Slashdot Mirror
Maya for Mac OS X
drc writes "I http://www.macnn.com/feature.php?id=344noticed on MacNN that 'Maya 4.5 for Mac OS X was announced this morning when Steve Jobs revealed that the Maya update would offer feature parity in OS X when compared to other platforms. Jobs also mentioned that Alias|Wavefront has seen the Mac OS X version of Maya grow to 25% of their total market. I'm suprised that the Mac OS X version has such a market share in such a short period of time."
I do not see 3D going the same route as video editing & 2D editing, simply because of the current road that most 3D studios are following. Increasingly linux is being used instead of NT or SGIs in these studios. Why? Because they're cheap. No licensing for the OS, great remote administration support, amongst other things. Macs do not succeed at the efficientcy vs money contest anywhere as well as a linux box would. Another issue is that Macintosh has yet to get a highend 3D development card where as the selection is quite large for PC. I am not talking about GF4's here, but about Wildcats, Quadros, Glorias, etc. Only recently did Apple finally get a real GF4 and not the hobbled GF4 MX, and a GF4 is far from a highend 3D development card. I will be surprised if Apple takes over the 3D development market unless they start trying a new strategy.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
Good comment. I just sent Apple a comment off their website requesting a few improvements and my logic for my requests. It was tasteful, not harsh or angry, and *hopefully* will be implemented (I also mentioned that my wife is dead set on not upgrading until she sees a G5 processor - hopefully Apple will take notice and put the heat on Motorola, or switch to IBM).
Everyone who knows something Apple is falling down on, please contact them and let your voice be heard. You're the only one who can stop them from becoming another Microsoft, and you're the only one who can explain your point of view.
Let's flood Apple with "things to do" lists so they can gauge what their customers REALLY want.
Let's make Apple better.
Zoober
That right there is my greatest fear: "that the slave would think himself free only to find a stronger set of chains" (to steal from Trent Reznor a bit).
I am a refugee from Microsoft Monopoly Land. Linux really is great, but has no real corporate support. There are huge gaping holes in app functionality that I can't function without. Even the Mac is a stretch, but one I'm willing to take to get free of M$. But when Apple acts like this (and they often do), I realize how damn stupid they really are, and how clueless they are to what we're looking for in a company to support with our faithfulness, mindshare, and cash. And that's what keeps Apple afloat; Apple users will personally suffer in order to support them. We'll spend more on hardware and software, accept games 2 years after they're dead of old age on the PC, do without industry standard apps, and much much more. We accept this CRAP because there are so many things "right" about Apple. They have the greatest potential to change the computing world of any company out there. We have HOPE and we TRUST them to at least try to respect us and try to do the right thing. I have no such hope or trust for Microsoft.
But recently, Apple's meager success has gone to their heads. They have the fatally flawed idea that because OS X is cool, and us geeks are open to switching, they can screw us like morons.
They're wrong.
Now, more than ever, they have to be good corporate citizens. Now, more than ever, they have to respect their customers and not treat us like cattle they own. The Gnu guys are watching them. Slashdot is watching them. And, believe it or not, we geeks quit Windows more because we dislike the company's BS than because Windows sucks (which it does, but not as badly as people say). In fact, if MS weren't a bunch of greedy corporate soulless lying complete A-holes, I'd be happy running XP right now, and I'd be pricing out IBM ThinkPads instead of PowerBook G4's. It wouldn't bother me a bit. And once Linux gets a GUI that doesn't SUCK, and some CONFIG TOOLS THAT AREN'T FROM HELL, and some APPS BESIDES BROWSERS AND WORDPROCESSORS, I'll be there with bells on. Because, in the end, the Gnu guys are the real good guys. I'm a customer, and I want to know there's no backdoors. I want to have access to the complete source code for everything that's on my system, even if I never use it. I want to be able to share it with my friends without having some billionaire and his monopolistic corporation threaten to have me killed for it.
And it's THAT EASY to gain or lose market share. And I, for one, intend to let Apple know that my money and I are watching them. And if they screw up too many times or in too big a way, I'm boycotting their stuff the same way I boycotted Microsoft. They might not notice initially, but you're reading this post right now, and my friends will go from hearing raves to hearing bitter resentment, and my webblog will get a new anti-mac slant, and the company I do network administration for won't even consider the XServe. And I'm just one guy. Wait till Doc Searls gets pissed off at Apple. Wait until any of the new-generation of Mac-toting geeks gets pissed off at their corporate collective stupidity.
Apple should tread lightly on their customer's throats. As quickly as the tide washed in, it can wash out.
Mattman
(of the Upper Canada Mattmans)
Testimony of an OS X Maya user:
Got Maya running on a dual G4 gig box. It renders lots faster than a 2 GHz Win2K box, for identical models..... Spawning batch render jobs to other G4s in the lab is a straignt shot.
Making educational videos and VR, so I need a cost effective setup..... Wouldn't try to do these projects on our budget with Win2K, Linux, or SGI boxes (time wasted hardware/software hacking far exceeds Linux/Intel cost savings)....,
OS X Maya is fast and cost effective, and fits into the integrated digital video/multimedia stream, from Final Cut Pro, through DVD Studio Pro. Gee, and it also goes out on the cluster's OS X QuickTime Streaming Server....
The point: It sure looks like Apple has a cost-effective environment in OS X that makes high-end, Unix-based visualization/video production a high-speed snap.
(Memories of the mid-80's and publishing the first scientific jounal produced entirely with DTP [Quark] on a hybrid AT/Mac system.... Remember hearing that DTP MADE the Mac.... The hardware is SO much more bitchin' now....)
Then there's digital multimedia production: Pretty interesting market, eh?
OS X: How I got my weekends back.