There are certain perennial debates amongst the technical community, constantly revisited with differing outcomes for each person. Linux vs. Windows, KDE vs. Gnome, Mac vs. PC – they are unwinnable arguments, and although the outcome varies overtime with each successive release or new piece of hardware, they consistently gain our attention. When presented with the opportunity to borrow a Macintosh for a little over a month, I jumped at the chance to resolve one of these debates for myself. The question was: Can the Mac replace my PC?
The specs: Apple didn’t skimp on the unit they sent me: it was PowerMac G4 with dual 1.25 Ghz processors, a 120 GB IDE hard drive, 512 MB DDR SDRAM, a “superdrive,” which can record DVDs, a 64 MB video card, gigabit Ethernet, a 17″ flat panel studio display, and a fresh copy of Jaguar, Mac OS X 10.2. Total value, according to Apple’s website as of today: $4298.00.
The Challenge: Can the Macintosh, with no training, technical books, or prior knowledge, replace my PC running Windows 2000 and Red Hat’s Psyche?
The Background: I am not a standard PC user. I’m a network engineer, proficient in Windows, NetWare, BeOS, and Linux. I have set up complete domains from scratch, I understand networking and the components in a computer. I am a power user, and that makes me different from much of the audience targeted by Apple’s Switch campaign.
Fair warning: This is a fairly long, honest review in an untraditional sense. I didn’t write it in one sitting, it was written over the course of a few weeks and it includes lots of information is a disorganized but linked fashion.
My G4 arrived via FedEx in a beautiful box which pictures the contents in full color. Everything was packed perfectly. Setting up the Mac is easy, there’s a monitor that connects via a standard cable, a keyboard that connects via USB, and a mouse that connects to the keyboard. Booting the PC proved the first challenge – it gave me a classy white screen picturing the Apple logo, but it wouldn’t boot. I decided that this loaner was likely unused and therefore unformatted, so I set about installing Jaguar from disc. When I couldn’t get Jaguar to install, I decided to install OS X and upgrade to Jaguar. That didn’t work either, neither install could find a volume to install to. I decided I had to open the case. Painfully scared of voiding the warranty, I found the culprit – the IDE cable had disconnected from the hard drive, probably during shipping. This was the first point against Apple. Because the challenge was from a power user perspective, it was forgivable, but I still marked it in my head.
On reconnect, I successfully booted into Mac OS x 10.2. I was prompted to set up a user, password, and some preferences and then I was let loose in MacOS-land. The interface is not unlike any standard interface, more like KDE than anything else in that the “kicker” resizes itself to fit the icons. The desktop is clean, a la Windows XP default; everything seems to be ready to go.
The dynamic animation present in the OS at each step is immediately noticeable, the system updates icon began “dancing” to notify me that there were updates available for download. The update function works like Windows Update and Red Hat Network, it simply goes out and installs the updates with your approval.
MacOS runs smoothly. That’s what I noticed first off. There’s very little waiting, very little fussing, very little Ctrl+Alt+Del/End Task for behavior control. But from moment one, I had a some problems with the Mac, most notably – the mouse. The mouse has no buttons – rather, the entire body depresses to function as a single button mouse. The world has accepted the multi-button mouse, either two or three buttons, and scroll wheels are pretty much standard fare. Why Apple insists that single button is acceptable for their elite machines is beyond me, but
it immediately annoyed me.
My PC is an AMD Athlon 1700+ that runs at 1540-something Mhz. I have 512 MB DDR RAM. It’s got a 32 MB GeForce 2 GTS video card. In following, I’d expect the G4, running dual 1.25 Ghz RISC processors and a video card with twice the onboard memory to be noticeably faster. This was not the case though. My immediate feeling was that, loaded with expensive hardware, the Mac performs about as well as my PC. With all the complaining about Microsoft puffing their system requirements to bolster their relationships with hardware vendors anxious to sell more modern hardware, OS X seems to truly use every bit of what it’s given. Let down by the lack of supersonic speed, it certainly didn’t feel slow, but I have to acknowledge that this Mac is more powerful than most, and certainly more than I’d ever buy for myself. Certainly, it’s fair to assume that I might notice a slowdown on a more affordable machine.
Launching System Preferences, I immediately found that configuring the system was a breeze. The Mac jumped right online, and making the desktop look like I wanted was more than intuitive. Setting up MacMail was also a breeze. Since my webmail account is POP3 enabled, I hopped on and pulled down my mail without a hitch. MacMail is actually a nice program – not so much better than the equivalents in other worlds (Outlook Express, Mozilla Mail, Evolution, KMail), but certainly an attractive and matching app.
iChat, which is an AIM tool, is clearly one of the cooler Mac apps. Taking AIM to another level, it mimics conversation bubbles. Sherlock, the so-called “service provider that happens to use your browser,” is Apple’s answer to Ask Jeeves times 10 – ask Sherlock anything, and he can supposedly do it. I won’t get into making DVDs or using iPhoto or many of the other benefits of OS X, because there are scores of applications and features for which one should commend Apple’s product. But this review is not of the awesome superpower applications that come with OS X, it’s about the whole product.
What’s much more impressive than the apps bundled with MacOS is the installation of new software. No Installshield or Red Carpet or Red Hat Network to fool with. Simply download the file, decompress it, drop the directory in your Applications folder (or any folder, really), and BANG!, you’re ready to go. After downloading Fire, an e-mail chat program that can connect to MSN and Yahoo as well as AIM, I found it took me just seconds to get the application to run. In the day and age where disc space is so cheap, I think it’s smart to just have all necessary files in the same directory with the application. Should make programming and installing easy. Do most users care if they have a duplicate library, dll, or config file, at probably 4k, or even 4MB, installed? Probably not. This is the best and simplest application installation possible for a power user. While app installers like IRIS and Click-N-Run are probably the least work, I had complete control with Mac installation – I wasn’t confined to any defaults or preprogrammed file structures. In my book, this method, also used frequently by the BeOS, my favorite. It’s a real plus for OS X that software installation and management is so easy. Deleting most apps is as simple as deleting the folder it’s in.
Finding applications to install for Jaguar is not hard. Apple offers downloads on their own site, there are websites, most notably, macosxapps.com, a FreshMeat-like Mac counterpart. It’s generally pretty easy to find “Stuff-It archives,” which OS X can decompress a la Windows XP’s zip handling capabilities. I was glad to see OS X also handle zip and tag.gz files (it failed to decompress my .rar files.) A simple Google search will show you that many sites offer downloads of Mac apps. The UNIX-based core and inclusion of GCC make it possible to download source code and compile applications locally. Most apps, however, are easily installable via drag and drop to the folder of your choice within your file structure.
Speaking of file structures, the Mac is UNIX-based. Based on a (now dated) incarnation of FreeBSD, your Mac is super-stable. In fact, I experienced exactly ONE error the entire time I was in possession of the Mac. But what’s most clever about OS X is how it hides its UNIX underpinnings from you. In fact, if you didn’t know you were running on UNIX, what you’d see is a list of directories that look like logical divisions – like Applications. Masking the directory structure is a great thing for users. And for power users, like myself, it took virtually no effort to find a way to browse the actual directory hierarchy.
Let’s talk about “power users.” They’re not developers, at least in the traditional sense. I write a lot of PHP, but I’m not compiling anything for the most part, and I don’t need an IDE like Visual Studio or anything – any old “text editor” will suffice. They’re people who want to understand what the OS is doing without getting into the internals. They want to know how to troubleshoot to the detail when something is wrong, but not write their own patches to the OS. They’re people who are very loud about what they want from their computer, but usually can’t do too much to actually make that happen.
OS X has helped me understand a lot about what I actually want from an OS, and I think that I represent a good portion of people – said “power users.” I know that I want a polished UI that makes choices obvious. I know I want the advanced options generally out of sight but not buried. I want an easy way to launch applications and an easy way to kill them if they hang or eat up my memory. Jaguar does most of these things well. But most importantly – and this is the key to everything for me – I want the OS to be instantly responsive.
“Instantly responsive” might sound fine and dandy in description, but it’s much harder to actually deliver. To me, “instantly responsive” means that the OS responds to me without delay, without second guessing me, and without thought. I’ve griped before about the mouse in Linux; a premiere Linux authority tells me that the nature of the X Window system and lack of multi-threading prevent the mouse from feeling responsive. Linux based OS’s tend to feel a step behind. Windows does a greater job with the mouse but demands a lot of RAM to maintain responsiveness. And if an application crashes, even with all the advances of late, it still can swallow up the half gigabyte of RAM it’s been given.
OS X’s biggest problem is that it’s slow. And if you take nothing else away from this review, it should be that. OS X is slow. Even with incredible hardware, as I said, it just about compares to the speed of Windows. Even Linux, installed with all the bloat – Gnome, KDE, etc. – when running on the same hardware, is about as fast. The dual processors made a lot of the complaints I’ve read virtually transparent, such as Window-resizing delays, but nonetheless, the whole environment feels like it’s playing catch up to my will, and to me, this is killer.
Mac computers are gorgeous – no doubt. Since they retain the hardware specs, and therefore, a lock on the hardware on which Jaguar will run, they’ve done a great job at making said hardware sleek, modern, and fancy. They’ve done a lot of work to make the computer look like a futuristic device. Gone are the kernel messages and the terminal like prompts as the computer boots. It’s been replaced by a sharp stark white screen with a classy blue apple in the middle. The Mac knows what to do because there are so few options. Apple has designed the system from the ground up, so there is very little chance that anything unplanned occurs.
That’s all fine and good, but let’s just get to the meat of it, shall we? What makes Mac users so fanatic? What makes them appear to be an exclusive cult? Is it such a life-changing experience that people feel compelled to doodle apples on their notebooks and put decals on their car? Mac users are a community, and for that, you must acknowledge a certain satisfaction being in the Mac crowd. This community is not like the Linux community, which in my experience, is tiered, judgmental, and, I’ll even say i: elitist. The Mac community welcomes “newbies,” not shuns them and makes them feel stupid, unvalued, and generally unloved. I thought for sure that after a month with a Mac – a top of the line model, at that – that I would either be a die-hard Mac fan, saving for a Mac, or at a minimum, won over by OS X. I thought I’d be knee deep in a society of PC users who love and respect their hardware, software, and fellow users, and feel loyalty to a company that has done well by them.
But I’m none of the these. And although some will claim otherwise, it’s not because Windows has spoiled me or defined my expectations.
Apple has gone to great lengths to research user behavior and and user interface. Their much discussed Aqua interface is clearly attractive, although I find its behavior, after weeks of use, more show than action. While it’s very professional and sleek looking, at times, it feels like what it actually, like many Linux applications – a GUI front end to a much more powerful system underneath. With Jaguar, Apple has introduced the Quartz Extreme graphics engine which claims to render graphics at breakneck speeds. Although apparently successful, the OS is general is graphics heavy. While more attractive than Luna, for example, the transparency and animations are definite eye candy, and it’s RAM that, frankly, I could spare for more complex operations. In my opinion, while Jaguar looks like the most modern OS on the market, it also feels effortful at times. Even after weeks of use, the Mac environment felt alien to me. Not that it’s so obscure, just that it feels less natural to use a panel that doesn’t have an expanding “Start-menu-like” drawer. I feel more “at home” in Gnome and KDE.
Some of the tricks OS performs will impress many. For instance, when you use the yellow “minimize” button equivalent, the application will jump down to the application panel and reside in a thumbnail view. While “cool,” it’s annoying after awhile. Soon, these “features” begin to look more like tricks with tradeoff. In fact, when I became aware that the Mac wasn’t winning me over, I became almost jaded. I wanted so much to love my Mac, and it wasn’t impressing me. I had high expectations – maybe too high, and they were simply unmet.
However, there are plenty of features I did like. The best feature I can brag proudly about is that when an application is started, whether you close the app using the X or not, it doesn’t kill it from the memory. You’ll need to use a keystroke combination or actually choose Quit to kill it rather than click the the close button. This is a neat idea. Let me explain. For Mozilla users, or better yet, for anyone who uses Java applications or apps like Openoffice.org or StarOffice, you’ll notice a delay in starting these applications. However, launching a second Mozilla window, for example, barely takes a second. By keeping some of the program loaded, you’ll only experience these “startups” once per session. Of course, you can close them if you want, but it’s nice to launch, say, a Navigator browser window and not have to wait for the next succession of windows.
While Apple, with Jaguar loaded PCs, offer a great system, I hope it’s just a step, because at the price, unless you’re a multi-media author, it’s simply too expensive. Users each have special needs from their computers. I know that I use my computer primarily for web surfing, e-mail, office documents, and web development. I also know that not everyone has the same wants or requirements that I do. Some computers have specialized purposes and excel at those things specifically. Some try to be everything. Apple has offered up the Mac as a solution for everyone, and while gorgeous and smart in some subjects, it didn’t impress me as such. If it were a high school student, it would be good at art and might be voted homecoming queen for it’s looks, but it probably couldn’t serve on the debate team, be captain of the football team, or pass that damned Trigonometry class.
I know this has been a long, convoluted, stream-of-consciousness review. I know it’s covered many aspects in detail and virtually ignored others, lingering on some points longer than it should. But over the course of my Month with a Mac, I found myself simply drawn back to my PC. For the same money, I can build myself one hell of a PC, be just as productive, run twice as much software, have tons of OS choice, and not be slave to the will of any one company.
In summary, if that’s possible, the Mac is clearly loved by many. It presents the cleanest, sleekest, most modern interface I’ve seen to date. It provides UNIX-proven stability, ultra-modern flexibility, intuition, and friendly animation unlike any other computer system available. However, doing the job best has to be proportionate to the value, and Mac’s hefty price tag along with some of the (admittedly trivial) pet peevish annoyances along with an untraditional layout left me PC hungry. While the Mac and Jaguar are compelling, for my buck, I’m content with the PC alternatives. Can the Mac replace my PC? Nope. But check my desktop in 2005, we’ll see who wins this challenge yet.
If you consider Macs overpriced in the states lets take a look in European countries.
USA Ibook 700MHz $999
Europe (Spain) Ibook 700MHz same specs as above $1564 !!!!($1349+taxes)
Apple is dropping from 1% market share to 0%. Everybody is leaving the Mac, there’s not longer a community and support is also terrible in Europe. Why should I be switching?. If I like Unix I can try dozens of linux distros and BSD.
Apple already disappeared in Europe
Sounds as if you didnt really compare it to your PC. Application:Application my mac really outshines my pc in everything but browsers. Every common application I use is just as good or better then a windows counterpart.
I cant let my mother use my pc just because I would have to babysit her for an hour or two, but I bring her my ibook and dialup to earthlink and she can do whatever she wants without my help. Hell, even AOL isnt that bad on OS X, doesnt takeover the system, doesnt use ie, etc. I installed it so my mom would have an easier time checking her email, and its worked out well so far.
That is what I like about OS X, on windows there are tons of crappy applications out there. Many of which carry viruses/spyware/etc that people get tricked into downloading for their new PCs. With a mac, people have almost everything they need out of the box.
I would not spend a dime on the desktop systems personally, the laptops are so far ahead of PCs in power, battery life, and design and are cheaper or similiarly priced.
Europe is not the whole world. I’m not saying that the U.S. is either, but in the U.S. apple is still holding on. The reason you would switch is because of the way that the ui works with the system. Linux/Unix ui’s still feel like they are just an extra layer on top of the system and aren’t quite to the level of macOS or windows. That being said, I’m writing this on KDE 3.1rc5. KDE is really shaping up.
isnt that VAT or something? When I was in spain 2 years ago everything was alot more expensive, I could buy retail clothing in Boston and sell it in spain cheaper then stores and make a tidy profit if I wanted to. The friend I stayed with came back to america to buy his family PCs, 2 laptops and 2 desktops last year.
I think the obscene prices of computers in general there, plus macs being more expensive by default is what your noticing. But im out of touch with spain now so I could be wrong.
C’mon, some of those peeves are bogus…
A cable disconnecting in shipping? That’s not a reason to be annoyed at the Mac — there’s not much Apple can do about it. What that should have been was a plus, as to how easy it was to open up the case compared to the typical PC.
The lack of a multi-button mouse is another bogus peeve. Although I share the author’s dislike of the single-button mouse, the reasoning is quite sensible: new users get mouse buttons confused, and if all you need to do most things is just one button, then provide just one button.
For $20, you can pick up a three-button (well, two button and scrollwheel) Logitech mouse and plug it in and it will work. The power-user would presumably already have one of these already to try out.
The performance issues discussed had me wondering — I’ve never had any sort of performance problem with any of my systems. Then again, I’m not enamoured of all things GUI,
and have been known to use TWM under X (no Gnome or KDE) while still Getting Work Done. [A mouse is useful as it lets you select which xterm/Terminal to type in.]
I admit that with all the raves about things Done Right, and the relatively inconsequential peeves, I was quite suprised at the conclusion reached by the author.
>A cable disconnecting in shipping? That’s not a reason to be annoyed at the Mac
On the contrary. We don’t know that it was disconnected in the shipping, we just assume so. And Macs supposedly just work! Receiving something that does NOT work, in the first glance, IS a serious peeve.
I love how people pretend they’re not “slaves” of one company. Face it, if you MUST have windows installed you are a slave to microsoft. It makes Microsoft work that much harder to win you back by delivering better products, but if you wallow content in what they feed you how will you ever know what you like and dont like? Apple did in about 3 years what the desktop linux camps are still trying to do but havent quite yet in 10 years. We’ve been so conditioned to think the microsoft way is right that anything different feels wrong, the greater tragedy is not even recognizing it.
“I would not spend a dime on the desktop systems personally, the laptops are so far ahead of PCs in power, battery life, and design and are cheaper or similiarly priced.”
where the heck do you live? where i am a laptop of equivalent power will cost you at least 25% more than the desktop. personally, my pc plugs into the wall, so i don’t worry about battery life…and ahead in power? i think not.
> On the contrary. We don’t know that it was disconnected in the shipping, we just assume so. And Macs supposedly just work! Receiving something that does NOT work, in the first glance, IS a serious peeve.
But wait you’re a badass pc user who builds your own machines, a disconnected cable should not be a peeve. It’s not about having your hand held, it’s about being efficient and logical in layout and choices. A self proclaimed usability nut should recognize this.
meant comparable to PC laptops.
> But wait you’re a badass pc user who builds your own machines, a disconnected cable should not be a peeve.
It was easy for Adam to fix it of course (Adam had the machine and the problem, no I). But it is STILL a peeve. Macs are supposed to JUST WORK. No matter how much a power user you are, or not. Online, the only thing you are hearing is how Macs just work. Well, for Adam, it didn’t. He had to open the case and fix it! And sending it back was not an option exactly, as we had a deadline for the article.
cable not being plugged in is a horrible thing for apple, it goes against the whole just work thing, and NO pc maker calls that an acceptable annoyance.
If it was knocked off in shipping, that still means it wasnt plugged in well.
I _HATE_ it when a reviewer slams the freakin one button mouse.. If it is an issue for you, BUY ONE for $10. For me, it takes away so much of the reviews creditability.
However, good points are brought up in the rest of the review. Although the quote, “Built entire domains from scratch” shows a very heavy Microsoft Windows leaning. Also, on my 17inch iMac I notice no slow down in the GUI. Granted I do on my 500mhz iBook. But I would day, KDE is _MUCH_ slower on my Dual 1ghz PC then OSX is on my iBook.
if you MUST have windows installed you are a slave to microsoft.
Yes, this may be true, but only because nobody has yet offered up a workable alternative that runs on hardware that I already own.
There’s probably at least a dozen applications I use in Windows for which no (functional) equivalents exist for Linux. But on the Mac, things aren’t nearly as bad .. there are only about 2-3. Since the Mac has a lot of the audio apps I use on the PC, assuming there was suitable replacement for Streets & Trips 2003 (one of my most often used apps) on the Mac, I could probably make the jump, but I’m not going to pay $900+ in order to ‘try it out’, so unless I can rent one for a week or two for about $50, the Mac loses by default.
I got a 1 GHz TiBook. I’m a UNIX power-user (and programmer), and I find it very hard not to love this machine. Mail.app and especially iTunes are great, mounting NFS filesystems a no-brainer, Chimera is as unbloated as a browser can be and… well it just works. Everything.
Come’on, having a cable disconnected could have happened to ANY computer by ANY manufacturer.
The fact that it happened to this Apple is the (un)luck of the draw, while having forty Gateway servers ship to my work, we had the exact same thing happen, I didn’t hold it again them.
Eugenia is correct, we can’t assertain if the cable was ever connect, poorly connected, or wriggled out during shipping, whatever the cause, there is no need to get all sarcastic and play the ‘JUST WORKS’ card, there is a real possibility that it wriggled out in shipping which should immediately nullify your ‘just works’. How fair would it be if I did a review of a Dell computer and after pouring diet-lemon-coke in it bitched that it didn’t work and blamed Dell. It would be unreasonable right? The same applies here: clearly this action is out of Dell’s hands as is a [potentially] loosened cable in Apple’s shipment.
The cable thing is not a big deal. it sounds like an unfortunate abnormality. STuff happens in shipping. I have received PCs with Pci cards that were unseated during shipping. the relevance of the cable is a function of its frequency. If its rare then accept it as such and move on. You can’t blame that one on apple.
no pc company does, simple as that. It will happen, and tends to happen, but You dont want any issues with your product, even as trivial as those.
A year ago, I was think about buy a Mac. But, I didn’t buy it after I heard from few articles about MacOS X is slow. That’s it, I ain’t going to buy it until Apple improve their hardware and MacOS X. The hardwares are kind of behind from PC. People said that they don’t care about speed. Sorry, 99% of people do care about the speed, they don’t want to wait at each of click or action.
Sorry, 99% of people do care about the speed
Can you back that claim up with real number please? If you can’t then please stop thinking for everyone!
“Sorry, 99% of people do care about the speed”
To an extent but we seem to be beyond that. for instance, PC upgrade cycles keep getting longer. That is solid evidence that speed is less relevant. The apple is fast enough for joe/jane word/web user. Most people these days just yawn everytime intel announces a faster chip.
It’s kinda funny. Ya’ll talk about OS X being so slow, or Macs being so slow. Granted they are a bit slower than a 3ghz P4 running Linux. That doesn’t mean they are SLOW, just that they are not the fastest.
None of us say that speed doesn’t matter, we say that speed beyond a certain point is not relevant. Sure, it’s great to have a box that absolutely flies and has really awesome benchmarks. However, if the box runs smoothly without intrusive delays, that is ‘fast enough’.
Oh, and Eugenia, quit being petty on the “Just Works” over a single instance of a disconnected cable. You know that is a ridiculous stance. It in no way refutes the “Just Works” mantra that Mac users tout, it only illustrates that Apple isn’t perfect, which we all knew to begin with.
– Kelson
One button mouse.
One button mouse.
One button mouse.
Will. You. Get. Off. The. One. Button. Mouse?!
I stopped reading this review once the newbie-lame OBM comment came up. What IS it with Windows users that they ALWAYS mention the OBM? A mouse is a $25 peripheral. Possibly less since most of us have a couple extra mice lying around.
How many of us have ever purchased a different mouse when we bought a Windows system? Yet we don’t complain that Windows doesn’t support better input peripherals. The issue is not whether the Mac comes with a good mouse or a bad mouse. The issue is whether the OS supports scroll wheel, multiple buttons and of course it does. It has for YEARS.
Complaining about the OBM is like complaining that the license plate holder on your new Porsche carries the name of the dealership.
JUST TAKE THE HOLDER OFF AND DRIVE YOUR FREAKING CAR ALREADY!
$5000 for this Mac set-up and this guy mentions the $25 OBM.
How very typical.
And it doesn’t come with a floppy drive either.
People still use those?
– Kelson
I was going to complain about the one button mouse also, but it seems that one has been done to death already. I’m a PC user and even I know that I can plug any old USB 3-button mouse into a Mac and have it work!
But one thing about the review I thought was really lame was the notion that the Mac OSX interface was slow. This was harped upon many times, but when it came to a quantative analysis, he said that it felt ‘as fast as’ either Windors, KDE or Gnome! So why is that slow? What was he expecting, for the UI to be 3 times faster than Windows?
The problem Adam was describing was the one of the UI responsiveness, not exactly “speed”. In the UI responsiveness department, the OSX is much slower thant its PC counterparts.
People still use those?
I do, it’s no need to put 30k on the blank CD nor DVD. I do use floppy and zip a lot in the school.
How do I buy that Workstation 530? There’s no “buy now” button.
As a dual user (Mac since ’85 – PC’s reluctantly) I was stunned to hear about the loose cable inside the box. I have never had a hardware problem with Macs – EVER. They work first time, every time. Maybe quality control is slipping. In any case, it shouldn’t have happened and Steve would be furious!
I read an article a while back (probably a little over a year ago) about gaming on the Mac. I remember one of the first qualms the author had was the one button mouse… of course he just plainly said, “The first thing I did was rip the hockey puck mouse off the system and hook up a Logitech.”
My point would be, yeah, maybe it is only $25, but it’s still extra money you have to spend. I mean I COULD live with it, but it’s annoying. I suppose if you’ve grown up using Macs with a one button mouse, then you’re used to it, but most people are not. So:
* GOOD for new users
* BAD for PC users (especially long time Unix/X11 users)
Now on the other hand, I have a TiBook and I find the single button trackpad quite nice because I only have one thumb per hand and it make it easier to just leave it on one button. After I learned the keyboard modifiers (Alt/Option + Click = Right click, that sort of thing… though it may be control instead of Alt), it was more than usable.
After reading the article, I concluded that the article was pretty narrow– even though the author noted towards the end that he babbled liked a brook.
The author never listed the criteria that one should use to decide if the MAC can replace a PC.
Additionally, I don’t even know how much time the author spent optimizing his system to suit his preferences.
For example, my A30P notebook handles TrueColor graphics SLOWLY, but 16 bit graphics quickly. It took a driver update and some playing around with the graphics settings to figure this out.
The reason why I still use windows more often than I use Linux is not because one sysem is more useable than the other, but because I have had a historical preference of using one over the other.
I think that it is unfair to expect a MAC to provide an instantly more productive experience than a windows machine.
A similar line of logic would be: You can become an instant artist after buying Adobe’s software– even though you can’t sketch squat on paper!
The PC is no miracle cure! When I ?upgraded? to XP, I lost a lot of functionality because the printer driver that was provided by Microsoft was a dumbed down version of the one that was provided by the printer maker who went out of business.
Given the mach underpinnings of the MAC, it will be interesting to see how the MAC evolves! There are interesting possibilities.
If you can keep that MAC for a year, I would be interested to see how your article would be updated once you have some inertia behind you! 😉
I have a 333MHz iMac and a 400MHz Powerbook. Both have plenty of RAM, around 200 and 400 MB respectively. OS9 runs GREAT, but load up OSX Jaguar, and it is slower. The window resize problem is the main culprit, but startup and shutdown are slower, too. I hate to use the term, but applications “feel” slower. Launch times, file requester dialog boxes, file loading, everything. And some programs just run better in OS9, even the Carbon apps meant to run natively in OSX. So, as someone is bound to spout off, yes I’ve gone back to OS9 for my primary use, and keep Jaguar loaded for the occasional use.
I expect that the DP doesn’t do alot for OS speed as it seems to work adequately on all machines released in the last several years. It seems odd to ignore how it performs on Apps with the DP if you are going to compare it to other machines and platforms. I don’t know about most of your “Power Users”, bust most people spend alot of time in various Apps. Is it faster, slower, easier to use for the power user overall, isn’t that the platform test. Anything else smacks of setting up a straw man…
Sorry, 99% of people do care about the speed
Can you back that claim up with real number please? If you can’t then please stop thinking for everyone!
Well, there is one thing I know for a fact: If Macs were faster than Windows, the Mac zealots would be all over it. Admit it, you know it’s true. The only time speed doesn’t matter is when your platform of choice is slower than the others.
PC upgrade cycles keep getting longer. That is solid evidence that speed is less relevant.
PC upgrade cycles are getting longer because the hardware is way ahead of the software at this point. Even XP (when tweaked correctly) runs fine on a low-end P3.
What IS it with Windows users that they ALWAYS mention the OBM?
Coming from the Windows world, we know that having only one mouse button is an abomination. Therefore, since Apple includes a piece of hardware that sucks so much ass as part of the package, we reject the rest of it on principle
Well, not really .. but the OMB thing is pretty bad. I mean, the LEAST they can do is add a f**king right mouse button, unless they don’t think Mac users can handle it? And they say Windows users are unintelligent
How many of us have ever purchased a different mouse when we bought a Windows system?
Ummmm, quite a few of actually. I have personally bought 3 MS Intellimousees … 2 for my computers at home and one for work. I have also owned a Logitech trackball (which I no longer use in favor of the optical mouse)
Complaining about the OBM is like complaining that the license plate holder on your new Porsche carries the name of the dealership.
You’re comparing Macs to Porches? LMAO!! At the speed which Macs run, they’re more like Segways 😉
This really isn’t a bad review. He is correct that the interface should feel like its on fire it goes so fast (this is the absolute top of the line Mac). He is guessing that it might feel sluggish on a lower end machine, and he would be right. OS X does have some stiff hardware requirements, and for some users (after all, interface sluggishness is somewhat subjective – I have yet to use a computer I didn’t wish was faster) it will feel slow. I don’t think anyone can argue that Apple needs to have the fastest desktops on the market again – it must really be hurting sales (OS X should be causing a lot more people to buy).
My only real complaint here besides the petty one button mouse thing is the fact that it really doesn’t seem like he got that into playing with different things on the machine. It seems like this review could have been written in an hour.
The fastest Mac processor is NOT faster than the fastest PC processor, but most of the other parts are EXACTLY THE SAME except for the one thing that sets them apart… Apple uses the higher quality versions of those parts than most PC manufacturers on ALL their systems instead of just their highest end systems.
I have a PC with an Athlon 1.33GHz… it’s not even an Athlon XP and it is more than fast enough. I feel absolutely no need to upgrade to a P4 3GHz. As has been said before, speed does matter, but only as long as the tasks that are requested finish in a satisfactory amount of time. From what I’ve seen, any of the Macs with a 500-600MHz processor or higher, given enough memory (at least 256MB, preferably more) run MOST tasks in OS X fast enough to be satisfactory for most users.
Obviously you have never seen the inside of a Porsche or ridden in one. It’s the elegance and high quality parts that make up a Porsche that make it a PORSCHE… they are by no means the fastest cars out there, though they are rather quick. I think comparing a Mac, especially higher end Macs running OS X to a Porsche is a pretty good analogy.
>Apple uses the higher quality versions of those parts
Hard to believe. The iMac screen for example is terrible.
Well, there is one thing I know for a fact: If Macs were faster than Windows, the Mac zealots would be all over it. Admit it, you know it’s true. The only time speed doesn’t matter is when your platform of choice is slower than the others.
This is one of the better comments posted here in a while. You didn’t exactly hear “speed doesn’t matter” claims back with Apple’s shark ads for the G3 PowerBook, the P2-on-a-snail ads, or the G4 “supercomputer” tank ads.
(not that I’m claiming speed is really that important right now; just noticing a humorous trend among the apologists)
Hard to believe. The iMac screen for example is terrible.
I suppose there are a few exceptions
I have to say, this is a pretty good, in depth review over all. Much better than the “well, here is how the installation went” reviews you often see. But there are two corrections:
1) The X/Linux mouse issue is history, and has been since the preemption patches were introduced. Now, the situation is reversed. Pound your Linux as hard as you can, and the mouse won’t flinch. These days, only way I know compiles are going on in the background is that I can hear the hard drive churning. Windows will work fine under no load, but abuse it and it chokes.
2) Pleaze don’t perpetuate the Quartz Extreme hype. QE, in its current form, doesn’t accelerate graphics rendering. It just accelerates window compositing. It’s not comparable to technologies like EVAS or the Longhorn D3D GUI.
As for the cable and one button mouse thing. As Eugenia likes to say, defaults matter, defaults matter, defaults matter!
im a network admin and i agree pc’s are trash, i used them forever and dissed mac’s before i actually got to use one for more than school work . i have a powermac 350mhz overclocked to 400 and i have a gig of ram, that 400 blows my 1.8 ghz athlon xp machine away so i sold it. i can do way more on my ppc with alot less hassle. i tryed not to use windows on my pc but its not a easy thing to do in the pc world, ive now been without windows for almost a year and life is grand i run all the latest apps at much higher speed and get alot more done without filling mr gates pockets. i am impressed with mac os X wich is my secoundary OS only because i am addicted to linux and i love playing with gentoo, but i still can do more in my mac OS than my main os i can ever compile free BSD ports and have them running side by side with my mac apps, i could also install a windows OS if i was retarded but i am not, id like to see someone get os X 10.2 linux gentoo debian yellow dog mandrake and windows all running on a PC its just not a option
How can anybody who knows how to drive, which requires differentiating pedals, confuse the two mouse buttons? Seriously, I doubt people are that stupid…
Seems like a fair review. I use Macs and I don’t worry or fret about my Mac’s speed (733 Mhz)running Os X 10.1.5. However, go ahead read this hilarious piece on Crazy Apple Rumors Site (many other really funny pieces as well) (www.crazyapplerumors.com):
“Apple Ad Campaign To Highlight Slow Processor Speeds.
As Apple has come to terms with the fact that it will not catch up to processor speeds from Intel and AMD, it has decided to market the slower speeds of the PowerPC as a feature.
A new advertising campaign will employ such catch-phrases as “Slow down!”, “What’s your hurry?” and “Where’s the fire?”
In one planned commercial, a child comes to his father complaining “Daddy this PC is too fast. It’s making my head hurt!”
The pair are then seen shopping at the Apple Store where they select a bottom-of-the-line iMac running at 700 MHz. The happy child is shown at home watching the color wheel spin while attempting to rename a file in the Finder.
“We feel there’s a significant untapped portion of the senior citizen community who have been put off by these fast computers,” Apple Public Relations representative Cynthia McLaren said. “If we can tap into that market, we believe we can grow our market share.
“Hell, it’s worth a shot. It’s not like there’s anything we can do about it for the time being anyway.
“Until we get that AMD deal. But you didn’t hear that from me.”
Apple has also created a series of Switch ads targeted at seniors, including one by retiring Senator Strom Thurmond.
According to sources within Apple, in the ad Thurmond says “I like things slow. So slow that I opposed the civil rights movement for years! That’s why I switched to a 700 MHz G3 iBook. It’s the slowest consumer computer you can get these days.”
Thurmond also indicates that while using a PC he lost some key legislation.
“It was really good legislation,” Thurmond says.
Apple is expected to kick off the new ad campaign at January’s Macworld.””
———–
Cheers
“PC upgrade cycles are getting longer because the hardware is way ahead of the software at this point. Even XP (when tweaked correctly) runs fine on a low-end P3. ”
What are you saying that we need more bloated software? Or are you saying that we need more software/applications to take advantage of the processor speed or both.
Regardless, upgrade cycles are getting longer because the value of upgrading it does not justify doing so. Another way to say that is that PCs are already fast enough for the current set of applications. Winblows might change that with an ever more bloated OS but even the new OS’s are recieving a yawn. And Enterprise users are (god forbid) actually considering using linux instead of windblows to avoid the mandatory upgrades. face it, the speed wars are over not because intel won (and they did) but because the additional speed is not relevant to 89% of users.
I must admit I was very surprised by the author’s comment of how he was impressed by this behavior, where closing the window does not close the application. I have always considered this to be the number one problem with the mac UI, and was shocked to find that it had not been altered in OSX. I base this statement not on personal experience (I realize that I have been trained by Windows and X to think “close window, close app”) but based on years of watching complete newbies (the kind that need to be taught how to use a mouse in the first place) unwittingly leave applications running.
Admittedly, this has actually become less important in OSX than it was in OS<=9, where the lack of a good memory model meant that if you left MS Word running unnecessarily, you might be unable to run a web browsesr or something. Imagine what happens to that kind of user when the system tells them they need to close some applications to free up memory when they think they have closed all the applications.
You know who should get off the One Button Mouse? APPLE. It’s stupid. It’s like buying a $75,000 VW and finding out when you get it that you need to spend an extra $25 to get the Club off the steering wheel.
>Yes, this may be true, but only because nobody has yet offered up a workable alternative that runs on hardware that I already own.
But you bought the hardware knowing you only had one true option.
For the guy who said Macs are “slightly” slower than a 3 Ghz PC, take a look at these: http://www.geocities.com/sw_perf/
Look, especially at the Lightwave benchmarks (lightwave is well optimized for OS X). The dual 1.25 Ghz Mac gets spanked by the dual Athlon MP, a much cheaper combination. We’re talking I do a little 3D modeling, and let me tell you, it’s slow enough already. Also, check out the Mathematica numbers (which I have to use in school). We’re talking more than twice as slow as a much more reasonably priced P4.
I’m not saying Macs are unusably slow. They’re probably just fine for a large number of users out there. Just don’t try to sugercoat it, okay?
Reyiner…you find it hard to belive but it is true.
it took me a year to get my son to figure out the 2 button system when he learned the computer….I broke down and bought a 1 button mouse (he has a mac) and he took off right away no problems.
I also worked as a desktop support pro for a state agency…those buricrats could not tell the right mouse button from the left…and when I was giving over the phone support I would tell them “right click on ” and they wouldl left click and tell me nothing happened.
Adam, you always write good stuff!
I am a life long Apple user and I would be peeved if a cable was disconnected. An average user would be dead in the water. It does happen with all manufacturers, but it still could have been a big pain. It is unfortunate though – I’ve never had that happen with an Apple product. Of course, I never bought an Apple III, which was a disastor in that regard.
The mouse – Apple has, for so many years, left that to 3rd party developers. You can get all kinds of mice and trackbalss for the Mac. Currently, the Kensington Studio Mouse is the ultimate.
In some ways, it might have been good to do a review with, for example, a 17″ iMac and do the stuff that it’s made for – using iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iCal, .Mac, etc. Of course, that would be more of a consumer Mac review, but the Mac really shines in those areas. The thing is too though, with a single 800 MHz processor, you could see some real unresponsiveness ;-). But, despite not being very responsive, it does work. If they could speed things up, it would be fabulous.
Thanks, Adam!!
I too was surprised with the sluggish behaviour of OS X on the top of the range systems. I say this because I’m running Jaguar on an original iMac and I can’t notice any unresponsiveness in the GUI. I also have to agree that Mac laptops are probably better value than PC laptops, and am thinking of buying an iBook next year. Also, all the programs I run on OS X are generally better than their PC counter-parts, particularly in browsers (Chimera is brilliant, even better than Phoenix). I’m also a programmer, and one of the reasons I came back to MacOS is because it’s so much easier to program for. The one button mouse I didn’t have a problem with, what I couldn’t understand is the two/three button mice that PC people use… I only need one! TBH though, most people who care about mice buy their own. In MacOS everything is in the menus, and so the extra button is superfluous. The one thing that would be annoying is not having a scroll wheel, so I’ve got a mouse with a scroll wheel (and the unnecessary second button
Finally, the thing that really made me switch back was that I could run my Linux apps in MacOS just by compiling them, even X apps (with XDarwin).
Tell why I like da mac.
Ever loose access to your HD? Need to get up and running quick on a PC. HA!
I have an external drive that if I need to I just plug it on my mac and boot off that. Hell I can plug it on my friends mac as well and boot his machine using my OS. No jumpers, no kidding.
The mac allows you do boot pretty much anything thats mountable.
I love that more than anything
I think he liked that because os x has awesome task switching, in a win2k world I cant burn a cd and do ANYTHING else decently with a well built athlon 1900+ system.
My ibook however can burn a cd while playing mp3s and writing a paper in appleworks, without a slowdown. Doesnt even sound realistic to me typing that, but it is true.
…but not *that* much. There are other things a long-term review usually highlights, that are somehow missing from this strange review:
When plugging my digital camera to my Windows XP box, it freezes.
When plugging it to my Win98 box, it crashes (hard
When plugging it to my Mac, it appears on the desktop, iPhoto opens up, and I can manage my pictures, take a look at them with my girlfriend, and have a nice time.
Getting my film scanner to work on the windows box took nearly two hours of head-banging, and nearly two minutes on the Mac.
Setting up windows for TV output takes some time, driver updating, some tweaking… on the Mac, I just plug the S-Video cable to my TV…
Getting a Mac connected to my home network took so little time & effort my girlfriend laughs at me when I’m trying to get my other computers to see each other…
I am responsible for troubleshooting the design department computers at work. They used PC’s, and it was a nightmare. From the day I changed their computers to Macs, I receive 1 or 2 phone calls a week (compared to 10 to 12 each day before) and they spend more time working and less time crying because their PC’s crashed and they lost work.
Rendezvous & Printer Sharing is something you *have* to see. Setting up the HP Printer and sharing it with the network took probably 5 seconds.
CD-Burning doesn’t get much simpler. We send a lot of stuff out on CD’s, and I am amazed at how easy it is to burn CD’s on a Mac (pop CD in, set name, copy stuff, eject)
Backup is taken care of by an assortment of unix command-line scripts. But we are thinking about making weekly (or even monthly) backups due to the lack of data lost. When using PC’s, we had to recover lost data almost daily.
Yes, speed matters. But these department generates more money now, even working on a (theoretical) slower computer. And overall, using a Mac usually means you’ll spend more time “doing stuff” and less time “trying to do stuff”.
IMHO, YMMV, etc, etc… but all-in-all, a really narrow and alienating review…
>When plugging my digital camera to my Windows XP box, it freezes.
It doesn’t happen on my XP.
The problem with any review of this or similar type is preconceived knowledge. People who used Windows OS’ for years expect that all other OS’ should/must behave similarly, and if they don’t, then there is something wrong with their usability. I had the same problem and I know it’s true but if you are open minded you can accept different thinking and maybe even like it.
Friend of mine who only believes in MS products tried RH8 the other day and he pissed me so much trying to do the things Windows way, and when the things were not behaving the way he used to, he complained and said Linux is crap. I can’t even imagine his face in front of the Mac.
Like I said I also had the baggage of preconceived knowledge when I got the iBook 10 months ago. I really missed the taskbar and the start menu. But now, I got used to different approach and found myself doing things even faster without them, I also started using keybaord shortcuts (never used them in Windows) and increased my productivity even more. I think if Adam used Macs for a little longer he would appreciate some aspects of the OS even more, and if he stopped comparing it with Windows/Linux, his experience would be a hell of a lot better.
What I would like to see next on the OSNews is the objective review of the PC experience written by a long time Mac user. That would be a cracker.
That is probably because you have your burner on a different IDE-chain than the harddrive that you are reading data from. I have a 600MHz P3 and a LiteOn burner and I can burn with 32X without a problem (I can watch video at the same time) from one harddrive, but when I try to burn from another, it freezes unless I set the speed to 12X or lower. The reason for this is that when using IDE instead of SCSI, you can’t access data from the primary drives at the same time as you access data from the secondary drives and vice versa.
It might also be because you haven’t enabled DMA for your drives. Control Panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager -> IDE Controllers -> Go and enable DMA for as many drives as possible.
The only other explanation I can see is sh**** drivers, in which case there really isn’t much you can do. And I certainly wouldn’t blame the quality of drivers on MS (unless they are certified, of course).
>>When plugging my digital camera to my Windows XP box, it freezes.
>It doesn’t happen on my XP.
congratulations
> Friend of mine who only believes in MS products tried RH8 the other day and he pissed me so much trying to do the things Windows way, and when the things were not behaving the way he used to, he complained and said Linux is crap.
Excuse me, but you got it wrong. Windows has 94% of the market. Windows *IS* the standard, we like it or not. Anything that tries to compete with it, will have to do ALL what Windows does, in the way it does it, plus more. Anything less, won’t satisfy most of the users out there.
Yes, it might be terrible the fact that Windows is the standard and these users are weight everything in parallel to how Windows does things, but the blunt cold truth is that this is how things are.
You mention this problem with this friend of yours. I have the same problem with my husband (while he used to be an old Slackware user and a Be, Inc. employee, he now likes WindowsXP most of all). But I understand his point of view. To gain some trust from Windows users, this OS should do most of the things the way Windows does it, and then add the “more”. Sad, but true.
>To gain some trust from Windows users,
…(if this is, in fact, what they are trying)…
>this OS should do most of the things the way Windows does it
…while making sure M$ won’t sue their ass off…
>and then add the “more”.
[i]…if they are still alive after that.
Eugenia… are you having a bad day, by any chance?
” I think he liked that because os x has awesome task switching, in a win2k world I cant burn a cd and do ANYTHING else decently with a well built athlon 1900+ system.
My ibook however can burn a cd while playing mp3s and writing a paper in appleworks, without a slowdown. Doesnt even sound realistic to me typing that, but it is true.”
No it isn’t true. You either have a crappy 5 year old cd burner, don’t know how to buld a computer, or are lying.
Any modern burner has burn-proof, smartlink etc and allows you do WHATEVER you want besides play FPS games while it burns. If your running say seti at high priority it may take a while to burn but it WILL burn. I too have a Athlon 1900 and when burning a cd I can surf the web, listen to music, and type documents all WITHOUT Slowdown or problems. I in fact burn discs several times a week and never have to stop what I’m doing in order to burn a cd.
>Eugenia… are you having a bad day, by any chance?
I am having a great day, thank you very much. I am just posting my opinion on how an OS company to proceed if they want to gain some trust from Windows users (MS won’t sue anyone on it, we are not talking about copying the Windows UI, we are talking on duplicating the user experience on what a user EXPECTS a program or a widget to do).
If you do not agree, you can say so, but you don’t have to become an jerk, or you will see your a$$ moded down. Simple as that.
>Excuse me, but you got it wrong. Windows has 94% of the market. Windows *IS* the standard, we like it or not. Anything that tries to compete with it, will have to do ALL what Windows does, in the way it does it, plus more. Anything less, won’t satisfy most of the users out there.
So your point is, Mac or whatever needs to be a copy of windows first and only then it can show some creativity and different thinking. Do you remember your beloved BeOS? Was that a copy of Windows? I never loved it because I didn’t want to spend time doing things differently than in Windows, but not anymore, I learned to love different things and give them time to grow on me. What I’m saying is: “Lose the excess baggage and see do you like it”. Nothing else. If there is no companies like Apple we wouldn’t see such progress in usability of our computers. I was excited to see that Phoenix browser is using sheets for customising toolbars, exactly the same way OSX does it. That is just one example how good ideas become accepted. Mimicking Windows (which mimicks everything else by itself) won’t help move us forward. You as a respectable editor of the respectable website should know that already. I’m bit dissapointed by your comment.
Eugenia,
Screw the Windows standard.
Don’t compare Mac to Windows.
Don’t compare Linux to Windows.
Learn them and use them, but don’t criticize them for not being Windows.
They are better. Windows is standardized trash. Windows is McDonalds. Windows is Wonder Bread. Windows is a Pinto, or a Metro, or a Neon. Windows is everything that sucks and is common as hell, because common people use it. Being uncommon is alot nicer.
Sorry, I just had to say it.
Its just so nice to see some kick some ass around here.
You got my whole comment WRONG. And cut the sarcasm (“remember your beloved BeOS”) or you will also get moded. I am very short on patience today.
I am not saying that in order to have a great OS you need to mimick Windows. What I am saying is that if you want to GAIN *Windows* USERS and create a marketshare, you HAVE to. Some open minded users might not need that, but the rest 99% of these users, will need that.
And when talking about mimicking Windows, I am only talking about what a user *expects* from the behaviour of a UI, NOT copying the UI as per se. Get your facts straight and re-read my comment.
>Windows is McDonalds
And you are an idiot.
Someone mod Eugenia down!
Eugenia that is a very…unimpressive… POV.
people need to look at things with an open mind. Apple works better for brand new computer users period.
Apple as sighted above, increased the productivity of its user.
if I use a microwave, and love that microwave, then I buy a new one, the new one does not work the same, it has a funny “popcorn button” and stufff cooks faster becasue it is a higher wattage so I over cook stuff. does that mean the microwave sucks? no not at all, it is just new and diffrent. in the long run, after a few weeks of me getting use to it, I can cook stuff as well as I had in the other one and my productivity actualy increases from cool little short cuts like preset cook times for popcorn and quick cook buttons.
The mouse is an issue. If you spend over $4000 on a system (which is what this one retails for) you shouldn’t have to go out and buy a $25 mouse just to do things. You wouldn’t tell someone who bought an ibm to go and buy a multibutton scroll mouse. You’d say ibm should listen to their customers and bundle mice they actually want to use. Especially if its a $4000 desktop. Sure if you spend $400 and get a crappy mouse thems the breaks (but hey even emachines and those $200 lindows walmart.com pcs have two button mice, some with wheels). For that kind of money you should be able to get the type of mouse you want. Just like any premium pc manufacturer would give you (Falcon Northwest, Voodoo, Alienware, etc.). Hell some of them come with custom paint jobs using high quality auto show car paints.
The cable is also a knock against apple because they screwed it up. The user, if he was a newbie, would have to send it in (most likely paying to do so) and then wait to get his “fixed” computer back. Of course the cases do open easier than run of the mill pc cases, but newbies don’t usually open the cases to check for disconnected ide cables do they?
Faulty logic. I wouldn’t jump off a bridge,if everyone else was doing it! If you need more features, wait for the next upgrade to Windows. If you want to do things in a refreshing different way, try a Mac!! It takes a while to get used to a Mac, but it ain’t rocket science. I am a Mac user and I have no problem using Windows, because I know that most features that are present on a Mac are also present in Windows-only changed a little to avoid litigation!! OsX is more Window’s like than Classic Mac Os-this was obviously done to make it easier for Windows’ users to switch-in fact many Mac users have trouble switching to Os X (e.g. see Os X odyssey columns by Mr. Charles Moore at http://www.Applelinks.com.)
cheers & happy computing on the platform of your choice!!
And when talking about mimicking Windows, I am only talking about what a user *expects* from the behaviour of a UI, NOT copying the UI as per se. Get your facts straight and re-read my comment.
That is quite true, but the problem with that is that a lot of the behavior of Windows is drastically different than the behavior of MacOS. You have to weigh losing current customers because you made your OS more like Windows against possibly gaining new customers. I think Apple’s best bet is to keep innovating. As long as they are different than Windows, they are a viable alternative. As soon as they try to mimic Windows in anyway, they are playing Microsoft’s game which they cannot win. Their market is just not the same as Windows’ market, and I don’t expect it ever will be.
So if they start picking up some of the nuances and subtelties of the Windows UI in order to make Windows users more comfortable using their UI, they may pick up more of the consumer market, but I think it’s too great a sacrifice to be worth it.
> If you want to do things in a refreshing different way, try a Mac!!
I have a Mac. I haven’t turned it on for 2 months now. I don’t like it. OSX is unresponsive, I hate its stupid menu bar, it lacks some things I need in the interface and the Dock doesn’t do what I want (I want a list for the open windows too).
woah…Eugenia smacked him hard…..
I think his point is that just like these other very common consumer goods, windows makes use of current industry tech and does not tend to break new ground.
To gain some trust from Windows users, this OS should do most of the things the way Windows does it, and then add the “more”.
Perhaps I am missing something, is this statement not already true? What widgets are we talking about here? The closeWindow==closeApp widget? Is that the only one from the standard widgets that act differently across the platforms? if so, this certainly qualifies as “most“. Can someone provide another example? Two?
> I am not saying that in order to have a great OS you need to mimick Windows. What I am saying is that if you want to GAIN *Windows* USERS and create a marketshare, you HAVE to. Some open minded users might not need that, but the rest 99% of these users, will need that.
I see your point but what you’re suggesting would never work. You have excellent example of that in KDE/GNOME. They try so hard to use similar features but they are still no Windows and they will never be and no Windows user likes them. They are always few years behind as well. You can’t ask for creativity because they are so busy to make WIndows user at home, and they are still failing. What other companies are doing (Apple, Be – RIP), is to try to make the success on their own. If they didn’t do that they would be even marginal than they are now. As for Apple, they have similar features for the last 15 years, shy would they change now, to gain couple of market points? belive me, they would lose more than they have now if they do that.
…for thinking “Windows is McDonalds” and publicly saying so?
Personally I just think it’s a poor analogy… would make more sense to say, “Microsoft is the McDonalds of the OS world and Windows is a super-sized big Mac with a chocolate shake”… of course you’ll have to make up your own interpretation of what that means (windows is full of nutritionless calories perhaps?).
>Stop being a nazi motherfucker and show some respect for your readers.
When you get your own web site, you do whatever you want. While you are on my web site, you won’t.
The guy’s POV is just plainly stupid. His opinion is that windows is trash, and I find him a complete idiot for that. Windows is not trash at all. At least XP and 2k is NOT. And 94% of the world’s computing world, agree with me.
ryan
What are you saying that we need more bloated software? Or are you saying that we need more software/applications to take advantage of the processor speed or both.
I was countering a point somebody made when they said people aren’t upgrading as much because speed doesn’t matter. I’m saying that people aren’t upgrading as much because their current PC is not slow to begin with.
matt
Re: matt
>Yes, this may be true, but only because nobody has yet offered up a workable alternative that runs on hardware that I already own.
But you bought the hardware knowing you only had one true option.
My hardware is upgraded in increments – probably a few hundred dollars every year and a half. When I first started with PCs, OSX didn’t exist and Macs were a joke.
deb-man
it took me a year to get my son to figure out the 2 button system when he learned the computer….I broke down and bought a 1 button mouse (he has a mac) and he took off right away no problems.
Let me guess … is he also in special ed?
Evan
I think he liked that because os x has awesome task switching, in a win2k world I cant burn a cd and do ANYTHING else decently with a well built athlon 1900+ system.
Eh, even assuming you’re right, what friggin’ difference does it make? How long to CDs take to burn now days … 3-4 minutes? I usually just go take a dump and it’s done when I get back. Sheesh.
Jasenko
I had the same problem and I know it’s true but if you are open minded you can accept different thinking and maybe even like it.
Oh man, they’re worse than Jesus freaks aren’t they ?
Anyway, I don’t expect Macs to be like PCs .. the only thing I ask is for more mouse buttons and for apps to close when I click on the close window button. Honestly, I really don’t think that’s too much to ask of a modern OS.
Eugenia
Anything that tries to compete with it, will have to do ALL what Windows does.
Not really. The only thing an alternate OS has to do is do whatever Windows does that the user actually cares about. This is percisely the reason why Linux works for some, but not for others.
In the time it took me to write the last post (just a few minutes), over 20 more posts were added
Just because a huge portion of the market (94%) run Windows of some sort does not mean it is not trash, nor does it mean they do not think it is trash.
It is trash, but for various reasons we use it anyway.
– Kelson
Windows is not trash at all. At least XP and 2k is NOT. And 94% of the world’s computing world, agree with me.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s trash, but just because 94% of the computing world is stuck using it doesn’t mean they’re all happy about it. Microsoft’s rise to power with Windows was mostly about good timing for them and bad timing and marketing by Apple.
For the love of god I thought everyone had finally figured out that Open/Star Office IS NOT A JAVA APP!
It is not even slightly – not even a little bit a java app. I know it seems like it because it sometimes responds like a java app – and has its own toolkit that doesnt _quite_ match – BUT IT IS NOT WRITTEN IN JAVA AT ALL.
It can use java (so you can write scripts and stuff in java – kind of like VB is for MS Office – but you wouldn’t say MS Office is _written_ in VB).
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PEOPLE, get it through your head that it is NOT a java app.
Ok, rant off. Sorry, I guess my fuse is a little short today (might be because its monday)
Derek
is to teach the universal skills needed…I can pick up any system and in a few minutes, I can be up and running and being productive. many many people think in terms of a list of directions and do not think in terms of intuition and trial and error…if they try to do the same thing on a mac or in Linux that they do in windows tehy will become frustrated becasue the list of direction sodes not match the interface…if they were trained to think in terms of
“this is a setting so it should be in somthing like control panels..ah prefrences…lets look in there”
a category type thinking, then they would have much more success because the though process is much more flexable and adaptive. when I was training folks on how to use computers that is the exact way I thought them, and you know what….they began to figure other stuff out because all of a sudden, they realised that certain stuff is normaly found under the file menu , the edit menu, etc. it got the point that people were not signing up for classes becasue they already figured the stuff out.
“I think he liked that because os x has awesome task switching, in a win2k world I cant burn a cd and do ANYTHING else decently with a well built athlon 1900+ system.
My ibook however can burn a cd while playing mp3s and writing a paper in appleworks, without a slowdown. Doesnt even sound realistic to me typing that, but it is true.”
On my celeron 400, oced to 450 with a paltry 256 pc100 ram when I burn cds I run set@home in my system tray and usually have either a couple of browser windows open or some speadsheets or word documents. No slow downs. I still burn cds at the 8x my drive is rated. I’m not saying your lying, I’m saying your well built system isn’t that well built. btw I’m actually burning a cd now and have this window, seti and 3 different acrobat windows open. No slowdown. Elvis #1 if you’re curious. Making a copy for a friend since his was stolen from his car (along with 50 other cds, poor bastard).
make fun of me all you want but do not even think about maing fun of my child.
no he is not special ed, he was 2 years old.
try playing an MP3
Eugenia,
Why was my comment mod’ed down?
94% of the Germans agreed with Hitler too, that doesn’t make it right…
Perhaps I’ll explain, you made a point that 94% of the world agree with you and that 95% can’t be wrong. I made a point that a great many Germans (perhaps 94%) agreed with their dictator of the day, Hitler. Still, that doesn’t make their [supported] actions correct. Can you see the point?
I am sorry, but I find that a bit hard to believe. How old is your Son. My mother is probably the least technical person alive. When she started working again recently and had to learn how to use a computer, something she feared, at age 48 she had no problems with a 2 button mouse.
Most people don’t use the second mouse button, but all I had to do was explain to her that she could save time by right-clicking on things. She uses it now.
Now if a 48 year old with a fear for technology can use two mouse buttons surely your son can. Please don’t put him into a car until he can manage it.
Also if you are going to charge $4,000 plus for the system that was being reviewed you would think the system was for someone who had a clue.
Lastly millions of windows users who can barely use email use a two button mouse just fine. All it takes is ignoring the other button. At least its there for when the pass infancy.
deb-man
Eugenia that is a very…unimpressive… POV.
people need to look at things with an open mind. Apple works better for brand new computer users period.
Yes, you’re right, people need to be more open-minded, but they’re not. If they were, smoking weed and same-sex marriages would probably be legal. But people aren’t open-minded, and that ain’t going to change in the forseeable future.
no he is not special ed, he was 2 years old.
LOL … so the only people who can’t figure out the difference between 2 mouse buttons is a 2 year olds ?
Kelson
Just because a huge portion of the market (94%) run Windows of some sort does not mean it is not trash,
No, but it DOES mean it is the standard. That’s why I use it. A Betamax was much better than a VCR, but I still used VCRs. Do you really have to ask why ?
XP and 2k is NOT. And 94% of the world’s computing world, agree with me.
Most of the world’s computing world still runs Windows98/95, and are not likely to change soon. (maybe when their hardware dies, and they buy a new pc) MS may have 94% market share in the OS market, WinXP certainly has not.
Btw, I still think it is pretty hypocritical to bitch about a loose cable on a mac, but don’t dare to bitch about a non-working digital camera on WindowsXP!
AMD support… i think that could mean AMD hardware and Apple operating system. Sound cool.
OSX for x86 ? Why ? AMD hw needs a diversification from Intel ones. Actually there’s a bit of diversification but, for example, Asus is manufacturing AMD hw… so now is not a problem, as was in the past due to the Apple “monopoly” on *their* hardware.
On contrary, Apple os seemed always good and OSX promises well.
So i’m a bit doubtful about the AMD delay in the Hammer’s release… they could be conditioned also from the stability and the reliability that Apple’s code demands to run well.
BTW, the next step ?
Could be this ? > http://www.opencores.org/ then http://www.openh.org/ ?
he was 2 at the time.
“The only problem with Microsoft is,
they just have no taste, they have absolutely no taste,
and I don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way – in a sence that – they don’t think of original ideas and they don’t bring much culture into their product.”
Hey wait – before I get moderated down, this is a citation. Steve Jobs said this in an interview some years ago. And this is the truth nowadays – more than ever before.
No matter OS X is dos slow or lightning fast and no matter Mac’s are slow and PC’s are sooo much faster.
All that does mno change to the above quotation.
Ralf.
This is getting funny. The anti ms people are bashing it, like calling it winblows hurts gates and balmer as they sleep on stacks of money 6 feet high. Some pointless, untrue, name calling of windows makes Eugenia invoke the mod down button. And all of a sudden she’s being painted as a nazi by some idiot who probably doesn’t even know how Hitler gained power. The truth is mac, windows and linux all work for different people. I will most likely never switch to mac and never completely to linux, but I don’t spend my time calling them icraps and shitux (had to reach on that one).
About the kid, well of course he had problems with right click and left click, he’s 2. For the love of god, a lot of 2 year olds shit themselves on a semi-regular basis. Using them as gui test subject is as stupid as saying one os is universally better then another.
no, I worked as a desktop support person in an office…80% of the people did not know ho wthe hell to use the damn mouse correctly. it is not so much coordination (as it is with a 2 year old) but confusion. you say click…they know to hit the right button, you tell them double click, they know, but you tell them right click, they havge no clue. Apple’s point is that if most folks do not use the right mouse button out of confusion, why have it.
Yes, you’re right, people need to be more open-minded, but they’re not. If they were, smoking weed and same-sex marriages would probably be legal. But people aren’t open-minded, and that ain’t going to change in the forseeable future.
Do you want your operating system to be used by 94% of the computer users? Or do you want something that just works great?
Does it matter than an OS doens’t have a monopoly? Most products in a certain category don’t have monopolies, and most of them differentiate themselves from others. A BMW looks and feels different than a Toyota. This is a plus! This is a bloody advantage, not some extremely confusing disadvantage.
If you want Linux/MacosX to be a clone of Windows, why don’t you just don’t stick with Windows?
Don’t like the company? Fine, throw a cake in Bill Gates face when he comes to your country, but stop bitching about how all osses should be like windows.
1) I think it says a lot about the apple design that a 2 year old can pick up there default set up and use it perfectly well
2) older folks have a diffrent issue (as I said in the same post as the one with my son I believe) they get confused over the right button. they don’t get the fact that it is a context menu. since they don’t use it, why have it?
they don’t think of original ideas and they don’t bring much culture into their product.”
they know to hit the right button, you tell them double click, they know, but you tell them right click, they havge no clue.
Who gives a shit about culture? I just want to get work done
Apple’s point is that if most folks do not use the right mouse button out of confusion, why have it.
In that case, why not have it as an option? I mean, it probably isn’t any more expensive to have a 2 button mouse than a 1 button, so why not let the user decide which one they want?
“Ma’am/sir … would you like a one button mouse with your new Mac or a two buttons mouse?” Makes sense to me *shrug*