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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.
"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.
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.
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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.
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."