Read ArsTechnica’s thorough review of Mac OS X Panther 10.3 here.
Ars Technica Posts Panther Review
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Excellent, Apple take note to make the best OS even better.
Good review. Lots of info and plenty of pictures.
I cant wait for owning my own iMac. Wish i had money left somewhere.
This is easily the best OS review i’ve ever read, but one thing really pissed me off about it… it made me realize flaws that I didn’t know existed.. now every time I open multiple finder windows, or switch views, use spring folders, etc, I notice these flaws, and I only read it 2 hours ago!
damnit
Is that page hosted on server with a 56K connection ?? Its not down, the pages just takes something like 5 minutes to load (yes 5 MINUTES!!).
….slashdot effect, this story was posted earlier on slashdot today.
The logos won’t load, and also the some pages… maybe I will wait till later tonight then read it.
I now OSX is the best desktop OS out there, But also I hate the company for not make it accessible to the public exporting it to PC.
“I now OSX is the best desktop OS out there, But also I hate the company for not make it accessible to the public exporting it to PC. ”
Yeah, that would be REALLY STUPID.
They wouldnt be selling Macs then.
Why would they do that and hurt their bottom line ? They are a niche hardware vendor that uses their OS to sell their hardware. If they were to jump into the PC market they need to support a massive amount of PC hardware via drivers, along with dumping resources into testing those driver so they would not introduce bugs into OS-X. They would also have to face the un-controlable wrath of the 900lb gorilla known as Microsoft.
But they market would be bigger, No one sales without a market, Apple market aint growing,so, they need to adapt to the market, no the market to them.
“Apple market aint growing”
Got any proof?
You are forgetting a little detail.
Unlike all the PC vendors sans Dell, Apple is making a profit.
What is the point of having a greater market if you may end up losing your profit? Besides, Jobs said it himself – Apple is more interested in making a quality product than getting market share, and I agree with that.
Same thing is happening with Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. I am not sure about it right now since Sony lowered production costs and Nintendo lowered their retail price, but Nintendo was the the only one making profit out of their consoles. Why would they change their strategy?
IMO, user satisfaction and quality > marketshare.
—
“But also I hate the company for not make it accessible to the public exporting it to PC.”
It is accessible to the pulic, since you can just go to a store and buy it. If you are unwilling for shelling the money or using another architecture that’s another issue.
What a genuine observation… NOT.
How about this: MS neither sells PowerPC hardware *NOR* Intel hardware — yet they make money, solely by selling *software*… Whodathunkit..?!!
Because Microsoft is a software company. Apple is a hardware company that includes software with their hardware – their profit is mostly based on the sales of hardware, not software. Besides, a reason why Apple is able to make reliable products is because they have more control on the hardware they are supposed to support.
I am not considering the fact that Microsoft is a monopoly and that they can do whatever they want with their license prices either.
Anonymous (IP: —.megared.net.mx)
“I now OSX is the best desktop OS out there, But also I hate the company for not make it accessible to the public exporting it to PC.”
Doing so would be tantamount to financial suicide. The cost of the development work necessary to support OS X on commodity hardware aside, this would cause a noticible decrease in Apple’s hardware sales, where their profit margins are especially fat compared to the razor thin profit margins received on OS X sales.
Anonymous (IP: —.dip.t-dialin.net)
“How about this: MS neither sells PowerPC hardware *NOR* Intel hardware — yet they make money, solely by selling *software*… Whodathunkit..?!!”
Ever heard of something called economies of scale?
Apple sees virtually no return on the investments they’ve made in OS X development through sales of OS X. Meanwhile, Microsoft controls a ridiculous portion of the market, and they’re ensured voluminous sales of each new version of Microsoft Windows and Office they release (no other Microsoft products produce a profit)
Assuredly, Apple could be profitable as a software company too… if they controlled > 90% of the operating system market.
no sorry… that was too easy… there were times where Apple had 15-20% of hard + software market… !! They fucked up, plain + simple. Nowadays they screw those willing to be screwed. I have no problems with that.. there are people for all likings… *shiver*
apple is kicking butt on the OS design and upgrade front. They’ve made getting to that OS (via an apple obviously) more accessible in the last 6 months. I look forward to even greater accessibility in the future.
Here it goes again.
Besides Dell, Apple is the only hardware vendor with a profit.
How is that fucking up?
<<Besides, a reason why Apple is able to make reliable products is because they have more control on the hardware they are supposed to support. >>
The assertion that Apple products are more reliable is a misconception… I am typing this message on a G3 that has crashed twice in the last three hours and once more earlier in the day. I have experienced and heard of countless more instances of Apple computers locking-up.
No doubt, problems will crop up with Panther, too, but it’s no big deal… as computers are complex machines, problems are bound to occur.
Besides Dell, Apple is the only hardware vendor with a profit.
How is that fucking up?
*psst*
You’re replying to a troll…
Dear Steve Jobs,
Stay the course. Please don’t ever port OS X to x86 computers. Your hardware is so much better — believe me, I know. I used to use Windows and then I switched to Linux a few years ago. Then, I saw the light that is OS X! Aahh, computing nirvana!
See, there is a market for Apple. True, a niche market, but a market nonetheless. You don’t see Porsche or Ferrari ramping up production just so the McDonald’s masses can drive those vehicles, do you?
I like where Apple is right now. The fact you only have 3% of the market is just fine and dandy by me and all my Machead friends. We will support you and Apple as long as you continue to make (a) the World’s Best Operating System(tm), (b) damn good hardware, and (c) single-button mice. Ok, ok, I’m kidding about (c) — please make an Apple Bluetooth multibutton wheel mouse one of these days — but (a) and (b) are the gosh-darn truth.
The premium I pay for your products is worth it and I’ll save my lunch money so I can. I pay a premium for a good car, for a business class airline seat, and for a nice hand-tailored suit. Is there a bit of snobbishness there? Perhaps, but I’m not trying to put anyone else down or anything — this ain’t exactly a “world hunger” kind of issue, so there’s no need to be ugly about it. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with driving a Ford or a Chevy. They are perfectly good cars, and get you where you want to go…
Still, some things in life are worth a little more money. One of those things is the sound of a Testarossa engine and the another is OS X.
Cheers!
Sincerely,
ex-Windows, ex-Linux, happy as a clam OS X user
<<Besides Dell, Apple is the only hardware vendor with a profit.>>
This assertion is obviously not true… do you really believe that the zillon other PC vendors are making computers for their health?
Every time there’s an article on OS X, there’ll always be people complaining about how OS X isn’t available on x86. If you like OS X that much, buy a Mac. Apple is a profitable company, and there is no reason for them to release OS X on x86 and reduce the sales of their hardware.
Sheesh…. you don’t get Mac users complaining about Windows being unavailable for Macs each time an article on Windows appears…..
Not the “they need to port it to the X86” thing again.
Here is another reason why it would be bad if they ported to PC.
Resale value of Apple hardware.
I own a 1 month old iBook. I bought it used and got a great deal. I know that in a year my iBook will still be worth over $700. Apple hardware keeps it’s value because unlike the million or (exageration I know) so PC hardware vendors, they don’t release a new system every week. They don’t have to keep coming out with new models to move their hardware like the PC guys do.
If they ported to the PC, no one would BUY OS X… they would all just download it off Kazaa. The same people who say “If they were only cheaper, I would buy a mac” would be the first ones to go out and steal a copy of OS X for the PC. So Apple would make no money off of OS X for the PC and then they would also be making no money off of their hardware since they wouldn’t be able to sell their own PPC hardware since you can get a high powered x86 computer for cheaper and then just go download a copy of OS X.
Microsot benefited from Warez. a TON of people copied it from a friend, put it on their machine, giving microsoft a huge market share and making them the defacto standard. Microsoft was able to survive this period… now things are different and Apple wouldn’t be able to survive. Period. End of story.
There use to be a site called osxonintel.com that had a petition to port MacOSX to Intel X86. Fair enough, the thing is the site managed to get less than 20,000 people to sign up.
I think its fair to say that at least 20,000 people switched to MacOSX from Windows or other OS since the introduction of 10.0 so 20,000 or so people wanting to MacOSX on X86 switched to MacOSX anyway in the scheme of things. No great loss for the X86 camp and a gain Apple still had without moving its OS to X86.
“”Sheesh…. you don’t get Mac users complaining about Windows being unavailable for Macs each time an article on Windows appears…..””
Nope, but you sure as hell would hear some moaning if Office was made unavailable.
That site still appears to be up at http://osxonintel.xoverzero.com/ with ~34,000 signatures since 9/18/2000
What’s much more interesting is http://osxonintel.xoverzero.com/stats.cfm
They project they’ll have 1 million signatures by June 8, 2093
Maybe Apple will consider porting OS X to Intel then
Its predictable the trolling and whining you will see when a PowerPC, MacOSX or anything with Apple story pops up even if it has nothing to do with Apple like a story on apple juice or apple struedel.
1. Macs cost too much and I can’t afford anything.
2. G5 is slower than my Alienware P4 EE(same guy who can’t afford anything)
3. MacOSX sucks and I know because I read about it and seen pictures(same guy who can’t afford dual G5 but his polywell dual Opteron has 4GB of RAM)
4. I want MacOSX on Intel so it can run on my overclocked Celeron with MAXIMUM water cooling!!!
5. Macs and MacOSX sucks that why I spend all my time commenting and trolling Mac articles.
6. I’m a Mac expert and I can tell you that Macs suck.(This guy never owned or operated a Mac and thinks that current Macs don’t even come with keyboards)
7. I used a G5 at CompUSA for a few minutes and now I am an expert at MacOSX and MacOSX sucks.
8. Lets not talk about that G5 supercluster, it will never go online! The performance numbers are fake! The scientific computing community is in it with Apple marketing to deceive all of us. VT has sold out. Blah blah blah
9. G5 is a PC, the only difference is you can’t load Windows.
It goes on and on. This post will proably be modded down but I want people to know the garbage that these trolls spew up in these Mac articles. Got to a Windows article and you don’t see the juvenile behavior from Mac users commenting on Windows stuff if you even see them commenting on Windows stuff at all.
lol exactly!
If you ask me, x86’s cost too much. If you pay $1,000 for an x86 computer today, in a year it will be worth.. what? less than half? x86’s manufacturers have new models coming out almost weekly so the value goes down in a hurry. So there is little resale value left after a year.
Now go look on ebay at last year’s Apple computers. They have held about 70% of their value. So if you look at it from the point of view that in a year you will upgrade to a better computer, if you stay with x86, you will be paying more over a few years than someone who buys an Apple computer and upgrades to a new one every year.
Why?
You have not said anything even least controversial. It is also other way around (replace Mac with windows or linux or your favorite OS). I have read OS X users opinions about Windows or linux that suggested comlete lack of any deeper knowledge of given OS. But that is whole fun of osnews ( put here your favourite web address). People present here their opinions about beloved/hated OS. It has nothing to do with real knowledge about OS, hardware architecture, programming language. It is only (lets say in the most part) about preferences.
So dont be so defensive.
To answer two of your points as a non OS X user (only xserve to some extent):
I am cartain that Apple will never switch to x86 in the current non-proprietary form because that will furt their business.
Apple definitely would love to have bigger market share (who would not) but they are pretty succesful with what they are doing.
By the way the “failure” of G5 cluster was actually caused by Apple’s own PR. These idiots set much too high theoretical values. If theoretical would be closer to reality nobody would laugh. To prevent any attacks: please recall Intel PR (CPU faster than Sun’s) or faux pas made by MS.
Relax and have fun
Apple PR did not set the Theoretical values, VT did. and they were right about the Theoretical power, but it is theoretical so who takes it seriously? BTW, all these types of systems get <50% of their Theoretical power, the G5 has about 60% of it. (that was said by the Project lead at VT.)
I don’t see how anyone could consider the G5 cluster a “failure” in any regard. It set an unprecedented level of price/performance for a cluster of that size, and will likely be #3 on the next TOP500 list.
The only thing remotely negative I’ve heard about the cluser are comments by some here (namely Rayiner Hashem) believe there was something surripticious in Apple’s pricing, and the nodes were delivered at a price lower than G5 should cost after Apple’s educational discount, sans the cost of an optical drive/keyboard/mouse/etc
The UK’s Independent Television Commission has banned Apple’s PowerMac G5 ad
http://www.itc.org.uk/itc_publications/complaints_reports/advertisi…
i can’t wait till my ibook arrives 8)
speaking from an ex win98, now debian/KDE user’s perspective, i feel that the review didn’t give linux much credit. kde (and other wm/des) nowadays have alot of polish and really good usability. i also think that he should have mentioned that osx along with kde and gnome have improved in speed and optimisation.
good, well rounded review though.
Man why are you so serious. Besides I said “failure” not failure and for explanation read linuxlevis:
“8. Lets not talk about that G5 supercluster, it will never go online! The performance numbers are fake! The scientific computing community is in it with Apple marketing to deceive all of us. VT has sold out. Blah blah blah ”
Fact is that linuxlevis was probably referring to /. or something similar where people were comparing theoretical and actual results. Don’t tell me that Apple’s PR was smart. It would sound much better if they would advertise lower values so actual would be at 60-70% of theoretical numbers.
And who said fbsd doesn’t have a yet another distro, OS X. 🙂
For an article that concentrates so much on the fine detail of the OS X aesthetic, I find it curious that they use a black background with white text. Definitely not the best for readability and comprehension.
Well I must say, that was an excellent review.
I was wondering, how long does a cold boot take on a new G5 system?
Great review! I’m tellin’ ya, Mac OS X really is the best operating system available today, hands down. I’ve used various flavors of Linux in the last year, and i use Win2k and WinXP at work, and OS X is *the* best OS. I am so glad I switched. I really think that if you’re at all interested in OS X, you should head right over to ebay and buy a used Mac. You can get a dual 1 GHz G4 powermac for about $1000, or a new eMac for about the same price. Or, get a used 700 or 800 mhz ibook for about $600 or $700. Check out the refurbs for sale on Apple’s website too, under “Special Deals” on their store site. I think you’ll be very happy with the switch.
Ever heard of something called economies of scale?
Not to mention that software has a fixed cost (on the order of millions of dollars) and a small incremental cost (on the order of pennies). Those economies of scale are unlike any other industry.
VT paid the full price, not Educational, as part of the deal to get them right away. This was stated at the O’reilly Conference presentation by VT. So at current Educational pricing, you can save an additional 10% on your new cluster, making the price/performance even sweeter.
“(namely Rayiner Hashem)”
Actually I believe Rayiner’s problem with Macs was that some models are still using SDRAM.
How does MacOSX use OpenGL for Xfree86 but Linux does not.
I am just curious to ask about the technical side of things, not start a heated discussion about X11 sucks.
What exactly does it render in OpenGL, everything?
How does MacOSX use OpenGL for Xfree86 but Linux does not.
I believe Apple’s rootless X11 implementation is custom, I don’t think it’s XF86-derived, correct me if I’m wrong someone.
VT paid educational bulk discount. Somebody in the Ars forum set up an edu order for the same volume and got a price that fits within VT’s stated budget nicely.
You can’t choose what to state is the theoretical max of the VT cluster is – It’s calculated. VT calculated it, and that’s the number that’s being used. No choice involved.
Apple’s Xwindows implementation is based on XFree’s. The OpenGL acceleration is in the final drawing step, putting the windows on the screen within the Quartz windowing system. I think most of the customization had to come in getting the windows recognized as windows from the Quartz perspective – ie have them be an OpenGL surface, have them respond to minimize by going to the dock, etc.
Cheers,
JT
This whole “first 64-bit desktop computer” is exaggerated, considering that many people use linux or a BSD as desktop operating systems on old Alphas, Sparcs or MIPS. I read somewhere that advertisers can’t speak ill of a competitor if they want their messages to be broadcast. Does it mean they should also ignore positive things others have already accomplished ?
“You can’t choose what to state is the theoretical max of the VT cluster is – It’s calculated. VT calculated it, and that’s the number that’s being used. No choice involved.”
Yes you can instead of calculating 100% what is true on 1-10 nodes calculate it for all nodes assuming that you will get 60% on 1000 what you get on 10 nodes one can compute theoretical value which will be higher still but not that much as what they estimated.
Can we get on topic?
I realize this might seem to be a strange request…
I think it’s good Apple lowered the ‘entrance requirements’ for people to learn *nix. Installation of the developer tools (included) and some study can get the user ready to start learning. With most *nix OS’s, just getting it installed and configured can be frustrating.
The article is understandably a little light on this point, since it was not the purpose of the review.
Mr. Siracusa’s review clearly shows where some things are VERY likely to see future advances (kqueue), places we should see changes (meta data), and may (we hope!) see changes (Finder views: browser vs. spatial).
This is the 2nd best OS review I’ve ever read. The best was this guys 10.2 “Jagwire” review, which was so good I actually worked my way through every review he wrote on Mac OS X (and there are many!).
I think he has 4 things:
Excellent written communications skills
Great technical knowledge
Great UI/usability/ergonomics knowledge
Opinions! These are getting rarer for review writers!
It takes a while to read, but is much more rewarding that a 3 page installation/new features/conclusion format.
Yes you can instead of calculating 100% what is true on 1-10 nodes calculate it for all nodes assuming that you will get 60% on 1000 what you get on 10 nodes one can compute theoretical value which will be higher still but not that much as what they estimated.
Yes, you can calculate a theoretical value that way. It wouldn’t be the theoretical max, though. Think about it – theoretical means “not in the real world” and max means “absolute maximum”. There’s not much room for what you’re suggesting – theoretical maximum * some arbitrary fudge factor. That’s more of a “reasonable guestimate max”.
Thanks