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When Is There a Good Time to "Switch" to Apple?
AllNines asks: "With all the hype of MacWorld and the compelling keynote given by Steve Jobs about the upcoming Tiger and Spotlight, I am thinking about 'switching' (Linux user since '97) but I am not sure the time is right. It seems like the PowerBooks are getting very long in the tooth and the iPods are due for a major rev. When is the right time to jump on the Apple ship? Am I going to get burned by a sluggish overpriced laptop that is updated next month?"
http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/
I had a similar problem a while back - I jumped in and bought my 12" PB just before they speed-bumped it.
To be honest, it hasn't made too much difference, it's still far and away the best laptop I've ever used. Just get enough RAM!!
The thing is really, there isn't ever a 'best' time to buy anything like this. Look at the PC market - we have new motherboards, cpu's etc. coming out all the time.
At least with Apple its fairly regular that they do major updates, usually at MacWorld time!
I think the best time will be very soon. Wait till they release Tiger, and start shipping it on the Minis (or just get one and pay for the upgrade).
The Mini is the cheapest Mac available, and you can re-use all your old monitor/mouse/keyboard etc. Hell, even if you dont like it as a proper desktop, there's still the media-centre/server thing everyone seems keen to turn these babies into.....
The best time to buy Apple hardware is a week after they introduce new equipment... That gives you the longest time between your purchase and the replacement coming out. The week gives you time to check the early adopter's trouble reports too :) Always check the rumour sites, or you'll do as a friend of mine did, and buy a 30GB iPod a week before the 40GB appeared for the same price.
Friends of mine who bought the first model of any product line (G3 towers, Powerbooks, etc) find they get all the teething problems associated with a new release, so if you can, wait for the second revision of anything.
So if you want a Powerbook, check the rumour sites - they are all estimating Q2 shipping. This would suggest a revision anything up to 6 months later (usually just a speed bump, but they tend to iron out the wrinkles too).
If you can't wait that long, buy one now - they're still great machines, even if they're superceded next week!
Following this advice I got a 30GB iPod when it was new (the 2nd rev of the 3G series) and the 17" 1GHz iMac (first of the widescreen ones, but not the first flatscreen), both of which have never given me a day's trouble.
Mark
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It's not that easy to answer. Generally, the only way to have any idea of when Apple will be releasing new hardware is by following the rumour sites (Thinksecret, Appleinsider etc) and using large pinches of salt. Of those, Thinksecret, the one with the best record on accuracy, is being sued by Apple, so the chances of their being "in the know", in future are slim.
The register is no good as they make all sorts of wild claims which almost never come true.
Usually Apple releases new hard- and software on two regular occasions: Macworld (just past, this january) and the Mac developer conference, in the middle of the year. Buying a new Mac just before then is usually not the best of ideas.
The only way to do this, if you're seriously interested in wasting a lot of time, is to spend time on the Appleinsider forums, noting occasional leaks before Apple C and D's them, and keeping up with current industry trends.
That means, at present: The chances of an Apple G5 Powerbook being released soon are very slim, as far as I can see. The chances that Apple will first release upgraded G4 Powerbooks with the new Motorola G4 and "Freescale" processors is much higher, since those would take the G4 above 1,5GHz.
If you have the patience, wait until the developers conference is over in the middle of the year. I'm sure Apple will have announced something by then.
...that a laptop becomes sluggish the very moment the next revision comes out ? I didn't know about that, and my 3 year old iBook doesn't know either.
As usual when you want to buy a computer (or quite anything technology-related), you have to know what you need, and jump and buy it... Of course it will become outdated shortly, but do you really need the new one ?
Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function.
My iMac G5 arrived yesterday. I haven't had much time to play around with it but so far i'm very impressed with it. OS X is a bit weird at first, but after a short while you'll feel very comfortable with it.
You're probably gonna get a lot of "wait for the new product announcements" or "wait for Tiger" comments, but seriously, why should you wait? New products might be announced next week... maybe the week after that, maybe the month after that, hell you might end up waiting until June. Or you could just buy one now, and you'll be sure that whatever you buy will most likely still run the latest versions of OS X and other software in 4 years time.
Ease of use: The OS is very stable, as stable as anything in the Linux world. The apps are generally of better quality than stuff found in the Linux world, although you can use those on OSX as well. The GUI and applications all use the same user interface, which means that you don't have wildly differing interfaces such as is the case of GTK+ and KDE apps. (Think GIMP and OpenOffice and tell me why most apps don't even follow the GNOME HCI guidlines).
The OS is incredibly easy to configure compared to the various competing KDE/Gnome distros (which is exactly the problem there). And if you need the terminal and wish to do stuff by hand, it's there, and you're free to do what you like with the system's innnards as it's OSS and well documented.
The OS, apps and hardware are tightly integrated, which means that problems like hardware compatibility don't exist.
The software and hardware are both of high quality, which really means something if you've used Dell or no name brands.
It goes way byond things like Eye Candy, which says to me that you've never actually used the OS for a period of time yourself.
I have been a UNIX user since 1990, Linux since 1994 and I got my first Mac just over a year ago when the G4 iBook appeared. The main reason I bought the Mac is that I use my laptop for almost everything I do, it is my portable office, and I decided to give Apple a chance after my third Intel based laptop in as many years keeled over.
:-)
I always ran Linux on my laptops and with a bit of care an x86 laptop for Linux is a great tool but to get the best compatiblity I couldn't really go for the budget machines and ended up spending £1500 last time on a Toshiba. It was dead after a year. The surface finish (silver paint) rubbed off and scratched, the case cracked and chipped, the battery stopped holding any charge (just after the guarantee ran out) and the backlight died. The Mac was £500 less, and with OS X, the OS it was designed for, it is more than powerful enough.
Learning to use OS X has taken a bit of time but I have made a decision that my next desktop machine will also be a Mac because I love the UNIX base, the interface, the fact I can use X11 apps too. I also like having the menu bar at the top and also like the dock. Some others in the Mac community laugh at me because I do my development using vi in an xterm but what they hey, it works for me! At least I have syntax colouring turned on
The hardware is well made, it has already outlasted my last three x86 laptops and shows no signs of failing. It doesn't run hot, the battery life is excellent, the performance is also good. Having played with the new iMac G5 I can't say I notice it being blazingly faster than my 933Mhz G4 so I think the desire to jump into a G5 laptop is misplaced, the G4 is still a pretty good chip and excellent for mobile applications. Sticking a G5 in is going to increase the heat output, shorten battery life and probably not really increase performance all that much. Just get a lot of RAM for the Mac, I have 640MB in mine and that makes it a very smooth experience.
Would I run Linux on my Mac? Possibly, but to be honest I like OS X, I like the fact that most open source software is also available for the Mac. Sometimes I choose to use the Mac native app, other times I use open source. I like NeoOffice but have MS Office X too. When NeoOffice becomes fully aqua (widgets and all) then I will use it all the time. I certainly won't be buying another copy of MS Office, I'll just keep the one I have for compatiblity but do new docs in NeoOffice. Firefox is better than Safari. I tried using Safari but the slow page rendering annoyed me so I switched back. I have changed from Thunderbird to Apple Mail which I like a lot.
All in all, I think there is a lot to be said for the Mac. Does it mean I don't like Linux? No, I still have a Linux desktop (at least until my next machine) and I will keep Linux on my servers and continue to use open source apps on my Mac.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
I only had OSX crash on me when I trying to do stuff like SMB mount from the command line, but its fixed now. Every once and awhile AQUA will crash, I just ssh into the box and kill -9 the process and its back up.
The only time I reboot is for security patchs, but not all need to reboot.
We currently play WoW on it, and underneath I have irssi/squid/vnc running, with multiple ssh sessions.
Running a dual g4, great box, needs a new gfx card, but speed wise, its great. I'd have to say I miss my native vga font for terminals (im oldschool, i like perfect fixedfonts).. But a xwindows workaround is a vga.bdf and rxvt, even colors are correct then. (iTerm is ok, but not even close to putty or konsole)
I also have a gentoo box, a sparc sunblade 100, gentoo is rock solid on it now, still 2.4.x kernel, but very stable.
I'd say if you want a unix workstation, OSX is by far the best.
Biggest downside, home/end doesnt work on command lines in OSX, and other shortcuts, key combos. I wish they would let you pick or customize your settings.
If Apple were to introduce a Mini like diskless slim client, it would probably blow both Windows and Linux away. The diskless Mac "Metro" clients would connect via Gigabit ethernet to a Mac "Metro" Station, the latter performing the role of a raided iSCSI/Fileserver with an inbuilt network switch to directly connect each client.
Sample Mac "Metro" client specs:
Using the Mac Mini as a starting point
Ditch the DVD and Hard drives,
Make one to two Gigabtyes memory as standard,
Upgrade the 100/10 Mib network to 1Gig,
Boot using PXE,
Run all programs on the client in ram, using iSCSI read only access for a common system partition, and dedicated zones server side for each client for swap and read write disk space,
Cheap price, these diskless systems should be well under $100 US
Mac "Metro" "Station" specs:
Combination fileserver and high speed network switch,
Sell four, eight to forty eight ( plus one/two uplink ) port variants, each can support the same number of Metro clients that connect to their own dedicated port,
Raid array as standard, scaled to the number of clients supported,
Filesystem versioning ( Revision tracking and control ) as standard for all document directories and intergrity checking for all filesystems,
A DVD R/W ( or better ) drive for upgrade nd backups.
At a low/suitable per client price, such a system could blow Microsoft out of the business desktop market.
Sorry to butt in, but thought I'd throw in a couple cents:
There are a few virtual desktop managers for OS X (a few of which are free):
Basically did not want another XP system in the house. I spend too much time updating XP, zonealarm, adaware, spybot etc etc etc etc on the 3 existing PCs. Then checking no nasties have sneaked past. Simply did not want a forth system to hassle me.
I did consider a cheap laptop with Linux but the windows tax put me off. Also from playing with employers laptops and linux I know that not everything works - like power management - without tinkering. I know how to fix that kind of thing but did not want to have to, if that makes sense.
For my wife I wanted a simple appliance. Zero admin overhead. The iBook fitted the bill. All I can say is that it is fantastic. Its only the 12inch lowest spec (with a 60Gb drive.) Not even put extra memory in it yet. But its plenty fast enough for everyday use. Battery life is amazing. The iLife programs are a lot of fun. No registry. Whole apps are single files. Not files spewed all over the system. Mac OS has proper multi-user with fine user privilege controls. So no worries about the kids accidently resetting the wep key - even if they are using an admin account (it prompts to re-enter passwd.) Lots of interesting and useful features that are so easy to find. I felt at home with Mac OS immediately. I was pleasantly surprised to find there is no shortage of software out there - for example, I found a great DVD ripper within 5mins of looking. I love it. Now we fight over who gets to use the iBook! I did not expect to be even using it.
You're missing the point. A useful computer is not one with a stable OS or one with a GUI interface (computers have had those for ages, even back to Windows 3.1. Well, maybe not the stable OS bit.)
The main benefit of Mac OS X is the quality (and integration) of the applications. You can drag-and-drop any file onto any application, and (if it understands the format) it will open it. You can use any application's print command to get a PDF, which can be searched in the same preview window. Hell, in Tiger, you'll be able to look for a phrase anywhere in any document of the system. Want to know the signature of the Runtime.exec() method? Type in 'Runtime.exec()' in the spotlight bar, and it will bring up the JavaDocs and PDFs that have that phrase on your system.
All Cocoa apps have access to text-to-speech synthesis (thus; it's easy to use a remote phone to dial up and have it read your e-mail contents over the phone, which is very useful if you're a road warrior) via the built in services. You can open a URL in any application with a single keystroke, or send a file to a bluetooth device.
It syncs with your phone, your printer is discovered automatically, and if you've got a SlimServer running on your network it's already in your browser's bookmarks.
Oh, and you can get hardware that works. No, you don't have to google across multiple websites to find supported hardware, or see what the initialisation string you have to hard-code in a config file. You plug it in. It works.
Problem with your system booting up? Boot it and hold down Command+T, then plug another Mac box in with a firewire cable; you can browse the mac as a very large and expensive firewire disk.
And for those of you that love multi-button mice; yes, they work out of the box. No config file changes, no having to configure apps for each key combo. It just works.
As an operating system, Mac OS X and Linux are very similar; Unix was designed to be.
As a user experience, Macs Just Work.
iPods are only about 3 years old. They have had multiple generations already with different wheels, button configurations, and improvements. Why would they be in need of a MAJOR revision? Probably because in such a short amount of time they have achieved HUGE market penetration and its hard to image what life was like with those crappy pre-iPod mp3 players. What other product has had so much success in such a short amount of time? Perhaps sliced bread... Powerbooks are getting long in the tooth? Do you mean just the fact that they still use a G4 or the design? The current model of Powerbook was introduced 2 superbowls ago, IIRC, replacing the titanium models. Do you want a G5 laptop? Well you'll have to wait. Intel doesn't launch a new processor and have a laptop immediately available. Why should the expectations be different for Apple/IBM. Speaking of IBM, has the thinkpad design changed drastically at all over the past TEN years? Maybe a little lighter, but I would say that laptop is much longer in the tooth.
Now, how about the fact that you are considering migrating from linux and an MP3 player is one of your major deciding factors. Who deserves that credit? Would you be paining over a Creative 64MB rio mp3 player?
Apple has changed the way people consider their computers and accessories so much over the past 3-5 years, that sometimes people lose track of time and perspective. If you want to migrate to apple here is my advice. Do it today. If it doesn't go well, you can go back immediately. That way you won't lose another night sleep pondering what life would be like in OS X vs. KDE/GNOME (yes I know OS X runs X11, I use it.)
At least in terms of reliability, a multi RAID server + Gig ethernet setup is better than imaging drives across each client system. The Mac Mini has athe slower 2 1/2" Hard drives, I think that a common shared RAID array could deliver better performance as well.
I think someone's trying to dig up the FUD they read in 1998 and pass it off as informed opinion...let's take a look at some configuration settings for the network.
I'm afraid the lameness filter stopped me from posting a larger chunk of that file, but the DTD is given on the next line and you can indeed download the schema from Apple. Or perhaps we want to observe which nameservers we're using?
...and so on. Looks a little, well, plain-text (or at worst XML) to me. Not binary. Perhaps you're thinking of NetInfo, which has got very little to do with network settings but is instead a directory service for name information. That's stored in Berkely DB format; yes it's binary but it's hardly the world's least-understood format.
Works for me^{TM} on a production network involving OS X, Linux, NeXT, OpenBSD and Slowlaris. One of the OS X servers is serving a filesystem as is the Solaris box. No problems on the Mac side; the Sun's rpc.rquotad is a bit broken so remote quotaing on the Sun machine isn't good. I expect the problem you're observing is related to using a Linux machine as an NFS server. Linux' support for NFS is not very good and never has been very good; if you're creating network mounts on a Linux machine that need to be read on anything else then you should be using Samba. Linux NFS just isn't good enough.
I work with X11 all the time (on Macs and Solaris mainly), and other admins I work with are Linux/Solaris admins; I showed them some X11 action and we all agreed it looked no different from the rendering under XFree86 on Linux. In fact, that's unsurprising, as it's the same XFree86 code as many Linux distributions; the difference is that because Darwin has IOKit and Linux hasn't, you don't need to write an XF86Config-4 on OS X. Nor, indeed, on Darwin/x86.
A note to fellow moderators: marking something as 'insightful' just because it regurgitates known FUD is wrong. Try at least a small attempt to verify the truth in the statements made before deciding whether they contain any insight. A further note, the parent post did not contain any insight, just old and tired dogma.
When is the right time to jump on the Apple ship?
In general, the time to switch platforms in any direction is when you've finally got everything running smoothly on your current platform of choice after some major disaster. I'm sure that seems illogical at first, but it stems from the fact that you do not want to switch when you're in the middle of an emergency. If things have always been smooth, there's no need to switch at all. If things are becoming a reoccurring mess, resolve to switch, but then still clean up the current mess! It'll make the switch that much easier when you're not trying to transition all the mission critical stuff a once.
Am I going to get burned by a sluggish overpriced laptop that is updated next month?
Only if you're a fucking idiot. If you think a Mac is sluggish today, why the hell would you buy it? It doesn't matter if a vendor is updating their systems next week or next year. Either what they're offering today meets your needs or it doesn't, and if it doesn't and you still buy it, then you should probably be fired (or beaten by friends and family). The march of technology still guarantees any purchase you make is an expense, not an investment. Stop pretending you can wait to "buy low" because you will never, ever be able to "sell high".
Careful with that.
/etc/ files directly) can lead to inconsistent results.
Because Mac OS X uses the netinfo database for a lot of config data, doing things like ifconfig by hand (even modifying the
Use system preferences and the net info manager wherever possible. There are command line variants for most of them, but they aren't well documented.
I'm not saying don't use ifconfig - just be sure you know what you're doing.
Clear, Dark Skies
I forget which rumor site says it, but the best time to buy a computer that fits your needs now is now. I don't see any reason not to buy today. Products scale incrementally except for processor change like G4-G5, which don't come along very often. Even if Apple released a G5 PowerBook today, it'd be better to wait a few months for Apple to work out the issues. They won't leave you out in the cold if you buy a computer with problems, but it's annoying to have to get it repaired, even if you don't have to pay for it.
I find that it's best to wait until a product comes along that makes you want to upgrade. Anticipating specific future products leads to long waits and disappointment when the final product isn't what you expect. If the PowerBook is compelling to you now, you should buy it now. You won't regret it. If it's not, then wait until Apple releases something you want to buy (if you're waiting for a PowerBook G5 specifically, you could be waiting a long time).
The PowerBook G5 has been slated for "Next Tuesday" since almost a year ago.
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There is so much misinformation here it's astonishing. You may have had bad experience with Apple hardware, but the vast majority of people have had no problems. I've had a Mac Plus, a Quadra 605, a Duo 2300 and an iBook G4 800 and they have all been solid machines and in fact still run to this day with no hardware problems at all.
OpenOffice does suck pretty hard, but good things have been heard about NeoOffice. As for Microsoft Office, it may not be great, but remember, it is what most of the world uses, and Linux users have been playing catch-up to try to develop something that works with Office files. I personally have not used Pages or Keynote yet, but I think you're wrong about it not being acceptable for business or academic use; the only thing it really lacks for the average business user is a spreadsheet. What kind of average user needs serious math and drawing tools in their normal business life? Does MS Office come with that on Mac or Windows? I've never needed any of that stuff.
You seem to want Photoshop for free out of iLife, and that's not what it's for. iPhoto is a great cataloging tool for digital photos, and lets you do the simple stuff home users want to do, like fix redeye. You're not going to be able to clone out that thumb over the lens in that picture or do otherwise complicated things, because it's not meant for that. I've never had the need for iMovie so I can't comment on that.
Outliners and brainstorming tools, I'm not sure about. I mean, there are wonderful things like SubEthaEdit that allow you to do online collaboration on documents that save in a large variety of formats. OmniOutliner is supposed to be excellent. Where's the problem?
Fink sucks. Just because MacOS CAN run linux software doesn't mean it SHOULD.
Never had problems with networking. It's a breeze. I can't see what you could be complaining about here. Doing anything wireless on MacOS is infinitely easier than on Windows or Linux, and I've had the experience to back that up. Both wired and wireless connections just work, simple and easy. And it's not just the basic default network, I've changed all kinds of settings, including WEP, with ease.
SMB could be done a little nicer, but for the most part it's pretty simple. The trouble is more with a lousy protocol and spec than with a lousy implementation, but there could be improvements made. And if you want to make Linux and Macs talk nicely, install AFS on your Linux machine. I did it on my Ubuntu machine and it was easy and now they talk to each other very nicely.
As for your comments on the GUI, I don't think I've ever seen anyone be as wrong as this in one sentance before. Slow is a comment I've only heard from someone trying to run Panther on an old slow machine, and if you tried to run XP on a machine at the low end of the compatability spectrum you'd say it was slow too.
"Non-Standard" deserves its own paragraph. I can't imagine how you could tell a Linux user that the MAC INTERFACE is non-standard. Apple INVENTED the standard GUI interface. The Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines are still the best ways for people to interact with a computer short of plugging it directly into your brain like Data from Star Trek. It is THE most standardized user interface out there, and the only one where you're SURE that Cmd-S will save your document in any program, every time.
The MacOS is NOT a Unix workstation! Why would you think it is? When has it ever been put forth that way? The hardware is about as modern as it gets; remember who made the first 64-bit desktop available. There's plenty of applications available, and they all have the same interface and you'll be sure they will work when you install them (as in, you won't need to make sure that your python libs are >=1.23.06; if you have 1.23.05, the program WILL NOT INSTALL).
I swear, if you didn't have specific complaints I would think that this was just some badly formed joke about Linux, because a lot of these complaints are the exact problems people have with Linux, and the problems that the MacOS actually SOLVES.
One more tip: Tiger (10.4) is due out 1H05, so waiting a few months until it's included with new hardware will save you a ~$100 upgrade (price varies with rebates & education discounts.)
Spotlight has its hooks into the OS. Any app that saves a document automatically updates the spotlight metadata store. Every app gets access to search this database via a spotlight API. It seems to use Apple's own high-performance v-twin search algorithm.
. html.
/. because while it's a pretty intelligent community, nobody has a clue about usability. GIMP is not yet a viable alternative to Photoshop. You can't just put translucency and shiny rounded buttons on KDE or XP and say that you're achieving the UI of OS X. Ogg is great but only as useful as its acceptance. You can't piece together a $500 Dell system and achieve the elegance and functionality of the Mac Mini. openoffice sucks on os x not just because it's ugly, but because it is practically a platform unto itself with its own UI and fonts. OS X is usable with a 1-button mouse. iPod is great because it's small and sexy, so even if it doesn't play format x, it actually fits in my pocket! In the real world intangibles like productivity outweigh tangible specs like processing power.
Also, software developers are welcome to develop their own data types which will automatically be indexed by Spotlight.
From a UI and functionality perspective it seems Beagle is trying to do something similar. But under the hood they are very different. Check out Apple's developer info for this at http://developer.apple.com/macosx/tiger/spotlight
I'm finding myself becoming more and more frustrated with
Until geeks can wrap their heads around these concepts, people like you will continue to post links to 'version 0.0.5' open source projects (which depend on other packages to do stuff like indexing) and say that it's going to be just like something that Apple will put out in a few months.
I'm not knocking Open Source. But let's call a spade a spade here. When it comes to underlying OS features and UI enhamcements, Apple these days is innovating at a pace that OSS (and even Microsoft) is having trouble keeping up with.
Well... actually, I guess it depends on what you mean. I find it's a *little* odd that so many people ask this question, since it is like any other hardware purchase: you know for a fact that what you buy today will become obsolete in a remarkably quick timeframe. Even if it doesn't become obsolete, you'll be able to buy your same hardware for less money, again in a remarkably quick timeframe.
With the quick devaluation of hardware as a given, I understand what the question is about: how do I avoid the pain of buying hardware right before an update is announced ? Other than buying right after an announcement ( which presents the possible pain of buying before a price drop, of course ), there's no *really* good way to know what Apple has ready to go.
I understand the PC user's issue with that- usually you see Intel or AMD is announcing a new chip or chipset, etc, well before you can buy a PC with those parts, but you don't have quite the same clues with Apple. Sure, maybe IBM is developing a new chip, but will Apple use it? You almost never know.
Maybe think about it like you think about getting a new graphics card... then realize, you either just take your chances and buy what you need or can afford, or don't buy something that hasn't been updated in a while, or buy only after something's announced. Take your pick from one of those three methods.
Right now, I wouldn't buy a PowerBook ( unless I just have plenty of spare cash ), I'd wait, those are due for an update. I _would_ buy a dual G5. Or a iMac G5. Or, if I wanted a small, simple machine, had a monitor, and wasn't editing DV, I'd get a Mac mini. I would consider getting an iBook- they're actually a damn good deal right now, and were updated not long ago.
But really, is there a good time to NOT switch?