Slashdot Mirror
New iBooks And OSX Beta Released
zephc writes: "Apple has announced its iBooks, now with more RAM and DVD drive options, and (sweetness) Firewire (among other things)." Looks like it's at least three new models - and in other Mac Expo news, as promised OSX has been released in beta. Of course, it's a beta that costs $29.95 in the Apple Store, but whatever. MacNN has some coverage as well, as well as photos from the floor -- including the infamous flooding incident.
"There's actually some pretty clever stuff in there, but the marketing droids messed it all up by naming the BSD-kernel "MACH" and the brand new NEXT-ish stuff "COCOA". "
Actually, Mach is the name of the kernel, which was developed at Carnegie Mellon in the 80s (originally) and sits underneath the BSD kernel. Basically, the architecture is:
Cocoa - Carbon - Classic - Java - BSD/X (with 3rd party X Server)
BSD kernel
Mach kernel
maybe the cocoa name is silly, but the name Mach didn't come from Apple.
-- "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -Joseph Stalin
You make a good point. However, it is important to note that this release is not targetting developers. As I iterated in my other posts (Mr. Lagos is in an endless loop!) there is no project builder, the OS X IDE, bundled in this relase. No debugging tools. Nada.
In fact looking at apple's MacOS X developement site there's a message specifically detering non-developers away from any developement information. It reads:
ATTENTION: This page provides resources for people developing applications for Mac OS X. If you are a customer participating in the Mac OS X Public Beta program please proceed to http://www.apple.com/macosx/ for customer information and updates.
In other words, the beta is designed mostly for people who should never see the inside of a developement site. Developers won't pick up the beta--They get a better package from the ADC.
So what this is actually targetting is testers. And while I see the point of having lots of testers and advertisering to obtain them, most of the people who will actually pay for this won't be expecting a testing job. They're doing it because they want to have MacOS X, even if they have to settle for a beta.
All it takes is a little reading of mac fanatical magazins (MacWorld, etc.) to realize how many non-developer mac users are obsessed with Mac OS X, and are planning to buy the beta and will probably, as you said, break their machines with it. Apple's online store was practically overloaded this morning.
Hey, I don't care. I'm a Mac Fanatic, so I'll probably buy it. But let's not delude ourselves, Apple isn't charging $30 as a deterent. They're charging $30 because they can.
--
Lagos
Having the same problem. Slashdotted? Hehehe.
I realize this is probably a joke, but for a server to actually be slashdotted, it has to have less hardware then slashdot itself. I doubt this is the case with Apple.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
I have an IBM ThinkPad 770Z with the 1280x1024 screen, and it looks fabulous. I think the screen is 13.7".
D
----
I wonder if they are charging a somewhat hefty price of $30 to reduce number of beta-testers...
Ah! Somebody's thinking! This also means that magazines can't just drop it in the sleeve of the next issue (although I'm sure the are other ways to prevent that).
Another thought -- Apple has to pay somebody to read all that feedback and build the knowledge base content.
I guess $20 would have been better, but I can live with $30. $40 would probably have been too much.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
No, only the SUPPORT for the Beta will expire.
Technically, the license to use the software expires. It says so when you purchase it from the store. I sort of doubt that the software just ceases to boot. I'm sure the upgrade to the full version will be worth it. The license expiration may just be to cover Apple's butt, so that they aren't accused of not supporting the software later.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
"No, only the SUPPORT for the Beta will expire. THere's no expiration date on the actual software..."
The FAQ says different:
Q. Will Mac OS X Public Beta expire?
A. Mac OS X Public Beta will expire on May 15, 2001. At that time the software will stop working, and you will need a bootable Mac OS CD (not the Mac OS X Public Beta CD) to gain access to the contents of your hard drive or to reset your computer's startup disk.
From the license agreement:
The Apple software is not intended for us in the operation of nuclear facilities, aircraft navigation or communication systems, air traffic control systems, life support machines or other equipment in which the failure of the Apple software could lead to death, personal injury, or severe physical or environmental damage.
--meredith
--meredith
Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis
The $30 price tag on a piece of beta software is, to say the least, absolutely exorbitant. Enough, in fact, this this if going to deter a *lot* of people from buying and using it. Almost deterred me.
Then again, that's not entirely a Bad Thing. This is, after all, beta software. Get that through your head: beta beta beta . Most people, frankly, have no business running beta software which will do little but wreck their machines (or at the absolute least, put them at severe risk).
A lot of Slashdotters seem to forget that there are users and there are developers. All developers are users, but not all users are developers, and they shouldn't have to be. The line is a bit blurred in Linux and the BSD's(something I consider a weak point; just because you need to use a computer doesn't mean you should have to know how to program), but this isn't so in Windows, MacOS, or most other operating systems. But think about it: would you put production boxes on an unstable kernel release, no matter how solid a given kernel may be reputed to be, or would you keep with the stable cycle? Assuming that some critical feature hadn't surfaced in the development cycle that wasn't in stable yet, most admins would keep production boxes on the stable cycle, and they'd be right to do so.
To the guy whose school is running OSX: what is the IT staff smoking? Not only is the OS not ready for that sort of use by a long shot, but you're not even supposed to be able to get it legitimately for that (OSX Server notwithstanding, but that's a very different beast from OSX). Of course it sucks for business and academic purposes now; nobody, least of all Apple, ever claimed it was ready for that.
As for me, I think I'll pony up for the CD. The $30 price is certainly distasteful, but if it's being used to deter non-developers then I can see why Apple does it, and I can't blame them for it. Not this time.
----------
From the install guide PDF:
This is also what DP4 said, so it looks like multiple monitor support is still in the "sort of works, but unsupported" category.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Oh, how I pine for the day when a NEW ULTRA-COOL GOTTA HAVE IT product meant _more_ than a new color.
The new iBooks have twice the video RAM and a Rage128 instead of the Rage LT in the old ones. They're also 100 MHz faster, have an on-chip L2 cache running at full processor speed, a FireWire port, a DVD drive, a video out port, and a larger hard drive. Happy now?
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
I agree. Most of the people who want free (beer) software have never, and will never, contribute anything to it. Most don't even write bug reports, much less *good* bug reports!
The piper must be paid. Either you pay in coin or time. As has been observed, the two are equivalent!
With Linux, we sleep on the shoulders of giants.
Dog is my co-pilot.
Steve Jobs is style over substance. What's your point? It's not about what you like, but what *SELLS* And trust me, Aqua will SELL. It will sell big.
Also, OSX DOES have technical merit. It's got the OO-APIs, and Quartz is genuinely cool. However, since you can't see those, Aqua is needed. Think of it as the visual extension to Quartz.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
> What I'm curious is how you determine the "right"
> amount of base memory is to begin with.
You look at how much RAM Gateway, Dell, Compaq, and IBM are shipping in their products that compete with yours, and you put that much in, too, and try to have a competitive price point. Right now, this is 64MB on the base models, and 128MB on the higher-end models. RAM is an after-market "hidden cost" in the whole industry, and everybody's happy because it keeps the cost of it out of their price points.
Also, if Circuit City knows they can sell a 64MB chip to almost everybody who buys a computer with 64MB in it, they will push a Compaq with 64MB over a Mac with 128MB so that they can get the RAM sale. They are not happy to sell you just a box with a Mac in it and that's that.
Apple's machines can all take huge amounts of RAM compared to many of their Wintel counterparts, and every model has a door of some sort that the user can just open up and easily slot in more RAM without needing any tools or know-how, or paying somebody to do it. In addition, it's easy to shop for RAM for your Mac because there are many dealers that only ask you to pick the model of Mac that you have from a short list and then they send you the right chip, without charging the kind of premium that you pay a system vendor such as Apple or Dell. Apple is already going above and beyond the call with RAM, in my opinion.
Also, as somebody who once paid $1200 to put 16MB of RAM into a brand new 386/33 (and I am not an old man), I just don't balk at paying $250 to get a 256MB DIMM along with a new computer. Big deal.
I believe the reason the amphitheater may have been full is because they had to switch due to the - erm - water damage.
Is that true?
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
If you mod me down, you aren't reading between the lines.
I *really* tried, but all I could see was the page's white backgroud. <g>
--
Marcelo Vanzin
Marcelo Vanzin
I figured the price point might be to both limit the beta pool to "serious" testers and to cover support costs (there are three options - built-in help, online kbase and telephone support). Phone support is provided on a pay-per-incident basis. No price listed. I called the number and asked about the cost - US$49.95 per incident.
Ouch.
But, it'll probably keep the calls down to a manageable number of truly serious testers/early-adopters.
QA implies some kind of quality to begin with.
The iBooks have been shipping with 64MB of RAM since...MacWorld/MacExpo Tokyo. Thats when they all bumped to 6GB HDs and then iBook SE in Graphite came out.
:).
I think that all the Macs should ship with 128...but that would cut into profits...and I'm a shareholder...SOOOO...leave it at 64 for now
They lowered the price on the base model by $100 (to $1499), bumped up the speed, and added Firewire, a bigger drive, and an A/V out. Too bad that Key Lime is so damned ugly - but the masses may just go for it. They had already increased base RAM and HD size once, back in January or February (to 64MB and 6GB, respectively), with no price change.
Actually, the new iBook SE is particularly sweet - a 466 MHz processor, 10GB drive, 64MB RAM, DVD, TFT display, Mobility 128 video, and Firewire for $1800 compares real well with the brand-name Wintel competition. I may consider upgrading at some point myself - I have one of the original iBooks that I hacked a 6GB drive into (taking an iBook apart just can't suck enough, by the way), and it's been real nice, but more speed and Firewire would just rule completely for me.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
The display is really nice...even if it is a 12.1.
I get complements all the time when I use my Tangerine iBook at work, about how bright anc clear the screen is even under intense light and from the side.
Slashdot: News for whiners. Stuff to complain about.
I'm not certain I buy this, but it is certainly plausible, and Apple's practice does require some explanation. The iMac can take up to 1GB of RAM, so why not pre-install more? Every review of every Apple product in the last few years has mentioned the lack of RAM, so you'd think they'd address this. Another explanation is that Apple doesn't want its bottom line to be held hostage by fluctuating RAM prices.
Whatever the reason, if you're buying a Mac in the near future, you're going to be buying some RAM also.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
The OSX Beta seems available only from the US Apple Store, not the Canadian one. On top of which, the US Apple Store refuses to accept all of my Canadian Postal Code (even though I know that Fed Ex and UPS can brave the frozen tundra to deliver packages up here). Poo.
BeOS is not based on Mach.
All these iBook improvements are really nice, but I really wish that they came with 14.1 inch screens, like the Powerbooks (and most good Wintel laptops) do. In my opinion, a good display is more important than firewire and a faster processer. I've got a 200 MHz Pentium, but a 19 inch monitor.
I don't know -- has anyone seen 1024x768 on a 12.1 laptop screen? Is it possible, and if so, does it look OK?
========
Stephen C. VanDahm
For a number of years, the base configuration of every Apple machine has been very obviously deficient in RAM. The original iMac shipped with 32MB with an OS that was easily capable of hogging up to 25 of that. The reason often suggested is that this is one of Apple's few concessions to its dealers: value-added resellers can make extra money by pre-installing extra RAM, as well as flogging other goodies such as printers and scanners with the package.
To be fair, the original iMac shipped with OS 8.1, a fine operating system that ran in 11-15 MB (+ maybe another 2-4 MB for MS library extensions if you had to run Office or IE), and OS 8.5/6 usually runs in less than 20 MB (16 on my iMac with peripheral and modem extensions loaded)-- I'm not sure where you get 25 MB from.
But you're right, the Mac has not shipped with enough RAM since the first model in 1984. Supposedly Steve Jobs, back then, thought developers should be able to write very good, tight code that would run on a 128k machine (they wanted 512k, and eventually got it). I wonder if Jobs doesn't realize that, in the current port-from-PC developement environment, he's not going to get many programs optimized for a 32 MB iMac/iBook, or if he's just being sleazy with the RAM vendors, as you suggest?
On top of that, you write a kernel "server" that provides whatever kernel API you want. The BSD portion of MacOS X (and, of course, NeXTstep) runs as a kernel server on top of Mach. I think, though I'm not certain, that the stuff like Cocoa sit directly on Mach and not on top of the BSD layer (otherwise, there'd be little point to using Mach instead of a monolithic BSD kernel).
OSX/NeXTstep is not the only OS that uses Mach as a foundation. mkLinux is a Linux kernel server for the Mach microkernel. That's what the "mk" stands for. Cray apparently considered Mach as the microkernel foundation for Unicos/mk (the Cray T3E operating system) but went with another microkernel called Chorus instead.
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
As a recovering Mac drone, I have to say I am not familiar with the "stability" of which you speak. I have been hard crashing Macintosh computers since 1988 and the situation has never improved-- in fact, I've grown tired of looking for a paperclip to restart my iMac, which lacks a sensible power-off or restart button. I'm sure you'll just call this "user error" and blame the victim. But when you make candy colored computers and force the usage of wiring schema like USB (the supposed remedy to all our device needs), the last thing I, as a user, should have to worry about is which device drivers or javascripted web pages are going to bomb the whole machine.
As a future GNU/Linux drone, I'm torn as to whether I want to spend the $30 to see if OS X is going to improve my life if it ever gets past beta (since I doubt they'll produce anything else resembling a test version, which would allow me to try the software before blowing $100 on it). But that's $30 I could be donating (tax deductibly) to the FSF, not furthering my proprietary software addiction. I'd respect Apple's OS upgrades a lot more if the last few weren't centered on giving me Sherlock, replete with lame searches that were no better than google, took longer than google, and were littered with so much advertising that it put pr0n sites and [insert portal wannabe] to shame. So forgive me for feeling burned by Apple, but I've never felt like they cared about helping me to help myself-- which is exactly the feeling I get as I've been making the transition to GNU/Linux.
I do not have a signature
So for $30 USD, I can test someone else buggy software? This is a God send! There are actucally companies paying me to test their software, that is crap. I want to not only receive non-payable for beta testing commerical products, but want to put my $30 to them for putting buggy software on the shelf.
$30 seems really cheap, maybe they should change per bug report you send it. Like $5 for each bug report you send in and $50 for each bug you find. Because if you find a bug, the company has to pay their programmers to go in a fix it before release, and this costs alot of money. With this apple method, not only can companies pay for the bug fixes, but they can also make a profit on it!!
Commericaliztion is GGgggggREAT!
If you mod me down, you aren't reading between the lines.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
This isn't the first time we've paid for buggy beta software. But all those other times, the software was called "Version 1.0"!
Clothes and fashionionable items; purses, jackets, pants, etc. A new season, a new color!
Cars; a new season, restyled front bumper, a new set of colors, different trim, a HP boost in the engine. Sound familiar?
PCs; a new season, slightly bigger HD, slightly faster CPU, slightly more ram!
The nick is a joke! Really!
GPL Deconstructed
I read a review on OS X and it is supposed to be much like NeXT. Coolness if this is true, cause I like the NeXT feel.
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Only 'flamers' flame!
You may argue that $30 is a lot to pay for a beta... But if I could have downloaded this, it would take me hours, and then I would have to burn a disk. IMHO, it is a silly use of the net for everybody to download the same 400MB file!
Still, I think they should have set the price-point at $20. I suspect that it is $30 to limit the demand for something they only mean to get into the hands of people who have some actual testing to accomplish.
I also would not be amazed to find a rebate coupon with OSX when it ships for those who bought the demo. Apple have done it this way before.
Dog is my co-pilot.
First get all the cool stuff in OS-X into Linux and then the man will have something to sell. For most Mac users, Linux isn't sexy. Useful, powerful, nifty, ethically-correct, but not sexy. Aqua is sexy, Quartz is sexy, Cocoa is sexy. Ext2 is not. X is not. DRI is not. Jobs excels at selling sexy stuff, so I think his powers are wasted on Linux. Seriously though, Jobs kicks ass. My mom is a computer neophyte, and she immediatly wanted to buy the G4 Cube when it came out. He has brought Apple out of bankruptcy and led Apple to make some genuinely cool stuff like the dual-G4 machines. The man is God, pure and simple.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Where did you get the information that the install might render your box unbootable?
I've read all four PDF's on Apples web site about the Mac OSX install, and I've only seen the "usual" warnings about backing up, etc.
All my information is here; where did you get yours?
Also, Microsoft has charged for public betas in the past; why shouldn't Apple?
A message from our sponsor
Well, there you have it, the usual elitest whining from the win and linux drones. yes, linux users can be drones also - use of an open-source, self-tweaked operating system does not make you a full person. I would have thought that people could respect apple for making an advance in their OS, but I guess not, seeing as how apple is just now catching up with a lot of the plumbing that linux has had for a long time. Maybe the whiners just feel a bit threatened by the fact that there is now an OS out there that is truly competitve with *n*x technologically. Oh, and the fact that you can actually work with the OS, and quite a few apps within 15 minutes of starting the install must be a point of criticism/insecurity for the LinWinWiners also. Stability and power for the masses, at least those who pay apple's price premium. and yes, I'm posting this from my windows machine, not a mac.