MacNewsWorld presents a rumble in the Silicon Jungle — May 7th through May 14th — a six-round Mac Death Match in which Mac Observer editor-in-chief Bryan Chaffin and the always-controversial industry analyst Rob Enderle square off on today’s key Mac issues.
Mac Death Match, Round One: Chaffin vs. Enderle
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
you are right it is an umbrella statement, still think of all the jobs that barely require anything at all above windows 3.1 think of a giant corporation let’s say boeing ok ya the designers need nice hardware for CAD things and research that’ s all well and good but what about the accounts the HR people the budget guys etc etc etc not to mention from a business perspective storing data is a lot cheaper to store on the network or the harddrive as opposed to burning cd’s I maintain that it is not that big of an inconveinence to plug in an external cd drive, not a giant one just a slim usb 2 or firewire drive that draws power from the laptop. Even if it did have an internal pc laptops are smaller, if you are looking for a really small laptop then you are better of going the pc route why can’t people just take that and accept it? Why can’t people just accept things as axioms? Why does everyone engage in this theoretical or special cases where bobbie jr from down the street does this with this, well who cares most people don’t need that! Most office users don’t need to use the optical drive on an ultraportable laptop frequently. read that last sentence at least four times and use each word to qualify your reply words like “ULTRAPORTABLE” and “FREQUENTLY” and “MOST” and “OFFICE USERS”
if you are looking for a really small laptop then you are better of going the pc route why can’t people just take that and accept it? Why can’t people just accept things as axioms? Why does everyone engage in this theoretical or special cases where bobbie jr from down the street does this with this, well who cares most people don’t need that! Most office users don’t need to use the optical drive on an ultraportable laptop frequently.
If you noticed, I suggested to Ram he wouldn’t go wrong with a pentium-m laptop.
I have nothing against PCs, In fact if you have seen some past threads, you will know that I have constantly recommended pentium-M if someone chose to go with a x86 laptop.
But TheSeeker is upsetting otherwise reasonable people like debman, PanterPPC and me, buy constantly trolling mac related topics, claiming how apple is horrid. We are trying to reason with a troll, call us sticklers for punishment if you will.
http://reviews.designtechnica.com/review952_main4758.html
“Featuring Nickel Carbon and Carbon Fiber construction and packing a 1GHz Centrino processor with 512MB of memory, these little notebooks set a new benchmark in sub-notebook design”
http://www.dynamism.com/x505/main.shtml
“In order to achieve this size, Sony had to engineer a new type of motherboard from scratch. The X505’s motherboard (using a special Centrino 1ghz) is about the size of a minidisc, and rests in the center of the unit above the keyboard”
http://www.pdabuyersguide.com/notebooks/sony_vaio_X505.htm
“The past year has been a great one for ultralights and subnotebooks thanks to Intel’s new Centrino technology which offers superb performance for small notebooks. The X505’s Intel Centrino Ultra Low Voltage Mobile Pentium M processor runs at 1 GHz with a 400 MHz front side bus and 266 MHz DDR RAM. The 1 GHz Centrino is a strong performer and is plenty fast for even demanding applications. What is Centrino? It’s Intel’s name for their new notebook architecture released in 2003 which combines their new Pentium M processor, 855 chipset and the Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 WiFi 802.11b network interface.”
so very wrong again. it fits the centrino billing as it has all of those components integrated.
quibble on king quibbler.
“Not really only PPC users”
Even the PPC desktop users don’t have a use for it without OS X.
“I assume you work in IT or in visual arts”
I’m a multimedia developer and the unofficial fixer-of-tech-problems at the office. As for the ‘worker bee masses’, I’ve noticed a lot of them needing to read CDs more than burn them.
About k3b, yes I have used it. I really like Linux (more Gnome, but that may come from using MacOS, lol). When I said that about Windows and Linux apps I was thinking more about the lack of decent DVD authoring apps and the inability to burn cross platform media, both problem areas for Linux and Windows.
And no, I don’t take that as an insult, I myself have said it many time. It’s a valid thing to say and I thank you for having the decency to back it up. The problem seemed to be more of a miscommunication between us, so I don’t take it as an insult.
“I mostly agree with you. Please notice however that there have been very few “Ditch your PC, get a Mac!” comments. It seems that TheSeeker thinks that he’s thought it all out for us, and that his findings are reason enough for the whole world to do exactly as he says. We beg to differ. Buy a PC, buy an AmigaONE, buy a Mac, get a Linux PC, do whatever you feel like it. You shouldn’t be hounded by some guy on a power trip.”
I’ll second that.
“first it isnt lugging if with the drive it is still weighs 2 lbs less than the mac.”
It’s lugging when it’s an extra piece to carry.
“and secondly you dont need an external power source if you know how to shop.”
I never said you couldn’t get a FireWire powered drive, I even mentioned FireWire hard drives earlier. I said it was especially bad when you had one that wasn’t FireWire powered. Don’t put words in my mouth to help your trolling.
“Why does everyone engage in this theoretical or special cases”
Lol, relax, that’s what makes it fun, and you must be having some fun to have read this far.
Raptor: “Optical drives support power managment you know. They can be put into powersaving mode where all the drive electronics are off.”
When no cd is in the drive the drive mechanics are off, eg it doesn’t spin air. The drive takes next to nothing while waiting for a cd, however if you make the mistake of leaving a cd in during boot it will spin it and spin it which takes more power than even your HDD you would not want to put your cd drive in power save mode unless you put your computer in the standby state, look into APM and ACPI specs, if you are on your computer and it is not in standby state then your cd should be on with the rest of your hardware especially since it is event oriented meaning you put a cd in and the system reads it. Your above comment basically translates into “it doesn’t take power when it is off” Thanks for the insight. Quibble on.
IBM has been doing external drives for ages now. But if you noticed most laptops in the market include a internal drive, excpet the ultraportable. I am no sure if there is any market study done on this, but a cursory glance at the ratio of laptops with internal drive to ones without would suggest that most buyers in the market prefer internal drives. This may change in the future but for now optical drives are here to stay and it looks like most of the consumers in the market for laptops prefer it that way.
You are one of the wisest and easiest to talk to people I have had a discussion with in a very very long time, I post in these for times like this! Thanks.
I knew you had a cool job! Ya gnome is cool especially the new 2.6 release, I was just reading possibly on osnews about the gnome interface being very Mac like. I am a kde guy, i love gnome and gtk+ apps but there is something about kde that is just flashy and cool looking plus it is the most cutting edge and daring, almost to fault!
Ya i wish that you didn’t have to carry it around but i am just annoyed by the whole mac zealot sorta defense “no internal cd? it’s junk complete junk nope you will have to get the twice as big and more expensive mac laptop”
The funny thing is I am a Mac fan, truly I am! I bought a mac keyboard for my linux box a couple of months ago and it is the best keyboard i have ever touched incredible quality! How do they stay so white?!
“Lol, relax, that’s what makes it fun, and you must be having some fun to have read this far.”
I am! Secretly i love the trolls, it’s like picking on people who deserve it, everyone wins! Here is a situation an internal superdrive only twice as wide as a cd and a battery that is nuke powered or something and lasts for 20 years straight! Now if mac had that this discussion wouldn’t be taking place lol. Intel would probably say that Centrino would wash your dog though who knows what they will come up with.
“The sony x505 is not a centrino laptop.”
centrino is the marketing term used by intel to designate laptops manufactured by third parties that utilize intels pentim-m cpu, the 855 chipset, and 802.11b/g wireless.
http://reviews.designtechnica.com/review952_main4758_page2.html
“Both of these systems feature a 1 GHz Pentium M processor, 512MB of RAM, a 20GB hard drive, a 10.4” XGA screen, a 10/100 Ethernet port, a dialup modem, FireWire, USB and WiFi specifications. On the left side of the system is where you will find the USB, FireWire, mini-VGA and DC output and on the right hand side is where the PC card slot is located. There is no integrated WiFi on this system, but Sony does give you an 802.11b/g combo PC card which you can use. Sony has chosen to go with a different chipset on the X505 than what you may have expected. The Intel 855GM chip set features AGP 4X support and 64MB of VRAM (video memory) instead of the smaller 16MB of VRAM normally associated with notebooks of this class”
quibble on King Quibbler.
Raptor, think about yourself and put you into this situation.
Let’s say you don’t know anything about computers and you want to get one, you like the idea of the laptop so you get one, but you get one of the cheaper bigger desktop replacement ones that has everything you need and is priced better.
Second situation: you have an incredible dekstop computer, g5, or whatever you want now you are looking for something for the road, and ultraportable for getting somethings done for work, you would probably not need all the bells and whistles since after all you can use your g5 as the multimedia machine, right now you want to go through some websites sort out the junk mail and whatever else, an external drive in that case would not be too big of an ordeal and if it is get one with an internal the point is it comes down to personal preference so this whole argument is more like a “no your favorite color is green” kinda deal.
“You are one of the wisest and easiest to talk to people I have had a discussion with in a very very long time, I post in these for times like this! Thanks.
I knew you had a cool job!”
Well thank you on both accounts.
“Ya gnome is cool especially the new 2.6 release, I was just reading possibly on osnews about the gnome interface being very Mac like.”
I actually haven’t had a change to use 2.6 yet. Soon. But it is very Mac like while still standing on its own very well. Nautilus was started by ex-Apple employees. I won’t argue against KDE, I like it, I just prefer Gnome. KDE does seem a lot more functional at time, though.
And you’re right, portables without internal CD drives are not junk, and they have a place. I won’t argue against that either, I’m just arguing that you can’t compare a sub-notebook with a full-featured notebook. They are different things, and the challenge was to find a notebook with an internal optical drive that was half the weight of an Apple laptop.
As for the keyboard, who knows how they stay so white. The ones they had a few years back had the power button on the keyboard. That was nice.
http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/mobile/855gm.htm?iid=dev_chips…
“The Intel® 855GM Chipset graphics memory controller hub (GMCH-M) is part of Intel® Centrino mobile technology. It is a highly integrated mobile chipset solution that has been optimized to support the Intel® Pentium® M processor, high speed DDR memory and a Hub interface to ICH4-M. In addition to this, the Intel® 855GM chipset provides integrated graphics capabilities.”
carry on quibbler i am done for tonight. i will leave you now so that you can get back to either making stuff up or maybe you will use your time more wisely and learn some things before you post….or at a minimum verify your wild claims with a search engine first.
“Here is a situation an internal superdrive only twice as wide as a cd and a battery that is nuke powered or something and lasts for 20 years straight!”
I’ve seen things about fuel cell power that lasts for something like 40 hours. Nothing in the 20 year range, but getting there. It’s an improvement on the current sub-10 hour batteries!
” Intel would probably say that Centrino would wash your dog though who knows what they will come up with.”
In the recent iTMS conference call, Jobs joked about how they were tinkering with the iPod so that it could make toast and also that they were toying with refridgeration.
“carry on quibbler i am done for tonight. i will leave you now so that you can get back to either making stuff up or maybe you will use your time more wisely and learn some things before you post….or at a minimum verify your wild claims with a search engine first.”
Don’t you ever get tired of showing up in Apple threads only to be proven a troll time and time again?
the seeker keeps saying that these laptops are equally configured and then goes on to say that you can buy an external optical drive. now i don’t about him but to me an optical drive is a MAJOR component – and dont turn my words on me and say that i said critical – i said MAJOR. so is this guy trying to tell me that if we were comparing the weight of desktops it would be ok for him to bring a winterm while i have a workstation as long as the winterm has the ability to connect to an external optical drive. this thinking is EXTREMELY FLAWED beyond RIDICULOUSNESS…
so yes, i agree with you, not even close – to logic that is…
i listed the features not to say it was more powerful than the mac or better priced. i listed them for the quibblers that say you cant compare the 12″ powerbook with one of the worlds lightest laptops. the specs are similar and they therefore can be compared and are compared.
again, my point was that it is less than half the weight. what part of that do you not understand? to say they are not comparable is ridiculous. the sony has very SIMILAR specs but is designed for one thing primarily and that is to be as light as possible.
the claim remains that you can buy a pc laptop that is more than half the weight of the lightest mac made. for the people that need or want that they will not be buying a mac. price or other feature set aside, there are mobile professionals that value weight above all else.
80 comments have passed by and still talking about whether or not you can compare the PowerBook and that Sony thingy? Isn’t it obvious that the answer is NO? Indeed: NO.
But let me do another comparison:
At the one hand, we have the Macintosh G4, 1.25 Ghz, 256 MB DDR333 RAM, a DVD/CDRW drive and an Ati Radeon 9000 64MB card. Costs: € 1394
At the other hand, the Sun Blade 150. 550 Mhz UltraSparc III, 256 MB ??? RAM, DVD-ROM drive and a PGX64 video card. The price: € 1660.
Now, TheSeeker, which computer would you buy? I am sure you would choose the Apple. Buy of course you will say “but the sun is even worse than apple ret real buy a PC” so let’s put a PC alongside:
The Dell Precision 650 costs € 1664, that is € 270 MORE than the Apple. It comes with a 2.4 Ghz Xeon, 256 MB DDR266 RAM, a DVD/CDRW drive and a nVidia QuadroFX NVS 280 64MB.
So the only thing you get for € 270 is a faster processor. But then, you can also pay € 1783 for a Dual G4, of which the speed is 2×1.25 = 2,5 Ghz, so it is faster than the Dell.
Now TheSeeker, you will probably say, “well that is all bs you compare apples to oranges a sun is a workstation which are more expensive and you cant just add cpu speeds with dual cpu computers.” If you do, you might well be right. But then you should also admit that you can’t compare sub-notebooks with real notebooks. And if you do, for € 10,- you can get a pocket calculator that is ten times lighter than your Sony notebook 😛
In that last sentence, I of course meant “And if you do compare them“.
centrino is the marketing term used by intel to designate laptops manufactured by third parties that utilize intels pentim-m cpu, the 855 chipset, and 802.11b/g wireless.
WRONG.
“The new technology’s biggest weakness may be its confusing naming scheme. The Centrino technology, formerly code-named Banias, includes a CPU, chip set, and wireless hardware. The chip is called the Pentium M, (not to be confused with its Pentium III-M and Pentium 4-M predecessors), the chip set is the 855, and the wireless hardware is named the Intel Pro/Wireless 2100 Network Connection.”
Only The intel 2100 2100A 2200g chipsets are centrino certified . The x505 uses the Sony PCWA-C300S Atheros chipset based wifi card, so it can not be called a centrino laptop, period. Those are intels branding rules not mine.
I did not want to bring this up but you called me a quibbler and made me.
an external drive in that case would not be too big of an ordeal and if it is get one with an internal the point is it comes down to personal preference so this whole argument is more like a “no your favorite color is green” kinda deal.
I think we are in agreement, there is no need to debate. I am all for prefernce, but TheSeeker( previously anonymous) is not and that is what ticks me off.
Dear All,
Don’t you all feel tired and fed up with all this endless fighting? If you’re happy with the platform you’ve chosen then so be it. Stay there n be happy
It is needless to come to a forum with a sole purpose to talk bad about a certain platform.
If all you do is post negative feedbacks abt a certain subject or a platform WITHOUT contributing any positive response then INDEED you are a TROLL. There are many types of trolls including WIN Trolls, Mac Trolls, Linux Trolls, Bridge Trolls etc
Afterall this is a discussion forum and NOT a flame forum
if you meet me in person you would never know that i posted this but the stupidity and lack of knowledge exhibited in this post necessitates counter insultive comments – so forgive me nick if my response insults you because you have no idea what you talking about.
besides, anybody who starts a post with a phrase like Mac zealots don’t respond because I hate you, only people who want an intelligent discussion respond troll somewhere else deserves no better. ask the older folks – the saying “agree to disagree” did not just fall out of the sky. clue? look up maturity @ ask.com…
what os in your digital watch, your remote, the bios in your computer, etc? to the vast majority of commuter users do not care (the few that do shouldn’t) what cpu is inside as long as the computer does what they want/need in a timely manner. this is excluding power/pro-sumer and technical users. thats one of the fundamental arguments behind not switching. at the low end where – relatively speaking – the “engine” of the computer should not matter PPC is sufficient @ the high end it is hold its own
us techies and power users discussing these things is just a form of intellectual copulation/sparring. i mean come on – this debate is far from technically astute when you have the seeker pulling a Bill Clinton “it depends on what the meaning of is is…”
no one argued superiority of architecture because the facts were laid out (origiinally in the article and a couple here in the forum) and most accepted them (unlike the comaprison of portables). all the mac people said was there was no substantiative need to change. this reasoning would have still been valid even if the two architectures were identical in featureset – what is the compelling reason to switch, please inform us nick?
it couldn’t be developer support would it concidering motorola uses PPC for embedded systems (e.g. routers), next gen XBOX & PS3 will use it or slight variations e.g cell chip for ps3, gamecube uses PPC G3, IBM gets most features for desktop processors from its high end chips which it is still developing… this chip platform looks far from dead.
would love it if you also pointed out where anybody said that the x86 was lacking – some may have said it was inferior on feature x or y but this different from saying it cannot do x or y. in fact for everyday users these differences are in most cases negligible with the one exception being power where portables are concerned.
OSS
===
there are several philosophies and licences when it comes to OSS so your blanket statement about abuse reflects your lack of understanding about this
some consider oss a political/social ideology – the digital equivalent of democracy/socialism/communism depending on the lisence you choose. others consider a business/commercial model (jboss, mysql, etc.)
those that consider it to be democracy do not know of any such abuse you claim. to them, the sustainance of freedom (or the option of freedom) is what concerns them the most. duplicate their software a trillion times, make money from it while they don’t and they will not care.. as long as you do not lessen their ability to do what they want. they will often contribute to projects to further this objective – that of not taking away individual and social freedoms.
those that are of the socialist/communist thinking also care about freedom but they do not want anybody “getting their back scratched while they do not scratch others’ backs as well”. if i am not mistaken this is the GPL – if not, just focus on the philosophy not the lisence
…. got to catch 40 winks (need some sleeps :-> ). will catch up with forum tomorrow.
long story short – if apple took code from OSS projects and did not contribute any (which they have in significant ammounts) they could still do it depending on which lisence they were using
last line supposed to read…
long story short – if apple took code from OSS projects and did not contribute any (which they have in significant ammounts) they could still do it depending on which lisence they were using and the community that actually WRITES the CODE would not mind as this “abuse” is permitted by the nature of the lisence
I guess a 122 comments, most a flame-war means that we’re doing a Death Match here too.
The drive takes next to nothing while waiting for a cd, however if you make the mistake of leaving a cd in during boot it will spin it and spin it which takes more power than even your HDD you would not want to put your cd drive in power save mode unless you put your computer in the standby state, look into APM and ACPI specs, if you are on your computer and it is not in standby state then your cd should be on with the rest of your hardware especially since it is event oriented meaning you put a cd in and the system reads it.
Actually the drive is not event oriented, Oses are though. ATAPI drives if they support the Removable Media Status Notification feature set, support the GET_MEDIA_STATUS command, most of todays drives probably do.
OSes issue this command periodically to check for media.
ATAPI drives are required to support 4 power states, ACTIVE, IDLE, STANDBY and SLEEP. They are all different powerl evels ACTIVE being the highest and SLEEP being the lowest power consumption state.
In SLEEP power management state (D3) the drives internal state and all its registers and buffers are powered off, a DEVICE_RESET and reinitalization is required, by the OS.
Note these are PM states as decribed in the ATA/ATAPI and SCSI spec. The computer doesn’t need to be in ACPI/APM sandby mode for this to work. The computer can be in full power mode but the CDROM drive can be in sleep state. The specs allow for fine grained PM control. Of course Operating Systems may chose to not use these mechanisms.
But having a CDROM in machine need not mean extra power consumption, it is all in the implementation of the Power Management Framework in the OS.
NOTE:- media may be present in the drive in any of the 4 PM states. Also note that a drive without media but in active state ( (the drive electronics) still consumes power, because it is required to respond to commands immediately.
Oh not only is the Sony x505 not a centrino laptop, it is japan only model. The sites you pointed out sell ulatraportable, but most of those models are made for markets primarily out of the US.
It was also highly predictable.
This site really needs to either stay away from these flamefest topics, or a more effective moderation system. I wonder how many of all these posts that really are on topic, or aren’t downright laughable.
Ok. I think alot of you guys need some ‘stress relief’.
I’ll give you the money, go get yourselves laid.
I give this 5 seconds to get moderated down, but I think it has to be said.
laptops that weight half of what the apple laptops weight. One comes to mind..ASUS M5N, with carbon fiber shell, 1.55kg, Built-in optical drive. Show me something as beutifull in apple store and I’ll admit then that apple laptops are better.
I got my new ASUS M3N with 1.5 Pentium-M, and it flyes around P4 based desktops and laptops @ 2.4GHz.
I did regret something next day after the online purchase… I’ve found it 100EUR less expensive with the same configuration on some other site.
Besides that, I can wholeheartedly say that “MOST” centrino notebooks rock.
And now, I don’t have to sell my soul to get a powerbook, I still have some money left. Good luck apple. Keep selling these G4’s until history repeats itself. The only decent thing they could’ve done was to equip their laptops with G5, but NO… consumers are considered stupid sheep and will be happy enough with old hardware.
So much for this comments section..
Um, yeah.
First desktop P4 (1.4GHz & 1.5GHz ~52W): November 2000.
First Pentium-M P4 (1.4GHz ~26W Throttled: 1.2GHz ~21W): April 2002.
First desktop P4 meant for a notebook (2.4GHz ~60W Throttled: 1.6GHz): June 2003.
Conclusion: It takes a little bit longer than you might think to get a desktop processor into a notebook. Combined with the fact IBM have kind of a lot on their plate at the moment, with the Power5, XBox2 and G5, Sony Cell (Nintendo might be needing something too if they are planning on releasing a new console/portable).
It’s hardly Apples descision to release G5 powerbooks until IBM say otherwise.
I can’t believe you people can make such an easy matter so difficult. If you want a small and light laptop and use an optical drive all the time, it’s convenient to have it built in, so you get a PB or a x86 with one built in like the Sony TR series or the Fujitsu B series or whatever. If you hardly ever use it, you can get a smaller x86 laptop without an optical drive. Apple doesn’t make computers without optical drives. (Maybe they will somewhere down the line, a super-Duo perhaps. But not now.) Different people have different needs. Thats why there are different models on the market. Sheesh.
Wait a minute… how can I conclude, from the fact that there is one notebook better than Apple’s, that Apple notebooks are pieces of crap? Please explain.
And then I have a second question: what history would repeat itself? I can well remember that when we bought our Macintosh Performa 6400, in 1997, The PowerPC was faster than all Intel offerings (200 Mhz 603ev vs. Pentium 166). As I bought my Pentium 350, Apple offered the G3/300 and later that year the G4/500. And then I have also read that a G3/300 would perform like a Pentium II 600. So what piece of processor history of Apple did I miss?
Or it must be the MacOS – our Performa 6400 came with OS 7.5.3, which seems to be mostly emulated m68k code. And I see that as quite important, likewise, I would be more interested in whether OS 10.4 will be 64-bit than whether the current PowerBook line has G5 models.
Btw. I am now indeed typing this on the Pentium II 350, which can run Windows XP just fine. Now that is old, indeed, but can you give me one reasons why I need a faster computer, if you know that I don’t play games?
Daan, it does make you wonder doesn’t it?
@ Tudy (IP: —.dial.inet.fi)
> The only decent thing they could’ve done was to equip their laptops with G5, but NO… consumers are considered stupid sheep and will be happy enough with old hardware.
As opposed to stupid sheep that will happily buy all the latest hardware?
Here is an experiment for you, go to a store that sells PCs and tell them you would like a PC. You only do a little bit of word processing, use email, browse the internet and would like to do some web design to boot. Now, I’m pretty sure the sales rep has your best intentions in mind. That’s why he’s gonna give you a totally spec’d out 3.4GHz P4EE w/ 256MB ram and 250GB hdd. The 256MB of ram will make XP shine. To boot, he will likely convince you to buy a scanner, printer, dvd writer, tv card, 5.1 speaker setup, ms office, and so on.
This is actually no different than what Apple would do, but because it’s we’re talking about PC’s everything is sound.
The average consumer doesn’t know jack about the processors and will quite happily hang on every word the sales rep has to say. They are all sheep.
> So much for this comments section..
Phwoar. You sure showed us with your incredibly informative post.
Rob Enderle’s comments about the G5 were part based on an article in Popular Mechanics. What he said is at least partly correct (they did have problems with cross platform benchmarks) but the conclusion of the article was very different from his comments.
http://www.popularmechanic.com/technology/computers/2004/4/desktop_…
You see the G5 may or may not be in the lead at this present time but it’s not going to be a big difference. (I suspect it still has the lead in FPU stuff but I don’t know this for sure).
However it really doesn’t matter if it is 5% ahead or 5% behind, CPU performance is not the only critera for juding a computer.
I find myself in complete agreement with the conclusion of the Popular Mechanics article:
Maybe instead of asking which computer is the fastest, people should ask which is the most useful for what they want it to do.
That sentence hits the nail on the head, I think. What would you buy (if you couldn’t upgrade anything):
A) The Pentium IV 5,0 Ghz, with 32 MB RAM
B) The Pentium 200 MMX, with 2 GB RAM
Well, I would certainly know. Hint: lookup the current memory usage of your computer.
I can’t believe some of the posts from people regarding this article. Some of you act like children fighting back and forth, a lot of which is off topic. As for me I found the article non biased since the writer commented on both the positive and negative aspects of Apple’s marketing stategy. It seems a lot of you failed to realize this.
Porting to other platforms is something Apple needs to seriously consider otherwise sadly they will fail like SGI did to attract a wide market. To me it makes more sense for Apple to port OSX Jaguar/Tiger to x86 hardware. Sure they would have to work like other developers do to ensure compatability but it would open a new market for them allowing for increased profit.
Also, they need to port all their applications to Windows and LINUX, not just a select few. If they are having difficulty with porting to Windows then start porting more apps to LINUX since they are already familiar with offering LINUX support for Shake. Maybe then products like FCP would be taken more seriously in the film industry and other highend software developers would consider porting to OSX.
As for hardware they really need to rethink this. If you want to offer highend software such as Shake or Maya on a G5 then offer it with a highend graphics card (ATI FireGL, NVIDIA Quadro FX, 3DLabs Wildcat). OSX is not that far off from LINUX so it still boggles the mind why highend cards are required for highend software (Shake, Maya, etc) but when the software is offered on OSX it is not. This is basically because Apple still either refuses to support highend graphics or won’t work with developers to create DCC drivers. The end result is the film industry and Animators/Compositors/FX Artists will not take Apple more seriously until they start offering professional hardware. Anyone who has seriously used Shake or Maya in film will tell you it is not suited for gaming cards. Maybe this will change in time but for now it’s insane to spend several thousand on a dual G5 and even more on Maya or Shake then have it crash on you. Maya Complete OSX users know what I’m talking about since a lot of you complain on the Alias forum site about crashes.
“Porting to other platforms is something Apple needs to seriously consider otherwise sadly they will fail like SGI did to attract a wide market. ”
Ummm…no. MS may be into the whole 90+ (all your bases belong to us) marketing mindset, but there’s nothing wrong with pursuing a smaller marketshare. A LOT of companies follow a similiar model, and that’s just fine with them. As far as SGI, you might want to look at exactly WHY SGI failed to garner a bigger marketshare. Mind you SGI is still with us, so it’s a bit premature to write them off, anymore than it is to write off SUN, because of the difficulties they’ve been having.
Dude, Linux isn’t an acronym, it’s a proper noun. So that would be “Linux” not “LINUX.” Sorry man, but I’ve seen you make that mistake in a few of your posts and it was irritating me.
What kind of comments can you expect when at least one of the article’s authors is a troll? Mac vs. PC is such a crock.
I think the only reason Apple articles are posted on this site are to generate the huge amount of posts and feedback. Look at how many comments are in an article that has anything to do Apple as compared with other articles. Of course the majority of comments come from the anti-mac crusaders hell bent on convincing everyone apples are substandard and are going out of business anyday now. Also, if you look at the modded down comments, most are from people who are tired of hearing the same thing over and over again from the anti-mac evangelists. I see alot of anti-mac posts in these articles which should have been modded down. This merely generates more mac vs anti-mac comments. Which, I suspect increases revenue from advertisers when you have alot of user participation on a web site. Oh well, you’ll probably have to read this post from the modded down comments section, if it’s not removed entirely.
Take a look at this article http://arstechnica.com/cpu/004/pentium-m/pentium-m-1.html to see why I and many others respect what intel has done with their mobile CPU line.
I think that a pentium-m @ 1.5 offers about the same performance as a 1.5 G4. So that’s why it don’t make sense to buy an overpriced apple machine, when you can get the same performance for less (let’s not start talking about osx here, I’m just comparing hardware).
If I’m wrong about this comparison, please feel free to correct me with TRUE FACTS and TECHNICAL DATA.
My 0.02 eurocents
http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.html?i=1800&p=1
Check out the conclusion.
ok, let’s face it, you can get more choice for less money if you choose an x86 computer over a mac but the mac is completely different to x86.
if you want to get a computer that is a joy to use and that always “just works” then get a mac.
if you like choice, if you want to get cheap hardware, if you like to tinker around with different operating systems and/or different pieces of hardware, if you like to build your own computer or configure it to just the way you want it, then get a pc.
the reason why the pc can be a nightmare to use is the same reason why the mac is a dream to use: choice. the more choice, or freedom one has, the more decisions and problems one comes across.
it’s pretty interesting why there is always such heated debate when any topic on macs is raised.
This article falls short, and it’s full of doom and gloom. 1) Apple’s profits are up, 2)it’s a debt free company to with money in the bank. Apple is more healthy today than it was in the late 80’s and earily 90’s in my oppinion.
I think we all have hit the nail on it’s head when a lot of us expressed that the fact is the G5 is over-priced. Apple needs to price it’s higher end systems more aggressively. Compared to the BOXX the G5 is priced great, but that won’t get the G5 into more hands and I believe the G5 needs to be in more of our hands!
Apple make a G5 system around 1200 or so, make it a value to your customers. You will make the money back in volumn sales.
First let me Appologize for over indulging in bashing TheSeeker. I think that person or any one else that comes to any topic for the sole purpose of creating havoc needs to be taught a lesson. I realize it is was childish to go on and on discussing minor details, but while dealing with unreasonable people one must seldom drop down to thier level.
Anyway going back to the topic.
I can’t believe some of the posts from people regarding this article. Some of you act like children fighting back and forth, a lot of which is off topic. As for me I found the article non biased since the writer commented on both the positive and negative aspects of Apple’s marketing stategy. It seems a lot of you failed to realize this.
The reason that you see many posts against the article is that one of the persons in the article has factually wrong information and passes it off as fact becuase he is an analyst. That person is ROB ENDERLE.
Let’s examine all the non-facts in Enderle’s side of this “death match”
The PowerPC comes from IBM; the OS kernel comes from FreeBSD, and other vendors manufacture much of what it sells. Very little Apple intellectual property (IP), as a percentage, makes up the Mac today.
First the PowerPC has always been a collaboration with Apple, IBM and Motorola, this collboration started the brand PowerPC. IBM and Motorola have always fabbed the PowerPC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC
Second, The MacOX kernel is not entirely based on BSD, apart from popular myth. It is based on the Mach microkernel and partly BSD. To say the kernel is just the open source BSD kernel is worng.
“The Mac OS X kernel environment includes the Mach kernel, BSD, the I/O Kit, file systems, and networking components.These are often referred to collectively as the kernel.
Above the Mach layer, the BSD layer provides “OS personality” APIs and services. The BSD layer is based on the BSD kernel, primarily FreeBSD. The BSD component provides
file systems
networking (except for the hardware device level)
UNIX security model
syscall support
the BSD process model, including process IDs and signals
FreeBSD kernel APIs
many of the POSIX APIs
kernel support for pthreads (POSIX threads)”
Source: http://www-306.ibm.com/chips/services/foundry/
What does the fact that AMD and VIA use IBM foundry services have to do with IBMs support of PowerPC?
Also I am not sure where he got the idea that IBM made a unique x86 cpu for the xbox, when all the press is talking about how intel and nvidia broke the deal with microsoft after the xbox, for xbox2. xbox2 is rumored to have three PowerPC chips. The gamecube has been using the powerpc chip for years now. With the Xbox2 using PowerPC, the furture of PowerPC is nothing but bright.
As you can see the whole Rob Enderle side of the article is a pure FUD fest based on absouletly outlandish claims that can not be backed by one ounce of fact.
“I think the only reason Apple articles are posted on this site are to generate the huge amount of posts and feedback.”
Agreed, because they always end the same way
These type of discussions _do_ always end the same way whether it`s here or Slashdot _but_ the majority posters always seem to be Apple zealots. So it only takes one person to say that a new Mac costs more than a new x86 PC and they`ll be a dozen Apple posters (apologists ?) responding.
As Popular Mechanics recently demonstrated in its April 2004 issue, benchmarks accepted on the x86 platform don’t run on the PowerPC platform without significant modifications which made it look like Apple was cheating. In fact, Popular Mechanics basically said Apple was cheating, indicating there may be no performance advantage with the PowerPC today.
Another piece of FUD. Popular Mechanics never in thier article concluded that Apple cheated. Infact to the contrary they proved that Apples claims were accurate when they compared a dual 3.2 Ghz Xeon to a dual 2Ghz G5 by running other tests, since they couldn’t run the SPEC benchmarks on the G5.
The conslusion from popular mechanics is posted below for proof. As you can see in my two posts almost everything Rob Enderle said is false and all he wants to do is spread FUD.
“Not being able to run SPEC tests, we turned to BLAST and HMMer, which are DNA and genome-sequence matching tests, as well as to Bibble, a batch image-processing application. The problem is that these tests do not run on Windows XP. In frustration, after running the SPEC tests on the HP xw6000 workstation, we installed Linux on the HP, which allowed us to run the new tests. And we were surprised. The G5 was 59.5 percent faster than the HP at processing 85 high-resolution color photographs totaling 684.6MB of data. In the HMMer tests (61.3MB of data), Apple was 67 percent faster than the PC and under BLAST (32.8MB), Apple was 85.9 percent faster. These results are in line with those now published on Apple’s Web site.”
What Matters?
….. lines skipped
But in a way, the controversy over Apple’s use of SPEC benchmarks, the discarding of the “fastest computer” claim and the adoption of new tests may call into question the idea of benchmarks themselves rather than Apple. A computer is a system of components that work together. The CPU, RAM, data bus, hard drive, operating system and video card must work together to produce today’s blazing speeds. Any one of those components can drag down the overall speed of a system. Simply measuring a single component tells very little about the system’s total performance.
Maybe instead of asking which computer is the fastest, people should ask which is the most useful for what they want it to do.
http://www.popularmechanic.com/technology/computers/2004/4/desktop_…
“So it only takes one person to say that a new Mac costs more than a new x86 PC and they`ll be a dozen Apple posters (apologists ?) responding.”
What did this have to do with price?
how the apple fans (with blinders on apparently) can nit pick others comments to such an absurd degree.
Selling computers with aged technology and high prices to maintain a break even financial outlook tells me and also the rest of the world to abandon them as quickly as possible.
Seriously folks, the new eMac is a $999 computer that ships with a 32MB video card. The 1.25 GHZ G4 first shipped in August 2002. So consumers should spend $1,000 to get a computer with a video card that has the power of cards that started shipping in 1999 and a CPU that started shipping in 2002? Stack that up with a weak 167 MHZ bus and a tiny 40GB hard drive and you are talking about a way over priced machine.
I call that price gouging.
Lucas Davenport, if you want to talk about price, bring it to the OS Wars forum. This isn’t the place, and could probably push this thread up over 200 posts. But I ask that if you do start this, be prepared. Don’t start in with half-truths like you just did.
Excuse me I tried hard to resist posting a reply to this obvious attempt at starting another “mac vs pc prices” flame war.
Seriously folks, the new eMac is a $999 computer that ships with a 32MB video card. The 1.25 GHZ G4 first shipped in August 2002. So consumers should spend $1,000 to get a computer with a video card that has the power of cards that started shipping in 1999 and a CPU that started shipping in 2002?
The ATI Radeon 9200 which is the video cards in the eMac was released in April 2003. How does it have the power of a card released in 1999? Why because it has 32MB of Graphics memory?
If you think graphics memory is the only gauging factor in a graphics cards performance, then you really shouldn’y touch any centrino laptop as they have 0 dedicated graphics memory due to the intel 855M chipset. Or any of the low end dells that have 0 dedicated graphics memory. The eMac has 32MB dedicated graphics memory.
Stop using ridiculous metrics for evaluating products and educate your self before posting publically.
The Centrino is a laptop chipset, cpu, and wireless combination and might also have graphics card onboard as well.
There are many Centrino based laptops that have stand alone video cards with dedicated memory, so what is your inaccurate point when comparing it to a desktop Mac?
The Radeon 9200 is an incredibly weak video card and has a memory amount I wouldn’t settle for in a laptop, much less a $1000 desktop computer. And yes there were more powerful video cards made in 1999. Just because it is new doesnn’t mean it has sufficient power…see the overall new eMac as a perfect example of that. It is new but uses outdated technology.
Apple even cuts corners by building the eMac with the Radeon only having 32MB of memory.
Standard Radeon 9200’s start with 64MB and cost just $41 for end users to purchase. So a less than $41 video card in a $1000 computer is a joke.
raptor will only quibble you to death.
he afterall knows that the $25 Radeon 9200 32mb and that 2 yr old g4 cpu are at the cutting edge of technology.
Nevermind that the bus speed harkens back about 4 years and the hard drive size is standard equipment from about the same time frame.
the emac is a technological marvel for just $1k too!
To all the gamers out there… keep buying PCs, buy a console, whatever. Some of us actually try to get work done on our computers. The fact of the matter is, a Radeon 7000 would still be more than sufficient for the stuff most people do with a computer (not including games). Will iMovie run faster cause I have a better GPU to crunch the rendering? Oh whoops, I forgot, it’s the CPU that does the number crunching.
If you don’t want to buy a mac, so be it, buy whatever you like. But I don’t appreciate being harassed for making a choice I’m glad I made, and don’t regret it for a second. I’ve seen no zealotry in this comment section on the part of Mac owners.
The Radeon 9200 is an incredibly weak video card and has a memory amount I wouldn’t settle for in a laptop, much less a $1000 desktop computer. And yes there were more powerful video cards made in 1999. Just because it is new doesnn’t mean it has sufficient power…see the overall new eMac as a perfect example of that. It is new but uses outdated technology.
If you don’t like the eMac, fine, say so and don’t buy it. There is no point in posting asinine price comparisons on OSNews.
Apple sells a package no just rote hardware, if you don’t care for thier products. Don’t buy them. If you think by posting flame bait on a discussion board you are somehow doing anyone a favor, don’t.
People will buy Apple products regardless of what you say, if they feel the value it offers matters to them. Live and let Live.
Nevermind that the bus speed harkens back about 4 years and the hard drive size is standard equipment from about the same time frame.
Care to inform us in your intellectual capcity, what the target consumer for an eMac is going to be running that will saturate a 1.3 GB/sec bandwidth on the g4 memory bus?
The Radeon 9200 is an incredibly weak video card and has a memory amount I wouldn’t settle for in a laptop, much less a $1000 desktop computer. And yes there were more powerful video cards made in 1999. Just because it is new doesnn’t mean it has sufficient power…see the overall new eMac as a perfect example of that. It is new but uses outdated technology.
Care to show me a consumer graphics card made in 1999 that was more powerful than the ATI radeon 9200 in it’s price point?
I would just like you to provide information to back that claim. I am not very up-to-date on graphics cards, as I don’t game. Please enlighten me. Also feel free to go into as much technical detail as you can about why the 1999 model card is superior, this is OSNews and techincal details are crucial to understanding performance, ecspecially when benchmarks are in question.
If you really think picking numbers from some spec sheet gives you ammo to post flame against apple, you are wrong.
For your kind information, even the 533 MHZ Xeons clock thier bus only at 133Mhz, the 800 MHZ pentium 4s at 200 Mhz actual clock. So you clock rate being from 4 years ago is a wrongheaded view of looking at bus speeds.
Bus speeds are measured in bandwidth not clock rate. For the purposes eMacs are used, wordprocessing, email, web surfing, cd/dvd burning and other standard consumer apps. The G4s 1.3 GB/sec memory bandwidth is more than adequate. Please stop picking one aspect of a system and call it a bottleneck if the ascpect of the system is enough for it’s intended purposes, you sound ignorant not to mention very silly.
If you think having the fastest PC gives you bragging rights, I am sorry to inform you that you will live a very poor life. Becuase the fastest PC changes every few months.
employ abstract ideas and personal opinions to explain away matters that most computer buyers pay close attention to when buying equipment.
I was at CompUSA just today and heard several people comment on how slow the Macs felt and when I pointed out the system specs they immediately left.
They said, oh “those are about the same we have in our old PC”. They were later seen buying a very powerful Sony tower and LCD.
So, though the Macs looked cute, once they saw the substance and got beyond the style, they were turned off. In the end they got a stylish Sony that has some real power and at a better price too.
You can play word games all you like. I don’t care. The truth is computer buyers think Macs are weak.
Yes, they do look cool though, but that is generally only of concern to kids and girls.
i suppose you didn’t mention that a computer that was made about 5 or 6 years ago would be powerful enough for most people’s needs. my 3.5 year old PC with a 1GHz AMD K7 and 16MB of video RAM is more than enough for my needs (browsing the web, typing up college projects, watching and ripping dvds, listening to and ripping music, compiling programs, writing programs) which would require more computing power than the average guy would need.
The truth is computer buyers think Macs are weak.
even if the above statement were true, it is also true that the general computer buying public doesn’t know much about computers. this is why usually computers are sold with 2.5GHz CPUs but only 256MB of RAM, a cheaper computer with 1GHz CPU and 512MB of RAM would run much more smoothly but the general computer buying public think that GHz = total computing power, so the manufacturers give these people what they want. if these computer buyers knew so much about computers, there wouldn’t be as much of a problem of viri as they’d keep their computers patched and their anti virus software updated.
if the people bought a mac that day, they’d have a computer with ample processing power and also with a more advanced, more stable, easier to use OS that doesn’t need to be protected from viri and spyware and is also updated frequently.
What not up for a techincal challenge? Becuase I called you on a bluff, you start name calling. How mature?
I never shop at CompUSA. Wait a minute is that the company with the add that talks about how helpful they are to thier customers, that they will go home and set it up?
From the commercial it doesn’t look like the average CompUSA customer would be able to go through the spec sheet and understand anything.
May be I am stupid or could it be that CompUSA’s marketting department has no clue who it targets? I am sure the anwser to both the questions is a large resounding NO.
So the problem must be you then. Either be prepared to back up the nonesense you spew with facts and a well written rebutall or stop trolling.
Name calling is low and very childish. You made many ridiculous general statements, if you had taken a college writting course, your professor would certainly grade you down for making blanket statements. But I highly doubt it.
There’s no place like home.
There’s no place like home.
“if the people bought a mac that day, they’d have a computer with ample processing power and also with a more advanced, more stable, easier to use OS that doesn’t need to be protected from viri and spyware and is also updated frequently”
If you say it enough I’m sure you will come to believe it.
I assume they were turned off by slow eMac. They wanted or needed more than ample processing power.
More advanced operating system? As in when you plug in firewire drives it eats your data? I’m sure you remember that “advanced” feature Apple provided for its users recently.
But then, you have displayed your ignorance by claiming it doesn’t need to be protected by anti-virus software. Anyone that knows anything about computers knows that any computer that has new data ever introduced to it needs to be protected.
Advanced? More like a dumbed down, simplistic, coloring book color loving children’s play thing.
Advanced? Like that update that wipes out network settings?
As for stable, all one need do is visit any Mac oriented bulletin board site to see all of the headaches OS X creates. Its about as stable as Windows 98 first edition from all I read—except for the Dorothy’s that write such nonsense like dr_gonad.
OS X is in an “advanced” beta test I would say. Backup your data and all vital settings before touching it and any updates.
http://news.com.com/2100-1045-5105358.html
“Apple had earlier confirmed an incompatibility between Panther and some FireWire hard drives that caused some customers to lose data.”
“Some users had complained that the FileVault encryption feature, which is designed to protect the contents of the home directory, had been causing some data, such as passwords, to be lost. Last week, Apple said in a statement that it was aware of the FileVault issue and was looking into it.”
“The company has not offered any recommendations for those using Mac OS X Panther with FireWire 400 drives, although there have been reports of problems on several Mac enthusiast sites.”
There’s no place like home.
There’s no place like home.
There’s no place like home.
Your definition of the word advanced is interesting, if not naive.
If you mean that only bug free software will ever be “advanced” sorry no software will ever be advanced.
Software and hardware will always contain bugs that is the fact of life. Computers are complex pieces of equipment with complex interactions. If you were to ever say “Only bug free software shall be called advanced” you will be laughed at, by anyone who has ever written a single line of code.
Troll away.
It is now recommended practice from many Mac experts that any time you make system changes or install software that for safe measure you should “repair permissions” that the reliable and stable OS X decides to foul up all on its own and for no reason.
Search google to find 113,000 hits for this well documented nuisance of using OS X.
How is that for user friendliness? Grandma, just repair your permissions and all will be fine. Use the terminal too while you are at it, its easy.
So provide us with a list of all the advanced features OS X has over an operating system like Windows XP Pro.
Panther after all is two years newer so it should be a long list.
We will wait patiently for you to meet this “challenge”.
All software has bugs. Here are a few examples of windows patches and Service packs causing problems. So is XP no more advanced than DOS, becuase DOS has bugs too. Get REAL.
We can find these article all day but the bottom line is all software had bugs.
Drop it.
Win XP Update Crashes Some PCs
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,105144,00.asp
http://briansbuzz.com/w/040311/
XP Service Pack 1 clogs USB ports
Microsoft has acknowledged that installing Service Pack 1 on Windows XP can make USB ports so slow that they almost seem to have frozen. This occurs because the “lazy write” cache gets confused about what information has been written to disk, with the result that the same bits are sent many times over.
http://www.respower.com/news_2003_08_11_max_sp4
Discreet has confirmed that Hotfix 823980 contained in the Windows 2000
Service Pack 4 – causes the corruption of 3ds max and Autodesk VIZ (.max)
files.
out of box security
http://www.securityfocus.com/cgi-bin/sfonline/columnists-item.pl?id…
Dave had some surprises up his sleeve as well. You’ll remember that I said he was using a ThinkPad (running Windows!). I asked him about that, and he told us that many of the computer security folks back at FBI HQ use Macs running OS X, since those machines can do just about anything: run software for Mac, Unix, or Windows, using either a GUI or the command line. And they’re secure out of the box. In the field, however, they don’t have as much money to spend, so they have to stretch their dollars by buying WinTel-based hardware. Are you listening, Apple? The FBI wants to buy your stuff. Talk to them!
Dave also had a great quotation for us: “If you’re a bad guy and you want to frustrate law enforcement, use a Mac.” Basically, police and government agencies know what to do with seized Windows machines. They can recover whatever information they want, with tools that they’ve used countless times. The same holds true, but to a lesser degree, for Unix-based machines. But Macs evidently stymie most law enforcement personnel. They just don’t know how to recover data on them. So what do they do? By and large, law enforcement personnel in American end up sending impounded Macs needing data recovery to the acknowledged North American Mac experts: the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Evidently the Mounties have built up a knowledge and technique for Mac forensics that is second to none.
(I hope I’m not helping increase the number of sales Apple has to drug trafficers.)
As I thought, no list of “advanced” capabilities and the best you can do is point out that all software has bugs.
OS X is no more reliable or stable than Windows XP Pro. It just costs more and runs on more costly and slower equipment.
I just posted a link that the Security Agents at the FBI HQ uses Macs and the reasons they do.
I forgot you couldn’t read.
Features OS X has today that Windows will have tomorrow (in longhorn)
1. Double-Buffered rendering
http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2002/pdf/tn2060.pdf
Windows on Mac OS X are double-buffered. In other words, every window has an offscreen buffer associated with it, and
applications draw into the offscreen buffer (using QuickDraw, Quartz, QuickTime, or OpenGL).
http://www.ondotnet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2004/03/08/winfs_detail_3.html…
However, Avalon will make extensive use of this memory. When a GUI needs to be rendered on screen, Avalon does not use the Win32 approach of getting each visible item to draw directly into its on-screen region. Instead, drawing is done into off-screen buffers, using all of that extra video memory normally used for 3D textures.
2. Harwdare Accelerated Compostion AKA Quartx Extreme. Longhorn will have a similar feature.
3. Device independent Drawing vector based drawing APIs.
The Quartz 2D API is device independent—that is, the final destination of the drawing operation may be a window’s bitmap, but it may also be a Portable Document Format (PDF) file, a PostScript file, or another output format. An application may call the API directly or it may call it indirectly when displaying a PDF file or when using other input mechanisms. Figure 3-5 illustrates this relationship.
Available in windows is longhorn.
This is just one subsytem. Should I go on.
It just costs more and runs on more costly and slower equipment.
OS X retail cost $129 and XP $299. OS X panther comes with XCode and all the developer tools. Visual Studio.Net can cost anywhere from $300-$2300.
How is OS X more costly???
all relate to eye candy when looking at docks, icons, folders, and various other screen elements.
That advancement is stupendous.
As more than half the Mac users I know turn that off as best they can (including using many shareware programs that allow you to get rid of Apple mandated gunk that they try to lock you into) because it makes the GUI utterly unresponsive, I would call that a step back from Apple’s OS 8 and 9 days.
MS has the good sense to wait for technology that will properly deliver those sorts of eye candy benefits.
Windows XP costs as little as $81 with my first search of the internet.
http://www.z-buy.com/product.asp?item=DC-MSWXPHE
And you don’t have to buy a new version every year either.
Drawing in utterly off the subject material for some reason, MS likewise provides many developer tools for free.
Visual Studio .Net does cost something, but it is also considered to be one of the finest IDEs made. Apple’s IDE is regarded by most developer resources to be pretty poor.
What? I said in my post that since Darwin was Open Source it doesn’t violate any of the licenses, I also went to great lengths to say it was a personal thing and was nothing more. In fact you basically wrote a comment with the sole aim to insult me and ended up agreeing with me! You and I both agree the architecture of the cpu is transparent and does not matter, it is the so called “Mac zealots” that think it is the best thing since sliced bread. I am an OSS developer and I have to say that I haven’t learned anything about how insulting anonymous people is any form of technical savvy. Then again what do I know? I don’t even disagree I love macs which is why it is ridiculous that I get labeled a “mac hating crusader” because I have a PC and am happy with it, and that is why i didn’t want mac zealots to respond or any flame warriors which is what you are so flame on.
So you are saying no one in the US government knows how to turn on a mac? I mean if you are talking about encryption OS X File Vault uses the same encryption as any other program would on windows or Linux or unix or bsd well you get the point. I mean I can help the government go through OS X machines plug the HD into a linux box and run a quick mount command for HFS+ and browse away. If files are encrypted then you are SOL but that is the same on any system. Seriously i really honestly want to know what is so hard about looking at a Mac?
LOL microsft home Fro $81 and you are comparing that to XP PRO. Didn’t you ask for XP PRO vs OS X feature list. But you quote the price of home. Massage data to suit your needs.
all relate to eye candy when looking at docks, icons, folders, and various other screen elements.
May be you should tell that to Microsoft then, aren’t they investing in eyecandy for longhorn.
And you don’t have to buy a new version every year either.
Neither do you with MacOS X, no one forces you to upgrade. I know people still running 10.2.x and they are extremely happy with it.
Drawing in utterly off the subject material for some reason, MS likewise provides many developer tools for free.
Examples. Where can I get a compiler from microsoft for free?
Visual Studio .Net does cost something, but it is also considered to be one of the finest IDEs made. Apple’s IDE is regarded by most developer resources to be pretty poor.
Prove this statement.
Who is quibbling now?
So you are saying no one in the US government knows how to turn on a mac?
Was this drected at me. Read the Article, I just posted the link. If the FBI claims they can’t work with OS X why is it my fault?
You are really known as the quibbler aren’t you?
xp pro full $125
http://www.store.yahoo.com/glob2000/miwixpproem.html
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/atthemovies/
“Visual Basic® .NET 2003 lets you quickly write dependable, robust software. It delivers the tools you need to build applications that will power today’s organizations and drive the next generation of Windows, Web, and mobile software.”
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=9B3A2CA6-3…
“Overview
The Microsoft® .NET Framework Software Development Kit (SDK) version 1.1 includes everything developers need to write, build, test, and deploy .NET Framework applications—documentation, samples, and command-line tools and compilers. You must install the .NET Framework Redistributable Package version 1.1 prior to installing the .NET Framework SDK.”
http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/technologyinfo/redist/defaul…
“.NET Framework 1.1 Redistributable
The Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 includes everything you need to run applications built using the .NET Framework 1.1, including the common language runtime (CLR) and class libraries.”
More quibbling and yet again you are left looking like a troll asking for things that anyone with any sense knows is free.
Talking about being forced to buy something is really childish. Why would you even use such a word?
Of course you aren’t forced to buy os upgrades.
But, if you want the latest and greatest you have to pay for it with the Mac and Windows. And on Mac, you pay more, and you pay more often…as in yearly for the last three years or so. If you want to compare older OS X that people have not since paid to upgrade, we can make an even longer list of features that Windows has over os X.
Use old technology if you want. If you want Apple’s latest and greatest and most feature rich OS, you will pay yet again to get it.
with its underlying advanced graphics technology…
see this and weep:
http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,63256,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3
Advanced technology? Dream on. Its reproduced by kids with nothing better to do.
The real truth is few care about those jelly bean icons, pretty colors, genie effects, and shadows–not everyone is a teenage girl enamored of shiny trinkets.
Microsoft Windows XP Professional OEM is the next version of the Windows operating system,</>
OEM != retail. My copy of panther cost me $20 becuase of a buying a mac a few weeks before it’s release, or $70 with my employee discount (I don’t work for Apple).
Visual basic is not free. Read the fine print it’s a promotional offer.
* Offer good only to first party recipients of a valid redemption code email. Offer is non-transferable and the redemption code is for one use only, limit of one gift per person.
[i]More quibbling and yet again you are left looking like a troll asking for things that anyone with any sense knows is free.
Where is the Visual C++ IDE? .Net is not the only technology on Windows. Xcode gives you access to every development API on MacOS X.
Try to write a C++ GUI with .Net. With Xcode you can write code in multiple languages, like Java, Objective C and C++. Apple gives you everything in its developer suite with OS X not some half assed single framework download.
The real truth is few care about those jelly bean icons, pretty colors, genie effects, and shadows–not everyone is a teenage girl enamored of shiny trinkets.
That’s why People want it on XP, so much so that they imitate it. You posted a link that proves that People like Aqua but you drew a conclusion that they don’t!!!! You really need to get your head looked at.
You’ve convinced me.
I’m selling my G5 and getting a… what do you recommend?
I know that I’ll get what ever OS you use and I’ll probably try and get the same set up as you or truth teller.
Thanks for all the time and info you and truthteller have put in this and other threads.
I appreciate the effort.
nick, i do not see why you claim that mac zealots claim it is the best thing since sliced bread. acouple of things 1.) i think you are taking what has been previously said by mac supporters at a previous date or in a different location/forum/website coz in the context of this forum i do not see any comments that would fall under your categorization of “best thing since sliced. like i said in my post you may find someone saying feature x and y are better on whichever cpu but that is a far cry from “best since sliced bread” 2.) also, please don’t mix issues. the fact that we are discussing cpu features is because that is what the article in question is about (or partly). if you are tired of hearing this argument played out (just like i am) that is what you should say or something to that effect. your post has a tone to it that implies that mac zealots somehow encouraged another instance of this worthless debate when all that was/is done is responding to the article. in fact, like some have said maybe this site just does this so that it can generate hits – so be angry at this site for linking the article, be angry at the writers of the article, be angry at the enderle whose post (whether you are pro-mac or not) has an accuracy level of less than 30% (this is for the objective facts as opposed to more opinion type issues), be angry at the so called analysts/writers who have to meet a quota or keep their job and often turn to distorted mac vs. pc articles in order to at least gurantee some hits on their web site — just do not be angry at the people who come to their defense after having been attacked or wronged. just my 2c for what its worth…
[i]
What? I said in my post that since Darwin was Open Source it doesn’t violate any of the licenses, I also
went to great lengths to say it was a personal thing and was nothing more. In fact you basically wrote a
comment with the sole aim to insult me and ended up agreeing with me! You and I both agree the
architecture of the cpu is transparent and does not matter, it is the so called “Mac zealots” that think it
is the best thing since sliced bread. I am an OSS developer and I have to say that I haven’t learned
anything about how insulting anonymous people is any form of technical savvy. Then again what do I
know? I don’t even disagree I love macs which is why it is ridiculous that I get labeled a “mac hating
crusader” because I have a PC and am happy with it, and that is why i didn’t want mac zealots to
respond or any flame warriors which is what you are so flame on.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/vctoolkit2003/
“Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003
The Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003 includes the core tools developers need to compile and link C++-based applications for Windows and the .NET Common Language Runtime:
Microsoft C/C++ Optimizing Compiler and Linker. These are the same compiler and linker that ship with Visual Studio .NET 2003 Professional!
C Runtime Library and the C++ Standard Library, including the Standard Template Library. These are the same static-link libraries included with Visual Studio.
Microsoft .NET Framework Common Language Runtime. Visual C++ can optionally build applications that target the Common Language Runtime (CLR).
Sample code. The toolkit includes four samples designed to showcase the powerful new features of the 2003 version, including new optimization capabilities, features to improve code-security and robustness, enhanced ISO C++ standards support, and the ability to use the .NET Framework library and target the CLR.”
download here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=272BE09D-4…
Your responses are patheticly misinformed.
What does the Visual C++ Toolkit install on my machine?
The Toolkit installs 1) the Visual C++ command-line compiler and linker, and their dependencies. 2) the Visual C++ C Runtime Library and static-link modules, and the Standard C++ Library, including STL 3) the Microsoft .NET Framework Runtime, including library files necessary for building C++ applications that run on the .NET Common Language Runtime, 4) four samples demonstrating key features of the Visual C++ compiler and libraries.
Sorry no IDE. Xcode is an IDE, it is free with panther all for $129, it is the whole development environment and a world class one at that. From MS you get partial toolkts and promotional packages. Not the same league. Sorry you are misinformed
Anyway I have decided to stop feeding the trolls, I have better things to do, I was bored this weekend and indulged my self a little
Troll away.
“Examples. Where can I get a compiler from microsoft for free?”
remember writing that?
the answers have been provided with numerous compilers that are free from MS.
Do you are argue that the night is some prop put up by light haters? You write the most ridiculous things of anyone I’ve ever read on this site.
You should move on to sewing or some other activity because technology makes you look foolish.
Where is the Visual C++ IDE?
Remeber that question. it is in my post directly before your visual C++ toolkit reply. It is natural to assume you were answering that question.
However, given your weird reasoning abilites (posting links contradicting your own self) and delayed response to stimulii, I am assuming you are on something really potent.
Technology makes me look foolish that’s why I get paid the big bucks to write code and headhunters are knocking on my door.
My sewing beckons. tightly knit code is an art.
Buy the computer you like, please!
A $80.000 VW Touareg doesn’t have an acceleration from 0 to 400 km/h in 5 seconds, yet does that mean that it is an underperforming, overpriced car that is not worth buying?*
With an Apple G5, you don’t only get a G5 processor, but you also get a rather well-designed cooling system (that you won’t find in a $1000 Dell), a really beautiful design, Mac OS X, full plug-and-play, and many other things. Isn’t that worth any money?
So I would say, if the only thing you want is the most Ghz for the least money, then go buy a dual celeron 3 Ghz or so, fine. But let that be a personal choice.
* Answer: no.
i know i should stop this because you’re such a moron and your logic is so failed and also, you’re not actually answering anyone’s questions, just “slagging” them off.
first of all, those people that thought that the eMac was too slow probably looked at the GHz and thought “wow! this PC has twice the amount of GHz than this mac, it must be twice as fast!”. people that shop in these kind of stores usually don’t know much about computers. what were you doing there?
when you compare the price of panther to the price of xp, you fail to take into account that xp is about 3 years old and that panther isn’t even one year old. in about 2 years time do you think that panther will still be $130? also, you don’t have to upgrade, just like you don’t have to upgrade to longhorn if/when it comes out. i have windows 98 installed on my pc and there was no one forcing me to upgrade to xp.
The real truth is few care about those jelly bean icons, pretty colors, genie effects, and shadows–not everyone is a teenage girl enamored of shiny trinkets.
is this why microsoft are working so hard on these features in longhorn?
i’m not a “zealot” but when clueless morons like you come around and say that macs are slow and that there’s no choice other than a pc with a 4GHz processor and windows xp it makes me want to respond because it’s fools like you that taint people’s (like those guys at comp usa) opinions against macs. whenever there’s something about windows, i don’t feel the need to bash it, i personally don’t like it but it doesn’t mean that other people are wrong if they do.
They wanted or needed more than ample processing power.
maybe your command of english isn’t that good but saying that people may need more power than is ample doesn’t make sense. if they wanted more power than was ample, then that proves my point.
while panther did have some teething problems, they were fixed promptly with an update. don’t say that xp is without its stability issues, ’cause you’d prove yourself wrong, again.
How is that for user friendliness? Grandma, just repair your permissions and all will be fine. Use the terminal too while you are at it, its easy.
so you’ve never defragged your xp box no? sometimes you have to do this because third party software installations may mess up the permissions. there’s never any need to use the terminal. i only ever use the terminal to ssh into other boxes and also to run some of my perl/shell scripts.
As for stable, all one need do is visit any Mac oriented bulletin board site to see all of the headaches OS X creates. Its about as stable as Windows 98 first edition from all I read—except for the Dorothy’s that write such nonsense like dr_gonad.
you say when you look at mac boards, you see lots of problems, well duh, people only post on these boards when they have problems. if someone doesn’t have a problem with their mac, they’re hardly gonna go through the trouble of tracking down a website, creating a user account just to say “i love my mac and i don’t have any problems with it”. it’s a good thing you’re not a statistician. i have windows98 second edition and it crashes every, say 3 hours on average that i use it, since november, panther has crashed twice on me, that’s once every 3.5 months. i think that’s a tad more stable, don’t you?
Selling computers with aged technology and high prices to maintain a break even financial outlook tells me and also the rest of the world to abandon them as quickly as possible.
Exactly, that’s why I bought a Mac, because I didn’t want to have yet another 8086 decendant.
I guess only few people actually care to look at the processor architecture, but the 8086 wasn’t too elegant back in 1978, and it didn’t get much better by packing more and more stuff into it.
It’s especially weird that even the newest instruction sets like MMX and SSE only feature two-address code, as if Intel think that programmers aren’t able to use more than two registers at a time. They had a chance to do it right, but they didn’t. That’s why AltiVec is so much powerful, because one instruction can use 4 registers out of 32, instead of 2 out of 8.
Even AMD failed to eliminate the two-address restriction (Hey, of course we only use a+=b in C – or rather not!) and the FPRs are the same since they were introduced with the 8087 in 1980. Of course AMD wants programmers to use SSE for floating-point instead, because the x87 stack processing is too painful anyway.
Mac zealots talk about the PPC architecture as if x86 lacks functionality, sorry folks but to this day my processor is the last bottleneck on my system and there really are no bottlenecks.
This is from the user or high-level language point of view. Believe me, on machine level it’s a totally different story.
Because I’m quite interested in binary translation (sometimes called dynamic recompilation) I often work on machine language level, not assembler but down to the binary coding of single instructions.
All that legacy really shows in x86, and it’s not a pretty sight!
What do I care that Pentium implementations have 40 or more internal registers if I’m only able to use 8 more or less freely?
AMD claim that there is no real gain in going from 16 to 32 registers, but I read a totally different story about that by someone called Bhandarkar, who worked on the VAX and the Alpha.
Also some seem to see the IA-32 as a universal register machine – you’ve got to be kidding me:
Variable shifts requires the shift amout to be in CL (that’s the lower 8 bits of the ECX register) and nowhere else, multiplication and division use EAX implicitly, and a MOV to EAX is one byte shorter than to any other register.
In terms of architecture IA-32 still is a modified accumulator, and in context of IT developemt that feels like medieval technology!
Sure, the implementation is up-to-date (after Intel and AMD adopted a lot of ideas originally invented for MIPS and especially Alpha), but the architecture already was outdated several years ago.
Who wants a Porsche motor built into a chariot?
PowerPC isn’t my idea of an ideal architecture either (actually I haven’t found any that I’d agree totally with), but compared to IA-32 it feels like heaven. Remember – I’m not talking about implementation but architekture here, ie. what the assembler programmer sees.
My main gripe about the Apple hardware was that the bus was a real bottleneck, which is the reason why G4 PowerMacs have L3 cache. But that bottleneck has been removed with the G5.
As for the article I want to comment on just one of Rob Enderle’s many false comments:
The division used a unique x86-based processor in its Xbox victory.
1. I’m not sure if it could be called a victory when the Xbox fights against the Gamecube regarding the second place.
2. That “victory” wasn’t really due to the hardware, but Microsoft selling the Xbox so much under the production price that they loose huge amount of money, not to mention that they were litterally pumping over a billion dollars into the project.
3. It’s quite interesting that the Xbox 2 is announced to use PowerPCs, just like the Gamecube and Nintendos next console. Should that be called a “victory” of the PowerPC then?
I agee with you, I am sorta mad at the article because it does present little fact and the facts that are there are mostly wrong. It says things like “the fbi doesn’t know how to get information from macs” and offers no reason as to why when anyone with any skills could easily get info that is unencryped through a variety of ways. These mac vs. pc arguments are pointless. I have always been under the impression that Mac Zealot translates into Mac fanboy which is IMHO worst than a flamer, and you have to admit that there are some people with the “Apple can do no evil” attitude. I love macs and have said it several times, i don’t agree with people that say it is a childs toy and I believe that from the ground up OS X is eponentially better than any version of windows.
Responding to another post: I appreciate the insight into low-low level programming, but you hit the money when you guessed i was talking higher level, if tomorrow a cost effective processor architecture came out whose overall performance was better than the x86 (meaning everything from mhz to pipe lengths) I would switch, i have no great affinity to any architecture but feel that i am getting good performance from my machine on a higher level. From my point of view as an application developer, after the an assembler is created for an architecture and a compiler is written to use that assembler and that architecture the funk is so hidden from the developer that as long as he is still getting good performance he doesn’t care if it is an outdated architecture, or maybe it was just a dumb Arch since day one?
should read: I believe that from the ground up OS X is exponentially better than any version of windows.