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OS X Won't Be Fully Functional On March 24th
mduell writes: "Just saw this over on MSNBC. It looks like Apple rushed OS X to meet the deadline, and that many key features (like DVD playing and burning) won't be functional when it ships on the 24th of this month. Also, there won't be a big splashy introduction, perhaps one in the summer when Puma (OS X 1.1) comes out." Which is not to say that Mac owners can't watch DVDs -- if they are dual-booting, at least. The article gets into a few other gripes as well, but none sounds earthshaking to me.
See the CNet article. Not very encouraging.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
OH! Well, yeah. I guess if there is no OSX driver they should rasterise the PDF stuff on their own (the existing Preview app can turn PDF into TIFF files -- which it can screw up about as badly as ghostscript) and hand it off to the print driver in Classic....
Hardly. Before moving over to corporate sibling ZDNet, Matthew Rothenberg was director of online content at Mac Publishing LLC (MacWeek, MaCentral and MacWorld), and before that he was Senior News Editor at MacWeek itself. I don't think those credentials suggest anti-Apple bias.
Hey, I've got a DVD drive on my PowerBook, too, and I appreciate everyone's "I want it all now" stance, but only to the point of reasonableness. A DVD drive is not a fundamental part of the computing experience, included or not, advertised or not. If you bought a $5000 computer (or even $2000) primarily because it plays DVDs, then you're a pretty sad case. It's an extra. I use the CD-ROM capabilities far more, and that works find under OS X.
And while appreciate, too, the frustrations of having to boot into OS 9, I'd like to toss out a gentle reminder that you don't have to upgrade right away. Wait a little. Let the cutting edge be dulled by others who will suffer for you, fill the message boards with their complaints and their bug reports and their whining, let them influence the next version with their wishes and their demands. You can wait until Mac OS X.II or X.IV or whatever and then get exactly what you want.
Your Mac OS 9.x doesn't die and disappear the day Mac OS X is released.
Why is it that some people who are willing enough to exist on the frontline of technology are unwilling to bear the small penalties of being there first?
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
Every Mac I own has a DVD player. I've watched one DVD on a computer a year ago when my stereo was on the fritz. No big deal to me really. Unless of course the intent is to never offer support, which is something I haven't heard anywhere.
It would be nice to see it by the end of May though since I've got to fly to San Hose for WWDC and the plain flight is boring without the PowerBook and in flight movies.
OTOH It's funny to see major news outlets like MSNBC and CNet, etc... spewing more rumor and supposition than www.macosrumors.com.
The truth will set you free.
Microsoft not only owns a stake in MSNBC, but also in.. Apple..
Maybe Apple is deliberately throwing the game, then?
Maybe not though..
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SCO employee? Check out the bounty
It's the same thing with every software development group rushing to meet a deadline - rush the product out the door, leave a few bugs in it, and pray the patience of your consumers doesn't give out before your programmers do
I expected better of Apple, though. This isn't Windows, after all, this is a company that has prided itself on stability, innovation, and creativity. To just push this out the door when prudence demands a few more weeks is just an attempt to boost stock value...too bad
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ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
Got to the article too late to contribute, so I'll say it here.
The DVD license prevents Apple from making a DVD player to allows the DVD frames to be captured off the screen. Previous DVD players from Apple break things like `screen snapshot' to prevent this.
This makes a DVD player more complicated. Not only do you have to play a DVD, but you have to prevent a bunch of other unrelated features from working. Just the sort of cross functional integration that is difficult to perform during rapid development.
You can watch DVDs on Livid while running an Aqua Enlightenment theme although you will probably get sued six ways from Sunday.
just a small note - the word is
no _native_ playback.
they've got all the older os9 stuff still there, _including_ DVD playback. it's just not redone in carbon yet.
Sitting Walrus Blog
Something that we all need to keep in mind, is that there's nothing uncommon about this. At the risk of getting flammed, this is something that M$ does, Apple has a tradition, and the Linux/Open Source community does this as well. Take a look at the 2.4 kernel and you'll see that there are things that did not quite make the deadline for the first release, but did however get included in future releases, I can think of several right off the top of my head, namely ReiserFS. I am by no means an Apple/Macintosh fan, but before the bashing begins, this should be something to keep in mind.
Trying is the First Step to Failing --Homer Simpson
"Which is not to say that Mac owners can't watch DVDs -- if they are dual-booting, at least."
I thought that the whole point of running a Mac was NOT having to deal with crap like that. You know, having a PC that just works right out of the box? I guess Apple is finally giving up and falling in line with the rest of the industry when it comes to shipping a screwed up OS with missing features.
What a shame.
Obviously you've never owned or upgraded a Mac.
Apple just released the FREE update 9.1 for Mac OS 9, over a year after they released Mac OS 9 originally. Before 9.1, there was the 9.0.4 update, also free. For OS 8, there was the free 8.1 upgrade, and OS 8.5 had the free 8.5.1 and 8.6 upgrades. Back in the Dark Times, OS 7.5 has so many free upgrades, it was sad (7.5.5 was finally stable-ish).
Apple has a "Software Update" control panel in the OS, to automagically download patches to OS components when they're released. How much does Apple charge for this service? NOTHING, you ignorant troll.
Apple has a GREAT record of not charging for minor OS updates. It's the relatively big ones that are for-pay upgrades.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Just checking: You do know that the Beta has an expirity sometime in May or June, right? Best to use your upgrade coupon to 1.0 when the time comes.
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
Processor speed is stuck at 500 MHz.
Not. It's at 733
Motorola announced 10000 layoffs so far this year, 2/3 in their fabs.
Every semiconductor supplier is suffering.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/010227/2156.html
Apple's stock is in the tank.
So is Intel, Sun, Cisco, Dell, etc.
MOVE 'ZIG'.
God. MS-NBC is a freaking propaganda machine, not a news source.. look at this article on XP. "Goodbye Mac snobs" ?? The article has less tact and maturity than most trolls on here..
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So they are crippling OSX and breaking commonly used features?
when DVDs are playing, yes. right now if you take a screen shot in OS 9 while playing a DVD you get a magenta box where the DVD is playing. the OS isn't going to be "crippled" in normal use, but it is a requirement for the DVD application.
yes, it's lame, but don't blame Apple, blame the MPAA.
- j
Former Mac developer.
How much does Apple have in cash alone?
according to their 2000 financials, they have about $1,191,000,000 in cash, but approximately $5,427,000,000 in cash and short-term investments (a few billion anyhow).
Apple didn't need Microsoft's money when they invested, the cash was to settle some lawsuits (including the GUI-ripoff bit). for what it's worth, Apple should have got considerably more than the 150 Million, but they had to cave to get a promise from Microsoft that they'd continue developing Office for the Mac. because really, if the MacOS can't open Word documents, it would never have even the marketshare it has now.
yeah, it sucks, but hey, aren't monopolies great!?!
- j
You won't be able to play DVDs in Classic because the DVD player makes direct hardware calls to disable things like screenshotting, and to tell the video card to start decoding the DVD. Classic does not, and will not support this.
DVD playback is important to me too. My computer is my only DVD player, and most of what I watch is on DVDs. However, I can handle the slight inconvenience of dual booting untill Apple has a player ready. Hell, for all we know they may actually have one ready and sitting on our iDisks by March 24 or very soon thereafter. Just because it probably won't make the shipping CD doesn't mean that it doesn't exist at all.
And, btw, for the rest of the Slashdot FUD-mongers, it is only DVD playback that doesn't work. You can still use the drive. Hell, you can even read the file system of a DVD video. If you are willing to break the law (as crappy of a law it is, Apple won't break it), you can probably hack a way to watch DVDs without too much trouble. Apple just has to make sure they do it to the letter of the law.
As for the other concerns of the article, I cannot comment on sleep issues because my computer never sleeps. However, there have been a lot of comments on the MacNN forums stating that sleep works just fine. As for problems causing the system to hang, I doubt it. I personally was unable to crash the original PB, and I can only assume that stability has increased since then. IMNSHO, even the PB was better and more stable than any of the crap that Microsoft puts out, and the interface was much smoother than anything on any other *nix OS. It can only have gotten better since then. I don't know anything about the video stuff except that I am pretty sure that the Rage 128 pro cards (which are probably in 65%-70% of the G3 and G4 macs on the market, work just fine.
A LOT of people are saying that Apple should not ship an "incomplete" OS on the 24th. Well, the OS is pretty much complete. There may be a few applications that are extra, that may not ship, but the OS is there. And Apple needs to ship this OS so that software companies (who have been holding off porting their apps until the OS is finished) will get off their buts and write their software for OS X.
Anyway, most of this is old news. We already went through all of the FUD-mongering last week when c|net broke this "news". I'll tell you what. I'll make a deal with you. My copy of OS X is preordered, DVD or no DVD. I'll give you all a full report of what I think of it, what works, what doesn't, what is better than OS 9.1 or any other OS out there, and what is worse. I see MacOS X as a Good Thing(tm) and I will have it as soon as possible.
Cheers. ^_^
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Carbon has a MP API, or Carbon has the MP API that Classic did? It was my understanding that a MP OS9 porgam had things that ran on the "not the main CPU", and those things could NOT talk to the filesystem, and they could NOT talk to quickdraw and in fact could NOT a whole lot of stuff.
Am I wrong? Is this some other past Mac MP API? Is this some wretched API I dreamed up on my own?
I'm totally willing to beleve that OSX has a MP API. I would be shocked if it didn't at least have the mach MP API, which was both better and worse then the POSIX one. I was talking about the OS9 API.
Why not? Why don't you up and run it? Take a break from coding to watch the "smash the FAX machine" bit of Office Space? Or if you are making a comercial rewatch bits of the movie you are imitationg?
And even if it isn't a breif run of the player, why should you have to log out of five servers, bookmarke half a dozen web pages and tie up other work and play bits just so you can reboot and run the DVD player? That sucks.
I hope so. I'm allready sick of OS9. It makes my skin crawl to to have to boot it to do anything.
I think the only way Apple is going to prevent being read the riot act when MacOS X is released is to offer a free MacOS X 1.1 Upgrade on CD-ROM to anyone who sends in their registration cards for the OS.
That way, when MacOS 1.1 (code-named Puma) becomes available in July 2001 end users will be sent a full update disc without having to jam Apple's servers trying to download the upgrade.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
However, said other group has the option to boot back to a more primitive OS, although one that can play DVDs.
;)
Hey, wait a minute...
Geez, you'd think someone at Apple had seen the css-auth/decss code floating around, wouldn't you?
[/tongue in cheek]
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Apple charges for a new OS about once a year. So the upgrade this summer will be free, and then the version next year will cost ~$100 again.
I thought that DVD writing on the new MACs was crippled anyway, at least to the point that it didnt have access to certain CSS related regions of the disk. I heard, from elsewhere on slashdot, no less, that Apple had bent over backwards to get DVD Consortium support for dvd writing and authoring. I personally dont trust Apple's claims about the functionality of the new DVD features. All the important details are misssing, and it smells to me mostly of marketing hype.
Even if I completely trusted Apple not to mess up OS/X and the new macs, I would still be very leery of being an early adopter of a rushed product. Would you run out and buy a new computer from Compaq or Gateway with the latest beta build of Windows ME on it, in addition to never-before-seen hardware features?
Exactly.
Nice subject there, eh? I could write for some big-deal news source like MSNBC with catchy title like that.
Anyway. I'm as excited about MacOS X as I am about Windows XP, which is to say, not at all.
Wow, MacOS is Mach-based and runs a modified FreeBSD kernel. Wow, look at Aqua. Wow, I can run Apache and Squid on a Mac now. Good for Apple.
But I don't care. I've got my FreeBSD box, and I'm not about to dump it for a proprietary solution like MacOS, especially since they've completely rearranged and gutted the standard FreeBSD system.
People say things like, "Good, now my grandmother can use UNIX!" Why is it so important that she use UNIX? My grandmother doesn't even use a computer. And you know what? She couldn't be happier.
Computers aren't nearly as pervasive in today's society as geeks like to think. I'm a network admin and a semi-professional programmer, so my life is based on computers. I'm not the average person, though. The average person doesn't need UNIX, and many people don't even need computers.
Society may run on computers, but individuals don't need to. Giving everybody UNIX (even if it's MacOS) isn't the solution to all our problems, and it won't change the lives of everybody you give it to.
In fact, giving people access to things like Apache can be a bad thing. There's already enough shit on the web right now. Do we really need every idiot who can say MacOS putting up more pointless content?
A new year calls for a new signature.
This OS won't go mainstream for another year, at least.
The plan is to ship OS X (whatever build) INSTALLED on all new Macs starting in the Summer of this year. That's about as mainstream as you can get!
Of course, it'll include full 9.1 for the Classic box, so it might be possible to just de-install X and boot 9.1 only.
No one will know until we get there.
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Pure FUD. The Public Beta already has SMP support in the kernel. See this forum where an ATI engineer confirms that Radeon 2d and 3d acceleration is in place.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Before moving over to corporate sibling ZDNet, Matthew Rothenberg was director of online content at Mac Publishing LLC (MacWeek, MaCentral and MacWorld), and before that he was Senior News Editor at MacWeek itself. I don't think those credentials suggest anti-Apple bias.
Maybe anti-OSX bias, then?
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
This is all too common in the U.S. Our corporate mentality is driven by stock traders who buy on Monday and sell on Wednesday. Companies are hesitant to build much-needed manufacturing plants because the expense will hurt the bottom line on a quarterly report and their stock will tank. Large companies lay off thousands of people at a time because it boosts their stock price -- to hell with the human suffering of those employees and their families. Rather than being able to position their companies to be leaders in the next decade, CEOs are forced to scramble around on a quarterly basis to keep short-term profits up -- or risk losing their jobs.
This is the reason that we need short-term capital gains taxes that are so high as to be punitive. All stock shares should be non-voting until they have been held for a minimum of five years. We need to get back to a stock market where people invest in companies for the long haul (5 years or more) because they believe that the company has a future.
The more serious allegations of lacking SMP support and graphics acceleration are completely false.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
How many times are you going to post this same message, AC? I first saw this message contents posted at least a month and a half ago.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
WildTofu
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Consider the source...MSNBC.
As I said, might be totally valid, however one must also consider that MS probably has a bonus for every article bashing a competative OS.
C - OUT
- Sighuh?
I find this, on top of the lack of DVD support to be hugely funny.
The DVD playback thing is confirmed by Apple. The level of video driver support is pure speculation. Not the "may" and "source said" qualifications on this statement. There is a thread raging on OmniGroup's Mac OS X Talk list about how misleading this article is.
Apple drops the ball again and again and again, then delievers something as dumb as a computer in a colored case and their fans have their own Mardi Gras to celebrate the "innovation."
You've mastered flamebait!
How's this for innovation: incomplete SMP support
This is probably the most ridiculous claim of the article.
Newsflash everyone -- just because major sites carry a story doesn't mean it's accurate.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
WildTofu
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
The only way that Apple can ever make a comeback to be used by people that are NOT in the graphics industry is to license their OS to be run on any hardware.
Ignoring for a second the user experience consequences of that, there's a basic question of how they're going to make money. The company generally brings in $6-8 billion a year, the vast majority of which is from the ~5 million hardware units they ship each year. If they're decide to sell software at $129 a pop, what's going to make up from the loss in revenue? Do you actually believe they would selling anything close to 50 million copies of OSX a year?
Remember, what you're suggesting is exactly what NextStep did. Look how well that turned out. One of Apple's core value propositions is that they make the whole package. This creates a seamless user experience for the customer. This is why many people like Macs in the first place.
That's the ONLY reason that Windows took off so many years ago, and Apple withered.
Things have changed a lot since then. How is Apple going to magically crack the grip that Microsoft has on all the hardware manufacturers as well as on itself?
If I could buy OS X to run it on my cheap-o generic Intel-based (actually, AMD based) hardware, I'd use it! In a heartbeat!
Great, but how many would use it as their exclusive OS if it couldn't run on the architecture-dependent Mac apps? You'd mostly get the NextStep apps. You sure as heck wouldn't get Office.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
WildTofu
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Once you're trapped inside you'll witness the power of this fully armed and operational OS...
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Hrrm, let's look at this here... unsupported hardware that's become industry standard
The article doesn't talk at all about unsupported hardware. The DVD drive works, as do all the video cards. The only thing that doesn't work is DVD video playback, and some mysterious "sources" talk about that OSX won't initially take full advantage of Radeon and GeForce 3. This is obviously a short-term issue, since Carmack's GeForce 3 demo was running on OSX.
numerous bugs and errors that can cause system hangs or freezes, those bugs are acknowledged by Apple, and they're saying that they really want people to just wait a few months for the real thing to come out.
Come again? Please point out these "numerous bugs and errors that can cause system hangs or freezes." The only thing that sounds anything like this in the article is the author's "sources" saying there are crashing bugs in the Setup Assistant -- not the OS. There are a number of qualifications on the statement in question, by the way.
This sounds EXACTLY like a beta test
If bugs are the qualification for a beta test, then every major OS in wide distribution is in beta.
How many people using Windows 2000 or Linux have a dual boot back into Windows ME or 98 so that they can run certain things better?
most likely charge for the OS X 1.0 to 1.1 upgrade
Highly unlikely if you look at the history of such things.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
WildTofu
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
From the tone of disbelief from the crowd, it seems that Macs are the only computers that do this. Aren't PCs crippled this way? Is seems a bit futile to plug the 3% hole and leave the rest open.
A. Dual-booting has always been an expected obligation until new versions of all the traditional Mac software are ported specifically OS X. Nobody but hack journalists are surprised. Most savvy Mac users consider this a real boon, as a kind of long-term protection measure for expensive software and years of skill investment. It eases the transition into the new Unix world.
B. As of the latest build, sleep functions on PowerBooks work perfectly, with two-second wake-up times. That's right: two seconds.
C. DVD playing is hardly a "key feature." DVD burning was *never* a key feature, nor was CD-RW. Until only recently this was always a third-party software opportunity.
D. That certain extra features will not be included is not a secret. Apple's been saying this for weeks: employees with real names and titles--not "sources"-- have been going on the record to point this out. Always interesting how much crappy information sounds like a real scoop if you conveniently can't dig up other places where Apple reps have gone on the record. Too easy just to accept the PR department's "no comment" without, say, reading stories on the exact same subject written elsewhere.
E. This article is a re-hash of an article that was on ZDNet and CNET last week. Notice the key bias words: inability, glitches, frustrate, annoying, frustrating, "not be able", "limit... usefulness", aggravation, lack. That's just in the headlines and first paragraph. Suspiciously like Linux reporting, eh?
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
BTW, my current main OS is Debian Linux w/KDE2.1.
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export CVSROOT=:pserver:anonymous@cvs.xine.sourceforge.n
cvs login
cvs -z3 co -P xine
I know that for X86 systems, I'm getting pretty much perfect (as far as I can tell) playback. It's better than WinDVD/PowerDVD anyway.
Shouldn't it be Mac OS X.I?
Ahhh, the old troll about evil Intel coaxing Be into dropping PPC support. Be still supports the older PowerMacs which they have the hardware specs to. They don't support any newer Mac's because Apple won't release the specs.
... are currently incompatabile with Linux", "The dual processor model are currently somewhat unstable", "We are still waiting for information about the 2001 G4 models", "current kernels don't handle more memory than 660MB", 2000 PowerBook has no sound support.
Yes, I am quite aware that the LinuxPPC folks have maintained decent compatability. But, Linux has (unfortunately) always had to deal with hardware whose vendors are either neutral or hostile towards providing Linux developers with the needed information. That's fine. Linux users understand that that is part of the bargain if you want to run it. WinModems, decent 3D accelleration, decent sound support. The list of x86 hardware with poor support is significant.
Be, however, is shipping a commercial product for which they offer support. They had to make a business decision about whether or not it was worth their while to support hardware for which they did not have access to the specs. Had they chosen to support it, they would want to be able to know that they could support this years G4's. Something which LinuxPPC doesn't know yet. Hardware wise: "Any models with and ATI RADEON
So you can troll away with your lie that "the LinuxPPC guys have had NO problem keeping up", but the simple fact is that they have had problems. Be made the choice to avoid the support headaches that go along with trying to support undocumented hardware. Maybe the Intel investment did play a part in their decision, but the fact is that Apple made it clear to Be that they were not wanted and had Be stayed on the PPC they would almost certainly be facing the same hardware problems that the LinuxPPC folks are facing.
I'm getting an 8x DVD player so that I can watch that movie in 12 minutes. That makes the 5 minutes a much bigger deal :)
Processor speed is stuck at 500 MHz
ahem.
Hell, iMacs are 600 MHz these days.
Not a bad troll otherwise, but getting the obvious stuff wrong is a pretty clear tipoff...
Hey, I've hung FreeBSD three times. No, wait. That's linux. No, wait, that's total. 1 FreeBSD and 2 Linux :)
Of course, it's taken me 4 years to do this . . .
...I'd just like to be able to print! The Beta had no real support at all....
Printing support seems to be really sorely lacking. I've not heard HP say anything (yet) about releasing carbonised or X native drivers, so it looks like that dual boot is going to be very well used.
Chance are that I'll install it and not touch it much until sufficient support comes my way.
M.
Come on, now. This OS won't go mainstream for another year, at least.
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Breakfast served all day!
Well, that's mostly true. When I worked at Be, I was told that I could write the stuff to support the newer machines on my own time if I wished -- and if it was deemed stable enough, it would be rolled in. I was starting to evaluate it. But, basically, they focused their energy on the non-PPC platform, which, imho, is a shame.
_Deirdre
Among the other problems with the March release, sources said, is that it won't take full advantage of multiprocessing systems or new video accelerators, such as Nvidia's recently announced GeForce 3 or ATI's Radeon.
Limited support for MP, and broken graphics acceleration for the Radeon, which is over a year old now.
Hmm... Wasn't MP identified as a critically important feature a few months ago when The Pentium and Athlon doubled the clock speed of the fastest G4? Weren't Mac users overjoyed that their favourite tools were no longer going to require application-level support to run on more than one processor?
And can you imagine the new UI without video acceleration? Can you imagine doing realtime 3D at all without video acceleration?
Hands in my pocket
This is assuming that DVD player development and OS development have to happen in in series.
The important point is that completing the OS doesn't depend on DVD player completion. Whether the DVD player development was done in parallel or series (or a bit of both) doesn't matter if it's not done.
MOVE 'ZIG'.
If it's true, then normally I'd be inclined to say that there is no such thing as "bad publicity", and minor complaints such as these might even make more average users aware of OS X.
But, because this is an Apple product, things are different. Lack of DVD support may not sound like a big deal to the few Linux users and hoards of Linux-wannabes on Slashdot, but to the Mac-crowd, it is a big fucking deal. The only thing they've ever had to be proud of is excellent multimedia, and Apple will take a lot of heat if OS X ships without DVD. This may also turn away a lot of Windows users who are thinking of trying it out... I know a Windows (and sometimes Unix) user at the office who is really psyched about getting a Titanium G4 Powerbook when OS X is released, but I'd bet money that if he hears OS X can't play DVDs, he'll put off buying it. (And why shouldn't he? The wide-screen DVD player functionality is one of the most-hyped cool things about the Titanium G4 Powerbook.) I'd also bet money that if he puts-off buying it, he'll end up losing the excitement and he'll never buy it.
Some of you also seem to think that very few Mac users are even interested in using OS X so soon. Not so. I know several Mac users, and knowing their clannish nature and love of "shiny things", they'll all want to be the first on their block to have the latest MacOS. Something missing as basic as DVD support will be a huge turn-off. They'll think, "Hey, I guess everyone was right about how archaic Unix is after all! Apple let us down and backed a shitty technology." Once the press hears that even die-hard Mac zombies are unimpressed, there will be even less Windows users interested in taking it for a spin.
If Apple is smart (and I'm not holding my breath), they will not release OS X until it's really done. DVD support can't wait for the first service pack.
Personally, I'm a Sun guy. (And my Blade 100 will be joining the LAN next week, baby!) But... OS X really had me hoping that the Holy Grail (Unix with a pretty face) had finally arrived. I'll admit it; the hardware is dead sexy, and if they had software to match, I'd order a G4 Cube tomorrow. I think it'd be a crying shame if Apple started following Microsoft's practice of releasing software that needs a year's worth of service packs to be usable.
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I like to watch.
I love my PowerBook and all, but this has got me kinda edgy. DVD is a pretty big thing and I can understand why the press is reporting this. What I want to know is how many seemingly little things wont make it in this first release. Something like ColorSync may be of little use to a home user, but graphic artists depend on it. How much else will be missing from the initial release? I'm sure DVD support isn't the only thing.
In a related note, I still can't help but think about Copland. At first it was most likely going to support even my IIfx (68030 @ 40 MHz). Then it was going to require a PowerMac. Then it was canceled. Rhapsody/OS X was announced and would probably require a PPC 603 or 604 Mac. Now it's going to require a G3.
BTW, I know that Copland != Rhapsody/OS X, but did ya know that Copland, even with debug code, used less than 8 MB RAM in the DR0 release?
No, Apple did not kill off BeOS for their platform. BeOS killed off their OS for the Macintosh platform.
Oddly enough, this dropping of support came just a short while after a big investment by Intel.
The LinuxPPC guys have had NO problem keeping up with the Motorola chips and the Apple motherboards. Why should Be? Why, for that matter, couldn't they just look at how LinuxPPC handles all that stuff and reimplement for themselves?
Be perpetuates this little lie on and on, but make no mistake, JLG decided to go wholly Intel. Apple may not have been very cooperative with him, but he made the decision.
So Xenex, why don't you ask JLG why he doesn't want to run BeOS on the Mac platform? Why don't you ask JLG why they can't/won't keep up with Apple equipment when LinuxPPC and some BSD teams HAVE NO PROBLEM?
But let go of the idea that Apple killed BeOS on Macs. Apple didn't.
This news is over a week old. Firstly it came from Maccentral.com .. then moved onto cnet (which is actually the article M$NBC used).
I'm not supprised MSNBC would run this on behalf of M$'s request. After all, I'm sure that M$ aren't happy that Apple claim OSX to be the most advanced operating system in the world, amoungst other reasons.
From a critical analysis point of view, the article is poor and only highlights weaknesses in the product (if they are even weaknesses comparitively) and does not give a rounded opinion of any strengths. Such articles can in all probability be dismissed as biased.
The operating system can only be really judged on its success once it has been released.
Apple's stock is near it's 52-week low, but so are a lot of companies since the bubble hath burst. It's better to take a longer view.
Preliminary indications are that Apple users are not particularly interested in the complexity and sluggishness of Apple's latest operating system.
When are "users" ever interested in an OS? Pretty much the only time that ever happened was with Windows 95, and that was because of the press sucking of the teets of M$'s PR flacks.
Processor speed is stuck at 500 MHz.
Wrong.
Alternative architectures and software are killing Apple on features, price, and performance.
What you really mean is that generic boxen are killing apple on price. True. Features and performance, that's really, um, apples and oranges.
There are legions of corporations and individuals who have been disrespected by Apple...
This is true about any company, especially one that doesn't incorporate legacy hardware.
The main provider of Apple's microprocessor, Motorola, is hurting and hopes to leave the desktop processor business. Motorola announced 10000 layoffs so far this year, 2/3 in their fabs.
Most of Motorola's layoffs are in the cell phone hand-set sector. Secondly, it's hard to peg problems on Motorola's "Semiconductor Products Segment", because they provide parts to many other Motorola divisions (Iridium comes to mind). Also, remember that Motorola has about 130,000 employees.
Everyone does GUI and mice nowadays. Apple is left marketing decor. The most reasonable solution would be for Apple to open up. Open up its hardware specs and software so that where now exists little more than a corporate cult, there might exist a vibrant autonomous industry of developers, hackers, and hardware vendors.
You mean a vibrant, autonomous, industry like this one? Guess what? There are plenty of developers and hardware vendors for Macintosh, and almost everything they make works. Apple has already "opened up" where it counts, in Darwin.
Processors are stuck at 733mhz, not 500...
considering the recent leap to 733, I'd have to say that processor speeds are not stuck at all.
Behind your Intel-driven expectations, perhaps, but not stuck.
You only concern yourself with Motorola's processor woes, ignoring the fact that IBM is taking over Apple's processor supply, in iBook, North American iMac, and later this year (don't ask me how I know, I can't tell you), the PowerMac and PowerBook.
Your reasonable suggestion isn't really that reasonable- you just want everything to open up, regardless of the impact.
IBM has opened up several valuable ideas, developed and contributed to open-source and free software technologies, and yet they don't open up *everything.*
Your argument is flawed and to see your incorrect statement of facts moderated at Informative only reveals the lack of your knowledge and the lack of the Moderator's knowledge on the subject.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close