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OS X 10.1 Coming Today (Sorta)
usa35.com writes "News.com has a story detailing the release of Apple's 10.1 update. They say "unveiled" today, probably meaning actually disseminated to us general public folks sometime in the coming days." This is of course the release that regular users can actually use. Supposedly this is a free upgrade. Speed improvements, UI fixes, DVD stuffs. I can't wait to test it out a little. And those new iBooks are pretty reasonably priced (I figure that they can sell them cheap by cutting corners like most of the mouse buttons ;)
Ok the 10.0.4 boxes I ran at work and home were slow in the aqua gui, truely, but as far as I/O,
/. most here would be pleased to know that it is not BSD/Darwin that is slow, but the Aqua gui that ppl are bitching and moaning about (with good reason, IMO).
processing, task switching, serving web/ftp...they all kicked ass to say the least.
For all the unix'ey love fests that take place on
Lack of features, nope, not for what I used it for: Surfing, SETI, FTP, pr0n watching, vcd (mpg1, naturally), ssh, classic apps...it did it all with nary a hitch (just don't leave a DVD in the drive...kernel panic w/o fail on my box).
So, yeah 10.1 is a drool inducer ooo-ooo, shiney *blue* objects!!! (kiki the ferret voice) and dvd, speed tweaks and some needed + native cocoa apps are well and good, but I hope the OS's speed does not suffer, gui be damned.
(can you tell I'm a CLI type?)
Moose.
la la laaaaaa
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Well that's the difference between a typical Mac user and a typical PC user; most PC users 'settle' for Microsoft, either cause it's what everyone else uses or because it's the only thing they know or they think Macs are expensive.
Apple's customers usually choose Macs in spite of, despite the prevailing norm of the PC users.
So Apple users will tolerate this kind of thing (oh, they'll complain), as long as it will improve. PC users, on the other hand, bitch because Microsoft doesn't truly mean anything to them, and Microsoft grows lazy, assuming things just because they own 90% of the market.
On the other hand Mac users are spoiled... what Windows OS comes with CD burning and DVD playback out of the box? Or even CD ripping and mp3 encoding, movie making, DVD burning software, and web server software out of the box? Windows users have to settle for Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer, on the average...
GPL Deconstructed
> laptop because of it's lack of mouse buttons.
Not the fastest snail on the leaf, is he?
I was hardly an early adopter, but I had two buttons on my mac in '92 or so (ok, hardly an early adopter of the second button. I had a 128k mac brand new . ,
They're availalbe all over the place, and come with the software to make that second button do whatever you want . . .
hawk, who gets a kick out of folks with the button-deprived windows mouse mocking those only slightly more deprived
> THERE's the problem. If it were a $5 POS,
... it's an excellent pointing device for Mac OS X, which only requires one button. Mac OS X has a pervasive context-sensitive menubar at the top edge of the screen ... getting a second, limited, on-screen menu under your mouse cursor is just not that valuable. Mac users just slam the mouse cursor into the menubar and use the pull-down menus, which contain all of the options. Rather than right-click an item and choosing "Properties", you click on an item and choose File > Show Info from the pull-down menus (or press Command+I). Rather than right-clicking an image in a Web page and choosing "Save to disk", you just drag and drop the image from the Web browser window to the Finder (including Desktop) and it is saved as a file. All of the things that you may be used to doing with your second button have drag and drop or similar equivalents on Mac OS ... the user uses their one mouse and one button to move things around instead of using a second mouse button to display a text menu. Think about which is the best use of a mouse. After using a Mac, you might be pissed at Microsoft for all the broken drag and drop features in Windows (if you are a Windows user).
... it will last so long and get so much use that it will be almost free.
... very ergonomic. I did it, my wife did it, my brother did it. We all use Apple's mouse now. Try it and you'll see that there's more to it than meets the eye. Maybe you will even like it.
> no big deal, but you've already paid $60 for a
> hobbled, less functional mouse that you're just
> going to trash.
You are completely incorrect.
First, it's not hobbled
Second, you don't pay $60 for the mouse when you get it with a system. You can sell an Apple Optical Mouse on eBay and get $40 for it, which is likely more than you actually paid for it with a system. Use the $40 to buy whatever mouse you like. Any USB mouse works with Mac OS X. eBay can be operated with one mouse button on a Mac, so you will make it until the auction closes. If it was just a $5 POS mouse, all you would have is a $5 POS mouse, a non-biodegradable waste of space that you'd replace with a decent mouse later anyway. A good USB optical mouse is so compatible and has no moving parts
Honestly, it is CLASSIC for a person to get their first Mac after using Windows, complain about the one-button mouse, get out their old Windows USB mouse with two buttons, use that for a while, realize that they haven't hit the second button in three months, and go back to the Apple mouse, which you just cup in your hand and click with your palm
For the Windows and Linux bigots, relax. You don't have to get so tense. If you don't think OS X is worth your time, then just ignore it.
On the otherhand, if you have a bit of an open mind, you owe it to yourself to check it out. (Make sure you're checking out 10.1 and not 10.0.x)
It really is cool to have a mainstream commercial app like MS Word and say GIMP running rootless right next to it.
It really is cool to program with the Cocoa dev tools. (Yes, it requires you learn Obj C, but if you're a true geek, you love trying another language)
It really is cool to have a BSD-based system that even your grandmother could install and use.
It really is cool that the BSD-subsystem is available for anyone to hack on (Darwin).
It really is cool that there's a commercial company (Apple) guiding the OS and putting in all the most sophisticated plumbing (Aqua, IOKit, etc) that probably would never have gotten done or would have gotten done poorly otherwise.
It really is cool that all the major commercial app manufacturers have already pledged their support (many have already delivered) and that many apps which have never been on the Mac before are now coming over.
It really is cool that there's going to be a decent selection of games for this platform. Not Windows numbers by any stretch, but all the major titles and certainly more than Linux.
In short, if you take the time to look, it really is a very cool OS. Now, maybe you don't want to spend the extra money to buy a Mac. No problem. But that doesn't make it any less of a product.
Wade