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Mac OS X 10.2 "Jaguar" Reviews Pour In
hype7 writes "The reviews on Apple's new Mac OS X 10.2 "Jaguar" are starting to come through. The New York Times (free reg required) heaps on the praise: 'Mac OS X 10.2 is the best-looking, least-intrusive and most thoughtfully designed operating system walking the earth today.' MacCentral is positive: 'From what I've seen Jaguar is leaps and bounds ahead of Mac OS X 10.1 in both speed and functionality.' MacWorld has also chimed in: 'for most users, there are a lot of important improvements in this upgrade: performance boosts, improved printing, and interface enhancements will be immediate benefits. And over time, Mac OS X 10.2's new technologies (including Quartz Extreme and Rendezvous) will make the update even more valuable.'"
Gotta watch those quotation marks!
If you're worried about losing control of your OS, please take a nice long look at Microsoft, a company that sells very little hardware (and outsources every piece of hardware it does sell, including the X-Box) but is one of the richest and most successful companies in the history of mankind, based solely on OS sales.
Yeah, based on OS sales to hardware makers. If Apple can figure out how to get OSX pre-installed on PC hardware, they'd be rich. They'd be Microsoft in fact, since that's all Microsoft had before they got where they are now.
For now, if Apple makes the OS run on x86 hardware, they don't gain much. In fact they might lose some hardware sales.
RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!! The Macs have become self-aware and created legs to run around and reak havok!
You're thinking of Apple's Mac OS X Family Pack, which lets you install it on up to 5 Macs in one household for $199. I think it's great for people who want to be legal and have more than one Mac at home.
I can't figure out how to post a direct URL (the Apple Store doesn't like deep linking) but here's how to get there:
Mac OS 10 is showing us how a good operating system is designed. That's useful so that Windows users can compare and understand better what they are getting.
...What no one is mentioning is that yes the OS is amazing (worth the high price of a Mac IMO) but the Dev tools are simply fantastic. If your a pro you get all these amazing dev tools for free and if your a beginner now you have a reason to start.
The Cocoa framework is, once you understand it, the easiest, most powerful framework there is. You can make amazing, truely object oriented programs with a full GUI in no time t all. Objective C is a great language and the fact you CAN use all your C/C++ code in your programs and integrate things adds to the functionality.
There is an object called NSTask that allows you, the programmer in code, access and use the function of ANY command line tool in your program. Who else offers something like this?
I really suggest to all developers to take a good look at developing for this computer. It's fun, effeciant and powerful. Not to mention free and of course you have all your favorite command line tools, compilers etc. In fact, every program compiled with the free compiler is GCC.
It's simply, great.
Native Java also =)
"Allez Cusine!"
I'm starting to dread when Apple news makes the slashdot front page. That is when 3/4 of the discussion tends to be about multi-button mice, "proprietary hardware" and how we don't want to pay for it, stuipid misunderstsandings about the OS, and on and on and on.
I almost prefer the apple.slashdot.org ghetto that we're usually relegated to. At least there it's about 3/4 people who actually understand something about the platform and don't need to bring the discussion back to "why I don't like this platform" no matter what the original story is.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
Now, having gotten that out of the way. OS 10.2 is nice. Speed improvement is striking. Not in the way that, "it should have been that fast in the first place", it's more in the way of the first time I installed BeOS on a computer to see it in comparision to WinME.
Networking is definitely faster. I haven't benched anything yet, but I can say if you have a fast line, you will see your web browser of choice speed up considerably.
The "disconnect from Network bug" is still there. Connect to a SMB, AppleTalk, or DAV volume and pull your network cord (or turn off the machine exporting the drive) and you will get the spinning wheel of death.
Video Performance is spooky, even on an origional G4 tower. You really have to see it to understand.
iChat is next to useless, but the auto discovery of other clients is nice.
SMB export was a pain in the ass. You have to enable it on a user by user basis, which wasn't obvious, in the Accounts preference pane. Then after it's enabled for a user, you have change their password. Since the GUI client changes both the Samba password and Unix password for the user, at the same time, the users CANNOT just change their password on the command line. This also raises fears that the Samba passwords are stored in cleartext on the harddrive. I suspect, this is not the case, but haven't look yet. There is no convient way to set the SMB workgroup in the GUI
XDarwin needed to be repaired (which is available at the X on X site and seemingly not part of what Fink compiles) to work. This was annoying.
The firewall has Gnutella as an option to allow.
My SCSI CD Burner stopped working. I suspect the old SCSI bug is back for the time being.
Some other shit I foget....
Burn Hollywood Burn
Actually, I would consider the proprietary hardware to be one of their advantages.
Having a standard platform to work with may be why Apple's work is so impressive. With like hardware across the field to work with, OS X software developers don't have to worry about hardware driver interaction issues nearly as much as on a x86 platform.
It's also an obvious advantage in stability areas, where Windows is so completely flawed...since it has to be compatible with such a wide range of hardware.
As much as I'd love to see OS X for x86, I don't it will ever happen. Apple likes having complete control over their products so they can produce the best products. With a few exceptions, Apple arguably releases the highest quality and designed products in the computer industry, and I think that's a real advantage for them.
-brain
My iBook was actually the cheapest notebook available with all of the features I wanted. iBook: $1,800. Closest x86 alternative (Sony Vaio): $2300. And considering all of the features, the iMacs are very fairly priced.
Bear in mind that there are other things beside CPU speed, especially with laptops. I wanted a 32MB Radeon 7500, when most x86 laptops have 8MB GeForce2 MXs or ATI Rages. I also wanted to be able to plug the thing into any TV without a converter. My iBook does that with a $19 connector; the x86 ones I looked at need a $100 VGA-to-TV converter.
If you're stuck on meaningless numbers (like, oh, I dunno, clock speed) then sure, it looks like a raw deal. But when you look at it from a feature and usability standpoint Apple computers blow away the competition.
I'll bite.
Yes, I know this subject has been beaten into the ground ad-infinitum, but it still needs to be said once again: DUMP THE PROPRIETARY HARDWARE.
Apple uses off-the-shelf hard drives, optical drives, RAM, and graphics cards. The only proprietary pieces of hardware are their motherboards and cases.
Apple is selling hardware that is half the speed at 2 to 4 times the price of Intel hardware. Yes, apparently there are enough hard-core fanatics to keep the company alive, but why be satisfied with that? Why sit arrogantly back and just preach to those people?
Half the speed, only if you count Megahertz. Mac OS X comes with lots of software which runs faster than any comparable software in the Intel world, such as their G4-optimized MP3 encoder, which can encode high-quality 160kpbs MP3s at 10x real-time on a 733 MHz G4, directly from a CD. Your P4 may be running at 2+ GHz, but since there are currently no MP3 encoders that are optimized for the P4 architecture, your MP3 encoder is slower. Also, Mac OS X takes advantage of your graphics card for all of its drawing now - something that neither Windows or Linux does. This frees up the Mac's poor MHz-starved processors to do other things.
2 to 4 times the price? What are you smoking? The only way you can get a PC for half the price of a similarly-equipped Mac is by using dirt-cheap components that only work half the time. If you want poor-quality or mediocre hardware, you can get a cheaper PC. If you really want good hardware, a Mac is usually priced about the same, or maybe 10-20% more. (Mac laptops are often a better deal than similarly equipped PC laptops; desktop Macs are usually 10-20% more expensive.)
Yes, I know that Apple is traditionally a hardware company. So what? Being a software company hasn't exactly hurt Microsoft. Software is HUGELY more profitable than hardware.
Ha! Apple has at least twice the profit margins as Dell. They make plenty of money on hardware.
Unfortunately, as long as Microsoft has all of the major computer manufacturers in their back pocket, all major brand-name PCs will come with Windows preinstalled. Nobody has a chance of competing with that.
And besides, what's stopping them from "doing Intel right" and coming out with their own line of expensive hardware? Oh, no one will buy it because it will be so much more expensive? Well, some fanatics will continue to buy it, and meanwhile they continue to make huge $$$ on the software.
The main problem with Mac OS X running on ALL Intel hardware is drivers. Unless you're going to talk all peripheral manufacturers into writing Mac OS X drivers, there'd be no point.
As much as I despise Apple-the-company, I would LOVE to have a real competitor to Microsoft on the desktop, particularly one that was Unix based.
If you're unwilling to buy Apple's hardware, you'd better put your money behind your favorite Linux distro, then. Apple makes a great hardware/software combination and they have no reason to start running on PCs.
I really wish Steve would pull his head out of his ass and stop being satisfied being a boutique.
Yeah, wouldn't it be cool if Apple started advertising to Windows users, letting them know how Mac OS X is fast, stable, practical, and "just works"? Oh wait...
2) Universal Access -- So what if you got all your eyeballs, ears and arms, doesn't mean you can't take advantage of the amazing Universal Access controls in Mac OS X. Apple's Text to Speech technology rules. Now my Mac talks to me when certain events occur, "Mutha Fucka! E-Mail Server Down!", "Some asshole is NMAPn' me!!!". I can also hilight text and have the Mac read it to me with a simple keystroke.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
So why doesn't Linux and Windows have this sort of feature? I would love to see Gnome or KDE rendering everything using my GPU, so that my CPU could do something more interesting.
I believe the point is that people who upgrade from other versions of Mac OS X (which is not the entire user base) should get a discount. People, then, who have Mac OS 9 should pay full price.
I disagree, but that's the statement.
This makes absolutely NO sense whatsover!!
Actually, it does make sense. If the cost of an upgrade doesn't vary whether you keep up-to-date or not, then there is no financial incentive to keep up-to-date. In other words, if 10.3 is going to cost me the same price whether I own 10.2 or not, why don't I just save myself some money and wait a year or so for 10.3? Whereas, if I get a discount for 10.3 by buying 10.2, then I have a reason to keep current.
-Joe
But I'm thinking you've already made up your mind.
...now that they got rid of their OS which was awful (for what I needed), and are now OpenBSD, I'm more likely to switch.
Ummm, it's FreeBSD. There's a difference.
I have seen it, and it is really just window dressing as far as I'm concerned. I have heard that the command line stuff is slower now...
Hmmm. Well, it's just window dressing wrapped around a Mach kernel. It has native (I said NATIVE) open technologies, like Java, OpenGL, and the Cocoa API. And for what it's worth, I will stack Apple's API's, written in Objective-C, against Win32 or MFC any day of the week. But then, you've already made up your mind. I'm sure you think that Objective-C is a complete waste of time, but I see the best of C++, Smalltalk, Lisp, and Java in Objective-C. It's beautiful to use. If you have to look up the word "erudite" in the dictionary, you probably don't know what I mean. As far as the command utils being slower, I have been running a developer seed of Jaguar for over a month, and it compares very nicely to earlier versions of OS X. I haven't noticed a slowdown.
Things I care about are price to performance ratio. Ease of programming (tools available - need mySQL, php, Perl, Java, C/C++, etc). Cost of maintenance (software and hardware upgrades), etc etc.
Apple's stuff is hard to steal. So, you're gonna have to pay $129 for an OS. You will need a machine to run it on. You can get an iMac for $800. So, for around $1000, you get a list of features longer than your arm. You get a development tools CD that comes with everything you need for serious development. Java 1.3.1 is pre-installed. The gcc compiler is pre-installed. OS X loves perl. Apache 1.3.1 is pre-installed. Tomcat is a simple download. I develop cross-platform applications for x86, Moto, and SPARC. And I'll even agree with you that programming for the "classic" MacOS was pretty painful. I love OS X, because it is the most efficient development platform that I own, and I'm pretty sure I've tried them all. (I must admit, I do love many things about Visual Studio).
As far as upgrades go, on a G3/G4 tower, just pop the hatch and install your RAID. I did a toolless install of a 512GB RAID two weeks ago. It took ten minutes, literally. The most recent machines use DDR ram, Ultra-ATA drives, AGP4x, PCI. What upgrades do you want?? It comes with gigabit ethernet. It comes with a very nice video card, and many of the towers come "dual-head-ready."
Oh, one more thing. The reason that sliced bread is great is because it's convenient. Someone did the annoying cutting for me. The result is a product that contains less waste and saves me time. Speaking of time, I'm so convinced that you don't care, that I'm not going to waste any more.
I don't really buy this argument, which I have heard over and over again every time Mac OS X is brought up.
Let's think about Linux for a minute: very, very little "vendor" driver support, and yet 90% of PC hardware works flawlessly under Linux. Certainly a Linux distribution vendor, like Red Hat, could never afford to produce solid drivers for all of the hardware out there, but they don't have to; the community does it for them.
If Apple could open source their kernel driver API (maybe they have already? I don't know, I don't really follow Mac OS X), and found that enough hackers out there were enthusiastic about Mac OS X and wanted to get their hardware working with it, then it is highly likely that Apple would find itself in the same position as Linux - solid support for 90% of the hardware out there.
Apple could even do some kind of "certifying" of hardware and independent drivers, which would involve testing the hardware and inspecting the drivers to ensure that they work well. The end user could then feel confident that as long as they buy Apple certified hardware, they will achieve the same level of reliability that Apple has historically been known for (as you suggest, once again I am not an expert on Macs).
All of the reasons that keep being presented for Apple's locking of its OS to one proprietary hardware platform really just fall flat. Some people have suggested that Apple makes their money from hardware, not software, and so porting their OS would be shooting themselves in the foot. And yet, Microsoft has become one of the richest companies in the world due in large part to their OS sales; they sell very little hardware. Other people suggest that Apple must retain control of the hardware to be able to ensure reliability. And yet Linux is one of the most reliable operating systems out there and 99% of the hardware that people use under Linux use drivers that were produced freely by the community.
I think that porting Mac OS X to the x86 platform would be a major boon to Apple; it would reduce their reliance on a small set of hardware manufacturers (for the CPU, at least), and it would allow many people who are on the fence because they either don't want to switch to a proprietary hardware platform, or don't want to buy entirely new hardware just to use Mac OS X, to give OS X a try.
I for one would buy Mac OS X for x86 in a heardbeat. The only thing that has kept me from using OS X is the hardware issue. I intend to remedy that when my 4 year old x86 laptop, still going strong, dies on me. But I could be enjoying Mac OS X already if Apple would just see the light on this issue.
Win XP doesn't crash. However, it does begin getting quirky. Sometimes, with many windows open, it will take 5 seconds to respond to a keystroke. Sometimes, it will stop responding to mouse clicks, or be very slow. It doesn't exactly crash, but it is necessary to reboot to get full functionality back again.