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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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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?
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
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?
Fuck off troll.
I don't think it's trolling to note Apple's crippling of the first consumer DVD writer. It might not be entirely on topic, but I think it is VERY important that this kind of crippleware shit doesn't become acceptable practise in the industry. And the first step to preventing acceptance of hardware designed to erode civil rights is having people know what the glossy brochures won't tell you.
The cripples are going beyond what is necessary for "piracy prevention". The drive in question is designed to prevent its owners and users from doing things they have every right to do - legally and morally - but which would not be in the interests of major content owners.
I'm starting to fear the day when court-confirmed consumer rights of timeshifting, fair use, etc, mean nothing because the devices on the market are designed to restrict such activities when not in the interests of content owners. This drive is by no means the first step taken on this road, but as the first consumer DVD writer, it is an important step, and any true Apple fan should be nervous (if not utterly disgusted) that Apple has decided that its user's artistic and creative freedoms are less important than wooing MPAA members and the like.
Sure, movies on my computer are nice, but the reason I buy computers is to create, and I don't like the smell of a future where my own creations are deemed pirated by my own hardware.
(Which brings with it a whiff of conspiracy theory: if you're the MPAA and want to maintain your captive buyers (rather than have to compete with free (or low cost) home-grown broadband-distributed content 5 years from now, a bit like M$ now having to compete with Linux), then having consumer gear automatically deem amature productions as "pirated" and so impede their reproduction might be killing two birds with one stone. It doesn't exactly seem all that accidental...)
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.
SMP is not as important as you think, because there aren't very many multi-processor systems available right now. In fact, it's almost impossible to get one. By the summer, the machines will be more commonly available, and THEN it gets important as to what the OS does with it. At the moment with 9.1, SMP just isn't going to work. With OS X, it'll work, just not as well as they know they can make it.
The video support stuff is troll. I'm running OS X right now besides me on an original first-generation iBook. It has no fancy card, no fancy drivers, just straight out of the box Public Beta code. The interface runs just fine. I'm not using it to try and get 32645256 fps so it's just fine. Seeing as there probably won't be any real major game releases until later in the Spring/early Summer, the accelerated video is not as important as you think it is.
At the end of the day, Apple has seen the light (for they have found the Love of Unix). They have also made a realisation that MS hasn't - at the consumer level, all the gizmos and tweeks don't matter, because they aren't competeing with MS or Linux, or anybody else in that market. Jobs has already stated Apple's biggest competitor from here on in is Sony. Go figure. Plus, they're not going to do what MS did with various OS releases and pretend everything is fine only to let users and OEMs realise it isn't.
People are seeing this as them releasing an "unfinished" OS, but I really have to say - when was the last time you saw a finished OS? Would people get really upset if Linus turned around one day and said "OK, we're going to go to kernel 3.0 within the year and it's going to have 'X', 'Y' and 'Z' in it" and then a few weeks before launch he turns around and says "look, Z is a bit screwed right now, and we really want to get X and Y working properly first"? What if X and Y were going to completely redefine Linux, the computing market as a whole, and take everybody off into a new direction, and Z was support for a particular grpahics card?
All of this seems to me like overplaying the lack of some features that don't need to be there right now in a poor FUD campaign. Pity. Undermines the integrity of people like MSNBC (as if I ever believed they had any integrity).
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.