“They’re here, they’re slow, get used to it. At least for now. One of Apple’s top goals for its new flat-panel iMacs is to get home consumers to switch from Windows PCs. But some who rushed to order the attractive new computer sight unseen say they have been disappointed: For Web browsing — still the biggest time use of home computers after e-mail — the new iMacs are notably slower than a PC. Yep, even an older, cheaper one.” Get the story at Wired. Some G4 benchmarks against the PCs and commentary can be found here.
Why Do New iMacs Surf So Slowly?
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 think those pretty fonts come free?
More importantly, for the average user who is browsing the web, is page render time really the primary limiting factor for getting at information quickly? I was just playing with a new iMac at my school’s library and it didn’t take much demonstration of OS X’s interface for the less computer literate on-lookers to become immediately hooked on the new interface. I think the cool factor of Aqua is a good trade-off for the performance slow-down. Of course, if you want a fast browser, you can always just boot into OS 9.
Let’s see, what browsers did they test? Did they test Mozilla 0.9.9 (or 1.0rc1), a platform-agnostic browser that’s been *built from the ground up* to run on a multitude of systems? No! They tested Opera, a browser that’s still in BETA for the Mac (like version -1 for the Mac), and *MICROSOFT* Internet Explorer. Of course the Windows version of IE is faster. Microsoft can optimize IE to high heaven and put half the code in the OS itself if they want to. IE for the Mac is a lousy program. Apple’s only bundling it with OS X because there isn’t any other good “Aqua” browser that has good compatibility (e.g., OmniWeb isn’t compatible with a lot of stuff). You can go to Slashdot and load up a 700 comment page — *nested* — in Mozilla, and it’s light-years ahead of IE (and OmniWeb, unfortunately for the Omni guys).
I think it should be obvious by now that OSNews loves to jump on anti-Mac propaganda. Maybe Eugenia’s still sore at Apple for giving Be the cold shoulder when the G3/G4 machines were first released?
Jared
You know, my friend, when trying to make things better the first step will always have to be to identify and acknowledge the shortcomings of the status quo.
Otherwise you will never leave mediocricity, appearently a state many Mac users seems to enjoy, however…
To answer you question: YES, it does matter how fast a page renders, especially when it takes TWICE as long. I used to have ISDN for a long time and this was a real releave over my 28K Modem back then.
Now I am a ADSL customer for over a year and when I rarely have to fall back on ISDN, this is a real annoyance. (I know that bandwith is not related to actual render time, but if the line is slow, you’ll have the same “waiting-experience”…).
There is no point in trying to fight and justify such stuff as you just tried, especially not for 1800 bucks. The only situation where I would accept such poor performance is on the 200 MHz machine. Hell, we are in the 3rd milennium an there is no point to close your eyes and defend performance from the early 90ies.
How easy of all of you to critisize me with your “maybe”. It is easy when you are the reader and not the person who decides what goes online and what’s not (Slashdot also published the article, and they are pretty close(r) to Apple these days).
You only remember the articles that are against Apple, not the articles that are for Apple and that are aslo published over here. The “How a Windows Guy Learned to Love the Mac” was published on OSNews only 36 hours ago and the MacOSX upgrade news was just yesterday. So, give it a rest.
I will publish articles that are FOR and AGAINST Apple, Microsoft, Linux, the government, the communists, the aliens and my today’s meal. As long as the articles have points that a lot of people find valid (even if *not all* people find them valid) which means that it will generate traffic to this web site and discussion (because there is going to be people who agree with the article and people who don’t), such articles are going to get published.
It has nothing to do with “me” and “osnews”. It has to do with what “sells” and what people like to read, laugh, embrace or piss and moan about. Exactly as you do right now. You are biting the bait. (me too, and that’s part of the fun
Apple is not a computer company/system. It’s a dangerous cult. I think the California National Guard, BATF and FBI should be sent out to Cupertino and straighten things out toute suite!
other than the cute applets mac os x has, like iphoto, why should i choose mac os x over win xp? i recommend win xp over mac os x because it’s faster, more games, more software, less expensive hardware, etc.
HAD apple bought be inc, web browsing would be a fast experience with 6 mp3’s decoding, etc.
what is JLG doing nowadays?
the cheese eating surrender monkey is plotting his next crepe – what do ya think?
you know, i wonder if he could afford to buy the be source code back – and hand it to obos to remove the proprietary chunks and merge with their new code. I’d be surprised if he didn’t have 10-15 mil to throw around still.
All Mac users know that IE sucks wind on Mac OS X… they should have used a faster web browser for their test! I have ADSL, so I don’t see any difference from my friends XP machine and he has the same service.
I use MacOS X on a regular basis at home and W2K at work. OS X under Mozilla, Netscape, or IE render noticably slower on my Mac than my PC. Both machines are comparably matched. Apple needs to work on the optimizations to fix this problem as much as possible. The speed doesn’t make it unbearable or anything, but it is noticable. Apple just put too much into the first version of Aqua.
Oh, and my machine is a 450MHz G4 with over 700MB of RAM, so we aren’t talking some ancient G3 without enough memory.
How old is OS-X exctly? In OS years it’s young, very young in fact. OK parts of it may be positively ancient but the combination is new.
When developing anything properly (a sad rarity in the software industry) you get iit to work first then and only then optimise. Apple had the extra problem of trying to add compatibility for a previous different operating system. They’ve done this very well it seems – how many complaints have you heard about stability?
Give them time. It’ll get faster.
The first Next machine had the same critisims levelled at it years ago – despite the fact it’s hardware was years ahead of the PC at the time.
I also remember early versions of Opera, it was fast then but it was also utterly crap, it was dog slow at drawing tables – if that is it could draw them.
OSX v’s XP?
XP may be better in some areas but it’s hardly perfect, and how long have they been working on it?
“Let’s see, what browsers did they test? Did they test Mozilla 0.9.9 (or 1.0rc1), a platform-agnostic browser that’s been *built from the ground up* to run on a multitude of systems? No! They tested Opera, a browser that’s still in BETA for the Mac”
Well, if Mozilla is as slow and bloated on the Mac as it is on Windows & Linux, and if that’s the best thing available for the Mac, then I should say I’m glad I’m not part of the Mac community.
Don’t get me wrong – Mozilla is a capable browser, but on Windows, IE is faster and both Opera (Windows/Linux) & Galleon (Linux) leave it in the dust in the speed category.
Hi,
When I first setup my PowerMac G4 867 (quicksilver) I found that in the first 2 days my Internet connection was slow/pokey. I kept thinking to myself, “I thought this would be faster!?!”
The problem is in MacOS X (10.1+) network settings! Yep, believe it or not (heh), everytime you use the network it attempts to poll the net first from your internal modem, then the network (nic) card every freak’n time. This causes it to be slow!
Solution: (If you have DSL or LAN this is a must!)
Go into “System Preferences”, then into “Network” and click on the drop-down called “Show:”.
You will now see both “Built-in Ethernet” and “Internal Modem” …plus there will be an option for “Active Network Ports.” Choose “Active Network Ports” and uncheck “Internal Modem.”
You may need to “Apply Now” to save the changes (if not don’t worry). Now go back to “Show:” and choose “built-in ethernet.” Quit out of “System Preferences” and then go back in to make sure the darn Internal Modem isn’t in the “Show:” active port list. Quit the “System Preferences: again and your’re set.
You *should* notice your network is now much faster!
You may need to reboot, but it’s MacOS X, so I don’t think you need to.
Basically, I had the “slow network” problem on my iBook 600mhz and PowerMac G4 867 (quicksilver), which are both using MacOS X (10.1.2) on DSL.
If you are using the internet via DSL/LAN read on…
The solution is to turn off the phreak’n “Internal Modem.” For some odd reason, Mac OS X decides it wants to talk to the network from your internal modem before heading to your NIC (network card). It does this every time it tries to use the network.
How to turn that stupid internal modem off and use your DSL/LAN connection the way it’s suppose to be used:
Go into “System Preferences” and choose “Network.” Notice the pop-down menu thingy labelled “Show” — click on it and choose “Active Network Ports” and now uncheck the “Internal modem”.
Now go back to the pop-down called “Show:” and choose “Built-in Ethernet” and then quit the System Preferences.
Finally, go back in to be sure “Internal Modem” is “not” in the list of “Active Ports.” You may need to reboot, but in any case you should now have “full speed” internet!
Arc Wave
HAD apple bought be inc, web browsing would be a fast experience with 6 mp3’s decoding, etc.
———————————————————–
Decoding 6 mp3’s to do what?! Listen to 6 mp3’s at the same time, how productive! No wonder BeOS failed, it had solutions for problems that don’t exist.
>>i recommend win xp over mac os x because it’s faster, more games, more software, less expensive hardware, etc.<<
XP faster… yeah, right!
more games… true, but then again if anybody is a serious gamer they wouldn’t waste their time on a PC (or a Mac), buy a console instead, and don’t buy the Xbox because there is not enough games for it, PS2 has way more games and every kid down the block has one!
more software… you still running that old DOS stuff?
less expensive hardware, can’t argue there, but then again I like to invest in stuff that works the first time around, so Apple gets all my money… I would otherwise just waste on beer if I didn’t buy Macs 🙂
>>HAD apple bought be inc, web browsing would be a fast experience with 6 mp3’s decoding, etc.<<
If, If, If,… the world is full of ‘Ifs’ but this is a wet dream none of us will see, so get over it!
>>what is JLG doing nowadays?<<
Mismanaging another company!
If Apple had not purchased it.
re: Decoding 6 mp3’s to do what?! Listen to 6 mp3’s at the same time, how productive! No wonder BeOS failed, it had solutions for problems that don’t exist.
Mac OS X can’t do fast webbrowsing. that is a problem that exists.
>>what is JLG doing nowadays?<<
Mismanaging another company!
which company? curious.
although i was pro-Be inc, i concede JLG did a poor job managing Be inc.
I’ve used Mozilla 0.99 on an OS X machine and IE on Win2000 ON THE SAME 10baseT network, and I see no noticeable slowness on the Mac–certainly not 2 fold. Having said that, I don’t doubt that there’s plenty left to be optimized on the Mac side–it’s a new OS in a lot of ways, unlike Win2000, which is probably maxed out about as far as it can go by this point.
To the guy above who said:”why should I choose mac os x over win xp?”
1) You will crash WAY less. I know OS X’ers who have’nt rebooted in months.
2) software usually installs by drag and drop– no installer (usually!); no reboot.
3) security. Windows has ALWAYS lagged the Mac in thsi regard, and OS X does not seem to have changed that.
4) plug and play usually works on the Mac.
5) New technologies appear sooner on the Mac (USB (ironically, courtesy of Intel); 1394 Firewire; UNIX; WiFi; pretty colored machines, Quicktime; etc..
6) Macs are more fun. You sit down EXPECTING them to work, instead of being GRATEFUL when you get through a session with no trouble, like in Windows.
7) Prettier, more logical UI.
8) plenty of software for any normal person. Or any extraordinary person, for that matter, since artists and scientists tend to favor the Mac.
500mhz processor, 66mhz system bus,192mb RAM, ATA66 IDE drive
where thats an Intel Celeron: XP is fast, reliable and smooth
try installing OSX on a G3 500, 66mhz bus, with 192mb RAM…..
and mac users claim the PPC has a clock speed advantage too….
</pertinent point>
“XP may be better in some areas but it’s hardly perfect, and how long have they been working on it?”
XP came out about the same time as osX, so thats a moot point (because if they were working on it longer it would mean microsoft cares more about releasing a good product, but if that was the case some mac fans would commit hari kari).
“1) You will crash WAY less. I know OS X’ers who have’nt rebooted in months.”
And I know people who’ve never rebooted xp, I never did the 6 weeks or so I used it.
“2) software usually installs by drag and drop– no installer (usually!); no reboot.”
I prefer an installer, since some friends use my pc I don’t need 3 installs of the same program, also not that many programs require a reboot on windows, only if they have a low level hook.
“3) security. Windows has ALWAYS lagged the Mac in thsi regard, and OS X does not seem to have changed that.”
Its called install base, if there were as many mac os systems installed there would be as many security issues, but because there are nearly 20 times as many windows pcs as mac machines more holes are found (if the numbers were even they’d be pretty neck and neck). Don’t believe me? Last night on techtv they had on a cracker who’s team has wond 3 years a row in the cracker ctf game at defcon who said exactly what I just said.
“4) plug and play usually works on the Mac.”
I’ve never had it fail on windows (or seen it fail), I’m sure it does but again its install base and the fact that ms doesn’t make most of the hardware for windows opposed to apple who makes most of the mac hardware.
“5) New technologies appear sooner on the Mac (USB (ironically, courtesy of Intel); 1394 Firewire; UNIX; WiFi; pretty colored machines, Quicktime; etc..”
UNIX isn’t new, its 30 years old, WiFi was out for windows before mac (it was a very, very small distribution, but it was out, of course apple did give it a push), pretty colored machines aren’t technology, they’re styling (of course my machine is under my desk because I don’t care what it looks like, it doesn’t have to match my couch or anything, and quicktime is by apple so of course its out first on the mac (wmp is out only for windows, and it has more features, but you don’t see pc users calling it an exclusive technology or anything).
“6) Macs are more fun. You sit down EXPECTING them to work, instead of being GRATEFUL when you get through a session with no trouble, like in Windows.”
In your opinion they’re more fun, also in your opinion you expect them to work. On the rare occasions I was forced to use a mac (os9) they crashed more often then any windows machine I’ve ever used (I crashed an imac opening up netscape with nothing else running for christ’s sake). I’m sure osX is more stable (then macs used to be, not then windows, because xp is pretty damn stable, so is 2k), but that doesn’t mean macs always were.
“7) Prettier, more logical UI.”
I think windows ui is prettier and more logical, but thats because I prefer windows, it doesn’t make it a fact.
“8) plenty of software for any normal person. Or any extraordinary person, for that matter, since artists and scientists tend to favor the Mac.”
Not true, more copies of scientific software and artistic software are sold for windows based machines then apple based machines so there went that point. As for plenty of software, there is of some stuff but not of others.
You are an old school mac fan, you can’t possibly admit that windows is a viable option. You could’ve just said you like macs better, but oh no you think you have the definitive answers on what is the better os (no one does, I prefer windows, but I don’t care if people prefer mac or linux, or be or whatever because I don’t know their needs or wants).
>>”XP may be better in some areas but it’s hardly perfect, and how long have
>>they been working on it?”
>XP came out about the same time as osX, so thats a moot point (because
>if they were working on it longer it would mean microsoft cares more
>about releasing a good product, but if that was the case some mac fans
>would commit hari kari).
XP is based on 2K which is based on NT which is how old?
OS X is based on OpenStep / BSD which is older but also has had Aqua / Display PDF / Carbon etc. added to make it into OS X.
My point was that the NT linage is longer whereas big chunks of OS X are new.
>>what is JLG doing nowadays?<<
> Mismanaging another company!
Given the job he had I don’t think he mismanaged anything. Some decisions (good or bad) may be obvious after the fact but not so at the time. Would the focus shift have been made if they thought it would have failed? They didn’t have much of a choice, while MS’s licensing practices remained in place they had no hope in the PC market.
Microsoft will attack a market and keep going and going until they get it, they can only do this because they have the resources to do so and while they have big profits their investors are happy. Most other companies cannot say the same – least of all MS’s competitors.
I’ve always been a pc owner, but when the tibook came out I just had to buy one. I got the first model, 400/256, which came with OS 9.
OS 9 would crash for me several times a day. Having been used to Win2k, this sucked. Win2k never froze up on me–when an app did choke, killing it in the task manager made everything right again. The multitasking was horrible. On this machine, I couldn’t have iTunes playing an mp3 and browse web pages without pauses in playback. My pentium 300, on the other hand, can handle this just fine.
When OS X came out i bought into the hype. $139 dollars later I had an os 10x slower, locks up when usb devices are removed when sleeping, loses sound when put to sleep, locks up during screensavers… Did I mention how slow it is?
Who are these people that are so impressed with OS X? Have they never seen unix before? Have they even used win2k/winXp?
Luckily for me I found yellowdog linux. It’s great. So stable, so fast. No JIT, no flash though.
This tibook is a great machine. I love it’s style. But for the love of god people, if you think OS X is better than WinXP and ppc is faster than pentium, realize you’re just in denial.
Give me a break, its well known that IE for MacOS X is far from the fastest browser on the platform. Try Chimera (A browser that users the Geko rendering engine and Cocoa UI controls) or how about iCab. ( http://chimera.mozdev.org ) ( http://www.icab.de ). Those of you who are claiming that OSX is 30 years old because it is based on BSD are just wrong. Much of MacOSX was developed in the past 5 years with even the NeXT stuff not being written until the early 90s. Carbon is much newer than Win32. And for crying out loud, MacOS X in its current incarnation is about a year old. Do you remember how ridiculously slow NT ran on a 386/33 when it first came out?
How much did Micro$oft pay you to say that Bull$h!t?!
the cheese eating surrender monkey is plotting his next crepe – what do ya think?
you know, i wonder if he could afford to buy the be source code back – and hand it to obos to remove the proprietary chunks and merge with their new code. I’d be surprised if he didn’t have 10-15 mil to throw around still.
——
Are you saying he’s totally without merit and just got into it for the money? I think JLG is a great man. We all make mistakes, and how would we feel if every move we made was under public scrutiny?
>>wmp is out only for windows, and it has more features, but you don’t see pc users calling it an exclusive technology or anything).<<
You’re an idiot… WinAmp is also available for Mac OS as well! You just lost any credibility that you didn’t have in the first place!!
http://www.winamp.com/download/mac/
First off nice name calling skills. Secondly wmp is WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER. No one shortens winamp to wmp. Guess that reverses your idiot comment huh?
btw I checked out winamp for mac and not only is it an alpha (.71) but it doesn’t work on osX (well they reccomend against it), so even if I was talking about winamp (which I’m pretty sure no one, other then you, was confused enough to think) then it would’ve been “technology” that came to windows before mac (although I doubt anyone would consider winamp a leap in technology, even those of us who have used it for years, well except tom barta if it was an apple product, then it would be the biggest technological achievement since sliced bread).
wmp (WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER) is out for OS X and Solaris among others. Maybe you are kind of an idiot.
WMP is available for OS X. It comes with MS Office v.X and can be downloaded from Microsoft’s website. However, some codecs are missing.
First of all: to the gentleman above who was disappointed in OS X performance: Have you tried it after 10.1? That was a major speed-up, and later releases have made the OS faster and faster and more efficient generally (concerning mem usage, cpu usage etc).
Secondly: Windows Media Player is out for both OS 9 and OS X, the latter being ok.. As someone who has used pretty much every OS out there I must say that OS X is one of the most pleasant experiences around. This is actually being written on AmigaOS, but that’s a different story
I have a 700 MHz PC which doesn’t perform noticably better with the same browser (Mozilla 0.9.9) and isn’t as stable as my OS X machine (the PC is running Win2K/BeOS).
All this argument about which is faster, better etc. is really pretty pointless. I dislike using Windows. I dislike Windows’ looks and have done so since Win3.11 where I first set my eyes on it.
I don’t like the classic MacOS look much, but prefer BeOS, AmigaOS (not in it’s natural looks, mind you, but with a bit of customization) and MacOS X. Having a *nix with a usable GUI is wonderful. I can play around with all the *nix stuff and never worry about having a non-working system.
In other words: The current version of OS X rocks. People who haven’t used all of the operating systems in question or lack knowledge of available technologies should refrain from commenting about them.
Regarding WinAMP (now that we’ve resolved the WMP issue), iTunes is really a much nicer choice. At first I didn’t like it much, but after discovering it’s features I’m never going back to the IMHO inferior WinAMP system.
>>First off nice name calling skills. Secondly wmp is WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER. No one shortens winamp to wmp. Guess that reverses your idiot comment huh?<<
You’re still an idiot because Windows Media Player is also available for Mac OS X.
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/video/windowsmediaplayerforx….
Final question… what in the helk are you doing here if you don’t like Macs in the first place? You have nothing better to do than to spread bad gossip about something you know nothing about?
Get your head out of Job’s ass.
Here we’ll take a look at the usual dumb points and arguments from Windows PC users…
Dumb Point 1:
“Windows PCs have a lot more software.” More than likely true, but these would be the same people who would turn around and say you should buy an Xbox over a PS2 because it’s better (though more expensive), of course not acknowledging the fact that the PS2 has a lot more games available which equals to the arguments “more software” hmmm … makes you wonder where the boundaries lie on this subject!
Dumb Point 2:
“It came out first for Windows.” yeah and now it is on both systems, so it’s a moot point as they say. Some software is OS agnostic and some isn’t. You’ll see software only available for Mac OS as you will with Windows, but that doesn’t make me feel special either way (though the iApps do rock he he)!
Dumb Point 3:
“Macs are more expensive compared to PCs” Yeah true, unless you buy one of the CRT based iMacs. But you’re the same people that would buy an Xbox over a PS2 though it is twice the price, another moot point!
Dumb Point 4:
“Mac OS X is slow” yeah so is WinXP, Win2k and WinNT. I have to work around the latter 2 (Win2k and WinNT) 50+ hours a week, so I know first hand. Is Mac OS X slow, it is slower compared to Mac OS 9 and older, but not unbearably slow like you people try to sell it off as (unlike the other 2 I mentioned above running on comparable hardware to my home machine).
You know the sad thing is about this above, it’s all pretty much bull$h!t no matter how you look at it, if it being ‘Pro ‘ Mac or ‘Pro’ PC. Being a Zealot for either platform is a waste of time, though I am wasting your time now as you read this while I should be practicing what I’m preaching and not get involved in this silly debate. Mac users will always be Mac users and PC users will always be PC users, you will have a few defectors and new arrivals. I’m an old PC defector myself and I haven’t looked back since. Do I dislike PCs themselves, no I still have my old PC and plan to get another one eventually (for the OBOS project). I will say that I dislike Windows because I was dissatisfied while being a Windows user at work (still am D’OH) and at home. But not all people think or work the same, and that is understandable. I have to say that Windows XP isn’t too shabby, I was able to crash it though while setting up an internet service for my friend down the street, and got to babysit a friends kid and his XP machine for a week while he was on holiday, so I have played with XP enough to know if I like it or not, and though it has improved since Win95, it still falls short of my expectations.
So having different choices like we have with Macs and PCs is a good thing, and anything less would be unacceptable because I would just take up farming or something if we were stuck in a world with only Windows PCs to use.
Well i have an antique G3 (beige desktop no less!) with not enough RAM, though its true I’m plugged in to a Fiber optic system with a cable modem (yeah Ashland Oregon!) and yes IE5 sucks. Hey on OS9 it can’t even deal with RealPlayer. I’ve been using iCab for some time and have vrey few complaints, especially the OSX Beta.Oh yes you should see my friends G4 Imac cruise at 4-5 mbs! even with IE5.
>>Get your head out of Job’s ass.<<
I will as soon as you remove yours from Gates’ rear 🙂
I’m here because I like trying new operating systems. I’ll admit it I was wrong, I didn’t know wmp was out for mac (now lets see how long it takes tom barta to admit he was wrong about wifi coming out for the mac first, or calling pretty colored cases technology).
“”Macs are more expensive compared to PCs” Yeah true, unless you buy one of the CRT based iMacs. But you’re the same people that would buy an Xbox over a PS2 though it is twice the price, another moot point!”
Ps2 and xbox cost the same. And macs are more expensive, crt or no crt (you can buy the old imac 1 relatively cheaply, but it can’t even run X, and since apple is pushing X, who bother?).
“”Windows PCs have a lot more software.” More than likely true, but these would be the same people who would turn around and say you should buy an Xbox over a PS2 because it’s better (though more expensive), of course not acknowledging the fact that the PS2 has a lot more games available which equals to the arguments “more software” hmmm … makes you wonder where the boundaries lie on this subject!”
I love xbox, but even I don’t think its better then ps2 (unless there are more games you want for it then you do for ps2). Again they’re the same price.
“”It came out first for Windows.” yeah and now it is on both systems, so it’s a moot point as they say. Some software is OS agnostic and some isn’t. You’ll see software only available for Mac OS as you will with Windows, but that doesn’t make me feel special either way (though the iApps do rock he he)!”
The only reason I even mentioned wifi coming out for windows first was because Tom Barta listed all this “technology” that came out for apple first, I really don’t care which anything came out for first because if its coming to both the lag time usually isn’t too long.
“”Mac OS X is slow” yeah so is WinXP, Win2k and WinNT. I have to work around the latter 2 (Win2k and WinNT) 50+ hours a week, so I know first hand. Is Mac OS X slow, it is slower compared to Mac OS 9 and older, but not unbearably slow like you people try to sell it off as (unlike the other 2 I mentioned above running on comparable hardware to my home machine).”
Has anyone else noticed the only people saying xp (or 2k) is slow are those who prefer macs? Meanwhile some people who use macs admit x is slow. btw I don’t think anyone said it was unbearably slow, they just pointed to it being a little slow.
I may not like mac, but I can admit when apple does something good, and if its ok for you to post to topics about windows (since you hate it) then why wouldn’t it be ok for me to post to mac topics (since I’m indifferent)?
>>Ps2 and xbox cost the same. And macs are more expensive, crt or no crt (you can buy the old imac 1 relatively cheaply, but it can’t even run X, and since apple is pushing X, who bother?).<<
Well maybe in your neck of the woods but here in Europe the Xbox is more expensive. As for the G3 iMacs running Mac OS X, I own a G3 iMac (3 years old) and it is currently running OS X without any fuss, though I would recommend a G4 machine over a G3 simply because OS X takes advantage of AltiVec (which the G3 is lacking), but not because the G3 can’t handle OS X!
>>Has anyone else noticed the only people saying xp (or 2k) is slow are those who prefer macs? Meanwhile some people who use macs admit x is slow.<<
The same applies with people running XP including my friend and colleague at work running XP on a HP Pavilion Laptop (PIII 700 MHz) says it runs slower than older versions of Windows… so the story goes both ways! I for one am spoiled by the speed and performance greatness of BeOS, so any OS other than BeOS seems slow to me, but that doesn’t keep me from using other OSes!!
>>I may not like mac, but I can admit when apple does something good, and if its ok for you to post to topics about windows (since you hate it) then why wouldn’t it be ok for me to post to mac topics (since I’m indifferent)?<<
But do you see my name under any of the Windows forums, hardly… I probably have posted something every once an awhile, but I have no interest in Windows, so it is irrelevant for me to post on a board on something that I have no interest in. I still read the articles to keep up on technology as you do, but I am not going to go in and try to start spreading bad gossip because I realize that not everyone sees or agrees with me or my views and I shouldn’t be downing the platform they like to use, unless I have to come in here and defend against bad gossip and silly rumors! The love/hate relationship goes both ways in the Windows and Mac World, and that will never change 🙂
Win2K was pretty much a complete rewrite, That’s why people were so worried about using it as their main server, remember?
“1) You will crash WAY less. I know OS X’ers who have’nt rebooted in months.”
And I know people who’ve never rebooted xp, I never did the 6 weeks or so I used it.
I GUESS YOU ARE LUCKY. I CAN’T GO MORE THAN AN HOUR OR SO IN W2000 WITHOUT SEEING MISTER BLUE SCREEN.
“2) software usually installs by drag and drop– no installer (usually!); no reboot.”
I prefer an installer, since some friends use my pc I don’t need 3 installs of the same program, also not that many programs require a reboot on windows, only if they have a low level hook.
AT LEAST YOU DON’T HAVE TO REBOOT EVEN TO CHANGE SCREEN RESOLUTION IN WINDOWS ANYMORE– THAT’S PROGRESS. I DON’T UNDERSTAND YOUR POINT ABOUT INSTALLERS. WHY WOULD YOU HAVE THREE INSTALLS OF THE SAME PROGRAM?
“3) security. Windows has ALWAYS lagged the Mac in thsi regard, and OS X does not seem to have changed that.”
Its called install base……
HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE. HOGWASH! ‘DOZE IS INSECURE PRIMARILY BECAUSE OF BAD CODING. REMEMBER THAT OUTLOOK VIRUS THAT COULD AUTO-EXECUTE “.exe’s” *WITHOUT* YOU HAVING TO EVEN OPEN THE MAIL MESSAGE? YOU GONNA BLAME THAT ON “INSTALLED BASE” OR PROGRAMMER STUPIDITY?
“4) plug and play usually works on the Mac.”
I’ve never had it fail on windows…
DON’T KNOW HOW MANY GIZMOS YOU’VE GOT CONNECTED…
“5) New technologies appear sooner on the Mac (USB (ironically, courtesy of Intel); 1394 Firewire; UNIX; WiFi; pretty colored machines, Quicktime; etc..”
UNIX isn’t new, its 30 years old
TRUE. FROM BELL LABS, AS I RECALL. AND GATES *STILL* APPARENTLY HASN’T FIGURED OUT HOW TO COPY IT!
, WiFi was out for windows before mac (it was a very, very small distribution, but it was out, of course apple did give it a push)
YOU MIGHT BE RIGHT– I AM NOT SURE.
….quicktime is by apple so of course its out first on the mac….
EXACTLY WHERE DO YOU THINK GATES GOT THE IDEA FOR WMP?
“6) Macs are more fun. You sit down EXPECTING them to work, instead of being GRATEFUL when you get through a session with no trouble, like in Windows.”
…..On the rare occasions I was forced to use a mac (os9) they crashed more often then any windows machine I’ve ever used…
I COULD SAY THE SAME ABOUT W2000 BEING WORSE THAN ANY MAC I’VE EVER USED. THE DIFFERENCE: YOU ADMIT TO BEING NOT TOO FAMILIAR WITH MACS. I (AND MANY OTHER MAC USERS) HAVE *TONS* OF TIME BEHIND WINTELS, SINCE THEY ARE WIDELY USED IN THE WORKPLACE.
“7) Prettier, more logical UI.”
I think windows ui is prettier and more logical, but thats because I prefer windows, it doesn’t make it a fact.
MY HUMBLE OPINION.
You are an old school mac fan, you can’t possibly admit that windows is a viable option.
NEW SCHOOL, ACTUALLY; OLD SCHOOL GUYS DON’T SEEM TO LIKE OS X.BUT WHY BEAT A DEAD HORSE? WINDOWS IS OLD HAT AND IT ISN’T GETTING ANY YOUNGER. I SEE IT FALLING FURTHER AND FURTHER BEHIND THE CURVE. IF OS X DOESN’T PUT IT OUT OF ITS MISERY, LINUX WILL.
By three installs I meant that because there is no installer and no registry people could install the same program multiple times (at the university I worked at a few years back they had imacs, and one of the imacs in my area had 3 different installs of ie, with some plug ins in one folder, others in another and so on. none had all the plugins in the same folder.). You haven’t had to reboot to change screen resolution since at least 98 (its been so long since I used 95 I can’t remember for sure on that one, but I think you didn’t have to reboot). There is some bad coding (although an outlook bug isn’t specificially a windows bug since you don’t have to use it), but if your trying to tell me mac is perfectly coded your nuts. I’m sure as many (or at least nearly as many) holes would show up in mac if 20 times the amout of users were using it. Quicktime wasn’t the first audio/video viewing application, but I’m sure it helped provoke ms into making wmp. I freely admit I haven’t had a ton of time in front of a mac, but its telling that the 100 or so hours I sat in front of an imac it crashed damn near 100 times. Lastly apple won’t take over major market share again because they blew their chance (not to mention the millions and millions of x86 boxes and their owners who are too cheap to invest in a new os and new hardware) and Linux won’t succeed because as mandrake, redhat and all the others have taught us you can’t make money giving away a product, or trying to sell a product that you also give away. As for Gates “copying” unix realize the 2 reasons mac is now based on a *nix is 1.) free code, less cost, larger profit and 2.) all the *nix combined were beating mac in desktop market share, since they couldn’t beat them, they joined them. And ms had a *nix close almost 20 years ago, they moved on (and lets face it if they released anything *nix based now a lot of the *nix community would repeat the first reason I gave for apple’s switch, while those same people are fooled into thinking apple is less of a company so they cheer them on). Lastly stop yelling and its sad you edited my posts down to just the handful of words that makes you look right.
>>And ms had a *nix close almost 20 years ago, they moved on (and lets face it if they released anything *nix based now a lot of the *nix community would repeat the first reason I gave for apple’s switch, while those same people are fooled into thinking apple is less of a company so they cheer them on).<<
Actually Apple also played with UNIX back in the mid 80s with its own version called A/UX, so Mac OS X is not the first implementation of their brand of UNIX! Of course failed at UNIX with its Xenix offering, which then bought Q-DOS from a software company in Seattle and MS-DOS is born, which was a hacked version of CP/M created by Gary Kildall of Digital Research Inc. who had passed away some years ago 🙁
sorry about the editting and the CAPS: 1) OSnews has an 8000 character limit for posts (and I did not wish to count my post out) 2) I wanted my comments to be easy to pick out from the other text.
As for installs: yes, someone in a computer lab could install his own version of explorer (under OS X). But it would be ONLY in his own home directory unless the user had admin privileges. It would not affect you at all, but for the disk space. And you could drag it to the trash by logging into root.I guess you were referring to the Windows add/remove. There is nothing exactly like that on the Mac. And no registry.
As for the Apple having “blown its chance”– I’d say its a little early to say. It the early eighties you might well have been one of those people who regarded Atari or Wang as unstoppable collosusses (did I spell that right?). Where are they now?
As for UNIX being free– Apple is now based on UNIX because NeXT was. Jobs came back to Apple when NexT was purchased about 5 years ago. They could have gone with BeOS. Some say they SHOULD have. But now, we have tons of cool ported GNU UNIX applications that will no doubt leave the Mac with more applications than Windows within a couple of years. Thus, removing that old there-are-no app.s-for-the-Mac arguement.
“Microsoft” Of course failed at UNIX with its Xenix offering, which then bought Q-DOS from a software company in Seattle and MS-DOS is born, which was a hacked version of CP/M created by Gary Kildall of Digital Research Inc. who had passed away some years ago 🙁