OpenGL Presentation at Siggraph Available

Visigothe writes "Siggraph has made available the Apple Quartz Extreme Demonstration PDF. The PDF has an overview of some interesting Quartz Extreme features, including the OpenGL calls that are made, as well as the new OpenGL extensions that Apple created for their upcoming Jaguar release. This is going to be a very interesting window system indeed!"

Comments

OpenGL contributions

[eyepeepackets]

The .pdf didn't indicate (it's a PR/marketing piece,) so I'm assuming that the new extensions will be contributed to the OpenGL folks for inclusion. Is this correct? If so, a very nice contribution by the Apple folks!

Compliments to the Apple folks on this work: If the screenshots in the .pdf are a true indication, then this is surely the bomb as concerns state-of-the-art desktop eye candy.

Sheesh, now I'm being nice to Apple. What's next, MS? Heh, very unlikely.

Re:OpenGL contributions

[inkfox]

The .pdf didn't indicate (it's a PR/marketing piece,) so I'm assuming that the new extensions will be contributed to the OpenGL folks for inclusion. Is this correct? If so, a very nice contribution by the Apple folks!

The wording is a little deceptive.

Most of these are extensions already existing for Windows and other OpenGL ports. NVidia example. ATI example. What they're basically saying is that the Mac drivers are caught up, and/or use of the extension is new to Jaguar's version of the Quartz engine.

There are a few Apple-specific extensions in there, but they're very specially purposed to Quartz' preferred data formats. Essentially, they're just a way to reduce the portability of the system (restricted pixel formats) in favor of some speed boosts, which is a pretty fair tradeoff if you're a company like Apple who only deals with a pocketful of vendors who make special concessions. You wouldn't want these back in OpenGL main.

There's some damned fine engineering going on at Apple, as always. But there's also the familiar nice spin, though. I wish they'd keep that much out of the technical presentations, or at least would more clearly mark it as such.

Re:OpenGL contributions

[eyepeepackets]

Thanks for the reply and the info.

Yes, I have to agree, there's some mighty fine work going on at Apple -- those screenshots are beautiful.

Thanks again.

opengl games

[bender183]

I wonder if opengl games will now run quicker on mac os 10.2 because opengl will be native....300fps in quake3 sounds good to me :D

Re:opengl games

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell are you going to do at 300fps if you screen is only doing 85hz?????? At best Nyquest criterium says you need 2x and really you only need 1.5x for pure continous frames you sure dont need 4x.
On top of the fact that your eye sees at about 12fps (thus film at 24fps per Nyquest)

Re:opengl games

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually OpenGL is already native and integrated with the operating system. The big difference is now the windowing system is rendered in OpenGL, taking advantage of the hardware. Supposedly Jaguar has numerous performance improvements... maybe this is where you'll see the increased fps rate.

Hah, like you can keep up w/ 300fps. How much meth does that take?

Re:opengl games

[foobar104]

You haven't the foggiest idea what Nyquist's theorem really means, do you?

Re:opengl games

[arson1]

because 300 fps in an empty quake 3 room translates to 100 fps when 10 people are shooting all around you... better than 100fps in an empty room and 20fps when the room is filled.

Re:opengl games

[DavidRavenMoon]

You haven't the foggiest idea what Nyquist's theorem really means, do you?

A theorem, developed by H. Nyquist, which states that an analog signal waveform may be uniquely reconstructed, without error, from samples taken at equal time intervals. The sampling rate must be equal to, or greater than, twice the highest frequency component in the analog signal

;)

Which is why we sample music at 44.1KHz to play back audio up to 20Khz, for example.

Re:opengl games

[foobar104]

Exactly. Which has absolutely nothing to do with screen refresh rates.

Wild Predictions

[BandwidthHog]

I've been saying for a while (ever since I first switched to OS X back in the 10.0.3 days) that the whole Aqua thing was mostly a placeholder. Every major shortcoming and non-sensical policy could be explained that way.

Why try to prevent theming? Because what was coming would utterly break any theming software imaginable.

Why the clunky Finder and Dock? Because they were mere halfway points in the journey, to get people used to a crude version of the real thing so that it wouldn't feel quite so alien when it finally arrives.

What journey? To a fully native OpenGL-based 3D windowing environment. Even this, Quartz Extreme, is just a small step along the way, but it's at this point that it starts becoming obvious. The magnification effect of the Dock isn't just cool eye candy, it's a 2D approximation of their long-term ideas.

Mark my words: This clunky 2D Aqua we've got now will be long gone in two years or less. In hindsight it will be obvious that it was just transitional. See how many bad design decisions you can explain away this way?

Re:Wild Predictions

[foobar104]

What journey? To a fully native OpenGL-based 3D windowing environment.

I guess I must have a problem with my browser, 'cause I don't seem to have gotten the part of your comment where you explain why in the hell someone would want such a thing.

Maybe you should try posting again.

Re:Wild Predictions

[BitGeek]

It its done right, you'd want it for the same reasons you want a GUI over the command line.

Pointing out that there are many people who would prefer the command line-- even think its *faster*.
I don't think Apple's going 3D for the UI any time soon...

But you can't deny that with 10.2 the OS X UI is way ahead of anything else that's out there.

People who have never used it often dismiss it as "eye candy"... these are the same people who think the new imac is just a design statement because they don't realize how useful the movable display is-- after all, *they're* happy and they haven't needed to move their piano weighted display.

Aqua is Aqua not because its pretty- Its pretty because it makes it a LOT easier to look at for hours on end and a lot easier to use-- meaning you get things done faster.

This is the next step towards making it even prettier, smoother, and easier to use.

And I'd say apple's extended its normal 2 year lead over the rest of the industry to a 5 year lead with this. I can't imagine Linux doing this within the decade, and Microsoft will have a knockoff in 5 years that meets the checkmark requirements but doesn't really work that great.

I have a friend who keeps asking me "so, why don't you put linux on that thing". I like linux, and have used it extensively, and actually intended to make one of my boxes a linux server, but after installing it, never booted it again. Why bother? it takes work to use.... the Mac user experience takes NO WORK to use, you just use it. Which means my time is spent programming.

This is a freedom that you have to experience to understand... so those of you who poo poo OS X, I encourage you to try it out for awhile and see what all the fuss is about. Don't just assume its those "mac heads ranting". You'll be missing out.

Re:Wild Predictions

[foobar104]

As a matter of fact, I'm using OS X right now. When I'm wearing my "proposal writer" hat, I sit in front of it 8 or 10 hours a day. This week, it's "proposal writer" time.

The revolutionary thing about Aqua isn't that it's pretty-- as you pointed out. It's how incredibly simple it is. That's why I balk at the idea of an interactive 3D UI. It's not simple, and it won't be simple until our input devices change dramatically. The mouse is an acceptable input device for now because it's not too hard for the mind to associate moving left-right-up-down on the tabletop with moving left-right-up-down on the screen. That's not too bad. But learning to navigate a 3D interface with a mouse is hard. You either have to throw in a number of new mouse buttons that alter the axis of focus as you move the mouse-- which is just heaven for us RSI sufferers, let me tell you-- or you end up "driving" or "flying" through the UI. That's not simple. It sucks.

On the other hand, a true 3D UI might make sense in an immersive environment. (So how do you spell "immersive," anyway?) I remember reading years ago about a Media Lab project called "Put That There" that combined some voice recognition technology with some kind of body-tracking technology. The idea is that you could point at a thing on a wall-sized screen and say "Put that..." and point somewhere else and say, "there." The computer would read your voice and your gesture to figure out what you meant. I don't know how far they took this, but it's a neat idea. Eerily similar to the "look at me! look at me!" computers in Minority Report.

So until our whole idea of what a computer is and how we interact with it changes, I think 3D UIs are going to continue to be a terrible idea.

Re:Wild Predictions

[Anonymous Coward]

immersive isn't a proper word but if it was that'd be how I would spell it

Re:Wild Predictions

[Anonymous Coward]

there is one 3d finder replacement for OS X which users OGL now. to be fair, its a experiment and i applaud the designer for his efforts; but it also is totally useless tool except for the novelty of it all which wears off in about 60 seconds. it takes 10 times the effort to navigate. its not a total waste, it does present information of the directory structure in a way which seems at times more comprehensible.

Also, to be fair, its new. which means im going to have a hard time adjusting to it, but that shouldnt be the case in a GUI, especially a 3d GUI.

A argument can be made that 3d space is more natural to how we perceive the world and information. Background apps in 3d space could really be in the background, pushed back in space etc..

But im not convinced a totally 3d GUI is a advancement per se, but i think the way apple is using OGL in jag right now is pretty amazing and its the most advanced GUI by miles.

Re:Wild Predictions

[bhamm]

I'd mod you up if you weren't already at 5, because I think you've nailed what Apple is doing/where they're going with the GUI in OSX. God knows MS isn't going to get us there. Let's both hope this new environment ultimately comes to pass.., and soon. Hell, the current GUI is already way ahead of anything else I've seen, but if they really get going with OpenGL as they appear to be doing, it's going to make other stuff (XP, et al) look even worse that it does already. Hehe.

Re:Wild Predictions

[BandwidthHog]

To the naysayers: I didn't mean fully immersive 3D like SysQuake; I meant only as 3D as it needs to be. One example is the Dock's auto-magnify feature. The concept is that everything's there; whatever has focus will just be more there.

Same with the drop shadowing on all windows: they only use two levels, foreground and background, but the foreground item (never more than one) has twice as much shadow as everything else. Everything not at the front layer has less shadow, making it further away from the user, and some transparency to it's title bar, implying, to me anyway, distance blurring.

I've been wondering what ancestral role (if any) the multi-column view will have in any forthcoming 2.5D/3D GUI. Any ideas, or is it just a cool NeXT holdover wiht no future in the 21st century?

There's a full 3D file browser called 3DOSX that give at least some idea of what's possible. If nothing else, it'll make you realize that cubes and large, flat surfaces (with their need for more axes of control) aren't the only concievable 3D workspace.

Re:Wild Predictions

[drsmithy]

Hell, the current GUI is already way ahead of anything else I've seen [...]

Ok, now this is just a big Apple stroke-fest, because there are so many holes, inconsistencies and broken implementations in the current OS X interface that calling it "way ahead of anything else" is just a wank. Some examples:
Managing multiple windows sucks. There is no quick and easy way to move between multiple open windows with multiple applications. Things like minimising suck because the position of minimised windows in the dock doesn't remain static. Window resizing is so chunky as to be practically unusable, even on the fastest Macs. Managing a lot of open windows and apps is something Windows' taskbar, or even the old Applcation menu in OS 9 is *so* much better at.
There's no quick and easy way to get to the Desktop. The Desktop is fundamental part of the UI. It is a drop box for files, notes and the like. It is where you access mounted devices. Yet, there is no really simple (equivalent of the Winkey-D shortcut on Windows) to get straight to the Desktop. This is something that has irritated me in MacOS (X and Classic) forever.
It's unresponsive and *extremely* CPU intensive. Just sitting here on an idle machine with a few dozen windows open (doing nothing) the CPU in my 667 TiBook is sitting on 15% - 20% usage. That's ridiculous. Typing this into Mozilla sees it bouncing up around the 50 - 80% mark and has the cursor regularly lagging behind my typing. Again, this is ridiculous.
Task switching sucks. It's extremely difficult to efficiently switch between multiple applications and multiple windows. You either have to deal with the broken Alt-tab method (broken because it implements a queue instead of a stack) to switch between apps and then the alt-` shortcut to switch between windows, or you have to use the dismally slow GUI - either by clicking on the windows themselves (assuming you can see them - big assumption) or right-clicking Dock icons and selecting the window from there. Once again, this is something other GUIs like Windows or KDE do *so much better* that I find it hard to believe Apple stuffed it up so badly.

There are some things OS X's GUI does well, to be sure, but to say it's "better than everything else" when there are so many fundamental things it does badly, is just silly. Particularly when there are established GUIs out there that do these things so much better. OS X's GUI is somewhat under-par IMHO, as its quirks and annoyances outnumber the things it is better at. Jaguar will fix a lot of this, I hope.

Re:Wild Predictions

[bhamm]

I suppose I should've been a little more specific.. I was speaking to the visual aspects of OS X much more so than performance. Granted in 10.1.x, performance has been pretty disappointing, but there are some significant improvements in Jag. In build 6C106, lots of things are more responsive now on my Ti 550 with 16MB video, so I suspect your experience will be even better on your 667.

Regarding the multiple windows/multiple apps and minimizing to the dock.., there are utilities available that should 'pin' the dock to a corner and others that create groups of windows/virutal dekstops. I would imagine Apple might consider adding those features at some point. I'd like to see some of those things myself.

I'm very happy with Mozilla in OS 9 on one of my other Macs, but I still wont get near it in OS X, eveything about it is too slow yet.., the cursor lagging behind as you mentioned, even in the recent build of Jag. I don't see any of this lag in Omniweb or IE though.. I do hope Mozilla eventually gets to be as responsive it as it is currently in OS 9. I'd love to use it in OS X.

Re:Wild Predictions

[Erik K. Veland]

Of all the moderations to this post no one rated it funny?

Please... 3D interfaces? Not before we get true VR-glasses/implants and a revolutionary input device. A flying mice? A bat?

"I know this. It's a UNIX-system" - indeed.

Re:Wild Predictions

[Erik K. Veland]

The only useful things we could do with a 2.5D interface is to create an illusion of 3d window-layering, ie stack windows in more layers than the two, old windows go the furthest back. But most of the things that could be done in 3d would be eye-candy. Spinning windows would look cool though. You must however realize that the current way of implementing Quartz Extreme is that the GPU only takes care of the compositing. The actual window-drawing is still handled by the CPU. But once a window, menubar, icon or desktop is drawn you can use QE to manipulate it in 3d the way you want.

Re:Wild Predictions

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't confuse linear perspective with 3D. As long as we have (effectively) flat monitors, we will be working with an inherently 2D UI. Aqua and other GUIs are already "3D" to some degree since they use occlusion and layering as organizational and/or feedback devices. Perspective's foreshortening effects might improve organization marginally but at a huge cost to feedback/clarity.

saw this yesterday

[paradesign]

what interested me the most was the absolute limitless posibility of enhancements, and hacks. mind you 3d can go from flat like QE and South Park(they use Alias|Wavefront software) to Quake 3. i wonder when OSX is going to show more of its 3d nature soon. like 3d modeled icons would be cool, and theyd animate when you clicked them, like the dock icons. or a screensaver that replaced the defailt lighting to two spotlights that dance around on your desktop, with real shadows.

theres plenty of good GLhackers out there, itll be interesting to se what they can do, mac kack 2003/4 will be prove interesting.

Re:saw this yesterday

[Anonymous Coward]

Spinning disco ball of death!

Re:saw this yesterday

[Anonymous Coward]

Spinning disco ball of death!

I love the way that people who have never used OS X pick up some crap posted by users who's systems are frilled and think everyone that uses OS X gets the beach ball!

There aint no SBOD, so just drop it all ready.

Re:Why don't you just get a REAL operating system.

[Anonymous Coward]

windows shindoes, Good for you game boy. i can live with macs performance if it means i dont have to support a criminal monopoly which cares nothing about the user, but rather, finding new ways to extends its monopoly. Game consoles are future of gaming anyway, even M$ knows this.

so, if i want to compute, get work done in environment which WORKS, ill use a mac thank you very much. enjoy your windows machine.

Why don't you just get a REAL operating system...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and get some real work done for a change?

Windows, Office and Visual Studio let me do everything that any normal person would want to do.

And just because you are forced to buy your hardware and software from some madman, does not mean that the rest of us are. I chose Microsoft products because of their performance, stability and reasonable prices!

Re:Why don't you just get a REAL operating system.

[Anonymous Coward]

i have office for mac on my machine LOL, and i also ahve every app a real person needs to get done, as well as work by a graphic designer. And i am noty forced to but apple hardware, i wouldnt want to use anything else.

how many viruses have you had on your stable platform? i have had 1 in 12 years. and its a relief to knwo that some punk kid wont fuck up my work flow. cya!

IBM DreamSpace

[Anonymous Coward]

"Put That There" was actually the original MIT Media Lab project into graphical interfaces, there's a picture of it in the old "Media Lab" book by Stewart Brand.

IBM's DreamSpace project (http://www.research.ibm.com/natural/dreamspace/) is almost exactly what you are talking about. It was demoed at several COMDEX shows as a whiz-bang application, you could use gestures and natural language to tell the computer what to do - "make that bigger, make it *this* big, move it over there, now rotate it this way."

It is now part of their larger LifeNet project for human interaction research.

It was, and is, developed by Dr. Mark Lucente.

Re:Why don't you just get a REAL operating system.

[Anonymous Coward]

Friends don't let friends feed trolls.

Re:Why don't you just get a REAL operating system.

[Anonymous Coward]

oh, one more thing, i have NEVER had to download a driver for ANYTHING to get it to work, nor had any problems with any devices. i really mean never, ever anywhere using apple products. can you even dream of saying the same?

also, saying apple will never be as good a pc in gaming is kind of stretch, you dont know the future of mac hardware and OS. your just have an ax to grind, why else would you be posting your shit in a discussion you obviously have no real interest in? It would be sad day for me if i spent my time trolling MS articles.

Re:Why don't you just get a REAL operating system.

[Anonymous Coward]

heh heh im still laughing at the stability thing... now thats funny... (old m$ user, new mac user)...

It's very nice

[zephc]

"Hi. I'm Steve Jobs, and here at Apple we've done in 1 year or less what the Berlin Group has been trying to do for years now."

Re:It's very nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Two problems... one no one uses it... two its more gnu crap.

Re:Why don't you just get a REAL operating system.

[bender183]

actually i use linux, and btw what do you call macs early attempt at world domination. I hate ms, but ms got done what mac only attempted to do.

OpenGL is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

Their share sprice is now a mere 23 cents.
They are in danger of being delisted, and so, follow the lead of Apple.

Re:OpenGL is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

Man oh man step back from that rock in your crack pipe... go outside and get some fresh air... then find a nice dumpster and take a nap.

Why don't you just get a REAL operating system...

[Anonymous Coward]

...that has updated device drivers once-in-a-while?

I bet Apple would charge for device driver updates if they could. Fortunately they can't because they don't update the drivers for their hardware!!!

Re:Why don't you just use a REAL operating system.

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows' support for OpenGL is excellent!!!

You mean Direct3D dont you? MS loves to change stuff around and make it their own.

There aint nothing in windows that's excellent.

Re:Why don't you just get a REAL operating system.

[DavidRavenMoon]

I chose Microsoft products because of their performance, stability and reasonable prices!

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Let's see, reasonable prices... $299 for XP Pro Vs. $129 for Mac OS X.

Stability? Ha ha ha ha ha! Yeah, ok.

Multimedia Answers: Macintosh poses fewer problems than Windows

"If you are looking for a new computer and are open to a superior ownership and computing experience, look at an Apple before you buy," states Don Lindich of the Post-Gazette. The "Switch" campaign struck a chord because "with a Mac, programs and peripherals install without fuss, and there are no more missing .dll files, hardware or software conflicts, system slowdowns or surprise crashes. The last time I was forced to reboot my Macintosh was eight months ago, and it was my fault that it crashed."

"When I use a Windows machine, I have to reboot two or three times a day. Though Macs are the computer of choice of most creative professionals in the art, advertising, music, movie and publishing worlds, it seems to me that home users need them the most."

"Not only do Macs really work, they are effortlessly intuitive and fun to use. Switching to Macintosh, I traded Windows' 'Blue Screen of Death' for the Mac OS X (OS 10) 'Blue Screen of Life,' as I like to call it."

Why don't you just come out and say there's more software for you to pirate! Be honest now.

Re:Why don't you just get a REAL operating system.

[Anonymous Coward]

oh yeah, lets not forget nearly $500 for Office. M$ monoply sure has opened the market for resonable pricing & free market competition in those areas that Office blankets like a wet towel on a fire.

Re:Why don't you just get a REAL operating system.

[Anonymous Coward]

i seriously doubt thats what the Woz had in mind when he invented the Apple 1 or 2 and concept of personal computing. But think what you will.

Re:Why don't you just get a REAL operating system.

[Anonymous Coward]

the tools to make Doom 3 were created on OS X. not bad for a "obsolele OS" eh kid?

this just in:

Graeme Devine of idsoftware.com http://www.webdog.org/plans/279/ updated his plan yesterday with reports of Doom (presumably 3):

Hey.

We will be releasing the Macintosh Quake 3 client hand in hand with the Win32 / Linux clients. We'll also require Mac OS X 10.1 or later for this release.

DOOM is up and running under 10.2, which as an OS is really quite cool (speed is much better than 10.1, although resizing a browser window is still painful).

Re:Why don't you just get a REAL operating system.

[Perdo]

Since $1600 worth of mac hardware will be outperformed on any given application by $800 worth of x86 hardware, You are paying $800 for the privlage of using OS X.

The problem scales badly too. The top end Dual G4 get's it's clock cleaned by $1500 worth of commodity x86 hardware. So on the high end, you end up paying a $2000 Apple$oft tax for OS X.

As long as you keep slobbering after each new shiny mac, reguardless of how outdated the hardware is, Jobs will continue to sell you crap and charge you extra for the "privlage".

For the good of apple, there needs to be a groundswell of dissent among the apple loyalists. When apple's fanatic user base stops shining Jobs' knob, he will decide to put some hardware reaserch and developement dollars into something besides a circuit to give the white LED power indicator 300 levels of fade.

Or you can predict apple's demise as their hardware becomes 3 years obsolete then 4. At this rate, in 5 years there will be a better processor in your microwave than in your computer.

Re:Why don't you just get a REAL operating system.

[hype7]

Since $1600 worth of mac hardware will be outperformed on any given application by $800 worth of x86 hardware, You are paying $800 for the privlage of using OS X.

The problem scales badly too. The top end Dual G4 get's it's clock cleaned by $1500 worth of commodity x86 hardware. So on the high end, you end up paying a $2000 Apple$oft tax for OS X.

As long as you keep slobbering after each new shiny mac, reguardless of how outdated the hardware is, Jobs will continue to sell you crap and charge you extra for the "privlage".

What I want to know is if you have such a powerful machine, how coming it doesn't have a damn spellchecker?

There will always be people like you out there that just don't get it. You think that BMWs, Mercs and Audis are overpriced, because you can buy a Chrysler Neon and drop two stinking big turbos into it and "have a better car".

Go read that quoted journalist above - or take a look at ANY research on total cost of ownership. You pay more at first, but the machine is much cheaper and much easier to maintain.

My friend just spent 3 days at work trying to fix a Win2k a box he didn't want to have to format because it had certain server functions that he didn't want to have to replicate. Why? Because he needed to install a modem in it, and Win2k didn't want to play.

You save your $x up front. You pay later in time troubleshooting, grey hair and stress. Personally, I'd rather pay a little more up front and get a computer that works as advertised.

For the good of apple, there needs to be a groundswell of dissent among the apple loyalists. When apple's fanatic user base stops shining Jobs' knob, he will decide to put some hardware reaserch and developement dollars into something besides a circuit to give the white LED power indicator 300 levels of fade.

like the rest of your article, you're speaking out of your ass. http://money.cnn.com/2002/07/31/pf/investing/q_tec hsurvivors/index.htm: "Apple spent about 7.5 percent of its revenue in the last quarter on research and development, a higher percentage than Dell, Gateway, and Hewlett-Packard."

Or you can predict apple's demise as their hardware becomes 3 years obsolete then 4. At this rate, in 5 years there will be a better processor in your microwave than in your computer.

uh huh.

That CNN article above called Apple a "Tech Survivor", or http://int.multexinvestor.com/Analysts/ArticleTIA. asp?target=/stocks/tia/stockfeatures&ForumID=39&Do cID=9931&nd=0801:For the growth crowd, there's well, growth. Wall Street is still not sure how earnings will ramp in the coming years (the company is always tight-lipped about product plans). But this company has been counted out several times before, only to make a Phoenix-like rebound. Merrill Lynch's Steve Fortuna expects a new round of hot products to appear in time for the holidays. At that point, the Apple story "should get more interesting" he notes.

There's a good chance that the stock will start trading back up in coming months as investors anticipate Apple's next wave of products. And the current entry point, right above cash, looks mighty enticing.

You either don't understand, or you're trolling. Either way, go post your FUD somewhere else.

-- james

Next mouse?

[mailseth]

I think that the best canadate for the next mouse is a optical system that can detect where you are looking. Like those cameras that you see advertised. Ideas?

Re:Why don't you just get a REAL operating system.

[DavidRavenMoon]

Since $1600 worth of mac hardware will be outperformed on any given application by $800 worth of x86 hardware, You are paying $800 for the privlage [privilege] of using OS X.

No it wont, that's just you saying it, and you don't count for much.

The problem scales badly too.

Poorly, not badly. Remember, Mac users are more intelligent! ;)

The top end Dual G4 get's [gets] it's clock cleaned by $1500 worth of commodity x86 hardware. So on the high end, you end up paying a $2000 Apple$oft tax for OS X.

Whatever.

Apple's dual 1GHz Xserve was a top performer among dual-CPU machines in recent Xinet benchmarks, edging Dell's dual 1.4GHz PowerEdge 1650 Server in tests. The Xserve, along with other competing servers from companies such as SGI and Sun, were tested in both "Output Generation" and "Photoshop Open" tests.

And you still have to use a poor excuse for an OS.

As long as you keep slobbering after each new shiny mac, reguardless [regardless] of how outdated the hardware is, Jobs will continue to sell you crap and charge you extra for the "privlage".[privilege]

As I said yesterday, I don't have to have each shiny new Mac, unlike you, who has to make up for your personality disorder by running out and buying the latest PC hardware, because it becomes obsolete in three weeks. ;) Also, I can afford Apple hardware, so I'm not too worried about it.

For the good of apple, there needs to be a groundswell of dissent among the apple loyalists. When apple's fanatic user base stops shining Jobs' knob, he will decide to put some hardware reaserch and developement [research and development] dollars into something besides a circuit to give the white LED power indicator 300 levels of fade.

Name a PC maker that spends as much as Apple does on R&D. I'll wait.

Apple is a tech survivor Wendell Perkins, manager of the JohnsonFamily mutual funds, says that Apple is a tech survivor along with Oracle and Microsoft, according to CNN/Money: "though Apple has been struggling lately (it issued an earnings warning earlier this month), Perkins thinks that the stock is worth a look because it is the only innovative company in the personal computer sector. Apple spent about 7.5 percent of its revenue in the last quarter on research and development, a higher percentage than Dell, Gateway, and Hewlett-Packard."

Or you can predict apple's demise as their hardware becomes 3 years obsolete then 4. At this rate, in 5 years there will be a better processor in your microwave than in your computer.

Unlike companies such as Dell and Gateway, who only have commodity hardware to sell, Apple is not just about their hardware. People purchase Macs because it's a system, and will keep purchasing them regardless. You can spend $16k on a Sun running at 800MHz... I don't hear you saying Sun is going out of business. The demise of Apple has been predicted by much smarter than the likes of you since the 1980's!

Yawn!! Why don't you do some R&D on spelling and grammar!

Re:Why don't you just get a REAL operating system.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple updates the firmware... oh yea get a real life... let people use the computer they want to use... the hardware they what and the OS they want.

Otherwise the next thing you will tell me is I should get Ford... I like my GM car just fine thank you.

That's nice, but

[iggie]

Where's Java3D? Where's a steenking measely VRML viewer for OS X? Before you say Cortona, try using it with something other than IE. I would much rather off-load VRML to a stand-alone viewer than rely on a Microsoft-only solution. The OpenGL integration is great, and I'm definitely looking forward to using it on my TiBook, but I really wish more attention was paid to supporting those other existing technologies.

Re:Why don't you just get a REAL operating system.

[thatguywhoiam]

Since $1600 worth of mac hardware will be outperformed on any given application by $800 worth of x86 hardware, You are paying $800 for the privlage of using OS X.

Even if that were actually true, what is it that makes you relate processor performance to application performance, or any of the other hardware in the system? Not to mention, your performance?

Frankly, maybe I would pay double for a system that doesn't jerk me off, so to speak.

As long as you keep slobbering after each new shiny mac, reguardless of how outdated the hardware is, Jobs will continue to sell you crap and charge you extra for the "privlage".

See above point. Check your definition of 'outdated'.

For the good of apple, there needs to be a groundswell of dissent among the apple loyalists. When apple's fanatic user base stops shining Jobs' knob, he will decide to put some hardware reaserch and developement dollars into something besides a circuit to give the white LED power indicator 300 levels of fade.

Do you really think it took... never mind.

Re:Why don't you just get a REAL operating system.

[Perdo]

Yes, they spent $1,000,000 giving the power LED 300 levels of fade while sleeping. Have you never been to Macworld? Jobs was so proud of that stupid LED while the G4 introduced was not any faster than the old 733 w/512k of cache. In fact, the only G4 faster than the 733/512 is the 1Ghz/256. Talk about really knowing how to shoot yourself in the foot.