“There are loads of things to consider when buying a PC or a Mac, things like API’s, software and hardware support, networking capabilities, usability and security then you have the major one, the price. You also have to consider that Mac’s are certainly aimed at the consumer market while Windows is aiming for both Consumer and Business users”. Read the comparison at ActiveMac.
ActiveMac: Mac OS 10.3 or Windows XP?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
“There are loads of things to consider when buying a PC or a Mac, things like API’s…”
End users don’t even know what API’s are… why does this person mention APIs?
I liked that he put a section detailing what he likes more about each OS. It gives this article some balance. I too like some things on OSX over Windows and some things on Windows over OSX. It would be ideal to take the best of both worlds and combine them.
<rant>
How is it far to compare OS 10.3 to Windows XP when WinXP is nearly 2 years OLD. If you want a far comparison – let’s compare OS 10.0 to WinXP.
</rant>
Now I do have to say that the progress is commoning fast on OS X but they also had a lot to do. OS X (10.0) was by all means a fast release to market and OS 10.2 should/would have been OS X if Apple didn’t feel the pressure from Microsoft.
How I look at apple is like this
OS 10.0 = Win 98
OS 10.1 = Win ME
OS 10.2 = Win 2000
OS 10.3 = WinXP
It’s no surprise the author sees the Mac OS as better than Windows XP, given the article appears on a Mac site (ActiveMac). I rather expected it…
Actually, this is a new division of ActiveWin. The author is one of the founders of ActiveWin, he got into Macs very recently and so they decided to open the ActiveMac division to expand their site’s scope.
Yet the author created, designed and runs activewin.
Last night I helped a friend upgrade from OS 9 to OS X Panther and I was really impressed with this OS; especially when compared to OS 9.
I don’t want to be long winded, so I’ll just say that I found the OS absolutely beautiful asthetically and technically (The fonts looked especially crisp and clean – even better than Windows XP on my laptop with the MS font-smearing technology turned on, but that’s another post). I was also impressed with how well it ran on his older hardware.
Unfortunately, I don’t have enough expendable cash to even voice the phrase, “I would like to have one of these.”
Some of what he says is bogus.
Web Browsing: More websites are designed for IE than Safari – so there is better compatibility, IE also runs faster thanks to being part of the OS.
Aside from the fact that compatibility issues are a function of brain-dead web developers, I think that the second sentence is just plain wrong. In what way does being “part of the OS” make IE faster? Is he talking about loading faster? In that case, IE doesn’t load faster, it just loads before you start using your computer (so you wait longer to boot up). And isn’t any application “part of the OS?” A lot of IE lovers use this argument for IE, but I challenge them to tell me, specifically, how IE is “integrated,” and how that leads to a performance boost.
Also, IE doesn’t provide popup blocking or tabbed browsing. You have to download hacked frontends to do that for you.
Video Playback: Thanks to support for VCD and SVCD and a free full screen mode, Windows Media Player just edges out QuickTime on OS X.
Just *wait* till WMP gets drm.
<rant>
How is it far to compare OS 10.3 to Windows XP when WinXP is nearly 2 years OLD. If you want a far comparison – let’s compare OS 10.0 to WinXP.
</rant>
It is fair because both operating systems are the most current from each company (also, XP has had updates during the last two year as well – it’s not as though it has been static). Wouldn’t you agree?
Now I do have to say that the progress is commoning fast on OS X but they also had a lot to do. OS X (10.0) was by all means a fast release to market and OS 10.2 should/would have been OS X if Apple didn’t feel the pressure from Microsoft.
It was the same with Windows 95. Windows 98 was what Windows 95 should have been; or at least that’s what pundits say.
How I look at apple is like this
OS 10.0 = Win 98
OS 10.1 = Win ME
OS 10.2 = Win 2000
OS 10.3 = WinXP
I don’t think you can even compare OS X with Windows 95/98/ME. It totally outclasses those operating systems on all levels; and it outclasses Windows 2000 on asthetics if nothing else.
Personally, I would classify OS X as comparable to Windows XP. and 10.1, 10.2, and 10.3 with XP Service Packs and other updates.
Loading of webpages is faster for me on IE with Windows XP, far faster in fact on identical connections. Yes safari loads quick, but webpages load slowly for me. I had forgotten about popup blocking when I wrote this. Not sure it’s fair for me to go back and change it now.
OS X 10.3 is more likely equal to Longhorn…
Safari has problems when loading little images while on https. We have 72 32×32 icons on our backend (each one for each news topic) that load when we create a new news item for osnews, and Safari is dog slow *until* it finishes downloading these small icons. After the downloading of the images is done, speed comes back to normal. This doesn’t happen with any other browser. It happens on any Mac with any Safari version I have used, so it is not a configuration problem, it is a limitation or a grand lock around OpenSSL. Definately something to get optimized further.
On the Macs at my college Safari is faster then at loading pages than IE, it has limitations, but its faster.
“OS X 10.3 is more likely equal to Longhorn…”
Why? Does OSX have DRM/TCPA/ubercontrol crap, too?
that is with all respect, the DUMBEST thing I have ever read.
you have to look at the available systems, NOT the age of the system.
MS offers XP to end users, Apple offers OS X 10.3
if you choose a windows machine, you will run XP, if you choose a Mac, you will be running Panther. Since those are the systems you will be running, you must compair those systems.
Read this link, and weep for windows diehards, and rejoice if you like anything onther than windows (Like Linux, and OSX).
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1369024,00.asp
Loading of webpages is faster for me on IE with Windows XP, far faster in fact on identical connections.
Then I would say either the Windows machine outperfoms the Mac, or Internet Explorer outperforms Safari. If it is the case that the Windows machine is outperforming the Mac, then how do we determine what is making the difference? Is it a networking issue? Is it better memory management?
It isn’t IE being “integrated” into the OS…without anyone knowing exactly how it is integrated, there is no way to draw that conclusion.
But I’m mulling over a tiny technicality. Overall, I thought the article was really cool and unbiased. I wish articles written by folks that switch to Linux were as fair on the whole. With the exception of Eugenia and a few others, most Linux reviews tend to be written to fanboys by fanboys.
Apple makes what is IMHO, the best operating system for any platform. They make one of the best browsers (Safari), they make one of the best music players (iTunes), and they have very nice OSX-only producitivity apps (iDVD, finalcutpro, etc..). Not only that, but it’s so pretty to look at, especially Panther.
However, unfortunatly for Apple, it’s not the OS that sells any sizeable amount of computers. Sure, a few people are going to say here that they’ve switched from PC’s to Mac because of OSX. There are plenty of people like that, but it’s simply not a sizable amount. Since OSX came out, Apple marketshare hasn’t gone up by any sizable amount, despite many incentives to do so (like this last year, first the ipod coming out for Mac way before Windows, and then itunes store)
the market share argument is full or crap.
the 3% stuff is world wide market share…that includes people in China, India, Russia, and all of Africa…that is 90% of the world population right there.
Apple has had a very poor attempt to push their products there. Apple does have about 15% of the US market though, and as long as the US is the spending capitol of the World, Apple will be fine.
10.3 is nice, but no OpenOffice is crippling me.
2 hours to install on an iBook 500MHz is really long.
Had a hard lockup within 5 minutes of use of the new install. But since has run great.
Windows networking AND printing is fantastic.
Expose does not display Real One audio player. Bug?
F1-F6 do NOT work under Expose (shared keys?).
Safari, from what I’ve heard, is a good, fast, solid browser… I’ve seen Apple’s web site, and it says there that Safari is based on KHTML. I don’t know of any KHTML other than the one shipped with KDE.
Yup. KHTML is KDE’s rendering engine, used in Konqueror. Apple added on some stuff to it and used it for Safari. Their enhancements have since been merged into the main KHTML tree.
Erm, where did you 15% for Apple in the US from?!?!??!
Apple has a 3.3% market share in the US. You’re right that Apple has a smaller market share worldwide (2.8%)
Other companies have a much larger variance between the US and the world. Take Dell for example, they have a 29% market share in the US, and only 15% market share worldwide (HP+Compaq has slightly more Compaq)
In fact, the largest market share Apple has had with the Mac was around 11%, in the mid 80’s. The problem isn’t Apple losing customers; it’s just the big PC makers getting virtually all of the new ones.
at xlr8yourmac.com and many other sites (see what end users are experiencing with the user friendly desktop unix os x)
as one who bought and used apples and macs exclusively from 1981 to 1998, I have to admit that MS has since passed the mac os and I switched to Windows. Win95 sucked (as did all previous oses from MS in my opinion), Win98 was at least finally somewhat reliable and was on par with OS 8.0, 8.1, 8.5, 8.6, etc. Took MS a long time to catch Apple, but during that long time Apple sat on an ever aging OS and when MS finally caught them, they had to rush out and buy a unix variant with the hope of staying in the game with a modern os. In my opinion it aint working.
I’ll skip ME as I never used it and have heard/ read mostly negative things about it.
Windows 2000 and XP have been rock solid oses, feature rich, inexpensive, and are available on either inexpensive or extremely powerful and limitless equipment (even very powerful equipment remains much less expensive than apple hardware: both on the desktop and laptop front.)
apple’s move to unix has been fraught with nothing but trouble for me and too high a percentage of other users to be looked upon favorably. looking good and spiffy and cool aint enough to overcome:
pay to upgrade almost all classic mac os software to work on X. working in emulation for day to day use in standard desktop programs simply doesn’t cut it.
pay to replace hardware, even modern hardware, that did not work in X or is too slow with the new os. when os x shipped, even 2 yr. old macs at that time either were not supported or were terribly slow on the new os.
ditch a scsi infrastructure for firewire as os x support for scsi is poor at best.
download updates for what, 20% of your applications each time apple updates the os?
pay yearly for updates to the os.
require that you have to have a dual cpu high end workstation (very expensive) in order to get modest speeds (very good speeds in a select few applications)?
85% of the mac market is stuck on low end, single cpu, imacs, emacs, and ibooks that do not perform well with os x.
apple just pulled the g3, a cpu that didn’t fully use the extensions built into os x.
for me the single biggest problem with X is apples departure from a user friendly, simple to use, quick os to a bloated (3 cd install), slow, buggy, complicated os that when thinking of updating you need to layout a chart to see if all of your hardware and software will work and then hope that it doesn’t eat your files on external hard drives.
the mac os is passe: make it look cool (don’t you go making it look or act cool via haxies as apple don’t like you modifying the os and intentionally breaks haxies with each release of os x) via hip marketing all you like, it is still done– stick a fork in it.
apple and macs are skin deep: nothing of real merit under those high res icons and pretty colored plastics.
Panther is a great OS — if you’re in the market for a new computer, it’s definitely worth checking out a Mac… especially a laptop or a workstation. (Hopefully Apple will get their desktop situation in more attractive shape by next year.)
Just a few notes on what I’ve seen written here.
Panther is right now equivalent to the 2-3 years away Longhorn in some ways (next-generation display system which is what makes it so beautiful, and allows features like Exposé) but definitely not others (no advanced filesystem). I’d expect the next version of OS X to be a “features” release, with an enhanced filesystem like BeFS/WinFS and extensible metadata, wrapped in a smart UI. This has been rumored in the works for some time now.
Browsing with Safari or Firebird is very good in OS X, but still not fully up to IE’s speed. IE for Windows is one ferociously optimized browser. But I have absolutely no complaints; if Safari continues to improve at the speed it was developed, I think Mac users are good shape.
Anyway, I appreciated the nonpartisan conclusion of the review. No one OS is perfect for everyone, and Windows is the standard with all advantages and disadvantages that implies. If you’re looking for an alternative, though, you can’t do much better than OS X.
where did I get that? FORBES magazine back about 5 months ago.
The article rang a bell for me – I am considering switching to a Mac because it is unix done properly: easy to use, stylish interface, and it’s got MS Office. Not to mention that most (all?) Linux programs can run on OSX, reasonably up-to-date hardware support, and very cool hardware.
But the price is a killer. To by a laptop from Apple, I could buy two or more PC laptops! I think I am going to stick with WinXP, but my heart is with OSX – I’ve themed WinXP to look like Panther!
Sigh…. its a Sunday night, I’m feeling bored. So I’ll bite.
pay to upgrade almost all classic mac os software to work on X. working in emulation for day to day use in standard desktop programs simply doesn’t cut it.
What classic apps are you working with that still aren’t ported over to OS X after more than 2 years? Also, OS 9 was a real pain and didn’t support many functions (multi-threading for one) that other OS has for a long time. Its a good thing they ditched it. Tough luck if the vendor of the software you’re using doesn’t want to give you a free upgrade to X. It costs quite a bit to port the software, so IMHO, that’s justified.
pay to replace hardware, even modern hardware, that did not work in X or is too slow with the new os. when os x shipped, even 2 yr. old macs at that time either were not supported or were terribly slow on the new os.
85% of the mac market is stuck on low end, single cpu, imacs, emacs, and ibooks that do not perform well with os x.
I bought a celeron Dell Inspiron 3700 in 1999. When WinXP was released in 2001, it installed, but ran dog slow. WinXP was a big shift from Win98, so the increase in minimum requirements is justified. OS X is a big leap from OS 9. The increase in minimum requirements is equally justified.
require that you have to have a dual cpu high end workstation (very expensive) in order to get modest speeds (very good speeds in a select few applications)?
What are you talking about? OS X runs fine on a Powerbook 12′ that doesn’t have a high-end workstation CPU. I’ve occasionally used OS X on an iBook 800, and that was cool too.
apple just pulled the g3, a cpu that didn’t fully use the extensions built into os x.
Curious. Would you be referring to Altivec that isn’t present in the G3? I don’t see how pulling the G3 is a bad thing.
Good grief.
What on earth does a list of bugs and conflicts from a new software release have to do with anything? Every major piece of software has these, especially a x.0 OS release. The UNIX-ness of OS X has practically nothing to do with this.
Reposting a (long!) list of headlines from a site which collects these for troubleshooting purposes and attempting to use them to advance your obscure political agenda… pretty scuzzy.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031015/new040_1.html
Q3 2003 Q3 2003 Market Q3 2002 Market Growth
Rank Vendor Shipments Share Shipments Share 2003/2002
1 Dell 4,396 30.9% 3,522 28.8% 24.8%
2 HP 3,082 21.7% 2,286 18.7% 34.8%
TBD IBM 715 5.0% 652 5.3% 9.7%
TBD Apple 473 3.3% 457 3.7% 3.4%
TBD
Others 5,552 39.0% 5,326 43.5% 4.2%
All Vendors 14,218 100.0% 12,244 100.0% 16.1%
apple is at 3.3% of USA market and latest sales figures from apple put them at 2% of worldwide market of shipped personal computers from major vendors only (this figure does not include self built PCs or PCs made by small firms or apple’s numbers would be even lower as many millions of PCs are built annually by small shops and end users and that practice is not utilized with proprietary apple hardware.)
“apple is at 3.3% of USA market and latest sales figures from apple put them at 2% of worldwide market of shipped personal computers from major vendors only (this figure does not include self built PCs or PCs made by small firms or apple’s numbers would be even lower as many millions of PCs are built annually by small shops and end users and that practice is not utilized with proprietary apple hardware.)”
Yearly sales and userbase are different though. It’s well known that Apple hardware lasts almost twice as long as PC hardware.
Then look at what market you are in and not the inustry as a whole. It all depends on what you are doing.
As long as it runs only on Apple hardware, it is and will continue to be irrevalent in the grand scheme of things.
well, I was looking for the article, and found that it refers to installed base which is totally different that market share.
here is a nice article I suggest you read…it was written by a software developer who runs his own one man company.
http://www.macopinion.com/columns/tangible/01/06/15/
it talks about the differences between market share installed base, and the different kinds of market share.
from Anonymous:
The article rang a bell for me – I am considering switching to a Mac because it is unix done properly: easy to use, stylish interface, and it’s got MS Office. Not to mention that most (all?) Linux programs can run on OSX, reasonably up-to-date hardware support, and very cool hardware.
But the price is a killer. To by a laptop from Apple, I could buy two or more PC laptops! I think I am going to stick with WinXP, but my heart is with OSX – I’ve themed WinXP to look like Panther!
Jeez, I couldn’t stand an OS dressed up like another — I can’t think of anything less satisfying — but whatever floats your boat.
Puzzled about the price being a killer, though. IME Apple laptops are fairly competitively priced to PC laptops — at least to those of similar weight and quality. You pay a little more, no doubt, but in no way 2x. What are you comparing to, here? G4 iBooks (5 lb.) now start at $1100, and 15″ Powerbooks (5.6 lb.) start at $2000.
How is something that in many ways leads the industry in several categories, is copied continually, and is a bellweather for the PC industry as far as trends are concerned, irrelevant? One of the reasons OS X’s press share is 15 times its market share is because it *is* so relevant, whether you use it or not.
people do tend to keep it longer because they can’t afford to upgrade as frequently as Windows PC users.
Since Apples quarterly sales and worldwide and USA market share have continued to track down year by year, what you say better be true of their overall share is in deep trouble.
Remember when the original iMac shipped and Jobs said that Macs at 5% of the market wouldn’t do and that he would double it to 10% of the market within 5 years? Well, it not only didn’t happen, Apples market share didn’t double, its been halved in 5 years! No wonder apple is working so hard to sell music!
so….is OS X irrelevant in the design industry? the music industry? the movie industry?
here is a hint…no.
is it irrelevant in the gaming industry? to crappy games, yes, to good games, no. (take a look at the game sections (action and family) at the apple store to see the number of games available)
is it irrelevant in the Office productivity industry? well apparently not since Microsoft makes money on Office for mac and keeps that code base updated with windows office code base.
is it irrelevant in the Unix market? no. they are the number one seller of Unix computers in the world (OS X may not be a pure Unix box by your definition, but it runs all the unix user-land tools, the only difference is the kernel, right now, OS X could get Posix certified if apple wished.
all in all, I would say OS X is as far from irrelevant as you can get.
Who cares about market share, I use Apple because its better then MS crap. I used a mac three years ago and had to buy one. I’m a film student and we used Macs,,,,,,so market share isn’t an issure. You can run professional systems like Avid and Final Cut Pro on the Mac. Its a very cheap solid running system for it, and it does the job well.
Apple’s hardware costs EXACTLY the same as PC hardware feature for feature.
sure you can get a featureless PC that you build on your own, but you can not get a Dell or a gateway that has exactly the same features as an Apple for an extremely lower price.
“Since Apples quarterly sales and worldwide and USA market share have continued to track down year by year, what you say better be true of their overall share is in deep trouble. ”
I suggest you look at last quarters sales. They haven’t been dropping. They posted a $44 million profit last quarter and are opening about 3 retail stores a month.
Quoting lookmark”:
Puzzled about the price being a killer, though. IME Apple laptops are fairly competitively priced to PC laptops — at least to those of similar weight and quality. You pay a little more, no doubt, but in no way 2x. What are you comparing to, here? G4 iBooks (5 lb.) now start at $1100, and 15″ Powerbooks (5.6 lb.) start at $2000.
OK, maybe 2x is exaggerating, but take top of the line PC laptops and top of the line apple laptops. Sure you can get really cheap iBooks, there are two things to consider:
1. The PC hardware will be more powerful for the same price point. Granted you may not need that much power to run OSX anyway.
2. I am in the UK, and the price difference is more marked than in the US. Further, computer hardware tends to be more expensive here in general. You quote prices in US$, but UK prices are higher!
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2003/10/15/units/
“While the number of units sold was flat sequentially and down 3 percent year over year”
I use both XP and Mac and I’m not a Mac hater but truth hurt sometimes and I’ll give you Mr. Jobs’ words when he announced the G5: “We can say we’ve caught up with the PC…”. Have you read that?…
Since I’ve been working with both Pcs and Macs for over 8 years, I can give you a better comparison than anyone out there… After everything said and done and after you snap out of it, XP has much greater advantage over Panther by far.
Here’s a few out of many to add to ActiveMac comparison:
1. Dialogue boxes: In XP it’s Task aware and the dialogue box tells you what to do… If you’re deleting a file, Is it always going to ask you Don’t Save, Save, Cancel In Panther… Hhmmmm…
2. Drag and Drop: XP is much better than Panther and I can argue this point … Creating or copying files: In XP: with a right of a mouse, you can do that. Panther?… I think not!
3. Navigating the file system: Hhmmm… You definitely got a tunnel vision… One word: mouse.
4. File Search: In XP you can search contents in a file. Mac? I think Not!
5. Mouse and the magic of the right click!… Need say more!…
6. Compress files on the fly. Compressing files with a right click of a mouse…
7. Rigth click on a PC mouse and you can send a file anywhere you want to…. Compress it, burn a CD, email it, etc.. Choose an application to open a file with…
8. Keyboards… Obviously you never knew the shortcuts on PC KB. My friend you don’t have to memorize shortcuts on a PC…
9. OS Loading… Xp takes 12 seconds with services on… Mac: takes 54 seconds with no services running and I’m talking about G5 with dual CPUs…
10. Mac don’t crash… Hhmmm! My Mac has crashed a few times my friend and my XP have not… Hhmmmm…
I’m going to list my own comparison when I have the time. Meanwhile, off I go to fix another Mac…
what are you pricing?
a 17 in PB vers a 14 in dell?
save the exchange rate, a 12 in powerbook or a 15 in powerbook will run you about what a dell costs for the same feature set.
umm…He was talking about Processors not OSs.
OK, maybe 2x is exaggerating, but take top of the line PC laptops and top of the line apple laptops. Sure you can get really cheap iBooks, there are two things to consider:
1. The PC hardware will be more powerful for the same price point. Granted you may not need that much power to run OSX anyway.
2. I am in the UK, and the price difference is more marked than in the US. Further, computer hardware tends to be more expensive here in general. You quote prices in US$, but UK prices are higher!
Yeah, sorry, UK prices sure are higher — that VAT sure adds a bundle.
But it seems so are the UK prices for PC notebooks.
Are there PC notebooks you *don’t* have to pay a VAT on? Or is a non-budget notebook just over your budget, period?
Otherwise, Apple laptops seem pretty competitive to me. And a 800 or 1 Ghz G4 is no slouch for a notebook.
1. Dialogue boxes: In XP it’s Task aware and the dialogue box tells you what to do… If you’re deleting a file, Is it always going to ask you Don’t Save, Save, Cancel In Panther… Hhmmmm…
if I am deleting a file, I drag it to the trash can or right click on move to trash…why do I want to worry about saving something I am deleting?
2. Drag and Drop: XP is much better than Panther and I can argue this point … Creating or copying files: In XP: with a right of a mouse, you can do that. Panther?… I think not!
how is crating a file drag/drop? and yes, I can right click copy in Panther.
3. Navigating the file system: Hhmmm… You definitely got a tunnel vision… One word: mouse.
ever opened the terminal window? it is BASH which is about 1000 times better than the windows command prompt. other than that, I would say the new finder is much better than explorer. preferences I suppose.
4. File Search: In XP you can search contents in a file. Mac? I think Not!
if you could explain this one it would be help full. how are you searching the contents of a file? from explorer?
5. Mouse and the magic of the right click!… Need say more!…
yeah…I have that in Panther as well!!!! hurray
6. Compress files on the fly. Compressing files with a right click of a mouse…
yep. got that as well…right click -> create archive
7. Rigth click on a PC mouse and you can send a file anywhere you want to…. Compress it, burn a CD, email it, etc.. Choose an application to open a file with…
you can compress files in right click, but XP does still have te burn to CD feature and send feature..hardly killer features since I never use the burn feature until I compile a group of file first, in which case, Panther has the disk utility for that.
8. Keyboards… Obviously you never knew the shortcuts on PC KB. My friend you don’t have to memorize shortcuts on a PC…
neither do you on a Mac…what is your point?
9. OS Loading… Xp takes 12 seconds with services on… Mac: takes 54 seconds with no services running and I’m talking about G5 with dual CPUs…
12 seconds? your full of it, I count 30 seconds on my machines. and my OS X box loads Panther in about 25 to 30 seconds as well, it is a 400 MHz Power mac G4…oh, I do have a 7200 RPM drive in it which helps, but then again, I have them in both my machines.
10. Mac don’t crash… Hhmmm! My Mac has crashed a few times my friend and my XP have not… Hhmmmm…
thats funny, I have never had a crash on my Mac but have had 4 BSODs on my XP box in the 2 years I have had it.
yeah, they are not a slouch at all especially when you look at the trend in PC notebooks…they are all running 1 GHz to 1.5 GHz in the centrino lines, which is the future for the intel laptops.
so unless you want to have your Laptop always plugged in, you will not get a much more powerful laptop than what apple offers
1. Dialogue boxes: In XP it’s Task aware and the dialogue box tells you what to do… If you’re deleting a file, Is it always going to ask you Don’t Save, Save, Cancel In Panther… Hhmmmm…
if I am deleting a file, I drag it to the trash can or right click on move to trash…why do I want to worry about saving something I am deleting?
I also meant to point out that OS X dialogue boxes are just as task aware and in-fact are superior to XP boxes because they are spawned from the window you are using and cause an immediate connection between it and the action you just took making it less likely to be clicked through with out notice.
Hey… when the programmers add button he must label it. If he did not his job right… who’s to blame?
pc laptops:
choose a tablet pc
a laptop up to 3.2ghz pentium 4 with an 800mhz bus
a 2.5lb transemeta or centrino chipset
a panasonic waterproof and super rugged toughbook
a laptop with a documented 8 hour battery life
laptops with screens running from 10″ to 17″
laptops with style and flair, or durability, or plain jane black cases, or full on desktop replacement componets for those that need a 10LB mobile workstation….on and on and on….
any and all of them running windows os, not mac os.
go back and check out all the benchmarking stuff that has been published over the last month now that apple has the g5. in those tests you will see how poorly the g3 and g4 perform and realize that you can only get a single cpu g4 in a laptop and all those poor ibook buyers of recent months stuck with the even more dated g3.
specifically look for what a centrino does to the g4 in testing: both for benchmarking and battery life.
Your posts are ridiculous. Prove that the existince of bugs is a consequence of moving to UNIX, and also prove that Mac OS X has more known issues than Windows.
Do both of those, and people will take you seriously.
The sad thing about trolls like yourself is that while you can incite responses, you can’t actually push your agenda with any force.
1) the centrino laptop is on par with a g4 laptop
2) unless you like having a 2 hour battery life, a 3 GHz proc in a laptop is silly.
4) what kind of work are you doing on your laptop that you need that much power? I do programming, write up reports, edit my digital photos, make videos, watch DVDs, listen to music, and burn CDs. I do all that on my 1 GHz laptop with no performance issues. I can navigate and full speed with instant return on my action, I see no slowdowns in my DVDs, my music plays with out problem…..
what exactly are you doing on your laptop that you need that much power?
woops that last one should be 3 not 4 🙂
Hi,
Price contention issue: Let me say that if you choose carefully, you can make PC laptops look more expensive than Apples. However, the same process reveals lots of good deals that provide ample power (to run WinXP) and are much cheaper. Here are a few links:
http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.com/cgi-bin/ToshibaCSG/selected_…
http://www.dabs.com/uk/channels/hardware/notebooksandtablets/produc…
http://www.dabs.com/uk/channels/hardware/notebooksandtablets/produc…
But having said that, I compared a Dell (Inspiron 5150) with an Apple (15.2″ model). I biased the balance towards the Apple side by shopping for academic discounts (for which I am eligible). I modified the spec of the Dell to match the spec of the Apple (barring the 3.06GHz processor with HyperThreading compared to the Apple’s 1GHz G4). The price came out a few tens of GBP in Dell’s favour. Add in the VAT at 17.5%, and the difference is further aggrevated.
On top of that, Dell is currently running an offer to throw in a carry case and a printer for free! But I won’t count those in this comparison, as offers like this are transient.
So, in short, I think if you shop around a bit for a good-brand PC laptop, you will get good power for less money than what you get from Apple. This is why I say price is a killer.
Also a few quick tidbits to prevent the spread of FUD (why do people claim things they don’t know?):
– Mac OS X can search for content too… from the finder hit Command-F or choose “Find…” from the File menu. A dialog box pops up that lets you choose where to search (default: Everywhere, although you can define a collection of specific places as well) and search by any combination of: Name, Content, Date Modified, Date Created, Kind, Label, Size, Extension, Visibility, Type, Creator, and variations of those (such as starts with, ends with, is, contains, is greater than, is less than, is not, is before, is after, is within, is exactly, etc (as appropriate).
– Right clicking: MacOS X can right click, can middle click, can right click to copy files, paste files, get info, setup folder actions, change labels, burn CDs, etc. It can also do these without the use of a right click. Drag & Drop is more ubiquitous throughout the OS on OS X than in XP.
– Compressing on the fly: as well as compressing/decompressing/encoding with the right click, if you’re using the latest version of Stuffit Deluxe on OS X simply renaming a file (adding an extension such as .sit or removing the extension) will compress/decompress the file.
– Services: an often neglected, yet powerful, tool on MacOS X is services… specific functions available to every application. For example, I can highlight a word in any application and with a keystroke find the definition of the word on the internet, or search in google, send it to a mail application, etc.
Some of things you mentioned are grossly inaccurate or do not even apply to the current MacOS.
“2. Drag and Drop: XP is much better than Panther and I can argue this point … Creating or copying files: In XP: with a right of a mouse, you can do that. Panther?… I think not!”
ControlClick or right click will allow you to copy and paste in Panther.
“4. File Search: In XP you can search contents in a file. Mac? I think Not!”
Even MacOS9 has this capability as does MacOSX. In MacOS the volume has to be indexed to do this search but it is available nontheless.
“5. Mouse and the magic of the right click!… Need say more!…”
You can right click and get a menu in MacOS9. MacOSX offers more options.
“6. Compress files on the fly. Compressing files with a right click of a mouse… ”
Supported in Panther and available on 10.2 using Stuffit Deluxe.
Given the very SIMPLE features of MacOSX that you missed you are hardly qualified to make a stametment that you know Macs. The right click options are the first things you notice in Panther, thats one of the ways to get to the labels.
you can also buy a laptop today with and amd 64 bit cpu in it
oh i do the same as you but i probably do it slower as i only have a 750mhz pentium 3 with 512mb ram in my dell inspiron 7500. its old now but the day i bought it, it had the largest lcd made for a laptop (15.2″) and cost less than a mac by a mile and outperformed that generation macs by a large margin…its now 3.5 yrs old.
i get as much power as i can afford…just like most people.
on the pc side you have the CHOICE
buy a light and fast laptop that gives longer battery life than any mac laptop ever made
or
buy a full blown desktop replacement with 3.2ghz pentium 4 or amd opeteron or amd 64 with a video card with 128MB of ram—all in a 9lb case with just 2-3 hours of battery life.
if battery life is important, go that route; if power is important you have that choice as well….with hundreds of choices in the middle.
be free, choose! either way you win over picking a mac and you will spend less money as well….but maybe just maybe you won’t have cute icons and pretty plastics. Can always get a barbie doll and matching case for that though!
<rant>
How is it far to compare OS 10.3 to Windows XP when WinXP is nearly 2 years OLD. If you want a far comparison – let’s compare OS 10.0 to WinXP.
</rant>
Now I do have to say that the progress is commoning fast on OS X but they also had a lot to do. OS X (10.0) was by all means a fast release to market and OS 10.2 should/would have been OS X if Apple didn’t feel the pressure from Microsoft.
How I look at apple is like this
OS 10.0 = Win 98
OS 10.1 = Win ME
OS 10.2 = Win 2000
OS 10.3 = WinXP
Your statement warrants a little help from the logic department – you state in the opening that OS 10 is comprable to Windows XP. Why would you say that? If you really wanted to mix it up… you should be comparing Windows NT 3.x to Mac OS X.
Yes, time does separate these OS’s, but comparing 10.0 to a quasi 32 bit OS is like comparing DOS to Windows 98 – they are worlds apart.
But I do enjoy your comparison of the Mac OS to the Windows OS. What you are basically saying is that Apple, in its short time of having Mac OS X around, as come from an OS base comprable to Windows 98 to an OS of Windows XP in a span of time that bests Micrsoft developers by about 3 years. (considering Windows 98 came out around 1998 time frame and OS X came out around 2001. )
🙂
that hardly makes it a price killer, and yes, no one contends that you can buy less of a PC for less money than you can buy an apple.
you are correct! you can buy less pc for less money than a mac!
but
no one disputes you can buy less mac for more money as well!
whats most important is you can buy more PC for less money than you can going mac and with the left over cash you can take classes in logic!
First of all: It’s not a bad article, and it does give credit to both sides which is seldom these days.
But: In my ears the article sort of sounds ‘fake’. The author repeats arguments he has obviously picked up somewhere but which have no connection or relevance to his profession. He makes one believe he’s just an ordinary user or consumer, but then he knows way too much about computing and windows to be just that. He includes lots of technical details that shouldn’t really matter and that he shouldn’t really be aware of from his ‘user’ point of view.
Examples: Vector icons in Longhorn, 20 MB defragmentation in Panther, the dialogue boxes logics like taken directly from some often quoted article, video editing & scripting (highly unlikely that he’s into both), scheduling and cron.
I don’t say anything’s wrong with what he says, it’s just like that the whole article is made to look like a switcher campaign although it’s written by a professional computer reviewer.
Philotech
that depends on what you are counting in your less statement.
I say less PC because if I built a PC a cheap PC, I would not get blue tooth, or a wireless card, I would not get a Gb ethernet, I would not get a flashy case and I would buy the cheapest parts I could find regardless of quality. that is less.
but then again, I build a PC that has Asus boards, Antec cases, top of the line GFX cards, (well almost, I get the cards in the 150 range), I usually go with AMD to save money on processors, I get DDR memory, a 19 inch LCD monitor, and a nice DVD-rw drive by Sony a well made Keyboard, a nice mouse, and a good power supply, I then commence with silencing it using Barracuda hard drives, U get excellent cooling using copy heat sinks that attach to the mother board, and then I use a nice 80 mm panaflow fan to keep the CPU cool, I also employ a Rheostat to keep the RPMs down.
after all this, my machine is about as expensive from me just building it as a duel G5.
oh, I also buy local because if I get burned on a bad part, I will end up paying the difference in shipping just to send it back and get a new part.
This whole price war thing is ridiculous.
Look, all I did was mention that Panther is a great OS (it is), and definitely worth checking out if you’re market for a new computer, esp. a laptop, where Macs are more competitively priced.
Then, someone responded, saying, well, I was thinking about switching, and OS X looks pretty neat, but I can’t really afford it — you know, I can get two PC notebooks for the price of one Apple notebook.
That puzzled me, as iBooks and Powerbooks may cost a little more than PC notebooks (or not, depending), but they’re basically in the same ballpark. That’s why so many geeks are buying ’em. The 2x number seemed kinda wild.
He then said, yeah, 2x was an exaggeration, but they’re still too much.
So I said, well, OK, but I think you’ll compare you’ll find that for what you get (a gorgeous, thoughful design, lightweight for full features, bright screens) they’re pretty competitive in price. Not always cheaper. Not YOU ARE A LOOSER IF YOU DON’T HAVE A MAC NOTEBOOK NYYYAH. Competitive.
But again, this is all about the OS. I’ll say it again: Panther is a really good OS, and if you’re looking for a new computer, and a bit unhappy or tired of XP, a Mac is worth checking out. That’s my take on it. Check it out — and then make your decision whatever you like best.
Here’s the thing about Mac laptops. I looked at a lot of PC laptops before I bought my 12″ PowerBook. What did my Apple have that most of the PC competitors didn’t?
1. High quality screen. Frankly, not a single one of the PC laptops in the price class of my PowerBook that I looked at had a display near the quality of the PowerBook. Let me also point out that I am a PC/Linux guy more so than anything, and I was not originally even in the market for an Apple.
2. USB & FireWire (IEEE 1394). All the PC ones had USB, only a few had FireWire also.
3. Size and weight. None of the PCs in the price range were as compact or as light. For something I strap to my back and lug around a college campus all day, this is important.
4. Fuss-less VGA & S-Video Out. Probably all of the PC ones had VGA, not all had S-Video. For class presentations, this can be very important. I also note how pathetically simple my laptop hooks up to the projector (plug it in, and OS X immediately adjusts resolution and begins output), while many of my PC-using classmates often fuss for minutes trying to get theirs to work, and a couple have even failed entirely. As I grow out of my teenage techno-tweak years, and get to the point where I have to do a lot of work, these sorts of features become pure gold.
5. Stability. Last week, I watched a poor classmate of mine, trying desperately to just check her Hotmail on her brand new Toshiba laptop, but Internet Explorer crashed (literally) every 1-3 minutes. Granted, Mozilla would help the situation somewhat, as would using Linux instead of Windows. But as soon as someone can write a driver for Airport Extreme cards, I’ll have Linux on my laptop along with OS X.
But you know what? The PC laptops got some stuff I didn’t. Most have a bit more speed (not “megahertz myth” stuff, but a little bit of actual real-world speed), some better video cards, etc. It was not an easy decision to pick the PowerBook, because it is in no way a perfect product that totally dominates everything around it. But what it is is a very good product that gave me the “most for my money”, and is in no way equalled by laptops “half the price”. It competes very nicely with the laptops in its price range.
<<people do tend to keep it longer because they can’t afford to upgrade as frequently as Windows PC users. >>
Well, that is total BS.
I have 3 macs here in my office.
Dual 500 G4
Dual 1Ghz G4 and a Dual 2Ghz G5
My kids have 2 older iMacs
My grandmother is using another older iMac
and there is still a Centris kicking around my uncles as a family web server.
Meanwhile the 1Ghz PC I got at the same time I got the Dual 500 runs XP like dog poop.
Macs just last longer. There are numberous studies to supprot this.
Thank you — well put.
Just one last thing, and I’m outta here.
I modified the spec of the Dell to match the spec of the Apple (barring the 3.06GHz processor with HyperThreading compared to the Apple’s 1GHz G4). The price came out a few tens of GBP in Dell’s favour. Add in the VAT at 17.5%, and the difference is further aggrevated.
On top of that, Dell is currently running an offer to throw in a carry case and a printer for free! But I won’t count those in this comparison, as offers like this are transient.
Glad to hear that, as various Mac resellers also throw extra RAM and free printer and so on, and Apple has transient promos and deals as well.
So, in short, I think if you shop around a bit for a good-brand PC laptop, you will get good power for less money than what you get from Apple. This is why I say price is a killer.
I hope you noticed that Apple includes VAT in their price (follow through to right before purchasing the thing to see price minus VAT). I noticed a lot of other vendors didn’t.
But anyway. I agree. If you shop around, you can absolutely get a good-power (I would say, mediocre, personally, but OK, “good-power”) PC notebook for less money than an Apple notebook. The question is, how much are you willing to pay for a great notebook with a great OS?
That’s the question for which every person has a different answer.
<<Since I’ve been working with both Pcs and Macs for over 8 years, I can give you a better comparison than anyone out there… After everything said and done and after you snap out of it, XP has much greater advantage over Panther by far. >>
OK sport. My first machine was an Altair. I have been using PCs and macs for 20 years.
<<Here’s a few out of many to add to ActiveMac comparison:
1. Dialogue boxes: In XP it’s Task aware and the dialogue box tells you what to do… If you’re deleting a file, Is it always going to ask you Don’t Save, Save, Cancel In Panther… Hhmmmm… >>
I have no idea what you mean. When deleting a file? On my XP machine it always asks me if I am sure I want to delete it. Uh, yes… otherwise I wouldn’t have dragged it to the trash or hit delete.
<<2. Drag and Drop: XP is much better than Panther and I can argue this point … Creating or copying files: In XP: with a right of a mouse, you can do that. Panther?… I think not! >>
At this point you start pointing out all the things you can do with a 2 or three button mouse. Well, the mac supports them… just plug one in. You can even use a MS mouse. From here on all these points are irrelevant.
<<3. Navigating the file system: Hhmmm… You definitely got a tunnel vision… One word: mouse. >>
Or keyboard, what is your point?
<<4. File Search: In XP you can search contents in a file. Mac? I think Not! >>
Funny, I just hit command-F and in my search window there is a content selection.
<<5. Mouse and the magic of the right click!… Need say more!… >>
Again! The funny thing about this argument is that no one ever really asks WHY Apple doesn’t include a multi-button mouse. In every study of first time and casual computer users it has been found that a one button mouse is just more comfortable for them. I know that doesn’t apply to anyone here… but we are not the majority.
<<6. Compress files on the fly. Compressing files with a right click of a mouse… >>
Right click (or control-click) and select create archive.
<<7. Rigth click on a PC mouse and you can send a file anywhere you want to…. Compress it, burn a CD, email it, etc.. Choose an application to open a file with… >>
Actions. I can create an applescript to do even more.
<<8. Keyboards… Obviously you never knew the shortcuts on PC KB. My friend you don’t have to memorize shortcuts on a PC…>>
uh… what?
<<9. OS Loading… Xp takes 12 seconds with services on… Mac: takes 54 seconds with no services running and I’m talking about G5 with dual CPUs… >>
OH PLEASE! My Dual 2.4 Ghz Boxx takes at least 5 seconds longer to load than my Dual G5. But who cares! 5 seconds! GEEZ! Stir your coffee one more time.
<<10. Mac don’t crash… Hhmmm! My Mac has crashed a few times my friend and my XP have not… Hhmmmm… >>
And my XP box has crashed a few times. They are both solid OSs.
Get a life and get back to work.
” 1. High quality screen. Frankly, not a single one of the PC laptops in the price class of my PowerBook that I looked at had a display near the quality of the PowerBook. Let me also point out that I am a PC/Linux guy more so than anything, and I was not originally even in the market for an Apple.”
Take a look at some of the PC laptops selling in Japan sometime. I just spent 3 hours at a large computer store in Osaka yesterday, shopping for a PowerBook, and I was rather shocked to find that almost every PC laptop (even ones of comparable size and less price) had screens that were worlds better than the PowerBooks.
Back in America, I was always very impressed with the comparative quality of the Apple screens, but over here, they just don’t seem able to compete.
Don’t get me wrong though, I’m still planning on buying a PowerBook.
“On my XP machine it always asks me if I am sure I want to delete it. Uh, yes… otherwise I wouldn’t have dragged it to the trash or hit delete.”—if you’ve been using a computer for 20 years and haven’t learned how to stop that dialog box from appearing, I don’t know what to say for you.
<<show us some of these numberous studies that show macs just last longer for any other reason besides not upgrading due to cost
if you cant make xp run well on a 1ghz cpu, you should stick with macs as it appears it is your true calling.>>
Can you use Google?
My true calling? Actually animation is my true calling.
I have to use my machines to work and make money. I didn’t mention the 5 PCs I have.
I was comparing the performance of XP on my 1Ghz against all my other machines.
<<“On my XP machine it always asks me if I am sure I want to delete it. Uh, yes… otherwise I wouldn’t have dragged it to the trash or hit delete.”—if you’ve been using a computer for 20 years and haven’t learned how to stop that dialog box from appearing, I don’t know what to say for you. >>
The point is not that I have it disabled… which I do for all my machines.
The point is that it does it in the first place.
Oh, and sign your name… anonymous posts are cowardly.
so tell us please. I am interested to find out how to stop the dialogue box.
it is interesting that you claim it is possible yet MS offers no simple way to do it.
the fact that it is the default makes it annoying in the least.
Maybe you can’t use Google… I might have assumed to much.
Here is one from Gistics:
http://208.234.7.168/arnspub/old/Macintosh/Apple/ROITechBrief.pdf
There is another one from the Gartner group out there also.
Macs couldn’t take marketshare from vastly inferior DOS-based PCs 20 years ago. Apple has almost no hope of competing now. Windows/x86 is the de facto standard. Both OSX and Windows XP are capable OSes. Linux is rapidly improving. Apple is likely to have masssive problems in 2-3 years when Longhorn and much more polished Linux distros are available.
Sticky Notes: Free and built into the OS
What the hell?? Is sticky notes built into the MacOS X? This guy doesn’t have a clue on operating systems. Apple bundles an application with its OS, that’s what it is. Calendar is the same, iSync, etc… these are the same thing. Apple bundles software with is OS. You get that by paying more than 300$ in 3 years.
Here is another one:
No Viruses: This is a bitter point for a lot of Windows users, who usually then say it is because OS X has fewer users. Fact is – it is far more secure.
By testing MacOS X, the guy found out that MacOS X is far more secure. Most of the viruses spread through email attachements on the PC. Make a popular product for OS X which allows you to do that, switch millions of people to MacOS X, make Apple the next monopoly, and see if MacOS X is still secure. Don’t be stupid. MacOS X is secure because, it doesn’t have many users. My own custom OS is more secure than MacOS X, so far there is no virus.
Another one:
Crashes: So far I haven’t had one crash or needed a reboot (other than updates) with OS X – something that can’t be said of Windows XP.
I haven’t have a crash with Windows XP. I heard lots of kernel panics with MacOS X. So what is he talking about?
He thinks that for web page serving you need to use Windows XP Pro. There is no need for that, you can install Apache on windows and use it which is the same program that comes with OS X.
Another mac zealot’s effort to be seen as a serious OS user. Why doesn’t he state the facts and then state why he likes that OS better. No, then OS X would look simple and weak. So instead he makes up stuff, doesn’t tell (or maybe know) the whole story and then claim to come up with a comparison.
It is not a comparison, it is a propoganda for OS X.
Debman, since no one else has posted it yet.
On your desktop, right click the recycle bin.
Click Properties.
select the global tab.
Uncheck the display delete confirmation.
That’s it.
since you too claim to build pcs for yourself, kinda odd that you wouldn’t know how to do such a hard thing with that funny little multi button mouse that comes on a pc (pay extra for those features with a mac).
so easy to remove huh Ian, yet you make it seem like MS is onerous by reminding people that they are getting ready to delete files in a fairly permanent way.
write more clearly next time.
You’d probably get better prices in Akihabara than you would down in Osaka (at least that was the case when I was living there), but the prices in Akihabara are still higher than they would be in the US, for instance. Quite a bit more.
Another thing; all the laptops I purchased in Japan came with Japanese versions of Windows on them and Japanese keyboards. That probably wouldn’t be helpful to the majority of OSNews patrons.
Nonetheless, your point that Japanese electronics make US electronics look like those 1970, four-function calculators is probably the most accurate thing every posted on OSNews.
On a completely unrelated note, my ire is raised every month when I pay for my broadband internet connection. I was paying less than $20.00 per month for a 3Mb connection and a static IP address in Japan, whereas in the US it costs me $49.95 for a crappy 512k dynamic IP connection which mysteriously peaks out somewhere around 350k. Japan’s prices were generally higher on most things, but I have to admit the bandwidth and the price thereof sure were great over there.
“since you too claim to build pcs for yourself, kinda odd that you wouldn’t know how to do such a hard thing with that funny little multi button mouse that comes on a pc (pay extra for those features with a mac).
so easy to remove huh Ian, yet you make it seem like MS is onerous by reminding people that they are getting ready to delete files in a fairly permanent way.
write more clearly next time.”
Don’t feel bad deb, none of the PC users knew it either. LOL
have i seen you in las vegas?
i take a “stand” that the average computer user has an average IQ and knows not to look around their surroundings and learn a little.
right clicking things and checking out properties or the contextual menus is a bit much isn’t it.
btw i do recommend macs to little kids, teenage girls, and grandmas for exactly this reason!
proof positive that most of the internets security problems are related to average users that don’t know a damn thing and are a menace to the internet society!
Kawada – I can believe it. I haven’t been to Japan, but I see a lot of the new electronic toys in the country on networks like Tech TV and such. Oftentimes, when someone shows me a new electronic toy available here in the States, it’s usually something I saw a year or so ago on TV about Japanese consumer electronics.
As you say, though, compared with the current offerings here in the US, the Powerbook screens stand out. Good to hear that the Powerbook still interests you even without an advantage there, though. My Powerbook is actually my first personally-owned Apple (though I’ve used a number of them over the years), and it has been nothing short of impressive. It has even reduced some of my devotion to Linux, because it does a lot of things I’ve wished Linux would do (although Linux’s progress is great and I still have a lot of use for Linux, particularly on my LAN server).
The core reason that Windows is vulnerable to viruses is not its popularity. It is the fact that many Windows components are very tightly coupled with each other and with the OS.
This is why a vulnerability with Internet Explorer or Outlook Express can be so damaging. Vulnerabilities to Mozilla would not have anything near the effects of the ones IE and OE have had, because they do not have the same access to other components (and the system itself).
No, Unix/Linux/MacOS is not bulletproof, but they fare far better. The biggest problems with Windows have nothing to do with its popularity.
Macs couldn’t take marketshare from vastly inferior DOS-based PCs 20 years ago.
Apple had a difficult time competing against IBM back then. Not Microsoft. Apple computers looked like toys (and were basically marketed as such) whereas IBM marketed their computers as “business machines”. That was their biggest problem, I think. People used DOS at work, and when the time came to buy a home machine, they bought what they were familiar with.
Apple has almost no hope of competing now. Windows/x86 is the de facto standard. Both OSX and Windows XP are capable OSes. Linux is rapidly improving. Apple is likely to have masssive problems in 2-3 years when Longhorn and much more polished Linux distros are available.
We’ll have to see. I doubt Apple will stay stagnant during that time, and Apple has always been able to come up with cool stuff that nobody else has.
With several governments switching to Linux, I think you’ll see more and more people who use Linux at work start using it at home as well. I think we’ll see at least a minor shift from MS to Linux.
We should also consider the effects MS Activation (and the activation schemes of several popular MS applications), which makes Windows harder to share with friends and family, will have on Windows popularity. I have to admit that when I bought my first computer, I liked the Apple machines better, but I bought a PC because I knew I could share apps with my friends and co-workers. If things were then as they are now, I would have bought a Mac. Now that MS Activation eliminates (to some degree anyway) the share factor, perhaps more people will choose the more stylish Apple machines.
Considering all this, I find it difficult to predict the future of Apple and Microsoft. The potential is there for things to get very interesting in the next few years.
“proof positive that most of the internets security problems are related to average users that don’t know a damn thing and are a menace to the internet society!”
You know, if it weren’t for the bad design choices, bugs and downright stupid features, AND the virus makers themselves, there wouldn’t BE a reason to be suspicious of every email sent to your in box. Don’t confuse the state of overcomplexity with the stupidity of users.
I see a lot of comments from upset PC users that seem to be dissapointed by outcome of the article. A positive overview of MacOSX from an experienced PC user.
Then the PC zealots contest the credibility of the ActiveWin authors. I guess Tim O’Reilly, John Carmack and the editors of Slashdot and Arstechnica are Apple marketing puppets as well?
slashdot and oreilly are open apologists for open source
carmack was paid by apple to promote the platform as a matter of fact
apple is nothing but slick marketing, overpriced services and hardware, buggy software, innovation via buying someone elses OS, and pretty packaging in boxes, stores, and GUIs.
the world speaks: macs have lost ever more customers and the tide won’t be turning with $3,000 dual cpu dna sequencing machines.
anon coward, for a Mac hater you spend an UNUSUAL amount of time on Mac articles, odd considering Apple’s irrelevance. It seems to take up a certain amount of your time trying to convince people how right you are.
Slashdot and OReilly may be open source apologists but they garner much more credibility than the PC trolls afflicting these Mac articles.
Show proof that Carmack was paid by Apple? Carmack DOESN’T need Apple’s money or even the money from the sales of Q3 on Mac which is tiny.
It doesn’t matter to me the that Apple is relegated to a people that can afford their products which is basically anyone that is disciplined enough to save $799.
>Back in America, I was always very impressed with the comparative quality of the Apple screens, but over here, they just don’t seem able to compete.
Funny nonetheless the market share of Apple in Japan is higher than anywhere else in the World (10% upwards).
grow up, calling someone a coward for using the web anonymously.
http://www.macobserver.com/news/99/february/990217/quakecon.html
seems as if you too dont know much either.
“Funny nonetheless the market share of Apple in Japan is higher than anywhere else in the World (10% upwards).”
I think this has something to do with Apple historically having better support for Japanese input than PCs have. At least that’s what I’ve heard.
“5. Mouse and the magic of the right click!… Need say more!…
yeah…I have that in Panther as well!!!! hurray”
Nope: try context menu in the apps (for example AP) so you will know what he is talking about.
“7. Rigth click on a PC mouse and you can send a file anywhere you want to…. Compress it, burn a CD, email it, etc.. Choose an application to open a file with…
you can compress files in right click, but XP does still have te burn to CD feature and send feature..hardly killer features since I never use the burn feature until I compile a group of file first, in which case, Panther has the disk utility for that.”
This one is subjective (you don’t use it) but it does not mean that someone else can’t find it usable.
“9. OS Loading… Xp takes 12 seconds with services on… Mac: takes 54 seconds with no services running and I’m talking about G5 with dual CPUs…
12 seconds? your full of it,
I count 30 seconds on my machines. and my OS X box loads Panther in about
25 to 30 seconds as well, it is a 400 MHz Power mac G4…oh, I do have
a 7200 RPM drive in it which helps, but then again, I have them in both
my machines.”
Well on AMD 2700+ it takes 11 sec to boot up xp. AMD 2700+ is slower than G5. MS did some simple trick that one can take advantage of. If you dont know what it is then I will leave you with this 30s boot time.
If your xp on similar setup needs more time then maybe you dont know how to deal with xp?
I dont defend xp but some of this is simply silly.
That includes stability. Bot OSes are not that stable. Both crash more often than BSD for example. Usually I use BSD or linux or solaris. But I have to deal with xp and os x too.
From my experience, at this point the number of switchers will be both ways comparable. The major problem of xp is not usability but security. This only thing makes xp worse than other os including os x. But about os x:
– samba cant browse across subnets (no WINS support) – silly
– disappearing samba shares
– problems with AD
– problems with mtu discovery
– not that good with dns
– can’t handle more than 150 virtual servers
– there is more that makes panther not so good
– there is more…. on both sides xp and os x
The question at the end was if one is willing to switch from current OS (either xp or os x). The answer is “no” as there is not enough incentive. Both are comparable: better on this or that. However there is not much difference between them.
“grow up, calling someone a coward for using the web anonymously.
http://www.macobserver.com/news/99/february/990217/quakecon.html
seems as if you too dont know much either.”
In this link there is still no mention of Apple compensating Carmack directly and the link is very old.
You may also try and discredit Graeme Devine of Id as well. He has said some nice things about MacOSX.
well well well. what an amusing bunch of posts. Chill out you people its just a flippin’ OS. There is some serioulsy lame nitpicking going on here and character assasination (from all camps!)
Ive used most of the usual suspects ( OS’s). Use windows at work and Mac at home. For me there is no comparison, using a mac (10.3) is a joy and using a PC (XP) is a chor. For the mac side (and I dont claim to be objective), I could list a pages technical and user interface reasons for their supperiority, needless to say The WIN camp will dispute them and produce thier own arguments (who am I to say they are less valid). I can only say that almost all my PC using friends who have used my computer at home are currently saving up to ‘switch” (and yes, cost is an issue for them.) That said, here and elsewhere I have read of users who had bad mac experiences and dont want to go near them again.
Its a matter of taste and satisfying your particular requirements. some people like red wine, some like white wine, and heck, some people dont drink. You don’t see them insulting each other because of it. Relax….
I noticed the same thing about the PC monitors (in Sapporo). Alot of the Japanese brands are sold with some sort of plastic filter sheet (you can purchase separately, if you’re interested) that really changes the look of the screen, and I wonder if that isn’t the difference?
This is Anon’s voice:
http://www.xvsxp.com/speech/xp-speech.mp3
the reason he really defends windows.
got this link from http://www.xvsxp.com/log-in/ on the voice recognition page at the bottom. Interesting artile anyway, somewhat refects my opinion on the matter.
interesting article*
somewhat reflects my opinion*
as long as they stick to proprietary hardware I’ll have to pass. I can go to any Marketpro computer show and slap together a rocketship of a Pc for under 1200 USD. I am talking a killer video card, dual 180gb drives, gig of mem and a cpu over 2ghz. If and when Apple decides to price their systems more competitively and do away with proprietary hardware, I’ll consider shelling out the dough.
<rant>How is it far to compare OS 10.3 to Windows XP when WinXP is nearly 2 years OLD. If you want a far comparison – let’s compare OS 10.0 to WinXP. </rant>
But it is perfectly alright for Microsoft to compare Windows 2003 Server against Red Hat Enterprise 2.1 even though the release is over 18months old and a fairer comparision would be between SuSE Enterprise Linux 8 which includes a more up-to-date kernel.
I always find it funny when Microsoft fanboys comment. When Microsoft compares their products with ancient versions, apparently it is perfectly alright, however, when a new product is compared against a CURRENTLY AVAILABLE Microsoft product, we have fanboys such as Anonymous (IP: —.dsl.wacotx.swbell.net) coming out of the wood works complaining.
Hello Pot, did you just call me (kettle) black?
ThanatosNL (IP: —.austin.rr.com) – Posted on 2003-11-02 19:33:49
Then I would say either the Windows machine outperfoms the Mac, or Internet Explorer outperforms Safari. If it is the case that the Windows machine is outperforming the Mac, then how do we determine what is making the difference? Is it a networking issue? Is it better memory management?
KHTML isn’t as mature or highly tweaked as mshtml. Considering that KHTML has still a decent way to go, they have achieved alot in such a small amount of time. It is disappointing however that Camino has come to a scretching halt and Firebird still uses those ugly looking widgets for websites. I wouldn’t mind if the XUL skinning skinned everything, from the menus right down to the widgets, like out Opera does, however, currently everything just looks out of place.
It isn’t IE being “integrated” into the OS…without anyone knowing exactly how it is integrated, there is no way to draw that conclusion.
That question is more inline with “how long is a piece of string?” if you count integration as “part of the operating system and cannot be fully removed” then yes, Windows is integrated, however, to say that this is the SOLE reason alone to why Internet Explorer performs better would be a drastic simplification of the issue.
But I’m mulling over a tiny technicality. Overall, I thought the article was really cool and unbiased. I wish articles written by folks that switch to Linux were as fair on the whole. With the exception of Eugenia and a few others, most Linux reviews tend to be written to fanboys by fanboys.
Linux reviews tend to be worse, not only do you have fanboys chairlead by 95% of the whole review is spent on the installation, as if it was the only thing one can do with Linux.
What I would love to see is a review after one month of use, listing the put falls they have found, bugs they have stumbled across. Even a running blog of their experience would be a better review method.
Anonymous (IP: —.lwc.gatech.edu) – Posted on 2003-11-02 20:41:27
In fact, the largest market share Apple has had with the Mac was around 11%, in the mid 80’s. The problem isn’t Apple losing customers; it’s just the big PC makers getting virtually all of the new ones.
However, with that being said, people aren’t saying IBM is dying even though their PC marketshare is around the same as the Mac marketshare. The one people should worry about is HP/Compaq which has been in a continuous downward spiral even before HP bought out Compaq.
In 5 years time Dell will be the main PC manufacturer and HP/Compaq will be relegated to being a Microsoft fanboy and dying printer manufacturer. IMHO, nothing would please me more than a company like HP/Compaq to die a slow and painful death as punishment for squandering DEC and Tandem intellectual property war chest.
————–END OF REPLIES————–
I won’t reply to individual cases, however, I will reply in brievity and expand on it via my website once it is ready.
I own an eMac G4 1Ghz/512MB RAM/60GIG HDD/Combo and may upgrade to 1024MB RAM later on, however, I am happy with 512MB right now.
On my computer right now I have:
Lotus Notes 6.5
Macromedia Suite MX 2004
Corel Graphics Suite 11
Microsoft Office X
Eclipse 2.1.1
Corel Painter 8.1
Simcity 4
Civilization III
Toast 6
MacOS 10.3
Everyone of these applications run quite nicely and I am very happy with the speed and responsiveness. Why should I suddenly feel “guilty” for purchasing a Mac? I checked out the cost of a Dell and sure, I would get a faster computer, however, I would then need to pay extra for a better quality monitor. I have seen the standard Dell monitor and IMHO it is enough to bring a grown man to tears. IBM was the next contender, the monitor was great, the price was alright, however, the net result is if I want to have a UNIX like operating system I have to run either Linux or FreeBSD, but by doing that I end up closing my self out from running the above applications I listed.
Whether PC fanboys like it or not, there are people like me who are stuck between a rock and a hard place. We want a UNIX like operating system but also access to all the popular software that is available. Until Microsoft is willing to provide a UNIX like operating system OR software vendors are willing to provide their titles for Linux or FreeBSD, I am basically forced to run a Mac, however, those “force” isn’t negative because the operating system is superior to Windows in my experience.
Now I have had “suggestions” to use Windows and simpy download or purchase “add-ons”. Let me state this now, I don’t want add ons or cheap work arounds. I like the UNIX directory structure, the whole UNIX CLI look and feel, the actual system itself. What I want from Microsoft is no half-way solutions but a full and unadulterated UNIX; no hacks or work arounds.
Mac provides that, Windows hasn’t. Windows has failed to meet MY requirements. It may be perfectly useful for someone else, and I say, “fill your boots”. Use what you want, however, don’t come to this forum belittling people claiming that they’ve made the wrong decision by choosing Mac over the PC.
If I didn’t purchase the Mac, I would have bought a Blade 150, so either way, the “PC crowd” would never have won a convert.