’ve come to expect from Apple”.
I didn’t realize this would go over some peoples heads. I’ll try and explain myself better next time for people such as yourself. Would large pictures, and block text be sufficient?
3. As for the monitor blowout.. I could come up with any number of worst-case scenarios for _any_ computer.
Feel free -I for one am dying to see how you can justify this. If a PC were to suffer a similar setback, one could simply replace the monitor (or the video card, or the power supply, or whatever component died). Not the entire PC.
Similarly, if my monitor dies and I have Apple repair it, I’m now out a computer till it’s done. With a PC, I can beg, borrow, or steal a monitor to use whilst mine’s being repaired.
(Whoops! Forgot who I’m typing for: (ahem) “If my display thingy that’s hooked to my Apple computer thingy goes “kaboom”, I can’t use my computer until it’s fixed. But with a PC I can still hook up another display thingy and keep using my computer to talk to other retards online)
Come on ‘Joyless’: Cough up how this compares to the PC experience. I’m willing to be proved wrong here. Show your knowledge and prove the entire componentized industry wrong in the process. You know you want to…
4. How bout you check out some performance benchmarks. I’ve never owned a Mac.. so i’m not some mac-zealot. But i’ve used 550Mhz models that perform much like 1.6ghz P4 PC.
No, you come off much more an Amiga zealot than a Mac one. But I digress…
Since you seem so very well versed with benchmarks and such, I’d have assumed that you too would know that yes, in some areas the PPC can outperform a more powerful x86 PC.
Not in raw computing power or anything; But in certain “niche” tests, which really have nothing to do with real-world usage of a PC, you’re right.
Was I comparing one or two minor benchmarks to others? No.
Similarly, if you truly believe that an 800Mhz PPC can outperform a 2Ghz PC across the board, or with most real-world usage, you truly are a moron. Or a “retard”, as you seem to prefer.
Regardless, you’re in a very small minority if you think your statements accurate. Benchmarks aside (and yes, I can supply bookmarks to the boring things if you want them, but I think they might be over your head), real-word usage seldom matches up to benchmarks.
5. I’d love to continue but I have to get going.. have fun
I did! thanks!! Not often do you get to see people so casually call others mantally deficient. Not to mention that it appears to be the pot calling the kettle black w/regards to your points and rebuttle.
I’m sure that Steve’s very happy to see that he has people like yourself in his corner. Soon he and his company can join the highly esteemed ranks of BeOS, NeXT, and OS2 with supporters such as yourself!
Again… good post jls. You really “put me in my place”
BTW… Since Steve’s speech, Apples stock has dropped aprox. 14%. Odd that… Must be there’s a lotta other “retards” out there.
hey each platform has plusses and minuses, but to say there’s nothing you can do on OS X that you can’t do on other OS’s is just an ignorant statement.
the main number 1 thing that linux users have bragged about for years (and rightly so) is stability. open source was probably second on the list, followed by cheap hardware requirements. all are valid advantages of linux over windows and classic mac os. the primary disadvantages of linux on the desktop are probably lack of commercial apps and user interface/productivity.
with os x, apple has unix under it, and it’s a damn fine unix too. apple surprised even me with their ability to quickly hire unix people to mesh with their usual backwards apple-viewpoint on the world. it runs office, photoshop, illustrator, MySQL, oracle, and several other big-name apps natively, and most of the others through decent OS9 emulation.
open-source code is under MacOSX, but no it’s not as open as linux. but the only things that are closed are the things you hate – the so-called eye candy of the OS. the developer tools they ship with the OS are as good or better than any other free tools out there (again, shocking coming from a company like apple).
apple’s hardware is still more expensive and always will be. it may not be important to you, but i appreciate the industrial design and the attention to detail. i appreciate being able to open my computer without cutting my hands, or bumping it without the front faceplate falling off, or it not being so terribly ugly and loud that i need to hide it in a closed shelf under my desk. then again, i shop at ikea and you might buy furniture from kmart, i don’t know. plus mac buyers make most of the money back cuz a) macs hold their resale value far longer, and b) backwards compatibility is decent on a mac (not to the extent of linux, but far better than windows).
so i’m not trying to convince anyone to switch, as long as apple makes enough money to keep making cool computers with great OS’s i’m fine. but i do think that if you went back 4-5 years ago and asked a group of geeks from all platforms to describe the perfect OS, OS X would be the closest current product to that ideal. the combination of applications, simplicity, beauty, and stability is a powerful one, and i’ve said it before, if OS X fails to grow market share over OS 7/8/9’s heyday than only apple is to blame for dropping the ball. they have the technology to start a new generation in computing.
backwards compatibility is decent on a mac (not to the extent of linux, but far better than windows).
You’ve got to be kidding me. Windows is as popular as it is in large part because of its great backwards compatability; companies can’t simply upgrade everything constantly. Just for the hell of it, I even have a few 1985 Windows 2.0 apps that run just fine in XP (ok, so the resources needed to be converted, but that’s it). Read http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html. The part about where Microsoft added code to Win95’s memory manager to get around a bug in SimCity is really impressive. OS X does indeed have impressive backwards compatability, but “far better than Windows”?
Unless, of course, you actually meant that the hardware remains relevant for longer (which isn’t what you said, but might be what you meant). In which case, all I can say is that XP runs fine on my 4-year-old P2 400 mHz, whereas OS X crawls on an old G3 from the same timeframe.
not being so terribly ugly and loud that i need to hide it in a closed shelf under my desk
I’ll admit that Apple’s designs are generally above the PC crowd. But go buy a Dell, IBM, Vaio, or any other major line and see how “ugly and loud” they are.
i shop at ikea and you might buy furniture from kmart
Ummmm……Ikea is a “buy furniture cheap” store, not a “if you have tons of money and want to buy elegance” place.
I like OS X, too, but no need for wild exaggerations about how horribly put together PCs are. Many are rather sleek these days.
yeah, you called me out on the exagerrations, i’ll give you that.
but you did the same thing, and our mileage obviously varies. i have a veriety of macs going all the way back to a mac plus from 1986 (running 7.6) and am amazed at how they can handle new stuff. slower, yes, but still amazing. there’s entire businesses running off old hypercard programs. i don’t see many win3.11 boxes around anymore. again, don’t want to argue, but i can match every one of your stories on that front. and if you pay top dollar for a P4 1ghz and 12 months later there is a P4 2.2Ghz you feel the need to upgrade even if it’s not based in fact.
i have a new dell and a 6 month old IBM sitting right here in my office. while a step above generic boxes, the name brand PC’s don’t have much better plastics than the generics, and they are all the same inside. and both look like 3rd world artifacts compared to the macs.
ikea was used as an example because the quality is high but they manage to keep the prices ‘reasonable’. it’s not cheaper than kmart, nor is it as high-end as other places. but it does get into the similar marketing-strategy as apple, where quality counts over price, and you feel as though they are making it good first and then trying to get it to to you as cheap as possible. a titanium powerbook has way more for $3k than any wintel laptop i’ve seen, and i’ve compared laptops for the last few years. so not every apple product is terribly overpriced, just some of them.
anyways, i’m heading home. good thread, maybe i’ll chime in later tonight.
Let’s see… same iMac as before… except upgrade the video to what’s been out on the PC for almost a year and create some crazy wide 17″ monitor.
Damn, I hope I’m viewing some long lines of text or code or some long lines of something on that 1440×900 screen. On my 17″ Samsung 170T, there’s no way I’d trade 124 vertical pixels for 160 horizontal pixels. I’d actually like to upgrade my panels to 1600×1200, just to get the extra vertical pixels.
If the dock were always vertical, I could understand the extra horizontal pixels as making space for the dock. But then you’re still stuck with only 900 vertical pixels.
Tell me why the Mac doesn’t support portrait mode with that extra fancy stainless steel arm? What are we paying for? If the monitor can’t be removed and I’m paying top dollar for it… please make it a nice flexible monitor!
Oh, I forgot. The iMac is now a $2000 DVD player with built-in wide aspect ratio screen.
I see so little effort on Apple’s part to put better engineering into the iMac. A team of two or three hardworking people could design a better machine than Apple’s hundreds of do-nothing engineers.
Still on slow PC100 laptop memory.
Still on slow 800mhz G4.
Still stuck with the monobutton mouse.
Still stuck with one slow drive. 8Mb cache? Hello???
Another machine from the “more money / less hardware” camp.
With the entire PC industry trend towards “less money / more hardware”, Apple is just so smug about fucking their customer with low value hardware.
If Apple made toys I’d get it. Their machines seem suited for slow-paced entertainment, not for using the computer as a tool or for work. All the effort they put into the iPod would then fit in line with Apples’R Us. And all their new software is geared towards entertainment, not towards getting useful work done.
I can see why Apple’s stock took a dump. Steve is still catching up to the fact that Americans care about corporate reality and substance, not even more marketing hype than ever before.
Next quarter is Apple going to announce they’ve bought a South Pacific island for the Mac faithful to move to?
#m
I’m typing this comment on a powerbook. I used to run linux with kde 3.0. And for all you people who say, that mac is a waste, your just un-educated. When you install your linux with kde, does it do any of the following.
1) when you place a cd in the drive, it mounts it and pulls it up on the desktop. (redhat is almost there with default install)
2) when you place a blank cd in the drive, does it format it and let you pull stuff on to it and just use it?
3) when you eject your cd, does it close it for you?
4) when you click on a ISO on your desktop, does it mount the iso, and let you browse it?
5) Do you have an all in 1 app, that can burn mp3s, rip mp3’s from disk, keep tract of them all?
6) do you have quick time or any good video players that don’t constantly crash?
7) hows your dvd playback going?
8) Hows working with microsoft word documents going?
9) can you edit flash?
10) How long does it take kde to load a folder when you double click to open it, mine opens in about 1 second.
11) is your desktop going to be 3d acclerated?
12) Do you have people work on kde that really care about how it looks?
13) When you walk in to a wireless network, does your card just work? even if there is a wep key?
14) are you playing warcraft under linux?
15) how does your usb palm pilot work? got that bleeding edge kernel driver in there yet?
16) Do you have any decent palm software for linux?
17) Do you have a standard desktop on linux yet?
18) what are vendors suposed to write their software for? gtk/qt/x11 should they support gnome, just kde, how bout their own window manager
19) Do you guys have any clue what your talking about?
20) HAVE YOU EVER EVEN USED A MAC???
How would a mac ipod w/itunes,ical,etc, work with windows/musicmatch concurrently?
I think thats the rub with having the two ipod products.
I think apple would love to have a dual model, cause a windows user who buys a windows ipod won’t be switching to mac anytime soon.
(there might be a firmware flash available-but that wouldn’t make very convenient).
My $499 Microtel/WalMart AthlonXP is 100% solid, fast and stable and it does not reboot or powers On all by itself as my $1500 Cube does in the middle of the night.
Note: I got both of these computers for free, but guess which one I trust more. I don’t even boot much on OSX, because that Cube gives me the chill(ie)s: “What if the filesystem gets corrupted in one of these instateneous reboots… Brrrr…“
Alot of people are knocking the hardware but does your laptop have:
* a 15.2 inch screen?
* a built in dvd/cdr
* built in wireless
* built in GIGABIT ethernet
* built in firewire
and how is linux doing on that whole, sleep mode? its nice to be able to close the lid on my laptop and not worry about X complely dying.
” I see so little effort on Apple’s part to put better engineering into the iMac. A team of two or three hardworking people could design a better machine than Apple’s hundreds of do-nothing engineers. ”
LOL.Get to it M with an #! I love arm chair CEO’s and wanna be designers!
” If Apple made toys I’d get it. Their machines seem suited for slow-paced entertainment, not for using the computer as a tool or for work.”
LOL! The same ol shiite! I won’t go into the amount of content produced on macs.You’ll just call me a brainwashed mac drone on drugs.
I truely don’t mean to start a flame-war here. How exactly os OSX’s GUI better than KDE 3’s? Don’t give me generalizations (or stuff that deals with the underlying OS instead of KDE itself), I want specifics. I haven’t used OS X before, and I was wondering what all the fuss was about.
Why are you all so obsessed with kde 3.0? its not that great.
I hope for your sake you’re just trolling…
Apple iMac:
How much did it cost in terms of real engineering dollars?
What was the market opportunity cost of shipping the new iMac so late?
What is the market cost of having a non-expandble “low-end” Mac?
What is the market cost of having a very high entry level price point?
What is the market cost of continuing to alienate discerning consumers by offering them two year old hardware at top dollar prices?
Content produced on Macs:
Sure, quite a bit of “content” has been produced on Mac in the past. But that’s the past, not the present.
Today, you’ve got 25 million Mac users on fine French coffee (from France) that are trying to keep up with the 975 million PC users in creating content. Those Mac users must really love those slow processors… gives them time to sip their caffe? Let’s get real. Apple Mac being some kind of uber-content-machine is a myth, Apple marketing hype, not reality.
And all that content from the past could have cost a lot less money to make if PC’s had been used instead of Macs.
And other than using a few Photoshop filters, it all could have been created faster on a PC.
If you are saying that Mac is the computer for artists and musicians, that’s fine. It would help focus Apple. They are trying to be everything to everyone, a certain recipe for disaster.
Maybe if Apple really did have the #1 computer for creating content, they’d have something to say. But they don’t. More “content” is created every day on PC’s than on Macs. By an order of magnitude if not two.
#m
Q: Out of 100 iMac engineers, how many does it take to put a PCI slot into the design?
A: Oh, we fired that PC guy last week. Do you know much extra work we’d have to do to add a slot? Let’s go rip/mix/burn and sip our caffe.
#m
The Good things about the mac:
Driver problems? Few – standard install CD supports almost everything.
Software installation problems? None – just drag and click
Software Uninstallation problems? None, see above
Virus-safety by dint of rarity
Can boot off USB volumes
And there’s me, a Windoze user..
Sounds like nothin but repeats here! The same old posts that it seems like people just copy and paste their same opinions as last week on the Mac!
1- It’s too expensive… it’s not for you, so move on!
2- One button mouse… don’t you know how to shop for a two button mouse? There are plenty that work on Macs!
3- Macs are slower than PCs (or vice versa), well if you live on fantasy island… both have their speed and their slowness go look at real benchmarks, not FUD!!!
4- Not enough software for the Mac… yeah and I guess you’re going to go out and buy 20,000 applications for your PC?! Helk you people already complain about spending money on hardware!!
5- Windows and PCs have 95% of the marketshare… so, does that mean you have to be a lemming and follow the rest over a cliff?! I have never had the need to rely on someone else having the same hardware (or even software) as me in order to survive and I was even a full time PC user back in the day! Linux users can give you a lesson on that!!
6- blah blah blah and more blah… >please insert you repeat post here< (of course I am just as guilty at times!)
Like I said it’s a broken record and of course mac zealots are no better, so I guess we’ll just have to keep hearing the same ole gossip until we’re all tone deaf from the boredom of redundant reading!
keep on bashing 🙂
CliMonkey,
I have a Dell Inspiron 8000 w/ 933 mhz P111. 15.0 inch screen, built in DVD, built in CD-RW, built in modem and ethernet, Gigaethernet (though there isn’t a lot of places that utilize this very fast fiber) Built in WiFI, Built in Infared (great for connecting to my palm and to my printer,)one touch play, pause, eject, and sound buttons. Oh, yeah it has a kick ass Mobile GeForce 3 with 64 MB of dedicated RAM, 512 MB of system RAM, a 30GB hdd….whew, I am running out of breath hear. Don’t compare Apple hardware which is propritary to that of an ENTIRE hardware industry consisting of thousands of makers who are in direct competition to make the fastest, cheapest, and most stable products. Gotta say, love OSX (not as much as Mandrake 8.2) but hate the hardware, no, not the pretty case it comes in, but the rather gutless guts inside.
Oh, yeah, forgot that holy grail of apple hardware I have 1394 too. to the MACS out there that is the tech name for “firewire”
Make no bones about it, Mac OS X is a great OS.
In the OS is where you find the really good stuff that Apple does.
Let us not confuse Apple’s strengths (software) from their weaknesses (overpriced and low performance hardware).
I’m still waiting for ONE Mac-zealot to say that he or she cares about market share and then contributes some ideas on how to increase Apple’s global market share.
Unfortunately most purchase decisions are based on price and that is why Apple has 2.4% global market share.
So, instead of dismissing my posts as “bashing”, how about some ideas on how Apple can offer better hardware value to computer purchasers?
#m
Damn, I hope I’m viewing some long lines of text or code or some long lines of something on that 1440×900 screen.
What the? As if the widescreen iMac were designed for Unix geeks whose idea of a useful computer is one that runs however many high-res terminal sessions simultaneously ? You are not Apple’s iMac target market – it’s like lambasting a point & shoot camera for not having full manual exposure control (to stray from the car analogies). No, wide screens are not all they’re cracked up to be, but consider that the iMac’s previous screen was 1024×768. Isn’t this an improvement? I know which one I’d rather have.
On my 17″ Samsung 170T, there’s no way I’d trade 124 vertical pixels for 160 horizontal pixels. I’d actually like to upgrade my panels to 1600×1200, just to get the extra vertical pixels.
Good for you then. I’m sorry to hear that you’ve ceased to consider purchasing an iMac as a result of this fact. (I know you’re not just moaning from the sidelines, unlikely to purchase an iMac no matter what its features.)
If the dock were always vertical, I could understand the extra horizontal pixels as making space for the dock.
Have you ever even used OS X? You can easily permanently set the dock to sit on the bottom, left, or right of the screen. I have a widescreen and I let it sit on the left.
But then you’re still stuck with only 900 vertical pixels.
As I said, it’s better than 768, isn’t it?
Tell me why the Mac doesn’t support portrait mode with that extra fancy stainless steel arm? What are we paying for? If the monitor can’t be removed and I’m paying top dollar for it… please make it a nice flexible monitor!
This is a good point, but you must consider the iMac’s target market. Removable monitors are for the “pro” machines. Simple, attached-monitor machines are for everybody else (everybody who doesn’t need a detachable monitor). Apple is not aiming the iMac at the folks who don’t need a detachable monitor (of whom there are many). As for portrait mode, my guess would be that few people could really give a crap.
Oh, I forgot. The iMac is now a $2000 DVD player with built-in wide aspect ratio screen.
It can be if you want it to be… What’s your point?
I see so little effort on Apple’s part to put better engineering into the iMac.
I’m guessing by “better engineering,” you mean “engineering that I like better.” Which are of course not the same thing.
A team of two or three hardworking people could design a better machine than Apple’s hundreds of do-nothing engineers.
Wow! In that case, you ought to get 2 or 3 people together and go and do it. You could make millions.
Still on slow PC100 laptop memory.
Still on slow 800mhz G4.
These I agree with. The iMac could definitely use faster memory / a faster CPU.
Still stuck with the monobutton mouse.
Still stuck with one slow drive. 8Mb cache? Hello???
You can buy a 2-button mouse for $10 at Best Buy if you want one, and I’m not sure what you mean by “one slow drive.” Are you proposing that the iMac should have dual hard drives? The thing is 10″ in diameter. Are you nuts? Get a Firewire drive.
Another machine from the “more money / less hardware” camp.
With the entire PC industry trend towards “less money / more hardware”, Apple is just so smug about fucking their customer with low value hardware.[/i]
You’re a computer-literate geek who doesn’t understand… Mac users have a tendency to be passionate about their computers for a reason. It isn’t any sort of brainwashing – the fact is that you can get an “experience” on the Mac you can’t get anywhere else. As a past user of Linux, BeOS, IRIX, and Windows (up to 98), I can say that only BeOS came close.
If Apple made toys I’d get it. Their machines seem suited for slow-paced entertainment, not for using the computer as a tool or for work. All the effort they put into the iPod would then fit in line with Apples’R Us. And all their new software is geared towards entertainment, not towards getting useful work done.
I’m not sure what type of useful work you’re referring to?
I can see why Apple’s stock took a dump. Steve is still catching up to the fact that Americans care about corporate reality and substance, not even more marketing hype than ever before.
I was disappointed by MWNY too. I want to see faster machines, I want a free Jaguar update, I want this and that etc. Apple is doing a lot of things wrong right now, but they’re also doing other things right, and I don’t see how it can pay to have such a genuine loathing of Apple? Even worse, a loathing that transcends all objectivity and logic. Were you molested by Steve Jobs as a child, or what?
I’m still waiting for ONE Mac-zealot to say that he or she cares about market share and then contributes some ideas on how to increase Apple’s global market share.
I’m not a Mac zealot, but I think Apple should keep on doing what it’s doing. I would say that my ideal Apple market share would be 8% (give or take). I want the Mac to continue to be a niche, upscale product (more or less) that is not dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. Another reason for my wanting “only” 10% is that Apple has shown that it can be genuinely desipicable when it has control, and the more market share they have, the more control they have.
10% is enough market share to make most hardware & software developers serious about supporting the Mac.
I DO want to see faster Mac CPUs, but if Mac CPUs are 20% slower than PC CPUs forever more, I would be willing to accept that. I know you wouldn’t, in your no-compromises quest for “value.”
Life’s been tough since then. Whereas my fake daddy Steve Wozniak treated me kindly, my real daddy Steve Jobs is abusive.
Even though daddy will give me a free iMac, I am loathe to accept it as I will fall under the influence of the dark side.
You know daddy only makes Macs in one color, Stormtrooper White. Daddy used to work at another place where they made all their computers in Darth Vader Black. His latest machine has half a death star as a base, but in his new color, Stormtrooper White.
Me, I’m still a kid, part of the rebel alliance, a hodge-podge collection of PC owners fighting against monoculture wherever we find it.
#m
once again, after having to decide where to go from BeOS, I sit here wondering whhere to go to after OS X seeing that neither hardware not software evolves with satisfactory speed.
microsoft introduced x-box, which they based on NT code.
the idea that developing for x-box makes porting to pc straightforward.
it’s too bad some visionary at Apple (i.e steve jobs) did not get either Sony PS2, or Nintendo Gamecube, or even the now defunct DC, to run and make use of NEXT/MAC OS X core technologies under OPENSTEP.
that way, developing games for “gamecube/mac os x” can easily be ported to mac os x.
Me, I’m still a kid, part of the rebel alliance, a hodge-podge collection of PC owners fighting against monoculture wherever we find it.
Does this mean that you’ll fight anyone who doesn’t build their own machine from parts, install their own custom OSS flavor of Unix onto it, and compile all their software themselves? I find it laughable that a computer platform with 2.5% world marketshare could be termed monoculture, let alone any kind of culture at all. You remind me of a Haight-Ashbury hippie whose idea of rebellion is reverse conformity; you fight against The Man who’s bringing you down because you’re jealous of what he has, and of what he is.
You want one of those lovely Stormtrooper White half-spheres, don’t you? Go on, admit it. You want one badly, and you’ll slag off everyone who buys one because you’re jealous of what you can’t have, or what your strange notion of “value,” based solely on a price/performance ratio, won’t allow you to have.
Who is the “good” in this Star Wars world of yours? You, of course – how romantic. The good and glorious Michael against the evil Proprietary Empire. Who is the “evil?” Everyone whose choice of computer is one you don’t like. You sound more like a cultist than a rebel leader to me. Perhaps the computing industry is not as black & white as the Star Wars world of good vs. evil? Perhaps the two are not even remotely comparable?
Well, this has been fun!
All we need now is a detailed analysis of how apples compare to oranges, and how Enterprise compares to Quantum Leap.
Alex, I’m not fighting anyone. I wanted to bring some humor to part of one of your posts where you suggested that I had been abused by Steve Jobs. You jump to personal attacks readily, so rather than join you in that swamp, I interjected something less serious!
I am making some unpopular-with-Mac-zealot points regarding the high price and low performance of Mac hardware. As I’ve said many times on OSNEWS, I like Mac OS X and really hope it does well in the marketplace. This is one of the reasons I am pushing for better/cheaper hardware — so Apple will sell more machines.
I’ve owned a Mac. I used Macs at work currently. I’ve used pretty much every model of Mac since the beginning. I’ve written code for Mac products. I’m not coming from a place of ignorance when it comes to the Mac.
If I wanted a Mac, it would be one where I could choose my own monitor (see post above regarding vertical pixels). The little white mushroom is definitely not appealing. I do not want to be stuck with an 800Mhz processor or a 17″ monitor. I’ve been running dual 17″ LCD monitors on my PC for over a year. With XP and Cleartype, I have a display that is sharper than anything available on the Mac. If anything, I’d like to upgrade to dual 20″ 1600×1200 LCD’s. On a PC platform, two 20.3″ 1600×1200 LCD monitors will run you $3100 total. On a Mac, well, two 1600×1024 monitors will run you $5000 total. You can see my point in wanting to choose my own monitors. More pixels for my dollar.
In a nutshell, there is no Mac computer that I consider a good value for my money. I’ve got a number of Windows machines, a BSD machine, and I’ve ordered some parts for a Linux machine that I’m going to use for Gentoo. If I wanted, I could repurpose all these machines, running Linux, FreeBSD, Windows 2000, Windows XP, etc. It gives me flexibility and adaptability. All of these machines can be upgraded easily — motherboards, video cards, ram, etc. Good quality parts for a fair price. That’s not possible in the Apple universe.
It is the mark of a zealot to make personal attacks instead of talking about the actual subject. You’ve barely begun to talk about any of the points I mentioned, but have loaded up your messages with a nice variety of personal attacks. Is that part of the Mac culture?
Perhaps I am idealistic in expecting that a rational discourse is possible.
#m
1. Actually quite a few of those services, like the backup and anti-virus are NEW. And the space is bumped up, from 20MB to 100MB. I’m still not thrilled that you have to pay but it’s far from unreasonable.
4. Why would I want my SuperDrive to start supporting DVD-RW, when it already does? They don’t advertise it as, but it is a DVD-RW drive.
You can gripe all you want but atleast get your facts straight.
http://computers.cnet.com/hardware/0-1095-404-9816702.html
I believe DVD-RW and DVD+RW are two different formats. Apple’s Superdrive (a Pioneer drive) does support DVD-RW, but does not support DVD+RW.
#m
I remember reading about Gates’ vision for the computing industry circa 97′. Gates wanted a completely intergrated OS with the internet and web services that were fast enough and smart enough to let people connect ubiquitously (Sorry, I don’t have a reference, if someone remebers reading this let everyone know). I think Jobs beat him to the punch. I first used a Mac in middle school and it was teh PowerPC line. After Win95 I never gave Mac a second thought. I am a W2K admin for a large Telecom. I am now seriously considering buying a MAC w/ OSX. I have never seen such beautiful intergration of apps and web services. Becasue OSx is on a FreeBSD kernel, it’s very stable. I still don’t like the PPC architecture or the “dumbed down” feel of the UI. But for a home computer that allows me to easily and quickly expand my digital life, it works. I still don’t think Macs have a chance of becoming a serious competitor to Microsoft because Apple cannot compete in the buisness world.(After all, thats where Microsoft gets most of thier money) If XP Multimedia fails to make as much innovation as Jaguar has, I will switch.
I have been using a cinema display with a G4 for over a year and it is cear as anything in the PC world, to counter your claim of your samsungs.
So what is your point?
Are you a rich kid boasting about your toys?(touche, mon frer((recalling an earlier post you said about me- a joke))
Your /. posts are the same recycled shiite. Are you sure you aren’t the poster formerly known as speed?
You loath the mac (I said earlier you hated the platform), and your lil qualifiers about this or that about using macs doesn’t cut thru the constant negative vibe you project.
Really—- what does a lil computer company with a measley 2.8563278 % of the worlds computer share (or as you so grasciously posted 25 million out of almost a billion) have you so worked up about— and spending so much time here and /. posting about ?
Very interesting psyche study.
And no , contrary to your projectings, not every one who writes they like the mac is a zealot or a drone.
While you gleefully celebrate a 14% stock drop due to apple’s 3rd quarter results, I pity your dark outlook.
>>Life’s been tough since then. Whereas my fake daddy Steve Wozniak treated me kindly, my real daddy Steve Jobs is abusive.
Even though daddy will give me a free iMac, I am loathe to accept it as I will fall under the influence of the dark side.
You know daddy only makes Macs in one color, Stormtrooper White. Daddy used to work at another place where they made all their computers in Darth Vader Black. His latest machine has half a death star as a base, but in his new color, Stormtrooper White.
Me, I’m still a kid, part of the rebel alliance, a hodge-podge collection of PC owners fighting against monoculture wherever we find it.
#m
This is the funniest post of all time…I busted a gut. Where is the Wookie?
Dano
I really don’t know why you’re bothering to post anything here. You say: “In a nutshell, there is no Mac computer that I consider a good value for my money.” Then why should any Mac “zealots” try to convince you otherwise? You’re basically telling everyone: “I’ve already made my decision, but I dare you to prove me wrong.” That’s an infantile attitude if ever I saw one.
Here’s an argument for you: I own an iMac G4 800MHz model (15″ screen, of course). I paid $1799 for it. I’m perfectly happy with my purchase. I feel like I got great value for the money. I think OS X is a wonderful system that, while already fairly speedy, will be blazingly fast once 10.2 is released. I’m very pleased with the latest applications that Apple and other companies are releasing for the Mac.
On the other hand, I’ve used Windows since 3.0 days. And I can’t stand the interface, XP’s ClearType is ugly and hurts my eyes (yes, on an LCD panel), Microsoft’s business practices disgust me (and Dell isn’t much better), and I believe that most PC hardware manufacturers have no clue how to design products that are simple and work well. In fact, I believe that Apple computers are not expensive at all, and rather it is PCs that are too cheap. That’s right — PCs are too cheap, meaning that companies aren’t making enough money to invest in R&D that will make their products better. Apple is actually innovating. Even the iPod is the finest MP3 player I’ve seen. If you want cheap, get a crap Nomad. I’ve seen those things, and, boy, are they big and ugly.
And in case you think I’m some doofus computer idiot, I’ve been using computers since the Commodore 128. I have years of experience in Windows, BeOS, and several flavors of Linux. I’ve programmed in Visual Basic, Perl, PHP, and Objective-C. I’m a professional Web developer and graphics artist, as well as an electronic musician and pro audio engineer. I live and breathe computers. So don’t tell me that Macs are toys for dopes who don’t know any better. I purchased my first Mac (a PowerBook G4) in April 2001, and since then, I’ve completely switched all my work (except for pro audio, but that’s coming soon) over to the Mac (OS X) platform.
So there you go, Michael. I believe the only thing you could tell me at this point is “you’re an idiot anyway” — and are you sure you really want to do that?
Jared
I am making some unpopular-with-Mac-zealot points regarding the high price and low performance of Mac hardware. As I’ve said many times on OSNEWS, I like Mac OS X and really hope it does well in the marketplace. This is one of the reasons I am pushing for better/cheaper hardware — so Apple will sell more machines.
I’ve owned a Mac. I used Macs at work currently. I’ve used pretty much every model of Mac since the beginning. I’ve written code for Mac products. I’m not coming from a place of ignorance when it comes to the Mac.
Yes, Macs are expensive. Yes, they’re slower than PCs. That’s just a fact. It’s not unpopular with me, and as I said, I’m not a zealot. It’s just that I’m annoyed, because it seems that there are so many out there, like you, to whom this price/performance angle is the only one that matters, who can’t understand how any other characteristic of a computer could possibly be of any relevance in a purchasing decision, who can’t understand there are other kinds of computer users out there and who belittle any differing opinion. I agree that Apple needs to do something about the PPC situation; however, I do recognize that they haven’t got a lot of options, and although I would like them to drop prices, I realize that this would very possibly not be the best thing for them financially. (Otherwise they would likely be doing it.) I don’t love Steve Jobs, but I doubt he’s the type of CEO who actually ENJOYS watching his computers fall 30%+ behind in performance while his faithful riot on discussion boards the Internet over.
If I wanted a Mac, it would be one where I could choose my own monitor (see post above regarding vertical pixels). The little white mushroom is definitely not appealing. I do not want to be stuck with an 800Mhz processor or a 17″ monitor.
Then why are you even looking at the iMac? It’s like looking at laptops and complaining that they don’t have 5 PCI slots and 4 drive bays. To tie this in with your iMac PCI slot earlier – the iMac is not the type of machine designed for people who even know what PCI slots are, let alone want to fill them up. If you need a PCI slot, that’s what the Power Mac is for. Yes, I’m aware that the Power Mac is slow and expensive and so on, but there you go.
I’ve been running dual 17″ LCD monitors on my PC for over a year. With XP and Cleartype, I have a display that is sharper than anything available on the Mac. If anything, I’d like to upgrade to dual 20″ 1600×1200 LCD’s. On a PC platform, two 20.3″ 1600×1200 LCD monitors will run you $3100 total. On a Mac, well, two 1600×1024 monitors will run you $5000 total. You can see my point in wanting to choose my own monitors. More pixels for my dollar.
As I said before, you are apparently a power user, not the kind of user Apple is targeting with the iMac. The iMac is clearly not the machine for you, nor was it ever designed to be.
In a nutshell, there is no Mac computer that I consider a good value for my money. I’ve got a number of Windows machines, a BSD machine, and I’ve ordered some parts for a Linux machine that I’m going to use for Gentoo. If I wanted, I could repurpose all these machines, running Linux, FreeBSD, Windows 2000, Windows XP, etc. It gives me flexibility and adaptability. All of these machines can be upgraded easily — motherboards, video cards, ram, etc. Good quality parts for a fair price. That’s not possible in the Apple universe.
There it is again – “value.” In other words, “price/performance compared to the competition.” The reason Macs are not appealing to you is that they don’t offer anything of importance to you. Why is it so hard to understand that they can offer value in other ways? Perhaps not to you, but to plenty of people different from yourself.
(On a side note, perhaps I should address the upgradability of the Mac. The iMac: Yeah, it uses laptop RAM, which is more expensive, which sucks. No, it’s not very upgradeable. At a second glance, though, this isn’t as big a problem as it seems, considering the iMac holds its value much better than a PC will. Where you can upgrade a PC, you can generally just sell the Mac and buy a new one for roughly the same percentage of total system cost as upgrading the PC. The Power Mac: Upgradability is comparable to the PC; not as many PCI cards available, and the motherboard is not replaceable, but Power Macs use processor cards, which are more versatile and have greater longevity than PC motherboard processor sockets. So perhaps this upgradablity problem is not as big as you’re making it out to be, unless you’re a Pricewatch lurker who refuses to pay anything more than bottom dollar for computer upgrades.)
It is the mark of a zealot to make personal attacks instead of talking about the actual subject. You’ve barely begun to talk about any of the points I mentioned, but have loaded up your messages with a nice variety of personal attacks. Is that part of the Mac culture?
Perhaps I am idealistic in expecting that a rational discourse is possible.
I am a big believer that personal attacks make arguments like this much more fun. Feel free to reciprocate.
I addressed virtually every point you brought up two posts ago, and you proceeded to ignore my reply. From that I can either infer that 1) the Internet mysteriously blocked out all but the last part of my post, or 2) I made some pretty good points.
My oh my, more serious commentary from the Mac Brigade.
So, a few things, including social protocol:
1. I put my thoughts and opinions on the line, whatever they are. My views on Mac hardware are clearly not popular with Mac owners who have spent top dollar on their Mac hardware.
2. I use my real email address rather than something clearly false, ‘[email protected]’. It’s easy to put some invective crap up on the web when you haven’t even invested in a real return address.
3. You said, “I am a big believer that personal attacks make arguments like this much more fun. Feel free to reciprocate.”
I want to be clear that I am completely unavailable for any sort of personal war with you or other Mac owners. That includes sending me obnoxious email which I have received from several uncivil Mac owners.
4. Please read what I say more carefully to avoid misconstruing my personal opinions. I said the following:
“In a nutshell, there is no Mac computer that I consider a good value for my money.”
I used the words ‘I’ and ‘my’ to distinguish what my feelings are. I am not trying to come up with some great ‘answer’ or ‘truth for everyone’. Each person has his or her own path.
As I’ve said since the beginning, I want more performance for my dollar. I want to have a machine that is more than just a fancy brand label. I don’t shop at the GAP.
5. I don’t have the answers on why the vast majority of world prefers PC to Mac. Maybe because they can afford a PC? Maybe because they too want more for their dollar? Perhaps because they don’t like attitude of so many Mac owners? It’s amusing that in spite of what you say about Microsoft, Dell, etc., and their bad business practices, that people still are buying PC’s. Whereas Apple, allegedly some noble enterprise, can barely get a PC user to switch over to Mac for free.
6. As Thomas Jefferson believed, so do I believe in Freedom of Conscience:
Tthe right to hold one’s own views, and to think and to decide for oneself on any question, is an essential right for a free people. A person is free to believe anything he wishes, even if in error, and may not be persecuted nor denied the right to hold public office for those beliefs. The First Amendment protections for freedom of religion, of speech, of the press and of assembly, all together protect the Freedom of Conscience.
So when it comes to expressing myself, I do so. And I encourage others to do so as well.
I’ll leave the question open again. Do Mac users/owners care about making the hardware more affordable and a better value? If so, what ideas do they have?
#m
Dear Steve,I was very excited to hear about new and improved OS X 10.2. and revamped iTools. And I just thought I’d let you know that your decision to charge $200 for 0.07 improvement to OS X 10.1.3 and $100 for the features of iTools that I don’t need ain’t gonna help your sales and your image.
I have been a Mac user and developer from Macintosh SE to NeXTstation (which I still use, eh!) to OS X iMac. What kept me loyal to Apple was not “religious” following, but Apple innovative technology and user experience superior to other platforms. But I believe that Apple takes its old time users for granted.
Best regards,
– Alex
PS. As for “special limited time offer” of $49.95 to upgrade to .Mac I just used this money to by Amiga Club voucher. Makes more sense. Don’t expect me to buy an upgrade to Mac OS X any time soon, either.
PPS. Mac OS X in general is a big step forward (or is it backwards, really?), especially as a development environment. But it yet to achieve refinement of NeXTSTEP experience which is still superior to anything out there.
– A.
Oh the mac brigade reference, man you keep pulling out these lame roasted chestnuts. LOL.
Your posts have a lot more in them than just your views on mac hardware.The slams and snide asides tend to drown out the salient points you might have.
As many have pointed out, the motorola, IBM conundrum is frustrating, but that perfomance ‘gap’ does not stop us from being productive on the contrary- you use what fits your line of work and style of work.It’s as simple as that.
To me the price point is not that important, since I will make up for any upfront purchase differential very quickly and in the long run makes it a non issue to me.
The continued productivity of my shop in the longer term makes it a non issue.
While you make cracks about making french coffee while trying to get something processed, nothing could be farther from the truth. It’s Costa Rican.–
I changed from Mac OS to Windows a few years back, when it looked like “Rhapsody” was never going to be released. I think Jaguar might be enough to tempt me back to Mac OS, despite the cost. Windows seems to get more and more annoying the more I use it, it’s still not as elegant as Mac OS and after getting a PS2 I don’t think I have bothered playing any PC games. I gave Linux a try but IMO it’s not even close to becoming a desktop OS, the user experience is an inconsistent mess and simple things like installing software are far too complex and time consuming. Mac OS X certainly looks like the best desktop OS at the moment, I can’t see all the Linux ease of use problems being fixed in the near future.
All the noise only to stay with the same G4 and SDRAM with a nice GUI.
Better to run win2k and Linux/FreeBSD.
A side note –
17″ + blowout on either of the two components (egg or panel) – useless hunk of junk.
Apple got it right with the Cube.
Then they made the half-egg, and stuck a monitor on it.
Big mistake.
They should have bundled a flatpanel (which is stylish enough) with the iMac.
Instead they now alienate users of the 15″ models (or try to get new buyers, who knows). A tradeup would have been a much better idea both on the pocket books, re-packaging of trade-in parts, and hardware support.
/Rant
If I decided to make the _switch_ to OSX:
– How would I run and maintain my Network/Computer consulting business where my clients run Windows PC’s/servers and Linux?
-Can I remotely connect to them from OSX. Is there software that will run on OSX that will connect to Windows desktops remotely? NO.
– what about my Linux Servers? SSH? Is there a nice gui SSH client? No (Besides the Commandline/bsd ssh stuff).
– what about port scan software?
– Security auditing scanners? Does ISS run on Mac? No. How about eEye stuff? No.
– what about the countless little hacking tools out there that I enjoy playing with to familiarize myself and keep abroad of the stuff available? Lophcrack. Trojans. Brute forcers. Etc. How can you stay knowledgeable when you can’t “play” at home.
– Peer-to-peer file sharing? Where is the Mac version of WinMX? The best file sharing program right now. How about gnutella? Xolox, bearshare, limewire, etc? *Any* choice? How about when a new fad comes out and everyone is flocking to it? Where are the mac users. Reading about what they are missing out.. How long did it take for Mac users to even get a Napster client? Just in time for their downfall/closing..
– Games? Halo? Where are they? The big ones? Grand Theft Auto 3? So many others. Have you played them yet? Hmm, why not? (and under pathetic VirtualPC doesn’t count. You don’t purchase a modern “Supercomputer” for 2grand+ to play the games at the speed of a PC could play them 4 years ago)
– Hows the DDR memory and modern subsystem Bus in that “supercomputer” box of yours? Ohh, sorry, 133 SDRAM and 800mhz clock speeds. “But it is comparable to a 2.2 P4”. Yeah. F__ing please…
– enjoy the Windows media content only all over the web? we enjoy your Quicktime though.
Thought you could do everything you could on in Windows on a Mac?
These are just off the top of my head and I am sure there is SO much more. The FUD spread from Apple seems so much worse than the stuff everyone complains that Microsoft spits out. But Apple has millions (about 10mil of them) more spitting out the same tired stuff Apple starts…
Vaporware or what? Will steve ever introduce it on a mac? Is it really 64 bit? How about performance? Any more leaks (if it exists).
Maybe jobs is waiting on the G5 to introduce new towers.
It is still a rumour with no prove whatsoever that G5 would reach any workstations. Accroading to Motorola’s roadmap anyway, the G5 (or whatever you like to call it) is 64-bit with 32-bit support.
KDE sucks, it behaves like Win3.1 |-p
Aqua sucks, it behaves like a dead slog with a prison stripe shirt with jelly beans stuck on it.
…Or have an iPod…
Try xtunes, I heard it works.
frankly, KDE needs to become a lot more stable for me to wanna use it on a daily basis…way too many bugs in 3.0 for my taste…
I have found some minor, annoying bugs in KDE 3.0. But then again, all of them were fixed in KDE 3.0.2. Besides, wasn’t OS X 10.0 unstable and 10.1 unstable too?
WindowMaker’s only at what? 0.80 but it feels so much more mature than KDE to me…
I like Window Maker, but it lacks the integrated feel you could find in KDE or OS X, or even in GNOME. For example, there is no file manager. You can’t just drag something to the panel from the desktop or vice versa in Window Maker.
Besides, the last I check, development behind WM has stopped, I’m not sure though.
Since the majority of the iTools users do so for the free .mac address, and since there’s literally dozens, if not hundreds of more cost affective alternatives out there (Hotmail anyone?), I see this move as only hurting Apple as existing users will now begin to research non-Apple solutions to these problems.
I had changed my email address once, from Netscape to Yahoo cause firstly, I have stop using Netscape 4.x and secondly (and most importantly), Netscape had screw up my account. But switch to Yahoo! wasn’t easy. I had to tell everyone that I’m switching accounts, I had to regulary check my Netscape mail for a few months after that to make sure I didn’t miss any emails and so on.
3. Apple is moving up to a 17″ monitor for it’s iMacs. But you also have to pay more for this, and in addition, the monitors still tied to the damn PC. If you get a surge and your monitor suffers a blowout, you’re now stuck with a box that runs, and no way to view and/or interact with it. Nice…
If you are in your warranty period, change the monitor. If you aren’t, you could use a ADC monitor. Besides, how often does a surge hits the monitor and NOT the base?
5. Bus speed stays… The same! Want to use that cheap, fancy new & fast DDR memory that your PC using friends are raving about? Sorry… You’re still stuck at 133mhz tops. Try again next year.
It is not only that DDR is “fancy”, but they are currently a little cheaper than SDRAM. And DDR prices are going down steadily, unlike SDRAM.
Regarding the G5, all the more conservative rumor mills have talked about the beginning of 2003 for the G5.
I noticed them. The same rumour websites that last year said it would come out in MWSF.
Your entire first issue is all wrong too. You’ll have to pay more for special services.
And I guess stuff like International servicing (especially for laptops), international warranty and so on given by guys like Dell, IBM, HP are worse than North American centric Apple?
Unfortunately you got something wrong; WindowMaker is an OpenSource project (by volunteers, not using any Apple/NeXT technology) that tries to imitate the look (and just partly the feel) of the NeXT desktop. It is just a WindowManager and does not even contain a file manager. It lacks too many tools, applications, GUI libraries etc to make a complete desktop!
IIRC, Window Maker is based on GNU Step (otherwise I stupidly installed it for nothing) which is a clone of OpenStep’s Cocoa. There is a GNU Step file manager, can’t remember it’s name.
b) backwards compatibility is decent on a mac (not to the extent of linux, but far better than windows).
Windows is famed for backwards compatiblity. Sure, sometimes things don’t work, but it also happens on Mac OS X. But the wonder of Windows XP is that you could run legacy DOS and Windows 9x applications without having to load up or even have DOS and/or Windows 9x. As for Linux’s backward compatiblity, well, it isn’t that good. The API for the Linux kernel, for example, is never frozen, for every other release, sub-major ones (x.x.x) always break binary compatiblity.
the combination of applications, simplicity, beauty, and stability is a powerful one, and i’ve said it before
Hmmm, so in other words, Windows too can be an ideal platform, right?
but you did the same thing, and our mileage obviously varies. i have a veriety of macs going all the way back to a mac plus from 1986 (running 7.6) and am amazed at how they can handle new stuff. slower, yes, but still amazing. there’s entire businesses running off old hypercard programs. i don’t see many win3.11 boxes around anymore. again, don’t want to argue, but i can match every one of your stories on that front.
Actually, if you like to see one, I have a Windows 3.0 with OS/2 lying around my grandfather’s house. But of course, I don’t think it is working, it is probably a century since it was last on.
and if you pay top dollar for a P4 1ghz and 12 months later there is a P4 2.2Ghz you feel the need to upgrade even if it’s not based in fact.
Actually, I have a fairly new Pentium III 1.1ghz laptop which was close to being the top end. I got it right before HP started providing Pentium 4-mobile laptops.
. But no, i don’t see why I need by upgrade in the next few years. Sure, PCs get obsolete fast, but useless? No… unless you are a rich geek with an obsession to bragging.
KDE sucks, it behaves like Win3.1 |-p
Aqua sucks, it behaves like a dead slog with a prison stripe shirt with jelly beans stuck on it.
frankly, KDE needs to become a lot more stable for me to wanna use it on a daily basis…way too many bugs in 3.0 for my taste…
I found none in 3.0.2. Besides, wasn’t OS X 10.0 unstable and 10.1 unstable too?
WindowMaker’s only at what? 0.80 but it feels so much more mature than KDE to me…
I like Window Maker, but it lacks the integrated feel you could find in KDE or OS X. For example, there is no file manager. You can’t just drag something to the panel from the desktop or vice versa in Window Maker.
Since the majority of the iTools users do so for the free .mac address, and since there’s literally dozens, if not hundreds of more cost affective alternatives out there (Hotmail anyone?)
I had changed my email address once, from Netscape to Yahoo cause firstly, I have stop using Netscape 4.x and secondly (and most importantly), Netscape had screw up my account. But switch to Yahoo! wasn’t easy. I had to tell everyone that I’m switching accounts, I had to regulary check my Netscape mail for a few months after that to make sure I didn’t miss any emails and so on.
.. If you get a surge and your monitor suffers a blowout, you’re now stuck with a box that runs, and no way to view and/or interact with it. Nice…
If you are in your warranty period, change the monitor. If you aren’t, you could use a ADC monitor. Besides, how often does a surge hits the monitor and NOT the base?
5. Bus speed stays… The same! Want to use that cheap, fancy new & fast DDR memory that your PC using friends are raving about? Sorry… You’re still stuck at 133mhz tops. Try again next year.
It is not only that DDR is “fancy”, but they are currently a little cheaper than SDRAM. And DDR prices are going down steadily, unlike SDRAM.
Your entire first issue is all wrong too. You’ll have to pay more for special services.
And I guess stuff like International servicing (especially for laptops), international warranty and so on given by guys like Dell, IBM, HP are worse than North American centric Apple?
b) backwards compatibility is decent on a mac (not to the extent of linux, but far better than windows).
Windows is famed for backwards compatiblity. Sure, sometimes things don’t work, but it also happens on Mac OS X. But the wonder of Windows XP is that you could run legacy DOS and Windows 9x applications without having to load up or even have DOS and/or Windows 9x.
the combination of applications, simplicity, beauty, and stability is a powerful one, and i’ve said it before
Hmmm, so in other words, Windows too can be an ideal platform, right?
and if you pay top dollar for a P4 1ghz and 12 months later there is a P4 2.2Ghz you feel the need to upgrade even if it’s not based in fact.
Actually, I have a fairly new Pentium III 1.1ghz laptop which was close to being the top end. I got it right before HP started providing Pentium 4-mobile laptops.
. But no, i don’t see why I need by upgrade in the next few years. Sure, PCs get obsolete fast, but useless? No… unless you are a rich geek with an obsession to bragging.
i have a new dell and a 6 month old IBM sitting right here in my office. while a step above generic boxes, the name brand PC’s don’t have much better plastics than the generics, and they are all the same inside.
I don’t have an IBM, but I have an Acer (which suppose to be step lower in quality to IBM anyway), and its parts are branded, if not custom made, and none of the components have ever gave me any problems. But it is useless now, except being a BeOS jukebox (it is old).
1) when you place a cd in the drive, it mounts it and pulls it up on the desktop. (redhat is almost there with default install)
No, but then again, I rarely use the CD drive as most of my music is on the computer and all of my software were downloaded (but not all were free, if you call me a freeloader). Yes, it is a nice feature, but then most Linux users probably won’t need it.
2) when you place a blank cd in the drive, does it format it and let you pull stuff on to it and just use it?
Well, Finder wasn’t the first file manager to include CD burning. But no, I don’t see any file managers with capablities to burn CDs. But then again, the last time I burn a CD was last December, I guess I could live without this too.
5) Do you have an all in 1 app, that can burn mp3s, rip mp3’s from disk, keep tract of them all?
If you like that sort of thing, there is xtunes. Personally, I chosed FreeAmp.
6) do you have quick time or any good video players that don’t constantly crash?
I never saw MPlayer crash, but saw bugs with the menu system, but not a crash.
7) hows your dvd playback going?
This is Congress fault, not Linux’s.
10) How long does it take kde to load a folder when you double click to open it, mine opens in about 1 second.
Less than a second.
11) is your desktop going to be 3d acclerated?
It is. But remember, X11 is a raster graphics server, and Quartz is vector. Quartz would require more hardware acceleration than X11 would ever need.
12) Do you have people work on kde that really care about how it looks?
Did you look at any KDE 3.1 screenshots lately? Or have you been to kde-look.org lately?
14) are you playing warcraft under linux?
If I did like Warcraft, I could play it via Transgaming. But anyway, since I’m a PC user, a simple 30 second reboot would give me so much more games than Mac would ever give.
16) Do you have any decent palm software for linux?
Actually yes, if you bothered to find. For example, KPilot.
17) Do you have a standard desktop on linux yet?
Do you have a livable desktop on Mac OS X yet?
18) what are vendors suposed to write their software for? gtk/qt/x11 should they support gnome, just kde, how bout their own window manager
This is a problem for Linux. But as Free Desktop moves on, more and more standard would come out, and the line between GTK+ and QT would be blurred that the choice of GTK+ and Qt would be of developer’s preferences.
and how is linux doing on that whole, sleep mode? its nice to be able to close the lid on my laptop and not worry about X complely dying.
I tried SuSE on my laptop, sleep mode worked just fine. (I no longer have SuSE installed).
Unfortunately most purchase decisions are based on price and that is why Apple has 2.4% global market share.
And that would continue the sink as long as Apple ignores emerging markets in China, India, S.E. Asia, Latin America and Africa.
the idea that developing for x-box makes porting to pc straightforward.
Actually, Microsoft designed XBox to ease porting games to XBox if they have actual DirectX games. That’s why you notice that it is Windows games that are being ported to XBox, not PS/2 games.
On the other hand, I’ve used Windows since 3.0 days. And I can’t stand the interface, XP’s ClearType is ugly and hurts my eyes (yes, on an LCD panel)
You are probably lying about ClearType or you are using a cheap LCD monitor. For bigger text, ClearType’s output is relatively the same was Mac OS X, but for small text, its output is readable.
Apple got it right with the Cube.
Then they made the half-egg, and stuck a monitor on it.
They may not have got it right with the concept of separating monitor from the base, but from the physics stand point of view, the new dome shade base have much more faster air travel, thus reducing heat.
Apple, or rather Jobs, claim that everyone, except Windows, is adopting it. Ironically, it seems that Apple is the only one adopting it. For example, Real and WMP is snubbing it, a bunch of small time players can’t afford it, content providers might choose Corona over MPEG4 because it requires less bandwidth plus would be used more… Lies lies lies..
– Games? Halo? Where are they? The big ones? Grand Theft Auto 3? So many others. Have you played them yet? Hmm, why not? (and under pathetic VirtualPC doesn’t count. You don’t purchase a modern “Supercomputer” for 2grand+ to play the games at the speed of a PC could play them 4 years ago)
I spend some time trying to find some info on this. Halo isn’t available for PC nor Mac currently (but would be in a few months time for both platforms). And VirtualPC doesn’t support 3D stuff and SoundBlaster sound.
Peer-to-peer file sharing? Where is the Mac version of WinMX? The best file sharing program right now. How about gnutella? Xolox, bearshare, limewire, etc?
As a Java app, LimeWire is available on Mac OS X. Heck, it runs faster on Mac OS X.
I was planning on getting an iBook, but
o I was hoping they’d annouce a G4 version.
o The “no upgrade pricing for 10.2” stunt, has made me very wary of investing in apple products.
o Charging for iTools doesn’t concern me, since I wouldn’t have touched it anyway. However the fact that apple made such a big change (from free to $100) on something they have been making such a song and dance about scares me.
o I’m not sure what the hell apple is up to. iPods for windows? Lots of new iApps, rather than serious hardware upgrades? I was going to buy an iBook because it is quite a good laptop for a fair price, and I’d like to have better access to a MacOS machine. But I’m not convinced that apple is going somewhere I want to follow.
18) what are vendors suposed to write their software for? gtk/qt/x11 should they support gnome, just kde, how bout their own window manager
You think that’s hard?
Should I use Cocoa or Carbon?
C? Pascal? Objective-C? C++? Java?
Do I need to support MacOS 9? Or is everyone using MacOS X?
I see a whole lot of stones flying at your glass house.
reading beyond 40th comment, but here is my observation of Mac-users argumenting generally:
I hear great many things about OSX and I won’t even start arguing it because I haven’t used it. So with all this out-dated-hardware, price, etc.. bashing against the Mac, users are trying to promote the OS as the real strong point here.
And all you contend creating people, I must tell you, that you don’t honestly beleive what you are saying…:
My point is that the VAAAST majority of the so called content-producing Mac-users does not even use OSX – my gf works for a major european Mac reseller as well as hardware in general. They have their own advertising department doing the stuff for many countries and the place is packed with Macs for sure – no-one in there uses OSX because of their beloved Photoshop, etc-issues…
In fact, the majority of the Mac-users hasn’t yet switched to OSX and Apple is surely concerned about it. So everybody who tells in here what not can be done with OSX and how sexy an OS it is, only reveal that they are in fact NOT doing serious work with the Mac, nothing beyond browsing and a like. And as for the productivity discussion: You are arguing for a product here that many craetives are purposely not even using – so what is it exactly, you are trying here..?
After all, there must be reasons why the market share is further declining… Apple has nothing to offer to the pro’s… as stated above, they are making toys – but for a toy it’s kinda expensive…
– How would I run and maintain my Network/Computer consulting business where my clients run Windows PC’s/servers and Linux?
Use vnc or ssh
-Can I remotely connect to them from OSX. Is there software that will run on OSX that will connect to Windows desktops remotely? NO.
Yes, it’s Microsoft Remote Desktop
– what about my Linux Servers? SSH? Is there a nice gui SSH client? No (Besides the Commandline/bsd ssh stuff).
Rbrowser is a great gui ssh client (but shareware)
– what about port scan software?
Try some unix tools, nmap snort …
– Security auditing scanners? Does ISS run on Mac? No. How about eEye stuff? No.
Try nessus
An acquaintance of mine owns a printing business. All their infrastructure runs on OS 9. They’ve got a lot of very specialized software that does not work on OS X.
Nonetheless, he’s experimented with OS X a bit on one of their test machines. And from a publishing point of view, he thinks it’s a good 1-2 years out from being able to replace his OS 9 infrastructure.
You adeptly point out some of the good reasons that only 10% of Apple’s installed base has OS X. Since Apple is including new machines that ship with OS X in this number, the actual number of old machines that have been upgraded to OS X is very very small. Clearly, OS X is not ready for primetime production. And most machines cannot run OS X at reasonable speed without a RAM upgrade. You need 256MB or more for livable speed.
The upshot of it all is that he’s waiting for OS X 10.6. By then, he thinks it will be as functional as OS 9, fleshed out, tested, debugged, and ready for primetime.
I think Apple is doing a great job with their 1000 developers to evolve OS X. However, it does seem they are focusing on entertainment/toys (iPods, rip/mix/burn, iTunes, other consumer stuff, etc) more than getting OS X ready for professional production workflows. Perhaps 10.3 will switch the focus to more practical matters.
#m
1) when you place a cd in the drive, it mounts it and pulls it up on the desktop. (redhat is almost there with default install)
As you said, Red Hat does that. At least 7.1 that I still use, does that. At least with CDROMs and zip drives (that’s what I use).
2) when you place a blank cd in the drive, does it format it and let you pull stuff on to it and just use it?
No. However, this was one of things, that I hated in Windows (winoncd did that). This may be subjective, because I always master images, _test_ them and then burn them.
3) when you eject your cd, does it close it for you?
No, but my mac (ibook) doesn’t do that eiher.
4) when you click on a ISO on your desktop, does it mount the iso, and let you browse it?
No, I don’t have ISOs on desktop :-). But yes, there is room for improvement, Disk Copy clone would be useful.
5) Do you have an all in 1 app, that can burn mp3s, rip mp3’s from disk, keep tract of them all?
With KDE, you can rip just by browsing the audio CD with konqueror and dragging oggs or mp3s onto your desktop. You can’t do this with Finder. And when is iTunes going to support ogg format?
6) do you have quick time or any good video players that don’t constantly crash?
Quicktime is good video player? Since when? It can’t even play AVI files correctly. But yes, xine or player are fine, they play more formats that Quicktime.
7) hows your dvd playback going?
Fine, because I don’t live in US. I can choose from multiple DVD players, be it xine, mplayer, ogle or videolan. As a bonus, they all ignore region codes too. How about yours? If you don’t like Apple DVD Player, you are screved. Heck, I can’t even set my native language to be default for subtitles in Apple DVD Player (it is not in the list offered).
8) Hows working with microsoft word documents going?
Thank you for asking, much better than with Mac. OfficeX works fine, if the documents contains ascii chars only. If it contains any unicode characters, you must constanly change fonts. Using OfficeX is excercise in frustration. OpenOffice does much better job on Linux.
9) can you edit flash?
No, but I also kicked the flash plugin out of browser. You wouldn’t believe, how much annoying banners it killed. Btw, Flash runs in Classic. How do you like running emulator for editing flash?
10) How long does it take kde to load a folder when you double click to open it, mine opens in about 1 second.
Mine too, Nautilus in Gnome2 is speedier than Finder. It also does nice thumbails for pictures, and you can browse digital camera directly, without needing some “digital hub application” (read iPhoto). Or rapidly navigating your disk using tree view. Finder is lacking lot of functionality, that Nautilus, konqueror (or even Windows Explorer!) have.
11) is your desktop going to be 3d acclerated?
My current desktop is accelerated nicely, 2D is done completely in hardware (3D too). That cannot be said of OSX applications (for those who don’t know, 2D hardware acceleration is not accessible for Cocoa or Carbon application at all. Check Apple’s developer docs, if you don’t believe me).
12) Do you have people work on kde that really care about how it looks?.
Yes. There are people paid for creating nice and USABLE look for both Gnome and KDE.
http://tigert.gimp.org
http://jimmac.musichall.cz
http://everaldo.com
Of course, with KDE or Gnome you can choose from more styles that “Aqua Blue” or “Aqua Graphite”.
13) When you walk in to a wireless network, does your card just work? even if there is a wep key?
Yes, it works. Yes, there is wep key (40, 64, 128 bit). Yes, card’s manufacturers specifically mention linux support. Nowadays manufacturing most network gear without linux support is suicide. Btw, do you have CIPE or IPsec like me? How is your VPN doing?
14) are you playing warcraft under linux?
No, but I don’t play games anyway. I know of better ways of wasting time, like going out with friends and stuff.
Btw, the teenager in our household uses force-feedback wheel to play race games. How does something like this work with Mac? Does it work at all? Yes, it works under Linux. Yes, there are no race games like NFS or GP2002 for linux, but they are not there for Mac either.
15) how does your usb palm pilot work? got that bleeding edge kernel driver in there yet?
Don’t know about palm, but my GPRS cellphone works nice. It does stuff like iSync for months now.
16) Do you have any decent palm software for linux?
Yes, see other posters. As far as I remember, even Gnome 1 included palm and handspring support.
17) Do you have a standard desktop on linux yet?
Why are you obsessed with standard desktop? It’s user preference, what desktop to use.
18) what are vendors suposed to write their software for? gtk/qt/x11 should they support gnome, just kde, how bout their own window manager
Does it matter? KDE apps work with Gnome. Gnome apps work with KDE. Window managers are API compatible. It does not matter what window manager you use, your app will work anyway (even without any window manager).
BTW., how about your window shade? It worked in OS9, but does not work is OSX.
19) Do you guys have any clue what your talking about?
It may be surprise for you, but yes. Believe or not, there are people familiar with mac, pc and other machines (in my case alpha and sparc). Macs can be pain to use. They are slow and expensite. What’s worse, the fastest macs are getting worse than low-end pcs. And the gap is widening. Do you have idea, what kind of PC you can have for price of PowerMac G4?
Also, OSX is slow. I tried linux on the machine normally running OSX and was surprised, how much faster it ran. The same program running under OSX and Linux was much faster in Linux on the same machine!
iTunes taking 20% of CPU time? This is not “concern for geeks”, but for everyone who works on the machine and listens to music in background.
Web browsers on Mac are pathetic. MSIE? Tried any website with nested tables? How do you like spinning wheel of death? Omniweb? If you don’t want to see any CSS or the site doesn’t use any javascript. Mozilla? It is much slower that Mozilla for Linux or Windows, but it’s the only usable browser for now.
20) HAVE YOU EVER EVEN USED A MAC???
YES, I OWN ONE. DURING YEAR, IT WAS TWICE IN REPAIR (SEARCH GOOGLE FOR IBOOK POWER ADAPTOR COMPLAINTS). I ALSO WILL UPGRADE TO JAGUAR FOR $129 AND SUBSCRIBE ITOOLS FOR $100 – AFTER NICE SKYING EXPEDITION TO HELL.
Other poster has wrote:
Unfortunately most purchase decisions are based on price and that is why Apple has 2.4% global market share.
Actually, Apple’s global market share sucks due to their marketing. Do you think it was easy to get 10.1 in Europe? Think again. Why should I just jump through loops, when I can get BETTER SUPPORTED LINUX OR WINDOWS SYSTEM there. Both Linux and Windows come localized. Mac does not. Do you think that Joe Ordinary is going to learn English just to buy computer that is three times more expensive than his Carrefour PC? (Carrefour is chain store similar to wallmart). Yeah, right.
But isnt the OS all about the user experiance?
A visually responsive OS, that is a unix, does not use X, and has seamingly the least amount of annoying quirks of the 3 OSes Ive used.
I am a cheap person, I dont like spending alot of money, but Macs seem a better value then PCs in many ways. Their laptops are top notch and have more battery life then PC coounterparts.
One button mice I cannt stand, I think its a mistake and dislike that they wont admit it. And I will get sick of the aqua theme of OSX, but thats changeable without hurting system stability.
With only a few hours on OSX alot of things make more sense to me. You dont need to fiddle around throughout multiple windows in the control panel directory or network connections directory to connect to the net. Drivers will never be an issue using propietary hardware. Overall I liked the look and feel of OSX more.
I’ve just read about half of the flame going on here, and i have to say: what a mess! So I’m gonna put my opinion in there
Macs are expensive devices not intended for public use. What ?? Not intended for public use ??? Yes, I maintain that statement. Apple is a niche company: it survives by offering something different (remember the ads ?), nicer, elitist…
People who buy Mac are proud of their little piece of hardware: “look how cute it is!”. I know one… he’s got a Cube (he paid it… something like 3500euros when it was released, a month later price was down to 3000euros). And he’s just a perfect example of who are mac lovers: happy yuppies, lot of money to spend, they want the nicest, elitist, unknown…
What criticiers of Apple say is basically that: “Apple doesnt want us as customers!”. Yes, you’re right. They dont want to sell to unfaithfull customers who seek for price/reliability/speed combination. They have to keep up with competition cause they cant sell otherwise, but they’re still wayyy behind x86 performance. Yes, that’s true, 800mhz/100mhz bus and gf4mx doesnt make it against mid-end PCs, even low-end PCs ranging from 1ghz to 1.5ghz!!!
True, if Apple really wanted people to “switch”, they’d rather change a bit their way to do things and sell stuff. They’d have to raise the value of their computers. They’d have to fund a team to help porting games to OSX (using OpenGL) to have as many games as they could.They should a lil’bit lower the prices maybe for actual hardware they sell and which is not up to the x86 world…
The overall strategy of Apple is unclear at this time to me. The switch campaign is maybe just a way to piss off Microsoft and wave the finger at Bill Gates, because they dont follow the good path actually.
I had an epiphany. Someone said osX was not yet ready for primetime, and another said photoshop was still being used on os9. Lets think about this for a while. What do you think is a reasonable amount of time for a new OS with no backward compatability to takeover it’s installed userbase? Now factor in that Macs did not upgrade quickly and were a longer term investment.
Now my thinking Jobs is a bit annoyed about the slow speed of the G5 being finished. Wouldnt he want to make upgrading to a new system attractive to his current userbase? Wouldn’t that allow OSX to be dominant and there not have to be os9 dual boots? OSX does not have much beyond a little bit more stability and some nice apps from apple, its os9 userbase doesnt need that yet. Itll take another year for OSX to really take over.
Hes having problems making his current userbase want new Macs, or OSX. If he could bring out better hardware more quickly newcomers to the mac from PC would be more willing to shell out the cash. And without a larger established userbase with osx less apps will come out from 3rd party companies for it. Jobs is probably just getting screwed on the timing and the G5 will come out eventually, and hopefully when it does it will spank the p4.
… you have lost a reader because you do not moderate your so called news. If you do not stop rajan from overtaking all the threads only to Mac bash, and Alexd that travels the IP world and does not know where it is, or the famous Michael (speed) the dumb@ss to no end. Obviously none of you have trulthfully worked on a system with Mac OS X or any of its unix apps.
The article above is about a company that is thriving in the current economy and innovating with cutting edge technology.
You people are just wankers setting in a cold dark room.
I’m a long time Windows/Linux & FreeBSD user, but I got tired of using the same old stuff so I bought an iBook – best decision I ever made. I now use Windows (2k & XP, although I prefer 2k), Linux (Red Hat & Debian), FreeBSD and OS X. I like the fact that I’m platform agnostic and can do whatever I need on whatever system is best suited for the task. As a friend once said to me “I’ll fly anything with a keyboard…” I’ll drink to that – if it’s a computer then I’m happy to use it, regardless of the shortcomings (and/or advantages) that ALL systems suffer from.
PS I haven’t got a lot of cash so all my buying decisions are carefully thought out. Buying the iBook took 3 months of decision-making and a hell of a lot more time saving…
A common tactic of the mac defender seems to be the imagined ad-hominem attack. For instance:
“Obviously none of you have truthfully worked on a system with Mac OS X or any of its unix apps.”
And:
“You people are just wankers setting (sic) in a cold dark room.”
Instead of refuting arguments, the mac defender attacks the person making the comments or his experiences. Except since this is the internet, no one knows the circumstances of the other posters, so they have to rely on imagining that the posters they don’t agree with are stupid or dishonest. This form of argument is truly pathetic.
“You can’t use OS X for real work ’cause there aren’t any applications ported to it!” Bzzt, sorry, thanks for playing.
Photoshop 7, Illustrator 10, GoLive 6, InDesign 2, Flash MX, Dreamweaver MX, Fireworks MX, Freehand 10, CorelDRAW, Corel Photo-Paint, Painter 7, Bryce 5… all native. All available now. By the end of the year, I doubt there will be any major program that requires OS 9 with the exception of Quark Xpress. And given Quark’s legendarily hostile customer service and glacial speed in delivering bug fixes and new features, I expect an increasing number of prepress shops will start looking seriously at moving to OS X and InDesign rather than staying back for the sake of Quark’s pocketbook.
This whole argument is largely a red herring. It was an issue due to major ISVs integrating Carbon ports into their normal product cycles rather than spending the money on porting existing products to it. Users may (and obviously do) whine, but there was no business justification for Adobe to port PhotoShop 6 to OS X while concurrently working on the (Carbonized) PhotoShop 7. And in the long run, it’s cheaper for users this way: they were going to be upgrading their software anyway.
The issues OS X must address to get these people to move off OS 9 don’t have to do with application compatibility anymore; they have to do with convincing those users that the advantages of OS X outweigh their disadvantages. For me that choice was clear at 10.1–while OS 9 is measurably faster on my PowerBook, I’m willing to take that hit in exchange for stability, good multitasking, real memory management, the Unix shell environment, Quartz and Cocoa services. As the speed gap closes (and it sounds like one of 10.2’s improvements is to take a cue from BeOS and make the UI multithreaded, which greatly improves the perception of speed) and the “cost” of adoption narrows, more older users will come on board.
Hey Liberte, Im not a Yuppie, so don’t ever say Macs are for Yuppies, EVER. I hate yuppies, I like Macs.
I’m in rant mode, and figured this is a best a place as any to do it. As many of you know, I’m a Mac-head, so anyone getting ready to call me some kind of Mac-phobic Linux-head or Windows-geek, can just cool their jets right now.
This entire Macworld experience has been nothing but a slap in the face, for many reasons. Overall my satisfaction with Apple is at a post OS X PB low. I would say all time low, but I really thought they were on the verge of going out of business back in the BeOS vs. NeXT purchase days, which is *really* low. Here is my take on Macworld and Apple, and why I’m literally furious with them right now:
1. Elitist attitude and draconian pressure tactics to force IDG to deny solely online publications press passes. I understand denying rumor sites press passes, but it was basically a blanket policy applied to web-centric and web-only publications in general. I formally cancelled all of my IDG subscriptions and sent scathing letters to the PR department contacts at Apple. I hope no one is surprised that I haven’t heard anything back from apple yet.
2. The PowerMac tower models have been allowed to fall whoefully behind PC’s. MHz myth or no MHz myth, the bottom line is that Apple has not kept pace with the growth rate of the PC’s. What that means is that Apple is now way behind the 8-ball. Furthermore those machines are obscenely priced. The current high-end iMac’s are the only machines by Apple worth their money right now, and even they are now two generations behind in memory architectures (100MHz system bus–please) at their price-range PC equivalent. I blame Motorola for dropping the ball. I blame Apple for not taking care of this issue two years ago, when it was apparent to everyone else that Motorola was a sinking ship.
3. iTools and mac.com e-mail now for just $100 a year. That ranks up there on the “pay for Hotmail now that we’ve got you hooked” BS that MS tried to pull. However, not even Microsoft was myopic enough not to offer a free version of the service, at a reduced capabality set. I just started using iDisk literally two weeks ago, and unless they increase the speed there is no way it is worth $100 a year. And of course iSync, iCal and whatever else really only shines when using .Mac (the new iTools). So these “free” applications really cost $100 a year to be used to their fullest. WTF?
4. And now for the final slap in the face, and what has me furious. MacOS X 10.2, the greatest OS Apple ever produced, but just a bug fixed 10.1.5 with a bunch of new “free” applications, will not be offered in an upgrade form. Not even the evil empire Microsoft itself pulls this. I think $129 for OS X is a fair price if I haven’t bought OS X PB, OS X 10.0 and OS X 10.1. I can’t get OS X 10.2 for $89 as an upgrade option, I have to buy the whole thing. How does Apple justify this? If I’m not mistaken, even the major UNIX server vendors offer upgrade prices on their OS’s.
All this proves one point that many of us know, Apple is a corporate clone of Microsoft. Microsoft is not some unique anomaly in the corporate world, they are the status quo. Switch the tables and give Apple an 80% market share, and they would be under investigation by the Justice Department, and rightfully so.
I think this can all be attributed to the execs at Apple buying their own PR. Big, big mistake. From my perspective, they better get their heads out of the asses. I can’t be happier with my Cube running 10.1.5. However, Apple as a company is loosing my support quickly. If things don’t change over there soon, my Cube will be my last Apple purchase. I’m just glad I can use my iPod with Windows now.
Thanks for the rant space…
I used the word “yuppie” and I dont know if it means quite the same in the US and where I live (France).
To me a yuppie would be: young, pretty wealthy (revenues largely above medium), been to a good school (graduated a MBA or CS school), usually lives alone or with his wife, her too sharing the same characteristics. That’s a huge share of people buying Apple stuff. There are of course the designers/etc people, but many of them I know work primarly under a Win32 environnement because, I quote, “Macs are dog slow”.
There are also some geeks, just like me, who likes cute and nice stuff and sometimes dont care about the price. Ho, well, maybe i’m a yuppie too. Or i’ll be one if i ever find a @!X#! job
You’ll be naming applications for the rest of the day…
🙂
There are a bunch of new audio applications available for Mac OS X I am keeping my eye on since that is my hobby, but I like doing graphics as well!
I will be getting my tax return soon and will be spending it on a new and shiny Mac (possibly including a new iPod and such… too bad Apple won’t come out with their own PDA)!
what really keeps me getting an ibook is the missing infrared port. I can’t believe they sacrified this 1 euro piece of hardware. i really like the new ipod and might get one sooner or later.
my 0.02 (euro) cents
florian lutz
Anyone who follows Apple’s moves can see Hank you are right. I am a mac nut and a gamer. I have bought MAC games for years hopeing that ports will come. Now that they are you cannot buy a MAC that can run the games at a decent frame rate. i built a PC for $800 that is with a Athlon 1800 and a new 333 k7 board. Damn fast.
What has Apple done. stuck us with SDRAM and MX video cards. The 2 biggest boosts Apple can give performance in they still leave in the dark ages. No Apple person can explain that.
There is no excuse that a Xserve & PowerBook has DDR and no other line. What they want to loose people again.
Apple needs to slim the product lines down again and kick MOTOROLA in the REAR and get some DDR or RAMBUS going.
Ya I am mad and I will not buy a MAC with SDRAM PERIOD.
I will be writing an article about the sliding of Apple
http://www.maccomputers.com
BTW that site is run on my Apple 7100/66 my first PPC
Apple needs to hear from their customers. Loud and clear.
More ranting and more emotional communication is what Apple needs to hear. What they don’t need to hear is more rationalizations about all the great decisions Apple makes. Don’t play that game. If you care, let Apple know what you think. Don’t buy into being a silent victim.
This latest Macworld has set the Mac universe on fire, that’s for sure.
It is only a company without a clue and without a conscience that introduces something like the “new” iMac:
For your $2000 computer, you get:
An 800mhz CPU, approximately 1000mhz or more behind the PC.
Three year old PC100 laptop memory? Ouch.
The slowest Nvidia graphics currently in production?
To pay $100/year for non-guaranteed internet software?
To pay $129/year or so for new versions of the OS (no upgrades!)?
What you don’t get:
An AGP slot.
Any PCI slots.
USB2.
A decent sound chip with digital out.
A DVI or ADC port.
Support for a second display which is supported by Nvidia chipsets.
Apple must really laugh when they designed the iMac with that old slow laptop memory. And they must laugh themselves to tears when people actually buy them. I can’t imagine a PC user scouring through Ebay to find some old dilapidated machine that runs PC100 memory.
It’s only concerted action by Apple customers and potential customers that can get Apple to adjust their ways. I hope it happens as I don’t want to see OS X relegated to the position of some niche OS that never really has much of an impact except as externally funded Microsoft R&D.
#m
1. I put my thoughts and opinions on the line, whatever they are. My views on Mac hardware are clearly not popular with Mac owners who have spent top dollar on their Mac hardware.
There’s clearly a difference between saying “Apple’s computers are too slow and expensive” and (to paraphrase) “Apple continues to regularly fuck its idiot customers over because its CEO is a power-hungry money grubber and its customers are too blinded by allegiance to see that they’re getting screwed.” Isn’t there?
2. I use my real email address rather than something clearly false, ‘[email protected]’. It’s easy to put some invective crap up on the web when you haven’t even invested in a real return address.
This is a web forum, not a mailing list. I post, you post, and that’s all there is to it. As if I need any more spam.
3. You said, “I am a big believer that personal attacks make arguments like this much more fun. Feel free to reciprocate.”
I want to be clear that I am completely unavailable for any sort of personal war with you or other Mac owners. That includes sending me obnoxious email which I have received from several uncivil Mac owners.
Firstly, that was a joke – hardly a war proposal. What’s wrong with two people calling each other poopy-heads and jabbing at each other? I think it’s rather amusing. I don’t condone the sending of obnoxious email, and as I said, I stick to the web.
4. Please read what I say more carefully to avoid misconstruing my personal opinions. I said the following:
“In a nutshell, there is no Mac computer that I consider a good value for my money.”
I used the words ‘I’ and ‘my’ to distinguish what my feelings are. I am not trying to come up with some great ‘answer’ or ‘truth for everyone’. Each person has his or her own path.
My mistake, I will read your comments more carefully from now on.
As I’ve said since the beginning, I want more performance for my dollar. I want to have a machine that is more than just a fancy brand label. I don’t shop at the GAP.
The fact that you find the only redeeming quality of an Apple to be its fancy brand label is fine. What I don’t feel is fine is that you slag off everyone who finds more than that to like in an Apple as some sort of yuppie idiot content with spending “too much” money for “not enough” (solely by your price/performance metric) machine. Whatever kind of computers you have, whatever operating systems you run, whatever you do with your computers, is all fine by me. I respect all of that. Why can’t you respect others’ purchasing decisions? You mock them, you essentially say that they’re gullible suckers getting screwed by a sly marketing machine. That’s wrong.
6. As Thomas Jefferson believed, so do I believe in Freedom of Conscience:
Tthe right to hold one’s own views, and to think and to decide for oneself on any question, is an essential right for a free people. A person is free to believe anything he wishes, even if in error, and may not be persecuted nor denied the right to hold public office for those beliefs. The First Amendment protections for freedom of religion, of speech, of the press and of assembly, all together protect the Freedom of Conscience.
So when it comes to expressing myself, I do so. And I encourage others to do so as well.
Yes, absolutely. I encourage you to read more closely the part about persecuting others for their beliefs.
I’ll leave the question open again. Do Mac users/owners care about making the hardware more affordable and a better value? If so, what ideas do they have?
You’re again misunderstanding the word “value” in this context. I would imagine many Mac users would love more affordable Macs. But they probably already find Macs a good value – otherwise they wouldn’t be Mac owners/users.
We may indeed have very different views on ‘value’. When a person factors in what they get done on a machine, what jobs it is for, etc., value becomes very subjective.
What matters to me is the elements that can be generalized — i.e. the machine, the os, other fees that apply to all users.
I am not sure if many of my Mac friends consider their computers to be good values. They all certainly like their Macs. But they also consider the computer to be outrageously expensive.
#m
We may indeed have very different views on ‘value’. When a person factors in what they get done on a machine, what jobs it is for, etc., value becomes very subjective.
What matters to me is the elements that can be generalized — i.e. the machine, the os, other fees that apply to all users.
I am not sure if many of my Mac friends consider their computers to be good values. They all certainly like their Macs. But they also consider the computer to be outrageously expensive.
Yes, I agree with this – the computer is expensive, but the value is still there, and still strong, at least to me. I won’t try to articulate the reasons why I think the Mac can be a good value, because as I learned the hard way another time, I think there is an 8K character limit on OSNews posts.
This all is not to say that I’m not extremely disappointed that the Mac is falling behind performance-wise. This latest MacWorld was a disgrace. I think Apple made and is making a lot of stupid moves, and I agree that it seems like they’re not listening to their customers’ concerns the way they should be. I want them to get their you-know-what together and build faster machines that sell for less money. Unfortunately, it seems like lately, they’re content with exploiting Mac users’ loyalty by selling expensive, slow computers, not offering an upgrade OS price, replacing free iTools with some expensive and ridiculously named equivalent, etc., and thinking they can get away with it by blaming it on a crappy economy.
But with all that said, I really do like the Mac, and I don’t think that buying one is necessarily a dumb thing to do. In fact, depending on what one is looking for in a “computing experience” (to use that awful term), they can be great. I know I probably sound like a Mac user who is trying to justify in any way he can his purchase of an expensive proprietary computer that is not keeping up with the other side of the fence etc., and I may well be one, but I do try to be as objective as possible, and I would probably be using a $1499 dual 2GHz PPC G5 laptop running BeOS R7 right now if the gods had smiled upon the course of events that would have brought such a thing into existence… I have no love (or hatred) of Apple, but I do have a love for the not-immediately-apparent-on-a-spec-sheet perks that Macs and OS X offer, and which I haven’t been able to find anywhere else… I guess that about sums it up.
Dream on — a $1499 dual 2GHz PPC G5 laptop running BeOS R7. It doesn’t matter whether Apple bought NeXT or Be — they would still face the production problem of PPC chips. It also doesn’t help that 75% of all PPC chips sold by Motorola/IBM goes into embedded systems like set-top boxes, nintendos, and distributed routers.
I would probably be using a $1499 dual 2GHz PPC G5 laptop running BeOS R7 right now if the gods had smiled upon the course of events that would have brought such a thing into existence… I will indeed dream on…
Our problem, which would be serious, I say, serious, is what corner of our desk to put our 20GHZ PPC power cluster stack of five notebooks 😉 I don’t think they have a Feng Shui rule for desktop power clusters 😉
#m
10.2 should have been a free upgrade, not a $129.00 one. I don’t say that because I don’t want to pay the money for the upgrade, (which I don’t, but that isn’t the point) I say that because the last thing that Apple needs right now is for more Apple users to have a reason to stay using OS 9. Apple NEEDS people to upgrade to X, there entire business depends on it. Some have said that Apple is a company, being a company, they have responsibilities to their shareholders, and cannot give away this upgrade; I don’t think that is true at all, I think that giving away 10.2 for free can only broaden there OSX market share and will promote the purchace of new machines bringing in yet more revenue. If more upgrade to OS X from 9, then more companies will be able to sell OS X upgrades, like Office.X and Photoshop and Reason, which is good for the platform.
No new hardware upgrades. MWSF was said to be disappointing because they did not release any new powermac upgrades. So, MWNY must be doubly so. Apple is not innovating at all on the hardware side. Many have said it before, they are still selling yesterdays computers for today’s prices. The only upgrade that is of mention is the new 17″ imac for $1999. They put a bigger screen and increased the costs on a machine that is not selling well and they call that innovation? That is the big thing to announce? I feel sorry for everyone who wasted an hour of there lives at that keynote speech.
Any thirdly, how does Apple make up for this lack of new hardware and rediculously prices system upgrades? They take away free iTools, give it a rediculous name and then overcharge for it! This is rediculous. I am not a stock trader, but, I suggest that if you have any AAPL, sell right now.
Skipp