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Apple Wants Your Input
Johnny Mnemonic writes "Apple is asking for feedback specifically from PC users about why you might be considering a Mac purchase, or if you recently purchased a Mac for the first time, why you made the switch. A good opportunity to sound off about your Apple peeves, but also a chance to let Apple know what you think they're doing right. The Mac OS X feedback page, originally from the Public Beta, is still up and accepting feedback, also."
And I think it's not only the PC people who ARE interested in macs, but those who specifically aren't interested as well. Maybe then, Apple would really know what they need to woo the "other 95%".
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
MAC OSX..
simply the best Unix version for the desktop, the power of unix with the commercial support of windows without the excess baggage. That is one big reason.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
1 It didn't cost me an arm and a leg. For what I'd pay for a new IMac, I could easily stock a brand new AthlonXP w/a full fledge GF4.
.. *blah*
Aside from that I love Mac's just too out of my price range
3000 dead over past 2 years, still no free Palestinians, still
What about asking why people aren't considering Apple? Seems to me they're just soliciting favorable commentary.
If I was in Apple's marketing department I'd be asking "what would it take to get you to switch to Macs?" not "why are you thinking about buying a Mac?" or "Now that we have your money, what do you think?"
There are two main things stopping Apple from gaining greater market share: Price and Applications. They cost too damn much (for what you get) and don't have all the apps that Windows (or even Linux, these days) has.
I'd really like to see Apple get their act together and take about 30% of the desktop market instead of the pathetic share they have now. I'd be happy as a clam if Linux could steal just 20% of the market, give Apple 30% and let Microsoft keep the majority but keep them on their toes.
Here's my question: Why are we still double-clicking?
MacOS required double-clicking because it originally only supported one mouse button.
Microsoft ripped off MacOS, warts and all, so Windows makes you double-click too.
Then the Linux desktops ripped off Windows, warts and all, and we have to double-click as well. (Sure, you can override it. I do. But it's certainly not something the average user, even the average Linux user, can do)
Wouldn't it make a lot more sense if your OS worked like your web browser? Left click to launch, left drag to move, right click for more options. No double clicking. Ever.
Remember when you first taught your mom to double click and how much trouble she had? Then she started double-clicking everything: buttons in Word, links in Netscape, you name it. She was confused because it was inconsistent and a stupid UI decision.
So i say Apple should lead the way again and get people off the stupid double-clicking habit.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
The one thing that Apple has done best (at least during some years) is to try out new designs, new ideas. They've shown a willingness to take risks. Whether it's the GUI, Human Interface Guidelines, the Newton, the iMac, or just little touches that make the computing experience a little bit friendlier. They showed us that there was a viable alternative. Sometimes they fail (eMate, CyberDog, eWorld). But in the process, they teach the whole industry a lesson.
With a behmoth like M$ around, we can use more friendly ideas.
I fell in love because of the UNIX environment that can also run Office natively, meaning that I don't have to use Windows ever again.
Two years ago, I never would have considered a Mac, nor would anyone I know, except for artists. Now, my wife, my mother and about 85% of my technical friends are Mac users.
OS X really has something for everyone. My mother loves iTunes... it's so incredibly easy to use. My wife and I like the support for DVD burning. I've recently tried some PC products to do this, and they just aren't mature enough, whereas the Mac solution is simply brilliant.
Ease of use and a real UNIX architecture really make it worthwhile. The cost of hardware is a minus, but I feel it was worth the extra money.
The people that they should be asking are those of us who are not considering the purchase of a Mac. Why ask the tiny percentage of the market that is considering it? What about those of us who "think different[ly]"? That said, Apple needs to either get more converts or switch CPUs. With the relatively small user base, their simply is not the money for R&D to improve the CPU and, while it might have been hot when it was launched, it's getting a bit long in the tooth now -- as shown by independent benchmarks.
"Wouldn't it make a lot more sense if your OS worked like your web browser?"
In Windows Explorer, go to the Tools menu, then click on Folder Options. Click the radio button labeled "Single-click to open an item (point to select)." Icons on your desktop will then act like web page links.
This option has been around in Windows for a while. I think the real reason people don't use it is mostly because they have grown accustomed to double-clicking. You're right -- it is inconsistent behavior. However, at least Windows gives you a pretty easy way to change it.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
Ever try Apple's hot key combo's if you are left handed?
s cape
I use the mouse in my left hand. The hot keys cannot be comfortably done with the right hand.
PCs are left hand friendly because the functions accessed with hotkeys on an apple are accessed by right clicking a PC. Ever try the on a mac with your right hand?
Crossover Problems:
Command+z
Command+c
Command+v
Command+x
Crossover and Hand position:
Command+w,+a
Command+Shift+3
Command+Option+E
Command+y
Command+Shift+1 (one)
Command+Shift+0 (zero)
Command+e
Command+Option+w
Nothing like alienating 11% of potential customers when you only have 3% of the market.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Have you forgotten *why* they scrapped the clones? They nearly went under! Sorry, but as a mac user I'm not willing to risk Apple's future so that you can buy a marginally cheaper computer. Apple wants feedback so that they know what they have to do to win you over. There's no point in winning you over if they fold in the process.
Well, I guess you guys are getting lots of e-mails, having this comments page being slashdotted and all. Your plan to get people to buy Apples works great, or at least it did in '92. That's when me and my twin brother bugged the hell out of my parents until they bought me one. They got me a LC II, which has worked flawlessly to this day (with the exception of having to replace the clock battery, but what do you expect from a 10 year old PC). Sure it's slow, it's 8mb of ram is funny, and I can't help but crack up thinking of it's HUGE hard drive, we went for the 80 meg! Lately, I've been taking apart EVERYTHING in my house, and I have to say that the design of the LC IIs case is amazing. I also recently bought a PowerMac 7200 off E-Bay to put Linux on, and it's a great PC too. The case looks like it would be very elegant too, that is if UPS didn't dent the hell out of it in shipping.
Well, on to the topic at hand. I am defiantly a geek. Once I got more experienced in computers, I fell in love with PCs for a few different reasons. For one thing, there were more games, although that is SLOWLY changing. The really big thing that I liked was the fact that I could control the PC completely. Back then, PCs ran DOS and 3.1, so there were config files everywhere, you could change anything. Now, with OS X, things are basically even, but that's one reason I switched over. Also, I just love command line interfaces, but that too has changed.
Well, onto the present. Last summer my brother (who has used PCs for a long time too, but always loved Macs, more openly than me I should say), bought a PBTi. I have to say that I was amazed at the thinness of the thing. I also love that glowing apple logo on the screen, and of course, the screen it's self. It's quite zippy, and it's really nice. I only have three major gripes with it: no 3D support (but with the new ATI Mobility Radeons, I'm sure that will change), only one mouse button (I won't be buying a Mac Laptop without this getting fixed), and they keyboard seems a little bit flimsy.
Apple has done some strange things over the years but I do have a few suggestions for you. First up is OS X. It's a VAST improvement over OS 9, and you guys finally have a modern OS. I love the fact that it's built on Unix, so it has a CLI and everything. It think that you guys finally have a major opportunity. If you were to ship OS X for PCs, then I think not only would you be a formidable foe for MS, but I'm sure there are many out there who would switch (like me). Since the kernel is open source and already compiles in x86, you'd be sitting pretty there. Next up is Aqua and Carbon, which shouldn't be too hard to get running. Also, if you figure that out of the serious users (like me) who are likely to be early adopters of such a product, the vast majority would have either a ATI Radion (or better) or an nVidia GeForce (or better), drivers should be easy, especially since they would be nearly direct ports of those on the Mac. That's another point, I'm glad that you guys have switched over to PCI, AGP, and other standard interfaces from the PDS slots, NuBus, and other oddities of Macs of old. If you switched, you would get more hardware, and you could get ports to the Mac and PC fast.
My seconds suggestion is obvious and I have already stated it, GET MORE MOUSE BUTTONS. Back in the early nineties, one mouse button worked fine, but today, I seriously doubt that anyone who uses a mac for anything more than e-mail is using one of your one button mice. I know that my brother keeps a MS IntelliMouse Explorer USB plugged into his PB all the time.
I know that I had a third suggestion for you, but for the life of me I can't think of what it was. So I guess I will just leave you with this: I've been using computers nearly daily for the last 10 years, more than half my life (I'm 18). I am currently in the process of getting a BSCoE from KU. If there is ANYTHING that I can do for you guys (product testing (new iMac, HINT HINT HINT)) just e-mail me and I'll be glad to give input, answer questions, etc.
PS: I just remember the third thing! Don't you hate it when that happens? I love the hardware you guys have been making lately. I would kill for a Cinema Display. I wonder if contract killing pays enough? Oh well, I also have to say that if you would get your computers (or at least the higher end ones like the G4s) to use ATX cases, you could make a ton of money selling them. I would LOVE to be able to buy a White and Grey G4 fold out case for my PCs. The G4 cube was neat looking (but expansionally flawed), the new iMac looks cool (and will hopefully drive down the price of LCDs), the iMac was quite compact (though I am still annoyed by that "let's produce everything in 12 neon colors" concept that every company latched onto after the iMac went big. Let's face it, no one needs a neon pink surge suppressor and a neon green monitor), and like I said before, I love that Cinema display.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
So, I'm about to graduate and get my undergraduate degree in computer science and I thought that a nice graduation present would be a laptop. However, I'm torn between getting a Mac for the first time or sticking with a PC. Here are the reasons that I want to get a Mac:
* They're sexy. Apple's industrial design team is brilliant. The iBooks are small (very important) and stylish.
* OS X - FreeBSD is my OS of choice for servers so I see it as a major benefit that I can run (some) BSD applications on an iBook with no major problems. For example, XFree86 makes X11 forwarding over ssh very nice and stable.
* iPod - it's a sexy mp3 player and I want one (yes, I know there will probably be a good PC hack soon, but native compatability is comforting)
* Diversity of machines - I already have a desktop running Windows 2000 and another headless server running FreeBSD. I don't really need another Windows box or a FreeBSD box so having a Mac laptop allows me to run Mac software.
However, I'm still hesitent for the following reasons:
* only one mouse button - I know that's a silly reason, but I get confused about how to do things that require a second or a third mouse button on PCs
* learning curve - I spent about 90 minutes yesterday trying to get enlightenment to install on OS X yesterday. it would have been a simple "make && make compile" in FreeBSD.
* price - It seems that I get more bang for the buck with PCs. If nothing else, I can shop around for a PC and I have few choices with Macs.
So, I'm still undecided, but leaning towards buying a PC, mainly because of familiarity. Anyone have any suggestions?
- I'm a web application developer (the whole pipeline, from MySQL (etc.) , mod_perl, perl CGI, PHP, Apache on a Unix/Linux server to HTML, XML, XSLT, JavaScript on the client) and have been using Linux/KDE and Win4Lin (to test clients using Windows and IE 5/5.5/6) on my Intel based laptop for all my development needs. After reading about OS X and knowing a little bit about its foundations in Unix with technology from NeXTSTEP I was more than curious to see a Powerbook Titanium G4. I was not disappointed.
If I'm gushing its because it's worth it. This is the first time I've spent $2,700 on a computer and had no regrets. So, if my gushing annoys you, tough.The polish and elegance exemplified in the physical design and packaging of the Titanium G4 is perfectly matched and blended with the brilliance of Aqua and OS X. I cannot stress this enough. Basically: it works, elegantly. From recognizing my Sony TVR310 Mini DV8 at plug-in to the beautiful GUI this system is a work of art. The pretty front and consumer-oriented functionality (I could write a story about trying to get my Windows machines to import video through the add-on card and give Appendices on driver hell, but I'm through with that nightmare) is buttressed by a rock-solid UNIX foundation. It is incredibly inviting to drop into the command line to build a custom Apache with mod_perl, or even to rsync my development server for downtime development.
Of course, I have to use VirtualPC for Windows compatibility testing, but even this is less tenuous than Win4Lin under Linux.
My work has not suffered in the least as I have transitioned from an Intel/Windows/Linux development environment to OS X. In fact, I can say that my workflow has improved now that I am using a polished GUI seamlessly integrated with a world-class UNIX OS running on exquisitely engineered hardware. I am over-awed and give Apple a standing ovation of appreciation for my Titanium G4 running OS X.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
I've had a PBG4 since the first week they were available, and I have to tell you that entropy definitely takes its tolls on this laptop.
The screen hinges will fleck paint - and that paint will get between the keys and the screen, scratching it. Also, any grease and muck from your fingers *will* end up on the LCD, in highly concentrated form. And the "PowerBook G4" logo will smudge and smear eventually.
The rule of thumb is, keep your pbg4 clean.
Find a good cleaning solution that works for you (I just use tissues and warm water, and its effective) and clean your laptop regularly. You may as well fleck the paint off the hinges yourself - its all going to come off eventually anyway, no matter what you do, so if you do it proactively you won't get it on your screen.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Here's what i sent them:
I've been a PC user since 1984, when i was six years old. Since 1997, i've been dual-booting between Windows and Linux. However, i recommend Macs to all my friends who are buying their first computer. Why? And why don't i use a Mac myself?
Well, i recommend them to others because they're simply better. Prettier, easier. You can just tell that a lot more care went into designing every facet. And now that just about any major app has a Mac version or a workalike, there's no problem about software availability.
So why don't i use one myself? Legacy stuff.
I've got DOS games from ten years ago. Utilities from five years ago. Games i've already bought (even if a Mac version is available, i already own the Windows version)
If MacOS supported all the software sitting on my shelf and on my hard drive, i'd never use a PC again. (I'd still use Linux for real work like programming, but the Mac would be great for stuff like web browsing, word processing, and photo work)
If you want me as a customer, do whatever you can to promote open standards and Windows emulators.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
I hear this arguement constantly and I find it frustrating to no end. Basically, I believe (and this is not a flame) that you get what you pay for, especially when it comes to computers. Sure a Windows system will cost you less (and a Linux system even less, still) but you're losing quality in the deal.
This would be like going to a dealership and saying "Why should I spend $40,000 on this BMW when I can go across the street and get a Geo Metro for $9,000? It'll take me to work just as well as the BMW won't it?"
I believe that a lot of people who bring up this "flaw" about Macs are people who've never used one. Having used both extensively, I believe that the Macintosh is an amazing bit of engineering. But hey, that's just me. Use whatever works best for you.
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
x86 is long overdue to die. But it's being kept alive by people like you. Please, let it die. Pray for mojo.
-bugg
Put down the crack pipe. Now. Please.
:-P
I support newsrooms that use nothing but Macs. Hundreds of them. You've given me horrendous thoughts about supporting them in teh future. Adobe Photoshop on AppleOnLine? (GAK) QPS (Quark Publishing System) on a system by the same people that do (Yek) AIM?(GAAAKKK)
-( == *cheery_voice*"You've got a Sad Mac."
Sorry, but I don't know whether to laugh or run out of my office screaming.
Soko
(PS - I think you're talking more about a business partnership, not a merger. That might actually be good for both companies, IMHO.)
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
I see a number of people going on about the usual Mac stuff - hardware's too expensive, etc.
Well, OK, fine: what if they listened? What would you do, seriously, if they released netinfo in a pre-compiled format (RPM and DEB), so that you could use it on your Linux server? What if they offered Quicktime for sale as a closed app that ran under GNOME/KDE? What if they started sponsoring GNUStep, making their Cocoa apps easily portable between traditional Unixes and OSX?
Everyone would still hate them, of course, No one will ever get over the hardware thing, or the button thing (I should note that spymac.com have been saying that the Next Big Thing(tm) from apple will be a 2-button mouse as default). A small percentage of people will pay for Quicktime, I'm sure, but it'll be like Carmack's comments on Quake 3 - it was fun and all, but it didn't exactly sell like the community promised us it would.
My point is, even if they're 100% on the level about wanting to listen (I believe they need to listen, and stop thinking about their locked-in market of Mac fans) people will always find something to hate about them, and that's really the problem. Most people made up their mind about Apple and the MacOS in 1989. Nothing Apple can do will get these people on their side.
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
People who have ordered a G4 with a 4Ti are expected to get them in a few weeks. There was some soft of shipping delay (just like the one that happened with the GeForce 3) and Apple gave everyone who ordered one their computer now with a 2MX and will send them their 4Ti when it gets there (and maybe they can get $15 for the 2MX on eBay :)
Developer documentation for 3D on the Mac is here; Many developers have already shipped products using the special features of the GeForce 3/4 and the new Radeons. As for extensions, Apple is expected to support the standard extensions that wil be introduced in OpenGL 2.0 rather than go with some proprietary scheme, although an interim solution is not out of the question if that proves to be too long of a wait.
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
I can't help but be curious. Considering that Apple is mostly a marketing-focused company, they probably just want to cherry pick the most frequent questions and favorable comments for use in their commercials.
It would be nice if some of these comments are used to incorporate new features, but then I've also noticed that it's been awhile since I've seen a good "PC Bashing" commercial campaign from Apple. I have a hunch that they're just using us Slashdotter-types for free market research, but I hope that I'm wrong about that.
If you can bring back A/UX, you can bring back the eMate. Build me $500 ruggedized laptop (no moving parts) with a couple of compact flash slots.
Apple could care less whether its a niche player or not. Its one of the few computer manufacturers to remain in the black. Not to mention with $4.1 billion in cash reserves, it won't be hurting for money anytime soon.
Sure Apple could attempt to enter the x86 markets if it wanted to commit financial suicide. Somehow I think Jobs has other plans, though....
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
You can order the PowerMacs with Gf4Ti right now. You just won't get them for a couple months. Apple just sent an email to everybody that ordered one saying there was a delay, and they had the option of canceling their order, or having a 4MX put in and Apple would send them the Ti when they were avaible (you can keep the MX too)
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
1 - Confusing interface
How so? What's confusing about it, and tell me that Windows/KDE/Gnome or the Unix command line is less so.
2 - One Button Mouse
What's wrong with a one button mouse? Works very well for me. Did you know that Apple now supports two-button mice as well?
3 - Customization and configuration is hard to grasp
How so? Oh, you mean that you don't have to edit a ton of cryptic
4 - Expensive Hardware
You get what you pay for.
5 - Apple is unpredictable
Huh? How so?
6 - Proprietary platform
Would you rather have a flavor of Unix that's open, or one that works amazing on the desktop? I guess its idealism vs pragmaticism, and everyone has their own opinion on this one.
7 - OS X is kinda slow
I would try 10.1. It works much faster. 10.2 promises to be even faster yet. And did you know you can run Unix apps on OSX? Try that on Windows!
8 - I don't like Steve Jobs (I gotta be honest)
Again, idealism vs pragmatism.
9 - We've heard about Apple treatening many Open Source projects (ie. Themes.org OSX theme)
Oh please. If Apple doesn't defend itself, it gets drowned under a bunch of cheap imitators and wanna-bes.
Just my two cents on that....
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
$700 is a lot of money.
Also consider software. If I decided to switch right now to a Mac, I think I have 1 piece of software that would work. Warcraft II from 1995.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
I haven't owned an Apple product since my Apple //c got retired. I switched to PCs because of usability. During the Mac vs. IBM compatible days, Mac users talked up usability, IBM compatible users agreed that Macs were more usable, we called them idiot machines. During DOS and DOS/Win3.1, the greater configurability of the PC made us feel like were were more in control.
I am 23 years old, a Windows NT 4.0 MCSE, run a small startup software and network services shop, and I am looking at the Macs more and more every day. When my fiancee, a senior music major, wanted a computer to be able to email, web browse, compose music on, and make MP3s of her class listening assignments (instead of sitting in the library), we found her the iBook. She decided to get the CD-RW/DVD model because she wanted to be able to make CDs of these songs so she could listen to the music assignments anywhere. She absolutely loves the machine, and the iPod I bought her for Channukah.
My office network consists of Linux servers for our database servers, (PostgreSQL 7.1), OpenBSD for the web servers, NT 4 for the internal network servers, and Windows 2000 for the desktops. After pricing out replacement desktop computers for our Compaq iPaqs, we realized how competitively priced the iMac is (with the configuration we'd get, its cheaper than the Compaq w/ monitor, a little more expensive than we'd pay without replacing our current Compaq monitors). After wrestling with dual monitor issues on Win2K, the plug and go of OS X is appealing.
The reason we will probably switch to OS X (on the desktop) this summer, TCO.
I need a full time sysadmin for our Unix machines, it is outgrowing our ability to have programmers admin the boxes. We are starting to get close to needing a full-time NT guy to administer the network. We are a small company, and both is beyond our means. We want to replace the NT network infrastructure, and switch to Linux network servers. To best make this happen, we want to migrate the desktops from Win2K Pro to Mac OS X, which we believe will reduce our network costs. We have several Windows machines, and they will likely remain for special purpose usage (web developers that need to view sites in Windows + IE, Quickbooks, other specialty applications), but everyone's primary machine will likely move from a Compaq Win2K machine to an Apple machine. Developers will get Powermacs for dual monitor support, everyone else will get iMacs.
The only thing delaying this switch (beyond startup costs of buying all these machines) is coming up with a solution to replace Exchange. We need to determine a centralized accounts repository, email, calendaring, tasks, etc., system before the migration. Afterwards, we look foward to ending this dual environment of many Unix machines and a Windows network.
Thanks for the great work. I've been following Apple with interest since the NeXTSTEP acquisition, and OS X is terrific. I feel better after a good friend that is a major Unix geek (stopped using Linux in 1997 to switch to FreeBSD, administered Solaris machines, Dec Alpha Digital UNIX machines before the Compaq buyout, etc.) recommended it as the best Unix out there.
Alex Hochberger
Feratech, Inc.
I hope you can use all of this feedback you are getting.
I would love to get a MAC as a terminal in my house... to telnet into my e-mail account (not this one, of course), and to opera around the web. I'd probably want to use it as a mediaserver to the linux and PC boxes, to simplify web development projects for my roommate. I'm working in a small corner of the gaming industry, so I would need to keep my PC box for development (Quake 3 Radiant comes to mind), but as there are currently 8 computers sitting in front of me I don't think that will adversely effect the total. I would also want this to be as SILENT as possible, as it would likely never be turned off. So PLEASE find a way to remove that last fan from the beautiful new iMAC.
There are three things holding me back from this purchase.
One: performance. The last time I tried your operating system on a G4 cube, it was sluggish at best. This is hurt further by the performance gap with other chip makers such as AMD. (I know MHZ != speed, but many other benchmarks show a lag). I wouldn't plan on using the system to play Everquest, but I do need it to snap to attention the moment I want it to do something. And that isn't necessarily Ghz related, so much as how well those cycles are allocated.
Two: interface maturity. OS9 had a multitude of programs available to customize the os to behave exactly as I found aesthetically pleasing. Window Monkey, Menuette, and a host of others filled out interface gaps and created functionality where once there was annoyance. Windowshade started as a hack, you'll recall. OS9 is such a radical departure from the previous interface I doubt time for such fine-tuning has ocurred.
Along with interface maturity, 3+ button mouse support is needed. One button just isn't enough for real usage. Opera's innovative mousegestures show that two buttons and a scroll wheel may be enough for serious web surfing, and Kensington's scroll trackball implementation of the scroll wheel is spot on, but all of these should be supported with the default mouse.
Sometimes you are still on the cutting edge of interface design, sometimes you aren't. When you aren't, I strongly recommend stealing.
Three: software support. This is the reason I originally left the macintosh, and the reason it would be impossible for me to be primary with OSX. Everyone knows this, and everyone knows this is why Microsoft holds on to their monopoly. Show the developers how this could make them money and how this could make them want to wake up in the morning. Spread this mantra: "Enjoy life more: Program for OSX."
I don't plan on buying another wintel box anytime soon, basically because I can't bear to throw more money towards that godawful filesystem. On the other hand, I can't exactly plug my rio into the NeXT Cube (which, amusingly, has a picture of the new iMAC pinned to it).
Save for the price I would love a titanium. Get the snappy imac to snap to attention, do everything you can to get developers on the box, and abandon that stupid mouse, and you will have one more repatriot.
This Sig is a mnemonic device designed to allow you to recognize this author in the future.
As if demanding our souls isn't enough! Now you want to take our keyboard, our mice, our joysticks!
What's that? Oh, the other kind of input?
I was talking to a coworker of mine that has OSX on his laptop. He has fiddled a lot with his Mac laptop, but he's never needed to know the root password of it. He doesn't even know how to get to a command-line interface, he hasn't needed to.
I wish they'd either port OSX to x86 architecture, or have somebody make a Linux distro that's just as easy to use.
When that happens, I'll probably be ready to move off of Windows. In the mean time, Macs are looking mighty fine. There's a VERY good chance my next laptop will be a Mac.
"Derp de derp."
You're totally right for the desktop. I can plug in my 10,000 button mouse if I want. But there is no damn way I'm going to carry around a mouse to use on my laptop -- they really need to stop crippling them here!
To the original poster: If you want a laptop that will help you score, try the Sony Vaios.
windows puts the shutdown command under a menu called "start". unix leaves the "n" out of umount and has recursive as -r for rm but -R for cp. who's confusing here?
2 - One Button Mouse
you can buy other mice if your a button fetishist. remember tho' that the mouse's primary job is to apply focus. everything else is just feature creep
3 - Customization and configuration is hard to grasp
like what? if you can't figure out netinfo...
4 - Expensive Hardware
you pay more money for slick. it's true. if you think a $5 bottle of wine tastes as good as a $20 bottle of wine then maybe you should stick with yr win xp rig too...
5 - Apple is unpredictable
uh, we like to call that "innovation".
6 - Proprietary platform
sure is. apple makes "widgets". self-contained systems designed to work out of the box. my mom likes it.
7 - OS X is kinda slow
i assume you're still running the public beta. 10.1.2 is snappier than kde on the same machine
8 - I don't like Steve Jobs (I gotta be honest).
fair enough. i don't like bill gates and i don't like rms. lotsa people don't like theo de raat. should i switch to sparc solaris?
9 - We've heard about Apple treatening many Open Source projects (ie. Themes.org OSX theme)
and yet they opened up the entire core of their os. gosh they're so anti-open source.
i don't think this is a list of reasons why you shouldn't buy an "apple" (there actually hasn't been a computer by that name since 1983) but the reasons why you shouldn't by a computer.
2 1337 4 u!
The problem with Quicktime is not Apple, it's the people that do the codec (Soresen? sorry can't remember off hand).
This is utter BS. Apple has exclusive licensing - any lack of players for linux is entirely in their camp. They will not release one, and will not allow anyone else to either through patent protection. Sorensen makes lotsa cash from Apple, but has no control.
Anyone who has contacted Sorensen can confirm this. The rest is just, well, spin by Apple.
Neither Microsoft nor Apple wants to legitimatize linux as a platform for playing multimedia, plain and simple.
How do you bind a mouse button in mac OS globaly, assuming you have a multi-button mouse? This is not something you normally find in the control panels, except for binding the function keys. I have never tried multibutton mouses on macs because of the generaly poor opinion I've read concerning their use. I understand that since Mac OS is not designed for them, their use is generally cludgy.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
I'm currently jumping the MS bandwagon myself. Why? Reliability. I am sick of reinstalling my damn operating system (and programs) every few months. I am sick of crashes when doing very little. I am sick of WinNT having memory problems when I have a gig of PC133 memory. On some of the servers I've worked on, it's reasonable. I've seen WinNT servers up for almost a year with no downtime. But servers don't load / unload programs repeatedly. Real users do. Yes, I know.. If this even gets modded to a point where people see it I'll have 30,000 "linux rulz!!" comments. And do you know why MS-haters don't go to Linux for thier desktop? Support! I don't want GIMP, I want a real graphics program (or video editing program, etc). I don't want FreeCiv, I want CivIII! The "free software" community is doomed on the desktop because Linux users don't pay for software. Money pays for developers. Money makes games and real programs happen. If I were to co-loc a box for server purposes, redhat would be on there in a flash - but not at my desk. If I have to pay an additional $500 for a laptop that won't crash and has support staff who know phrases other than "RTFM!" I'll do it.
["Marge, I agree with you - in theory. In theory, communism works. In theory." - Homer]
I just kind of want to add a voice on the other side of the line.
I'll probably never run a Mac. The real question is, why? I guess lots of people like the Aqua interface but not only is the software proprietary but the look and feel is proprietary. Personally, seeing Apple legal department threaten free themes that clone the interface causes my skin to crawl. I don't see how I could support something like that.
Another aspect is that I am really getting to appreciate the freedom I have with my current system. From a recent slashdot article, I compiled and installed TeXmacs. Its definitely a quality GNU app (though I've had a few problems) and produces quality typeset documents. But the interface is a little weird. Specifically, it has a Buffer menu on the far left of the menubar and the File menu is next to it. But the code that defines the menubar is in a scheme script! Indeed, almost everything in the interface is definable via scheme. The power to change your system is pervasive throughout the system. All the software on my system I can have access to the source code to. In stark contrast, Apple sees its source code as trade secret.
I suppose I am hung on the principles involved. Which is okay. Many people don't buy from Microsoft because they really don't like what they do. I feel the same way about Apple. And the right to copy, modify and redistribute software are things I take for granted now. Why would I want to give that up?
of course your mouse only has one button.... it doesn't need any more. provided yr running mac os that is.
witness: in the mac os the menu bar is alwasy located on the top of the screen. in other os's (most notably windows) each window has it's own menu bar. this results in potentially a dozen potential menus on screen at any one time.
how's a user to know which menu to use? microsofts answer was to ad yet another menu to the mix - the "contextual" menu. getting this menu requires a second mouse button. basically, ms radically changed a basic piece of hardware to compensate for crappy design and then through the power of marketing made it a standard.
if you have only one mouse button be thankful your os vendor cares enough to build a good ui.
2 1337 4 u!
*ATI* has flaky drivers? They've yet to have a decent driver set in the last several years! ATI cards are slower and flakier. Why in god's name should Apple is them?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I never even plugged in the mouse that came with my Mac.. I think it's still in the box. I use a $25 Logitech Optical Wheel mouse. No drivers needed, plug it in and it works. (Well, except those few wheel issues you noted.. but it works in IE, and that's what counts)
And as far as a confusing user interface goes, I just got my first Mac ever three weeks ago. It took me about 2-3 days to become completely acclimated to the Mac interface. I used Linux for six months on my desktop and never could really get the hang of it..
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
1) I can get open specs to every piece of hardware (not just ideology, I like to fool around with kernel development), ;)
2) I can get CPUs that (efficient as they might be) can compare to my Athlon 1700 both in performance and price,
3) I can get decent supporting infrastructure for that fast CPU (SDR RAM? In 2002? C'mon!)
4) I can run a 100% open source OS, not just a partially open source OS, that is actually supported by the manufacturer,
5) When it runs BeOS
Of course, some of the allegations about Apple are totally moronic. Those 'leet UNIX hAxOrs who complain about Apple's user base. Clue: People don't need to know about computers. Oh no. The blasphamy. To many users, computers are little more than tools. Just as people don't need to know about their cars to use them, they don't need to know about their computers to use them. It is the goal of car makers to make their products as easy and safe for people to use as possible, and it should be the goal of software makers to do the same. Of course, this doesn't preclude software meant for computer nerds, just as it doesn't preclude cars made for auto nerds. It just means that the designers of said products shouldn't force others to have the same interests as themselves.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
"Why on earth do you need more than one button for the mouse? "
:) (and no NOT seven of nine either!)
:( :( :( )
:) Only for when I am in my web browser though, other times they are bound to function keys for use in games. w00t. Strafing with da mouse, strafing with da mouse! :) (being able to circle strafe with just one hand is exceedingly cool. :) )
:)
:) :) :) Rhino3d rocks. :)
Once you go nine, you can't go back.
Seriously though, I am currently using a 'mere' wheel mouse (5 button equivalency), and I find using anything BUT a wheelmouse to be INSANELY painful. You would not imagine how much your browsing and overall computer use habits change once a mouse wheel is standardized across the ENTIRE interface and can be reasonably assumed to be present 100% of the time. (almost ALL new PCs ship with one)
Scroll bar? What for? LOL!
Zoom tool? Why? (Adobe STILL has NOT gotten this figured out. The image should zoom CENTERED ON WHERE THE MOUSE IS DAMNIT. ON WHERE THE MOUSE IS. NOT the upper left hand corner of the picture, NOT the absolute center of the picture, but where the MOUSE POINTER IS!!! Ugh. Damn stubborn bastards.
Of course my nine button mouse is even better. Heh.
I laugh at those pathedic users with there mere gesture based systems.
I have my forwards and backwards buttons bound to my mouse.
Annnyways.
Lots of mouse buttons come in handy. Trust me, they do.
(I would not mind one of those 16 button mice either, hehe. You can bind different buttons to various CAD commands, YAAH!
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Next, remove the goddamn video resolution lock on the consumer hardware. I've got an iMac here stuck sending 1024x768@75 video out the VGA port. The video hardware can do much better, but there's no way of saying "turn off the builtin display". iBooks are similarly crippled; PC laptops aren't.
Think very hard about adding a second trackpad button on the laptops. I can easily replace the USB mouse on a desktop box to get a second button, but there's no way to upgrade the trackpad without a bandsaw. Support for context menus in OS X is soooo nice; why make it harder for laptop users to take advantage of it on the go? (Yes, I know you can use modifier keys to get the same effect, but it's not the same.)
Make a really fast web browser. This Celeron 450 seems much faster than the iMac 450 for browsing; similarly with 800MHz machines at work.
Give me the source to Mail.app, so I can add support for certificates. It's not like your competition is going to steal anything useful out of that excellent, Cocoa-centric app.
Pay Valve Software to port the Half-Life engine to OS X. Geez, if the Mac doesn't run Counter-Strike, how are we going to AWP all the Windows weenies?
If you don't like the standard Apple mouse, BUY ANOTHER ONE WITH THE FEATURES YOU WANT!
I mean really, if you buy a car and the stock stereo doesn't have all the bells and whistles you wanted, do you piss and moan to GM or whoever that their stereo doesn't meet your high standards? NO! You buy a different Goddamn stereo to replace the stock one.
Why can't you fucking Windows people get this through your heads? I thought you were all constantly upgrading your machines on a component-by-component basis? I mean, you all derided the iMac because you couldn't be swapping cards in and out of it every weekend, right?
This is going to be SOOO much fun!
:) Really, it does! I can access almost ANY file on either of my HDs (a combined over 60GB of files, well over ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND files) in 15 keystrokes or less.
:) )
:)
.) for use with various skinning programs and such and they have not complained (yet).
>> 1 - Confusing interface
>Really? I expect that most people wouldn't agree
How to run any program in Windows
Window-Key R (Windows, Run. Run Windows Run.) type in path to program. In Win2K+ the OS is INSANLY intelligent about picking out what program you are trying to type in, it actualy does not just file name completion but it will actualy guess for RELVENCY. Meaning that it will first pop up a suggestion for a program or path that you have acceced RECENTLY or that you access OFTEN before it will just do standard alphapetical file name completion.
Which totaly and compleatly rocks.
Now try and tell me that THAT is not exceedingly cool. Not to mention a miracle of UI design. (They may not be the first to implement it, but regardless it is a damn spiffy implementation!)
>> 2 - One Button Mouse
>The OS supports two-button mice, and pretty much >any USB mouse should work.
Applications do not always support two button mice, this is neccisary since a two button mouse can NEVER be assumed to be ALWAYS installed on a mac machine. On a PC applications CAN make this assumption, and thus have access to additional meta-key + mouse key combinations. (the 2nd mouse button on macs is mostly used to act as meta-key + mouse1)
Hell a good deal of proffesional level applications on the PC assume a third mouse button as well.
>> 3 - Customization and configuration is hard to grasp
>I don't understand what you mean by this.
How to configure damn nearly ANYTHING on a windows machine:
Start--> SETTINGS--->control panel. Click on the item. EVERYTHING for that subject is there.
on the macs you have things kind of spread about a bit. . . . configure half of your color settings here, another half there. . . . the layout and design is NOT standardized.
>> 4 - Expensive Hardware
>For what you get, it's been shown to be fairly >comparable with brand-name windows hardware.
BZZT! wrong. Try again. For what you get on a low end mac you can get a medium end PC. A medium end mac (~2k) will get you the HIGHEST end PC. (well, ok, minus SCSI everything, but hell, that is just. . . . hehe. SCSI rocks.
>> 5 - Apple is unpredictable
>You mean they "think different"?
How about instead
"We'll aim towards the proffesional sector!"
"Oh now lets switch towards the home users!"
"Lets make our computers a fashion accessory!"
"Lets make out computers a functional tool!"
"Lets aim towards the home video enthusiast!"
And so forth.
One advantage of the PC, it is what _I_ want it to be. Nothing more and nothing less. If some company desides to 'change focus' so be it. I can still buy parts from who ever and put together a machine that can do what ever and for cheaper then a mac user can.
Example;
My TV in card. $20. w00t. Yes that includes s-video in. Kick ass. For $30 I could have gotten one with an FM tuner to.
>> 6 - Proprietary platform
>Like Windows?
No jack ass, like the damn ENITRE FUCKING COMPUTER.
Apple has been able to HAMPER *nix development on their platform. Sure it exists, but only because people had to reverse engineer a bunch of crap. (Apple WAS supporting Linux development on the PC for awhile, and then they changed their minds. . . )
On the PC I can run ANY damn OS that I feel like because there is this huge thing called a CHOICE out there. Sure my main box runs windows, but I have shoved some awfuly weird shit on my OTHER boxs.
Or hell, ANYBODY can go out and make their OWN OS for the x86. All open spec. Intel and AMD have whitepapers that give exacting detail on the platform availble for free from their respective websites.
>> 7 - OS X is kinda slow
>Hmmm, again, I don't agree with you.
Even Steve Jobs admitted that Mac OSX has some performance issues.
>> 9 - We've heard about Apple treatening many >>Open Source projects (ie. Themes.org OSX theme)
>Apple has shown over and over again that they ?>will defend their intellectual property. They've >also shown that they're willing to publish the >source to their new OS X as open source (Darwin.)
Give a dog a bone. . . . all while whiping him to death from the backside. Yah right, real kind that.
Once again, the Linux issue. First apple supported it, then they pulled support. Yippie. Sure copying the theme from apple may have not been compleatly kosher, but hell even MICROSOFT for crying outloud, MICROSOFT, has stopped complaining when people copy off their UI. The MS blue fugly theme has been copied numerious times (no idea why. . .
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Whee.
The problem with computers is not that they do exactly as they are told, it is that they have been lied to before you get them!
Anyway just liked your sig...
Blogging because I can...
its called OpenGL. Back in pre OS X days, Apple had its own version of Direct X called Quickdraw. OS X uses OpenGl and Display postscript to render everything.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
Apple won't let you search their knowledge base without "logging in" - and if your account was created before they started demanding a birthday, they now require you to add a birthday. If you submit feedback, you get a canned response - from an address you can't send any mail to.
The entire thing is built around making it impossible for users to establish any kind of communication with Apple. It's awful.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Just yesterday I placed an order for an 800mhz new iMac and a 500mhz iBook. I was going to go with just a higher end Mac laptop, for two reasons. First and foremost I wanted to run a UNIX variant. Secondly I needed a laptop. I've been using Linux since 96 and love it to death, but OS X allows me to use applications that linux just doesn't allow, like video and sound editing packages and higher end graphics stuff.
After seeing that the new iMac had the DVD burner available as an option (I thought only PowerMacs had that) I decided to get a higher end iMac and a lower end iBook. I even bought a Sony TRV820 digital camcorder so I can do more with filmmaking than ever before (and burn it to DVD!).
The flat screen on the iMac and the option for wireless networking on the iBook (and iMac as well, but it means more on a portable) were also big selling points.
However I can make one suggestion to folks commenting on what it would take to get them to buy a Mac: Use one. Don't go on about how you disliked MacOS 7.6.1 on an LC II back whenever.
Try a modern Mac,
running MacOS X,
for one hour.
See how fast you can come up to speed on it. That it has all of the Unix lovin' ya dig with the ease of a great GUI right there for the using. How it ships with a set of developer tools, documentation, the works (mmm - Cocoa). The full range of standard applications available. That it is perfectly married to the hardware it runs on.
One hour. Try it. Don't read reviews, listen to gripe-sheets, how old-school Macolytes miss some features, the pissing & moaning that Apple paid for a specific codec and didn't give it away, whatever.
See for yourself what it is like.
Take a look at the hardware and price it out against any other top tier manufacturer with quality components, a three year warranty, full support. See if MHz really is the true and only measure of a computer's performance. Ask yourself if you could fall in love with an OS, would you be cheating on another?
That's all. Give it a fair shake and then decide if it's right for you or not. But at least drive it around the block, kick the tires, check out under the hood. Trust me, the brochures don't do it justice.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
So these people have considered Macs, but they're nervous about it. They want their fears to be calmed. Most of them don't seem to know, for example, that there's a very capable Mac version of Office. They don't know that they can run accounting, database, and other "non-creative" applications on Macs.
I'm not saying that Macs are the choice for everyone, nor am I saying that every PC user has contemplated buying a Mac, but I do think that a much larger percentage of the population has at one time or another thought about purchasing a Mac.
Hard-core "I don't want to use a Mac, ever!" PC users are not the audience they want to solicit. It seems to me it's a very smart move on Apple's part to obtain feedback from the large number of people out there who are on the fence, but stay with Windows out of habit.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Are you insane? Bringing back hardware licensing would increase other people's marketshare, not Apple's, and we saw this years ago when cloning almost put Apple out of business. As for there being more money in selling the OS - how much profit do you think Apple makes on hardware? Their gross margins on Powermacs are something on the order of %20 - which is a hell of a lot more than they make selling their OS for $150.
Hardware licensing would be awful. If Apple became just an OS vendor then they'd start acting like Microsoft - force feeding upgrades to a market that doesn't really want them because its their only way to maintain income, and all the other stupid and horrible things MS has to do to keep the cash rolling in. What an awful world that would be. If you want Apple to die a horrible death at the hands of their own OS licensees then bring back cloning.
I'll happily keep paying my little bit extra to get hardware that works well, an OS that doesn't have stupid web browsers built into it for no reason, and applications that don't try to sell me things whenever I plug in a camera.
"Belief means not wanting to know what is true." [Nietzche, The Anti-Christ, 1889]
Here's my post: (careful - long!)
/ for an example of Rhapsody development. 0/0005.html for both Alpha and Matrox development in 1996.
I am buying a new iMac roughly September, my first Mac in nearly six years. I've owned several PCs, one Digital Alpha OEM motherboard, and several Palm handhelds in the meantime.
I last used MacOS when 7.61 was out. I have personally owned four Macs - a Mac Plus, Mac II with the optional FPU and MMU - I owned and ran A/UX 3.0 , Duo 210 (still an excellent form factor), and my Quadra 630. I retired the Q630 in 1996 when I got my first PC. My first Mac was bought after a succession of excellent English or US games machines (Amstrad, Spectrum, Amiga), so not owning or using a PC until I was nearly 26 was fine by me. Until NT came out, PC's sucked because the OS sucked.
By 1994, my work had converted from being a helpdesk person looking after Mac users to a system administrator looking after Novell boxes. The lack of Macintosh Novell admin tools was a killer (even though we were about 80% Mac desktops), and the Apple PC coprocessor card that my last work PowerMac 6100 had was too slow to run the tools on a day to day basis. In 1995, I became an NT admin, and there's simply no way to manage NT from a Mac (nowadays you'd use VNC or Terminal Services, but then there was nothing). So I had to have a PC desktop. I couldn't stand (and still can't) Windows 3.1. Win95 had just come out which was better than Win31, but it still sucked. I've never used Win95 or Win98 for anything but a glorified games loader, and I've still yet to use Windows ME or XP Home, and am very unlikely to.
Once I was basically an NT-only guy at work, I decided to buy a "designed for NT" PC for home in September 1996. Through work, I was getting great prices on HP gear, which has the same sort of bullet proof reliability of all my previous Macs - I hate crap hardware. I moved from an eighteen month old 33 MHz Quadra 630 with a 13" RGB 640x480 monitor to a dual Pentium Pro 200 MHz, 17" monitor, bleeding edge 2D accelerator running at 1152x864 in millions of colors on NT Workstation 3.51. This rocked. It was more than an order of magnitude jump in processing power, and a jump from several crashes a day (MacOS 7.61 with dev tools) to none. Pre-emptive multitasking, protected memory, the works.
Imagine if you will - going from my 18 month old Mac to my new PC, it was more than the difference in productivity between a 4.77 MHz IBM PC running DOS to my first Mac. There was simply no comparison to what was before - I was hooked. Then I added Linux to my home box, but that sucked (and still does) but it was fun in a masochistic way. I had fun whilst debasing myself. I helped write the first Matrox Millennium graphic drivers for Linux*, for example. During this time, Apple went from being open and allowing BeOS and clones to exist to being a closed shop, killing off the clones. A/UX was well dead. The Mac business market was in retreat.
Why am I coming back? You certainly did me no favors when you killed Rhapsody on x86. I was developing Mozilla for Rhapsody/x86 DR2* at the time, and you killed my ability to still use an Apple operating system. Killing the x86 port was needlessly bloody-minded, and a monumentally stupid idea, especially now that both PPC CPU makers want to do embedded stuff, not 64 bit desktop stuff. I'm agnostic about hardware and almost all of my friends who I put onto Macs in my early days simply have no idea of what processor they are using. This is Apple's true strength! Remember when you did the PowerPC conversion? That was flawless - you couldn't tell, it just went faster. I'm sure Apple could do an iMac using the AMD Sledgehammer if you had the mind to. It's the OS that makes a computer. The hardware I own and recommend is fast, bullet-proof and supported. Things Apple does in its sleep. If Apple produced an x86 iMac, I would be in heaven. I don't know if you make $AUD500 on a loaded iMac, but that's the sort of money I don't mind paying for a good OS even if you didn't make an x86 Mac. I run XP Professional because it is fast, extremely stable and runs all my apps.
The iMac is beautiful. It's slow**, but almost fast enough to do what I will be using it for (browsing, e-mail, development), but I might be frustrated with it in less than a year from now unless it's seriously speed bumped. If you can stick a 2 GHz processor or say 2x or 4x 1 GHz processors in there I'll be happier. I buy machines to last three years (my 1996 Dual PPro was only retired two weeks ago when it finally died), so processing capabilities over the life of the product is a prime factor in my purchasing decision. But to make me really happy, it would be nice if you could do an order of magnitude thing for me. Like my Quadra 630 to Dual Pentium Pro 200, my 18 month old Dell is an 800 MHz PIII, so if you could somehow make the equivalent of an 8 GHz G4 by September in your consumer line, I would seriously have babies for any passing iMac.
Keep up the industrial design - you have that right. The iMac is inherently desirable. Just make it a LOT faster. And get waaaay more games on to the platform. I don't care if you have to prostitute yourself to get DirectX or the Playstation 2 API's - game developers' shouldn't need to (and don't have time or the desire to) re-target the 3D front end of their software, you have to come half-way for them. OpenGL is good for workstation stuff, but the reality is that most games are written for DirectX or PS2 games. And I don't play Quake.
Feel free to write back.
Andrew
* http://www.geocrawler.com/archives/3/132/1998/8/0
* http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/alpha/9609
** the 800 MHz G4 - I don't keep with Intel's faster clock is better thing. AMD is proof positive of this, and your Photoshop tests are interesting. I know that the G4 is per clock cycle more efficient, but it is not 2.75 times more efficient on integer stuff, which is the vast majority of what I do (development). I don't do Photoshop and have never owned a copy. I owned CodeWarrior and I liked the Project Builder on Rhapsody. You must be FAST when I compile stuff. This means good I/O, good memory bandwidth and fast integer CPUs.
Andrew van der Stock
A good car you can drive for maybe 12 years and you'll still get about the same gas mileage, etc. It'll depreciate but if you don't crash it and keep it, it'll still work fine. Of course it depends on the type of car, but let's just compare this to a computer.
A good computer, top of the line, best thing money can buy for 5,000 bucks, will likely be obsolete within half that time. If I recall, a 200mhz machine was kicking it in '96 or '97. Now you'd get about 10 times the processing power for the faster machines on the market nowadays.
So the real question is, why would I buy a 1500 dollar iMac, no matter how cute it is, when I can make my own machine for about half to 2/3 that which has just about the same features. I understand quality, and believe me, you do get what you paid for. But if my machine breaks down in say 3 years instead of maybe 6 for the iMac, I've likely already outlived the cycle of the product, and can look for something new.
Personally, I like that Apple has a fully integrated system. There's no incompatibilities for the OS because the hardware and s/w are built together. But I'm not going to pay extra for it.
What Apple has apparently learned over the years is that they are a niche market. They sell to graphics designers, for instance, and people who are mac aficionados. If they want to steal share from other computer companies, they'll have to create low-cost alternatives. Lamp-shape or no lamp-shape, some people may just want a simple monitor to an LCD, particularly those who have old DB-15 monitors laying around the house from the last machine they bought.
Desktops are becoming a commodity. If they want to break into a mass market, they'll have to lower cost.
Hi,
Thanks for asking for comments, I'd like to submit my pig-headed opinion if I may be so bold.
With your introduction of OS X I think you raised the bar significantly in the quality of PC operating systems. Drawing from Open Source resources, the Mach kernel for example, was a very savvy move and other companies would be wise to consider doing the same. I would buy a Mac just for that operating system. It is very nice.
The drawback is the price and proprietary nature of Apple hardware. I quite honestly believe that a consumer can get a functional Windows computer, that will create a sufficient perception of quality, for about $200-300 less than a Macintosh that they may feel suits their needs. While at the store the consumer might feel s/he has made a wise purchase with a Windows PC, I believe the Macintosh, in most cases, would provide a longer period of satisfaction. I feel this is due to the quality of the MacOS and related software.
With the US vs. Microsoft trial where it is, I believe now is the time for companies that can compete in the OS market to pursue OEM deals with manufacturers like Dell, Gateway, and Sony. Redhat software, for one, has managed to produce a very impressive Linux based operating system in Redhat Linux 7.2. The lack of high quality consumer applications, however, remains a barrier for any Linux OS at this time. This makes it difficult for a PC manufacturer to embrace Linux as a platform on consumer orientated computers.
The opportunity exists for Apple to release OS X on the Intel i386 platform, to directly compete with Microsoft Windows. I have a fair understanding of what an undertaking porting an entire OS from one platform to another is, as I have used Linux on i386 and PPC, and have seen the lag that PPC users experience using the minority platform. Such an effort for Apple, however, would provide a potentially huge return on investment, and would be a very positive move for increasing the value of the company.
While Apple's work in the hardware market is vanguard, the company simply cannot compete with the economies of scale enjoyed in the i386 platform. It is time for Apple to tap into this market. Imagine if MacOS were half as popular as Quicktime on computers across the world. Consumers would win, and Apple would be in the game for years to come.
Thanks for your time,
My Karma was at 49, then they switched to words. All that work for nothing!
I'm a couple of weeks into an experiment. Over the holidays I indulged a consumerist impulse and bought a Titanium Laptop. After the second credit card statement arrived, I decided I'd damned well better get some use out of a machine that I paid roughly $3,000 for. So for the past 2+ weeks I've left the Linux machine off and have used the TiBook as my sole home machine.
;-)
For the most part, I have no complaint. Many long time OS 9 users are vocally unhappy about the Aqua GUI. I'm a longtime WindowMaker user, so I'm on conceptually familiar ground. I like being able to SSH into my laptop from work and continue the project I was working on. I like the fact that fetchmail and sendmail come pre-installed on my laptop. I really, really like the OmniWeb browser (http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omniweb/). I like watching (the Pro only) QuickTime movie trailers from quicktime.apple.com when it's 1:30 AM and I really ought to be in bed. I'm very impressed with iTunes and iPhoto. I assume at this point that if I owned a digital movie camera that I would be impressed with iMovie, as well.
I do, however, have two noticeable complaints:
1) I've spent the weekend trying to compile PHP 4.1.2 on this damned machine, and I'm getting tired of reading potentially helpful posts on various mailing lists which all end in the same error message:
"/usr/bin/libtool: internal link edit command failed"
If anyone has encountered this error message while compiling PHP 4.1.2 and resolved matters to their liking, I would be delighted to hear what you did.
2) I bought Civilization III for Mac OS X. I have a 677mz G4 processor with 512 MB of RAM, and the damned game is so slow its almost unplayable. That's simply unacceptable. I can't remember the last time that I cursed so much at a game. It doesn't matter if companies port their software to Mac OS X, if the port is practically unusable.
One final thought, unrelated to the previous statements:
I don't give a damn about the price. I don't use Linux because it's Beer-Free. I've happily paid for every version of the OS that I've used over the past five years; I understand how a Market Economy works. If you tell me that you didn't buy a Macintosh because it didn't do something that you needed, or because it did something you found unacceptable, I'll gladly accept that. But if you tell me you didn't buy a Mac because you were too cheap, rest assured that you won't get invited to any of my parties. I'd rather have no scotch than cheap scotch
Best regards,
Mike McC
"I WANT MORE MOUSE BUTTONS!" - This point keeps coming up in this thread, so I want to clear something up about mouse buttons.
Mac OS X supports multiple mouse buttons. Just plug in whatever strange little USB mouse you want (or already use on the PC) and you can use them just like you do in Windows. No plug-ins required.
And why does the Mac come with only one button? It's becuase it's so darn simple. Anybody can guess what you do with one button. Point. Click. Easy. Now, give a newbie a two-button mouse, and they get a little confused. It's kind of like having a door with two doorknobs.
Written by an avid Mac evangalist who wants Apple to make it easier to sell macs.
MULTI USER DIRECTORY STRUCTURE CONFUSING
- OS X's multi user directory structure is very confusing for people that are used to having "My Documents folder on Drive C". There DEFINITELY needs to be an interactive tutorial that teaches people about the "home" directory and so on.
CONNECTING TO OTHER COMPUTERS IS DIFFICULT
- The method for connecting to other computers in OS X is not intuitive. Windows users in particular do not expect to have to go to a menu item for that. There should be an equivalent to "network neighbourhood" on the OS X desktop (without the condescending Micro$oft name of course).
UNABLE TO BROWSE WINDOWS NETWORKS
How come you can't browse Windows networks using Mac OSX's inbuilt SMB client? It looks like the SMB client was a half-implemented effort simply to satisfy a check box on a list. But this is really one of the most crucial features of OS X's attraction to business. Let's face it, there's few businesses without Windows NT servers somewhere. Why not let OS X users browse for servers?
PAGE SETUP ALWAYS CHANGES ON MAC
In Windows, once you set the page size to A4, it sticks -- permanently. You never have to look at it again. But in OS 9 and OS X, Mac users constantly have to go to page setup to make sure it hasn't defaulted back to letter. This is a MAJOR annoyance for your international customers.
PROGRAM WINDOWS SHOULD COME UP ALTOGETHER
It's annoying in OS X that if you click on a program, all it's 'child' windows don't come up to the front at the same time. That's a step backwards. Users want to be able to see all the output from programs at the front rather than having to click on each of the windows to bring them to the front.
TIME FOR A TWO BUTTON MOUSE
I can see that Apple is trying to maintain its trademark simplicity by sticking with the one button mouse -- but let's be frank, everyone uses the right mouse button these days, and especially pro users. People just end up buying a third party mouse to get this functionality -- why not include it with the Mac by default?
EJECTING DISKS - CONFUSING!
Most PC users find it very confusing that they have to software-eject disks, and to be frank, a lot of Mac users do too -- especially when a disk gets 'stuck' due to a rogue software process that is hanging on to the disk. Why not put a 'soft-hardware' button on the Mac casing that performs a psuedo-hardware-eject. EG it calls a function in the operating system to issue an eject command to the drive. That way you still get operating system control over the drive, but you satisfy users who have an urge to press a button on the computer.
IMPOSSIBLE TO DELETE A USER COMPLETELY?
How the heck do you delete a user directory in OS X without knowing root level unix commands? If you delete a user, the user directory just sits there labeled 'deleted', but it's still not possible to delete.
Cheers,
Dan Warne
You do know that AOL is an Apple spin off don't you? AOL started off life as AppleLink.
They both made their sucess by dumbing down computers to the point where anyone could use them.
There is a BIG difference between dumbing down computers and making UIs better. Dumbing down is making UIs easier to use through the removal of features. Better UIs are made through making the existing features less confusing and more consistent to operate.
I will admit that is pretty cool, but a miracle of UI design it is not. Good UI design is characterized by two things, intuitiveness and consistency, neither of which that feature has. Features designed for power users are by definition not well designed UI features. I also don't see how it has any relevancy to the claim that MacOS has a confusing interface.
>> 2 - One Button Mouse >The OS supports two-button mice, and pretty much >any USB mouse should work. Applications do not always support two button mice, this is neccisary since a two button mouse can NEVER be assumed to be ALWAYS installed on a mac machine. On a PC applications CAN make this assumption, and thus have access to additional meta-key + mouse key combinations. (the 2nd mouse button on macs is mostly used to act as meta-key + mouse1)
All native X apps support two button and scroll mice.
>> 3 - Customization and configuration is hard to grasp >I don't understand what you mean by this. How to configure damn nearly ANYTHING on a windows machine: Start--> SETTINGS--->control panel. Click on the item. EVERYTHING for that subject is there. on the macs you have things kind of spread about a bit. . . . configure half of your color settings here, another half there. . . . the layout and design is NOT standardized.
For Classic Mac OSes, go Apple menu, Control Panel sub-menu, pick your Control Panel. For OS X, go Apple menu, System Preferences, pick your topic. I don't see how this is any different than Windows.
>> 4 - Expensive Hardware >For what you get, it's been shown to be fairly >comparable with brand-name windows hardware. BZZT! wrong. Try again. For what you get on a low end mac you can get a medium end PC. A medium end mac (~2k) will get you the HIGHEST end PC. (well, ok, minus SCSI everything, but hell, that is just. . . . hehe. SCSI rocks. :) )
I won't try to argue this point, but you can look at any of the myriad other posts on this subject. The key word you have to remember in this discussion is brand name. You can certainly build your own computer for cheaper, but this requires you to know a crapload of stuff about what RAM you can use with your motherboard, etc. This gets back to the whole issue with good UI design reducing the amount of otherwise useless knowledge you need to do something.
>> 6 - Proprietary platform >Like Windows? No jack ass, like the damn ENITRE FUCKING COMPUTER. Apple has been able to HAMPER *nix development on their platform. Sure it exists, but only because people had to reverse engineer a bunch of crap. (Apple WAS supporting Linux development on the PC for awhile, and then they changed their minds. . . ) On the PC I can run ANY damn OS that I feel like because there is this huge thing called a CHOICE out there. Sure my main box runs windows, but I have shoved some awfuly weird shit on my OTHER boxs. Or hell, ANYBODY can go out and make their OWN OS for the x86. All open spec. Intel and AMD have whitepapers that give exacting detail on the platform availble for free from their respective websites.
Apple has been running an open platform ever since the original iMac back in '98. The only reverse engineering that the Linux developers had to do was to get Linux running on older Macs. And yes, Apple does have whitepapers on their platform, such as Fundamentals of Open Firmware, Part I: The User Interface, Fundamentals of Open Firmware, Part II: The Device Tree, and Fundamentals of Open Firmware, Part III: Understanding PCI ..., among many others. Just go to Apple's developer section of their website and do a search on Open Transport.
Then I noticed CompUSA got a boatload of them in about three weeks ago. I saw an entire pallet of the things, but was told I couldn't have one because they were all pre-sold.
Methinks Apple is screwing over their loyal computer retail specialists, the ones who sell only Apples. Makes no sense.
Seems like everytime Apple comes out with something great, you can't buy it for months and months. Then by the time it's available, the impulse/geewhiz factor has worn off.
So whenever this store calls me up to tell me my new iMac is here, I'll probably tell them to keep it... :-(
Speaking of games, that's the one really glaring hole in the Mac today. As far as I can tell, there is no major MMORPG for the Mac. I read in an interview somewhere with Mark Jacobs of Mythic that they would consider a Mac port of Dark Age of Camelot, but they don't have the time or resources now. Apple should contact Mythic and offer to loan them some Mac programmers to get DAoC running on the Mac. Mythic had the smoothest MMORPG launch in history with DAoC, so would be a good choice for the first major Mac MMORPG, and once they are onboard, and people see that the Mac is a viable MMORPG platform, others might come aboard.
I'm serious...do not underestimate the importance of MMORPGs, both new ones and getting the existing ones ported.
The thing about MMORPGs is that they are highly social. When some kid is asking for a new computer for Christmas, and all their friends are playing an MMORPG under Windows, that kid is going to ask for a PC. Even if Apple wins back the schools from Dell, the kid is not going to care that having a Mac at home will fit in better with the school Macs...the kid is going to want to play that MMORPG with his friends.
Here's an experiment you should try. Find 10 Apple employees who are interested in fantasy games, and who long time Mac users, who never even look at PCs. Put a reasonably high end PC with a good video card on each of their desks, and set them up with an Everquest account, and tell them to play. Tell them Apple wants to figure out if MMORPGs are worth encouraging on the Mac. After one month, take their PCs away on a Friday. I'd bet by Monday, half of them will have PCs at home. That is how addicting a game like Everquest is.
1. Mouse Buttons: Apple is never going to make a multi-button mouse. Thousands of usability studies have demonstrated that the new user (a large part of Apple's target market) is confused by a second button! If you want a two button mouse, there are hundreds of USB mice, for really cheap. Which brings me to my next point:
2. Price! I don't believe how many people bitch and moan about how expensive the Mac is, and how they would only buy one if it wasn't so damn expensive. Do you listen to yourselves? Its like bitching about how expensive Lexus or BMW are. Apple is the BMW of the computer world. People are happy to pay a premium for quality! If you can only afford a piece of shit Ford Focus, of course you're not going to get a fully loaded luxury car! Duh!! And if you are part of the 2% of the population that builds your own computer, Apple doesn't give a rats ass about you. You will never be happy with a pre-built box, and you're too small of a market.
3. Boxen: Apple will never license the Mac OS again. They tried it once, and the only thing it accomplished was to cannabalize Mac Hardware Sales. Repeat after me: Apple makes its money from hardware. Everything else (including OS X) is just bonus features to sell more hardware! With a business model like that, it would be totally idiotic to let anyone clone your hardware, or port your OS to x86. If Steve Jobs ever tried this, as a shareholder, I would personally have his head in a guillotine. (More beheadings at shareholders meetings, I always say). It will never happen again. The only reason they licensed the OS in the 90s was because they didn't have the balls to stand up to the bitching and moaning of morons who don't get it! And finally:
4. Applications There are almost 20,000 Mac Apps listed here, and thousands more (including very high quality shareware and freeware here. How many application do you fucking need people? How many can you run at once? What task do you need to do that cannot be done on a Mac?
I think that people who use these excuses are covering for their bigotry. If you hate Macs, grow some balls and just come out and say it! Stop making up bullshit excuses, pretending that you would buy a Mac, if only they were cheaper, and came with a two button mouse. Bullshit. You probably have a deep seated fear of change, and maybe other psychological issues. Come to think of it, if you are a Mac Bigot, you better go see a shrink, because you are pretty fucked up. Nobody in their right mind would buy anything else.
Reality has a liberal bias
A little about myself first:
:-)
I am a "Microsoft dot whore." I don't hate Macs but I have hated the MAC OS
since forever. I hate Linux on the desktop but I am a hardcore fan of Linux
used properly in a server environment. I have a lot of respect for freeBSD
and it is my unix of choice when I need a dirt cheap web server. I am a
Windows developer and I also work on web applications development, but
non-Windows client platforms are never part of the specs.
My house right now has one Dell 600MHZ Celeron (wife), one homebuilt
dual-processor PIII-1GHZ Windows 2000 server (for telecommuting), and two
IBM Thinkpad laptops issued by my employers, one a Celeron 366 running XP
Pro and one PIII-700 running Windows 2000 Professional. My home network
shares a Comcast cable modem with a Linksys broadband router and a Netgear
802.11b wireless access point (using Linksys WPC11 wireless cards for the
laptops).
And I am dying to get my hands on a Titanium Powerbook. Badly.
I go to CompUSA once a week just to look at their floor samples. I go to
Microcenter hoping one is online so I can surf the web with it.
I buy every Mac magazine I can find, usually at a horrible markup. I have
not bought a non-programming Windows magazine in more than 5 years.
I am telling my friends I am turning into a "Mac Hippie." (I spent years
bothering our Mac users, calling them hippies and radicals. Somehow they
liked that)
Why?
1. OS X. I have spent years telling people that the only reason Linux and
BSD have not taken over Windows is the user interface. Using Unix for a Mac
OS is brilliant!
2. Power users be damned, sometimes even us experts need to sit in front of
a PC and have it work for us, not us fight it to get things done. A windows
power user does not notice all the workarounds and hacks he learns over the
year to adapt himself to Windows. This terrifies a newbie. I like how much
simple everything is on the mac.
3. Open Source. I believe in making money from writing software, but there
is just too much good free software out there that cannot be ignored.
Embracing the open source movement was brilliant. Just looking at MAC OS X
and knowing I got a fully functional Unix system underneath motivates me to
drop my ASP.net and C# books and learn C++ and Java so I can write stuff
that runs on Unix instead of Windows.
4. The colors! I embraced digital photography almost 2 years ago, and seeing
my photos displayed on both a Cinema display and the new Mac was like seeing
my work for the very first time. Everything looks much better on a mac.
5. Hardware + software integration. You cannot match any mac to a real world
machine in the Windows world. For example, there is no way you can get a
Windows laptop that can match a 600MHZ iBook, with its polycarbonate and
magnesium 4.9 pound, body, built-in combo drive, pre-wired for WiFi and with
firewire. not at that price. And let's not talk about the Titanium
Powerbooks and the new dual processor Power Macs. I have a dual processor
PIII-1GHZ and it is a pathetic piece of crap, I usually reinstall the OS
every 60 days or so. It bothers me that this monster PC is less stable than
my Celeron 366 IBM Thinkpad (which is rock-solid but slooooow).
6. Simplicity. My wife has been using computers since the day we met 10
years ago, but she has NEVER cared about computers. She sits down, does
whatever she needs to and then walks away not thinking about it until the
next time she needs to use it. In other words, she is not a computer geek. I
took her to the Apple Store in Tyson's Corner, Virginia, to see the new
iMac. 5 minutes after using it she turned around and told me "I want one."
This is the first time in 7 years of marriage that she has ever asked me for
a computer, usually she inherits my old PCs.
7. Available emulation software. I can carry a Titanium laptop on a business
trip knowing I have Unix, Mac OS and Windows 2000 available in the same
compact enclosure, thanks to Virtual PC.
8. Awesome laptop design. The iBook is a beautiful piece of work (the 14"
iBook is ugly, sorry). The Titanium Powerbook is so awesome that one of our
artists bought one and had hers delivered to the office and the whole
production department pretty much froze still while she unpacked it. Even
the Ti Powerbook is at least a pound lighter than my ThinkPad PIII700.
Probably 3 or so pounds lighter than my ThinkPad Celeron 366.
I am counting my days to get my Mac. I managed to steal a G4 450 from IT for
"testing" but after a few weeks they came up with some lame excuse to bring
it back to them. After a few days I was using it more than my own
workstation, a PIII-1GHZ. Eventually I convinced my wife to let me buy a Ti
Powerbook 667, but I have to save my pennies first
If I get my act together I will have my Ti Powerbook 667 no later than the
first of August. That is unless you guys revamp the line and I get stuck in
a shipping wait like it happened with the iMac.
Thanks for this opportunity to sound off! And yes, it is OK to contact me.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
Why would I give that up so I could just buy a computer that I'd have to replace every three to five years?
If you need to upgrade it don't buy an iMac/laptop.
I need a laptop so I keep upgrading on a regular basis :) however my father is still running a PowerMac 8500 bought towards the end of 1995 (see http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac/sta ts/powermac_8500_120.html for details)
A brief list of updates carried out on the system:
It runs fine for general office type work, DV Editing, general browsing, email etc. It won't run OS X so will probably be replaced in a year or so by one that does. By that time it'll be between 7 and 8 years old. The replacement will be another Mac, but a tower not an all in one.
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
I want to run *BSD or Linux (not OSX) on
a cutting-edge Mac. I want to choose my own
video card (I'm specifically thinking about
a multihead video card like a Matrox G450),
and I want a 3-button mouse to come with the
system. Give me that, and I can guarantee
my next workstation will be a Mac. Otherwise,
I might consider one of Sun's cheaper SPARCs or
perhaps some other non-x86 system.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
What about Lotus Domino/Notes? They even have an OS X client available as a beta, something MS doesn't have yet.
This was my first trip to an Apple store, and it seemed strange being in such a bright, clean, and open environment inside a mall. I dropped off the G4 in the back and then spent a couple hours with a tech there trying to isolate the problem. One thing I noticed during this visit was that they aren't allowed to do anything inside the computer unless it is officially in for repair. This is probably a good thing, but it was strange hearing "Well, I can show you where the CUDA button is, but I can't push it." Once the possibility of a software problem was eliminated (kind of obvious when you wipe the drive and install from their discs, without success), I had them take it into a back room for servicing, thinking that they could do whatever was necessary.
I was wrong. After over 2 weeks at the Apple Store, they couldn't get it working and suggested replacement as the only option. It turns out that the Apple Store can't do AppleCare replacements - I had to take the system back from Apple in order to give it back to Apple. Ok, the stores are new, so they're probably still testing them out. So I called AppleCare to arrange for a replacement, only to find out that I couldn't do that either - since I bought it through Smalldog, I had to have them go through AppleCare for me (even though I had an Apple warranty). And so it continues...
Now I was back dealing with Smalldog. They couldn't understand Apple's policies either, but at least they wanted to get me a working machine as soon as possible. As luck would have it, they just got a few new dual 800s in stock when I needed a replacement. The price was $200 more than my refurb was, but I could have it sent to me right away. After over a month and a half, I may soon have a working system.
When this story comes to an end and I have X running happily, I will be commenting about my experiences to Apple. My G4 has spent more time in the back seat of my car than all passengers combined, and I still haven't seen what X looks like. In the end I had to rely on a third party despite having an Apple warranty, going to an Apple store, and calling Apple for support on an Apple product. This doesn't seem right.
When I was a first-year student at the University of Michigan I bought a Powerbook 5300. Before that I had been a PC user. I bought the mac for the following reasons:
1. The University was at the time primerily a "mac school". 80% of the machines on campus were macs, and there was a large user community, as well as appletalk networking in the dorms.
2. I liked the GUI. Everyone told me how macs were easier to use. I had never found it difficult to use PCs, but I was impressed by the look and feel of MacOS.
3. I wanted to learn about MacOS and about Mac hardware. Again, I'd heard good things, why not experience it for myself.
Soon after I bought the 5300, I knew something was amiss. After I'd had it out of the box for five minutes it crashed unexpectedly. Unfortunately it kept doing this every couple of hours, and I was starting to question whether my $2300 had been wisely spent. I called apple's SOS-APPL line and with the help of the technician discovered that someone had indeed installed RAM-Doubler on my 5300. Evidently, someone at the U of M computer kickoff office had decided to open up my mac before it was sold to me and install unsupported software on it. According to the support rep, all I needed to do was reinstall the system.
Several hours later, after I had done a clean install of 7.5.1, I went to bed. Soon after I awoke the next day I realized that the problem hadn't been solved.
It is now day 2 and I decide that I am going to attempt to return the 5300 to the computer kickoff office, as I have a hunch that it is defective. I had seen some Toshiba laptops that some of my hallmates had purchased, and they looked pretty nice. Not only that, but they'd been available with a color screen for less than the $2300 that I'd spent for grayscale!
Unfortunately, the computer kickoff people refused to take back the machine. I called Apple and Apple would not take it back either. This machine was 2 days old and clearly defective, as it crashed every couple of hours.
The next step was to send the machine to Apple via Airborn Express for service. The machine arrived back almost a week later with a clean bill of health. Apparently, it had not crashed in the 'lab' and tests had confirmed that nothing was wrong with it. The problem was, it crashed every time I used it.
I started to feel resigned to the fact that I would have to make the relationship work if I wanted to get anything positive out of my decision to purchase the 5300. For me, stability is one of the most important things that I look for in a hardware/os combination.
I configured WordPerfect's autosave to save every 30 seconds, and I avoided using the machine for important tasks (such as papers for my classes), opting to use the computing site instead.
Over the next two semesters I spent upwards of 80 hours on the phone with SOS-APPL. During this time I heard things such as:
- "You don't have 7.5.3? That is very likely the reason your machine has been crashing"
- "Apple never should have sold the 5300 with less than 16MB of RAM. Of course yours is crashing."
- "You don't have 7.5.5? That MUST be the reason your machine is crashing."
At some point there was finally an official recall of the 5300. I was fairly cynical by this point, because my machine had received a clean bill of health the last time I sent it in. Nonetheless, my machine went back to Apple via Airborn Express for another couple of days, this time coming back with a new logic board. The new logic board helped somewhat, although the machine still crashed way more than any other Apple that I've used. You may be thinking that I had installed nonstandard software or was loading unnecessary extensions. I was not. This was with a subset of the standard extensions and no funny stuff like After Dark or all the weird MS stuff.
By my sophomore year, I decided that the best thing to do was to cut my losses and sell the 5300 and put the money toward an inexpensive desktop PC (the original $2300 was supposed to cover my computing needs for all 4 years of college). I called some local shops that sold used macs and I was offered $300 for it. THE MACHINE HAD DEPRECIATED $2000 IN ONLY ONE YEAR!
Needless to say, I had a very bad experience with Apple and Macintosh. Seeing OSX and knowing that it's built on the mach microkernel gives me hope, but my dissatisfaction has more to do with the way Apple handled the situation rather than with the hardware/OS specifically. Yes, I've heard about that deal where I could get a few hundred bucks off on a new ibook as a 5300 owner. No thank you.
I realize that I was a sucker for buying the 5300, and I would never make the mistake of buying an Apple product again, though I would accept one for free. I have also considered buying an iPod, but since I don't own a Mac it might not really be the best idea at this point.
Amazing magic tricks
To make Civ III playable turn off Aqua rendering in the preferences.
For PHP have you tried:
stepwise.
for the PHP install try this: http://www.entropy.ch/software/MacOSx/php/
Should be everything you need. It has some FAQs as well. If you used textedit to edit your php.config file, it is likely the culprit.
I hope you find this useful.
I meant "dumbing down" in a postive way.
OSX rocks.
BTW, i was once in iCE too.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
It would be very nice if someone in your organization had the time to write up a nice website detaling the transition from a PC shop to a Mac shop. Photos of before & after would be cool.
I think that sharing cool information like that would further prove that "Yes, it CAN be done" with a "Here's how we did it" approach.
...and this kind of proves it:
:-)
"In other words, she is not a computer geek. I
took her to the Apple Store in Tyson's Corner, Virginia, to see the new
iMac. 5 minutes after using it she turned around and told me "I want one."
This is the first time in 7 years of marriage that she has ever asked me for
a computer, usually she inherits my old PCs"
Mac users get way more p00ntang.
The iMac has a stunning LCD screen and an amazing adjustment mechanism that works fantastic under virtually all conditions. I'd say that's worth a few bucks.
It's true that it would be more cost-effective to buy the monitor separately - I replace computers much more often than monitors as a general rule. But that Apple LCD is so nicely integrated with the system that it strikes me as being well worth the extra cost of not having a separate monitor.
D
We haven't been able to get a good solution for our dual monitors hassels, under Win2K OR WinXP. We finanlly worked with Compaq to get this working on the laptop dockingstation, but they won't give me the fix. I had to download a hack tool from matroxusers.com to disable bus mastering support. This was because Compaq informed me that if we bought Matrox G400s and disabled bus mastering, it would work.
:) I'll pass on that solution.
Our core business (the thing that brings IN money) involves systems on a Unix environment. If I drop Unix and go all Windows, I have to shut the company down. Therefore, I dismiss that solution.
Our network is all Windows. The costs are strating to strangle us. If I get a full time NT guy to get the NT network working right, I can't afford the Unix guy. I need the Unix guy for the core business. Scripting the few things for the Internal network would be secondary to the core business.
The iMacs look cool. That may sound silly, but its a bonus when potential clients or potential partners swing by the office. The high tech look helps.
Here is the thing, for development (again, the core business), we use SecureCRT to connect into Unix machines. For actually editting the code, some use Editpad Pro for PHP and Jcreator for Java (two REALLY nice Shareware apps, I think my development software budget is like $100/developer and we got a GREAT environment) with Samba on a development Unix machines to code on.
The only things that Windows does for us is Microsoft Office (which OS X does as well) and Exchange. With OS X, I replace the profile disaster (that costs me a lot of whining each weak) and logon script issues with NFS mounting.
The only Windows-only software is the need to test HTML output under Windows and IE for public sites and Quickbooks. Two two Quickbooks users are myself and another power user, we maintain our own computes, so supporting that doesn't bother me. The Quickbooks users could get an NFS client for Windows or a simple SAMBA share, that is pretty painless.
BBEdit blows away any other editting tool that I have seen. A dual G4 w/ Cinema display would EASILY fit 4 emacs screens at once at a decent editting side, while leaving a 17" flat screen on the side would support the office applications.
My goal is to reduce administration issues WITHOUT shutting the business down, while your solution is to file bankruptcy.
I can't scrap the Unix machines, I'd LOVE to scrap the Windows machines. However, if I have 10 Windows desktops in the closet, I can give the 2 people that look do our outside world websites a Windows machine, and the two of us that do Quickbooks a Windows machine.
But if I never have to hear about a Win2K roaming profile again, I'll be a happy man.
Alex
It's a lot like a cult, but it's pretty benign at cults go; all it does is suck as much money as you feel you can spare. Even the cult recruiters (aka Apple Store employees) are surprisingly low key and just plain nice. (Of course this is part of the danger.)
Right now, I'm looking at the Apple Cinema HD Display with the rapturous intensity of a kid looking at a giant bowl of ice cream.
D
This is a good initial move, to try and find out the reasons for switching from Windows PCs to Macs, because it can help them develop their market according to their strengths.
What's not said, and which is just as valuable, is assessing the inverse mapping.
Find out exactly why people might leave the ranks of Mac-dom and become assimilated into the Borg.
It's just as important to know the mechanics of people leaving your market as it is to know the mechanics of people entering your market.
In fact, in the face of a desktop market share that has generally been declining, I'd say it's imperative to know the exact reasons for defections if you hope to stem that tide.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
What they should be doing is asking PC users "Why don't you want to use a mac? What would prompt you to change your mind?" This would get a lot more information, and it would be more useful information, too. Why do people go mac instead of PC? Because of the things which differentiate Mac from PC. Thank you, please take a seat.
In the past, what bothered me most about the Mac was its lack of graphics acceleration, and its slow-ass OS. I was an Amigan, and if you had an Amiga 2500 (An amiga 2000 with an accelerator card to do 68030@25mHz) and you got the emplant mac emulator, it would actually run faster than a Macintosh IIci, which used the very same CPU. So obviously the IIci hardware was deficient in some way.
I have a Mac IIci which was purchased when it was still hot, with an 8*24, not even the GC: It was $8,000. Yes, $8,000. With a two page greyscale display (the misnamed Mac Two-Page Mono), 8 mb of ram, and an 80 mb disk. This was a while ago, but it was still approximately DOUBLE the price of a faster PC system with MUCH faster graphics. So obviously the issue here is that sure you could get a mac to be good, but you had to spend a BOATLOAD of money on it. This has been reduced to just a shipping container full of money.
Now you can get a GF4 in your mac, though the iMac comes with a GF2MX, which is what I have in my substantially antiquated athlon 700, and is barely sufficient to the tasks I put it to, such as unreal tournament - Though I am playing at 1024x768. Still, I have to turn down my detail settings to get a good frame rate.
Obviously apple sees video as important now, but you still have to pay a pile for the good card, on top of paying a huge amount of money for the box to begin with. If you look at prebuilt systems, you can get a dual 1.5GHz Xeon Dell box with a top-end nvidia Quadro card for the same price as a dual 1.0GHz G4 with a GF4. You can build a box yourself with dual AthlonMP chips for substantially less. ($200 for the motherboard, $150 for each CPU, $200 for a really quality case, $200 for a good-sized disk... you can see where I'm going with this.)
So yes, you have to pay a premium for support for Apple's wasteful display APIs. This was a problem on the old macs, as pointed out above, and it's still an issue today.
The times have changed, the price gap is closing. Price is definitely not as much of an issue when considering the macs of today, as it was five years ago, when the price gap was wider than the proverbial grand canyon (the real grand canyon is measured in distance, not monetary units, and will not work for the purposes of this comparison.) But it is DEFINITELY still an issue. I would seriously consider running a G4-based system from apple IF and ONLY IF it were either the same price as a PC I built myself - which is not going to happen - Or if Apple would just sell me an ATX motherboard which supported upgradable dual G4 chips. I would also have to believe that I would be able to upgrade those G4 chips someday. Just think, an ATX board with dual G4s and Open Firmware... where do I sign?
Also, MacOSX ain't the holy grail. There's still app compatibility issues from the old Macs, so in order to run even a lot of software for MacOS9 you have to virtualize it and run MacOS9 in its own process in entirety. While this is also true of windows, almost anything written properly for Win9x will run on XP. Games are an exception, I admit, though many DOS games still run on XP. Try running some of your favorites from the System 6 days on MacOSX sometime.
In short: It still comes down to cost for the PC clone users. I can build a PC which will whip the mac in every category for less money, or I can buy a dell with dual Xeons which is basically equal to the mac for the same price, and runs more software; Software and hardware are both cheaper. Why should I go to the mac? Maybe MacOSX is different, but every Mac I've ever owned has crashed on me more than my PCs, even in the Windows 3.x days. This won't be true for the majority of users, but for those of us who are power users (or whatever... this is what apple calls 'em anyway) we manage to crater the MacOS all the damn time. I know I do, whether it's 6.0.7, 7.1, 7.5.3, 8.x, et cetera.
ALSO: I hate to say it, but Microsoft has traditionally had better support for antiquated computers. It's nice to know that my old hardware will run the new software a little longer. That's pretty cool.
AND FINALLY: There's just more x86s out there, mostly because they're cheaper. You can get a 1.4GHz P4 system for $899. The base mac is $1700 or something, right? For an iMac, most of whose components are non-upgradable, which has a small display, which I personally think looks like a large gumdrop with a sign stuck into it... Pass. Though the G4 cases are pretty sexy - They're not worth the money that goes into them. Using a basic beige case would probably cut more than $200 off the price of the box, and you could still have that fold-out side.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
That kind of performance is a JOKE folks.
I bought into the 'great hardware' myth to the tune of $1200. OS 9 runs fine. LinuxPPC runs fine. OS X moves like a slug.
I'm hoping that Mandrake Linux 8.2 for PPC turns into something usable on this machine, because OS X is NOT. If not, it goes to eBay. Very disappointing.
You should not have to spend $2500 to get a computer that can quickly scroll through a document or maximize a window! This is 2002.
For $1200 I am very disappointed. At that price I can buy a Wintel laptop that will run W2k FAST.
If 10.2 or whatever they call the next revision does not address the scrolling and window problems, it goes to eBay.
I know lots of people are recommending these, but if you're coming from x86 you are going to be VERY disappointed with the speed. It isn't even as fast as a Wintel 500mhz, let alone 'twice as fast'.
I always thought Apple did a fine job creating a consumer product which made computers a great tool for most people.
However, I have a problem with your point with applications. Yes, there are over 20,000 applications for the Mac, however 20000 applications isn't that much.
How many applications do you need?
I'm willing to wager that there are thousands of minor industries for whom there is no Mac software available for, let alone any software for the niche solutions for those industries.
It's not so much of how many, but which applications do you need? With a PC, I can probably find 30-50 property management applications which will integrate with a variety of magnetic encoders and printers for platic key cards (Think Hotels, Cruise ships, etc). Having worked in that industry, I can't recall a single app for the Mac that works with plastic key cards. (Not to say there isn't one)
Just because you only need 20,000 applications to choose from, doesn't mean the rest of us are fine with that.
Don't get me wrong, most people don't need more than 10 applications. You're arguments hold up for most consumers, but that's where it ends.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Come on now, be fair.
:)
640x480 is almost a third of the pixels of 1024x768! You're moving a third less data to the screen; actually, considering that there's double buffering and compositing and blending, more like over half as much data, or more, on the KDE machine. Bump it up to 1024x768 first
GPL Deconstructed
As a BMW owner and a PC user, I can tell you that the Mac BMW comapirson is fundamentally flawed. BMW started as a way to get a sportly & luxorious car for a decent price. BMW's engineers focused on performace and getting the most out of smaller engines. If you want to compare Macs to car, I think a mercedes is a better fit. People buy mercedes because of brand recognition not because of performance. You true-blue BMW owner buys a BMW because it performs better than any other comparible car with the same features. That's why a $65,000 M5 blows the doors off of a $130,000 mercedes with the same features. The BMW owner would pick up a Athlon XP 2000 system with a geoforce 4 for under $1000 which would perform better than this powermac for $3000
Any product that needs to depend on the length of it's warranty is something you should never consider buying to begin with.
A product is either of good quality or it is not. The length of the warranty period is completely irrelevant.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Pity you didn't do your homework better years ago. In case you're still doubtful Apple has a technote explaining the shadow to nervous customers.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
A few years ago I took a job at a publically traded (in Canada, long story) company with a lot of money. We replaced our aging Dell workstations with Compaq desktop machiens (I love Compaq support, HATE Dell... only bad experiences with Dell), added a nice Compaq Proliant NT server, moving the old Dell Poweredge to BDC. Setup an NT 4.0 VPN.
Well the company tanked. The remains of the company, to stay on the public market and have value as a shell, rented the space to a company started by the senior management of the public company. They subletted part to us (myself and one of the other developers). We kept the network infrastructure.
However, now instead of a fulltime IT guy (which was me), I have to keep it alive in my spare time. Anytime spent on it is time I'm not moving my business foward.
We built web deployed technology. We use Apache, PHP, PostgreSQL. We use OpenBSD for the web servers because its fast to setup and REALLY secure out of the gate. We use Linux for database serving because Linux runs a fast PostgreSQL server, OpenBSD is lousy at it.
Basically, I have a little bit of specialty software that doesn't run on a Macintosh... Quickbooks being the application. I can run that in Virtual PC or on dedicated Quickbooks machines.
If you do web design, you need to view the page in Windows w/ IE. In fact, with a dedicated web browsing machine, I could set it to multiboot multiple OS installations to see it in IE 4.01, 5.0, 5.5, and 6.0.
Basically, we went straight Compaq. M300 laptops then, and my new company got M700 laptops. We use the Armadastation EM as a docking solution, with one at the office and one at home. Dual monitor should have been easy, add a PCI card. I grabbed one at a computer store, it failled, so I called up Compaq and asked what to buy. This took a few days of runaround.
I really am looking at the whole widget issue as pleasant. Less administration, more just working. And standardizing on Unix for servers seems nice, workstations being Unix-like is a bonus.
Alex
Really? And how's their support? Come with a few free OS upgrades? Will they be around tomorrow to honor that warrenty or are they one of the struggling?
That's funny, I remember MacOS 7 to 8 cost money, and MacOS 8 to 9 cost money, and MacOS 9 to X cost money... Where's this majestic free OS upgrade from Macs?
And yes, Accubyte will be around, since they're pretty large and pretty reliable. Good customer service.
Close how? there's an Indigo iMac listed on Apple's web-page that's $800.
500MHz, PowerPC G3, 256K L2 cache @ 500 MHz, 128MB SDRAM, 20GB Ultra ATA drive, CD-ROM Drive, RAGE 128 Ultra w/16MB, 10/100BASE-T Ethernet, 56K fax modem, 15-inch display, (13.8-inch VIS), Harman Kardon Speakers, VGA Video Mirroring, 2 USB & 2 FireWire ports, AirPort Ready.
How is a 500MHz 128 MB SDRAM 20 GB UATA HD 16MB vid card machine comparable to a 2.0GHZ 256MB DDR 40GB UATA HD 32MB vid card PC? That's a HUGE difference in today's world, especially if you do games or graphics.
Some website selling a boatload of seconds from Korea isn't Apple's market.
Wow, nice Mac fanatic, claiming anything cheaper than a Mac must be using cheap hardware from third worlds. Couldn't be that Apple is saving its business from failure for OVERPRICING hardware, could it?
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
I'm a programmer. I write software, at work, for high end commercial use... high end means enterprise level. I specialize in algorithm design, which means I'm pretty good at my asm on several platforms, and I do enough GUI development to know ATL and MFC, Motif and KDE/Qt, the classic Mac Toolbox, Powerplant, and the NSObject derived windowing classes, inside and out, and most pertinant to this, I'm comfortable in all of the operating systems involved here.
I had an iMac... an old, 400MHz, sad state of affairs, dust gathering iMac... sitting on my desk at home. I had MacOS 9.1 installed on it, and occasionally used it for this or that... but at work, where I have an assortment of machines ranging from Win2K boxes on dual 800MHz and 1GHz PIIIs, Linux (2.4.x kernels) on similar, to Solaris 8 on a quad E3000, and a dual boot (Win2K enterprise and Linux 2.4.x enterprise) 8 CPU PIII Xeon, I really found my greatest pleasure was derived from working on my Dual 800MHz G4 with MacOS X. So, this weekend, after having not gotten around to it for untold ages, I finally installed MacOS X (10.1.3) on that poor little iMac at home. Guess what? I suddenly like that machine again. It's responsive, where MacOS 9.1 felt sluggish and misbehaved (STOP! NO, DON'T SPEND FIVE MINUTES TRYING TO PROCESS THAT FILE TO OPEN IT, I MEANT TO CLICK ON THE ONE NEXT TO IT! COMMAND-.!!! COMMAND-.!!! LISTEN TO ME, DAMN YOU!!!), it's navigable, it's easy to customize (as opposed to littered with shareware hacks, which is what "customized" means to most mac-heads, and I sort of feel like I don't want to deal with the 1GHz Athlon Linux box, with that wonderful (even if it is trapped in that ugly bubble) mac on my desk... I spent about six hours working on a little project of mine (which I had been building on the Linux box) after spending half an hour porting it into Project Builder... now I have my GUI stubs in place, and can attach a control terminal to the server process on the local machine, which means... well, never mind that, the point is, the dinky little G3 on OS X still beats the pants off of the linux box for enjoyment of use, for me, and severely spanks OS 9...
Of course, that's me, and YMMV...
-- Still waiting for the Nike endorsement
Blazer. I wrote a bunch of cheesy DOS loaders circa 1994 - 1995. Squidgalator 2 provided most of the graphics.
I was also one of the iCE members sucked into the whole eTantrum debacle in 2000. The company folded, owing me about $8000 in back pay. Oh well, live and learn.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Wow - you got me pegged, think about going to work for Ms. Cleo?
You don't know jackshit about me but that I corrected your inane post comparing some no-name brand with a top tier manufacturer. Look fanboy, it may rock your world but cheap PCs suck. Ask anyone who ever had the displeasure of owning a Packard Bell, an early Gateway or a late model eMachine.
You wanna compare products go ahead but at least make it an honest comparison of like products. Or aren't you clueful enough to know the difference?
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Linux Qt apps though use the Qt/X11 version of Linux, which is the only GPLd and freely available version. I believe if you're not careful you'd end up paying TrollTech for the use of that particular version.
Go to store.apple.com, click on Power Mac G4, click on a model, and in the Graphics support pop-up menu, select NVIDIA GeForce 4 Titanium.
As for the extensions, if you're talking about the proprietary extensions that we have now, you'll have to find them somewhere in the bowels of ati.com and nvidia.com; once there is a standard for extensions (OpenGL 2.0), the documentation will be on Apple's OpenGL developer page.
Also, do the G4s have an upgrade path to become G5s when the time comes?
I would assume that Apple would continue it's practice of placing the CPU's in their Power Macs on daughtercards, although I can't guarantee that anyone will make a G5 upgrade card. CPU upgrades for Macs aren't very popular since the kind of people who need a high-end CPU will also need to upgrade to the new motherboard.
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith