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Mac Install-Base Shown to Be 16%
Kelly McNeill writes "MacDailyNews has an editorial which summarizes reports from various research groups that analyzed the number of computer users affected by viruses. The conclusion was that 16 percent of all computer users are not affected by viruses because they use Macs. The lack of viruses on a Mac is commonly known, but the interesting thing is the fact that the results finally provide the first set of conclusive numbers which illustrate the Macintosh's install-base. So far only "market-share" statistics are commonly published for the public and do not convey install base. (If for example 2 people are using computers and one replaces his 2x in a 3 year period and the other only does once, market-share dynamics dictate that one demographic has 75% market share while the other has only 25% -- even though install base is still 50/50.)"
OK, I won't worry too much about bias now, though if someone has a reason to think the SPA is off-base, please let us all know. This is truly something to celebrate. Now, let's get the Linux installed base to 16%...
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
16% seems a bit much, but I'm impressed anyway. It's great to have these kinds of statistics.
Subject says all. Half the article focused more on one guy's experience in the Mac world as opposed to the topic.
Hmm, the summary of the article seems to include more facts than the article itself. The summary makes a big point of how TFA's 16% number if found from the virus infection percentage. TFA doesn't say that's where the 16% comes from at all. All the article body says is "In addition, the Software Publishers Association (SPA) estimates that 16 percent of computer users are on Macs." The headline says that 16% of users aren't infected because they use Macs, but it doesn't explain that or justify it. Besides, even if the summary was correct, then this would seem a very poor way to guess at install base. The browser's "user agent" header sent to a general interest site like Google would seem a far better way. Admittedly that would be skewed by Mac users using being "forced" to access Google from Windows in a work environment, but still. That seems like it would have to be more accurate than the approach hinted at in the summary. In searching for google stats on this I found on the Mac Daily News site a discussion which included this very topic when the issue of install base was previously discussed there.
Don't vote for Eugene Papansanovich for Congress!
Just because it doesn't have a virus or malware on it, doesn't mean it is an Apple computer. My Laptop is not an Apple, it doesn't have any malware on it (running Linux). My desktop doesn't have any on that I know of, it is running Windows.
I have several other machines of both windows and linux that are completely clean. They aren't apple. I have a Powerbook, that is clean too, but it is an Apple.
...if you actually read the RTFA, you'd notice that the 16% statistic comes from the Software Publishing Alliance, not the editorial itself.
In fact, the conclusion of the editorial is the following two points:
1)More people use Macs than most people realize.
2) People who use Macs don't get many viruses.
Shock! Horror! What next - "The Sky is Blue"? I'm a mac user, and am all for increading market share, but this editorial seems rather vapid...where's the news?
If you use Linux, you are not just a computer user. Thus, Linux was not included in this survey.
This is good news to hear. In a way, it confirms what I always suspected (especially since I keep my Macs longer than most of my equivalent PC friends -- and I'm a real gearhead). When you get down to it, though, I don't really care how much marketshare/install base Apple has, so long as they can keep cranking out the excellent products that they do.*
*Please keep in mind that I do realize the connection between profitability and new product development. All I'm saying is that the numbers could mean less as long as I'm a happy customer. And boy am I happy.
Per Square Mile, a blog about density
there couldn't possibly be any other operating systems that don't get viruses making up some of that 16%, could there? Oh no, because there's so many viruses for linux and beos and bsd and os/2....
I am trolling
Why aren't there 16% Safari/OSX.*Mozilla users on the web? These numbers are very much made up...
User: What do I need antivirus software for?
Technical support: How many mouse buttons do you have?
User: Ummm.. I can only see one
Technical support: You don't need it then
see how those 5 guys are doing. wait, IM them... they prob dont do much human interaction.
If the say its l33t, then we know its ok.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
I'm in my office in the UK and there are 3 linux workstations and 2 Mac laptops. within a 5 seconds walk there are another 2 Mac laptops and 9 more linux workstations. what's "common" can be a very subjective thing. what makes you so sure your idea of common is right?
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Location: http://www.jgiannotti.com/pwned/imagecrash.jpg
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Didn't do SHIT to my computer. YOU FAIL IT.
About two thirds of them have no need for the web because they are hard working graphic artists, layout professionals and other people of the gay persuasion.
on my Mac I browse 'trusted' sites with Safari, and 'untrusted' ones with Firefox (adblock). slashdot and most commercial sites are 'untusted' in this sense. but the BBC for example is non-commercial and trusted.
plus, no one has ever changed the way their browser identifies itself to websites have they? oh wait...
An interesting related article and discussion on interpreting Google's zeitgeist OS numbers. And what it might mean for % usage of OS (which for Mac ends up being the 3-6% people usually speak of, 3% from Google's direct number and another 3% from Google 'Other' OS).
Don't vote for Eugene Papansanovich for Congress!
The train leaves the depot and travels east at 50 mph and has two mac users on it and a linux user in the caboose. Another train leaves another depot heading west on the same track at 60 mph with 5 windows users. Which computer user has the virus, and who survives after the crash??
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
That really really depends where you are. Belgium for instance has higher than average mac sales.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
Just because a machine has never been infected by a virus or other malicious software is absolutely NO indication of what OS its running.
I've had a PC of one brand or another since they first came out. And every one of my machines has run versions of Windows the majority of the time. I've had the machine I'm typing this from for three years. It runs Windows XP and has since the day I purchased it.
In 20+ years of PC use I have never been infected by malicious software of any kind. Ever.
Whether or not you've been infected is determined more by the component between your ears and less by your choice of operating system.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
That's something I've never understood.
Mac hardware's nothing special - it's primarily the software that makes Macs so great in comparison to a typical Windows/Linux/BSD PC. Why the heck would anyone buy a Mac and then install a Linux on it? Just doesn't make sense.
The owls are not what they seem
My web site's stats are 1-3% MacOS ( all version ). Even that figure is blown up a bit since a couple of webmaster's use Macs.
:
Anyway full stats
Windows XP 495 60.37%
Windows 98 117 14.27%
Windows 2000 85 10.37%
Windows ME 41 5.00%
Other 22 2.68%
Linux 21 2.56%
MacOS X 13 1.59%
Windows 95 11 1.34%
MacOS PPC 6 0.73%
Windows NT 4 0.49%
Windows 2003 4 0.49%
Windows 1 0.12%
Total 820
Lima India November Uniform X-ray
Working link...
Symantec lied to me?!!!
If two people replace computers, one 2x as often
as the other, the ratio is 2:1, not 3:1. You
therefore have market shares of 66.7% and 33.3%.
In the WinTel world, could you do this? Or maybe you should ask, 'Do I really want all of that paranoia to go away? Do I really want to spend more time enjoying whatever the hell I do on my 'puter, or maybe I should continue wasting hours every week on security crap that shouldn't be a problem in the first place? Hey. It's just a question.
How is this Winn Schwartau guy a security expert? I have no idea what he's doing, but I barely worry about security on my Windows machine. I probably spend a few minutes at the most each month checking my security with one or two programs.
The key to avoiding viruses and spyware is intelligence. You have to be intelligent enough to realize that you shouldn't use Internet Explorer. Switch to Firefox. That's it. Firefox does an excellent job of protecting the user. Everything you do after that is optional. Once you use Firefox to browse the Internet, you can reasonably expect, provided you don't click every suspicious link to see on Google, no viruses on your machine -- which is coincidentally the number of viruses I have experienced in the last two years.
Can I be called a security expert now?
If you're reading this, stop it.
Mac users perhaps spend more on the one off purchase of the computer , but Mac users are allot less likely to upgrade as often . . ,well it has been upgraded constantly i think i have had 4 or 5 since 99.
Daily i still use my g3 imac from 2000 though i have now got an emac from 2005
Talking about my PC
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
16 percent of all computer users are not affected by viruses because they use Macs
100% of my PC is not affected by viruses because... the main user is not someone who clicks on just about anything that reaches his mailbox and visits pr0n sites with MSIE!
Seriously, I might send a Linux user a nice shell script that wipes his home folder; if he's an idiot and chmods it in order to run it and *does* run it and loses all of his files, does that make Linux less secure? Or does that make such user an idiot?
Maybe we should stop blaming or praising OS's so much and concentrate on the user base from time to time. Now, of course the typical Linux user will be savvy enough not to destroy his machine, while I'm not so sure about the typical Windows user. But this just shows that smarter people choose smarter OS's, just like smarter people catch fewer viruses than not so smart ones. See the pattern? The "virus catching" is certainly linked to the "OS choosing", but you have to take the third variable into account: the "user cluelessness".
So why don't we stop correlating a variance in "virus catching" to a variance in "OS choosing" and attributing the consequences to the technicalities of the chosen OS? The user plays a far more important role IMHO.
Global warming is a cube.
My '97 PPC is still running Explorer. I tried to isntall Mozilla, and it objected mightily.
What the hell are you talking about? GOOD software is "the way to go", and openness is a nice bonus. How hard can this concept be?
They have
Now, this data is obviously skewed with respect to the total distribution, since the people who run something like SETI@home are probably more technologically inclined than the average computer user. This would mean that the percentage of non-Windows OSes is higher in this sample. On the other hand, the software for BOINC (SETI@home) is still somewhat Windows-centric, which would in turn increase the Windows share in the sample.
An interesting data point, nonetheless.
Don't bother. For these guys, the only good software is free software.
The owls are not what they seem
You're thinking of the BSA (Business Software Alliance), I believe.
--Ryv
Interesting. Crashed mine. (Windows/Firefox)
I'm pretty certain the lame "HOT HOT HOT" stuff doesn't encourage people to try the url. I only bothered when I saw your reply, and I wanted to see what happened.
Mac hardware's nothing special - it's primarily the software that makes Macs so great in comparison to a typical Windows/Linux/BSD PC. Why the heck would anyone buy a Mac and then install a Linux on it? Just doesn't make sense.
Wrong on all counts. First, some Mac hardware is pretty good value, in particular the 12" notebooks. Most PC notebooks at a similar price point are larger and have lower build quality.
Second, you have to pay for a new version of OS X every year. And if you don't upgrade, you lose out on the latest development tools. Linux is a big win in this respect.
Third, OS X software isn't all that, and I find the UI quite irritating. Overall, I'm much happier running Linux on my Powerbook.
Freedom is not increased by mere diminuation of government. Anarchy is freedom for the strong and slavery for the weak.
I would believe in slightly different rates though. Except of the new hordes of nerds flocking to the mac, a lot of the mac users aren't very tech savvy. It wouldn't surprise if a lot of the installed base of Macs isn't used very much, at least not to browse the web...
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
The 16% is some figure that someone just uttered, without any evidence or methodology or even source behind it. Without that, it's impossible to determine even what it means, let alone whether it is valid.
Whatever it is, it can't refer to Apple's actual installed based.
Apple market share is about 3% and web statistics generally put Apple users at around 2%. Those figures are consistent, assuming that Macs and PCs are used for about the same amount of time on average and given that people tend to spend more on their Macs.
Even if you make other assumptions, having a market share of 3% and an installed based of 16% is only plausible if the company is in steep decline; Apple may have problems, but they are not in that much trouble yet.
I've just tried to fiddle in my Mac. You're right, I don't even come close to fitting in there, let alone have enough room to bow. My AMD box has a lot more room inside, but it's all taken up with cabling and fans. I can hardly hear my fiddle outside the box.
.I've never hooked it up to a net. Pretty much nobody but me, (and you folks look like I can trust you and you won't tell) even knows it exists, yet it has remained part of the installed base for many years.
My mom's mac is a PCI machine. I may not be able to fiddle in it, but I can install and change cards. She's running OS8. I'm running OS7 on mine.
Neither one of them gets counted in the market share statistics, although at least my mom's gets counted in web statistics. She's never gotten a virus. Neither has my Mac, but I cheat . .
And I can state catagorically that the installed base of Tandy Color Micros may be small, but it is not zero.
Can't even kazoo in that puppy.
KFG
So far only "market-share" statistics are commonly published for the public and do not convey install base. (If for example 2 people are using computers and one replaces his 2x in a 3 year period and the other only does once, market-share dynamics dictate that one demographic has 75% market share while the other has only 25% -- even though install base is still 50/50.)"
I think you would have to be some sort of idiot to think that this applies to PCs vs Macs. I mean, honestly. WTF? Article writer is implying that Mac users don't buy new PCs as much as PC users, and the marketshare must be close?
I work for an ISP. I get maybe 2 or 3 calls from Mac people in a 5 day week. I handle more than 40 calls in a day. And in my professional opinion, you have to be completely retarded to think that PC/Mac usage is anywhere even in the same ballpark to 50/50.
As well, I constantly hear Mac zealots all excited about their new shiny G5 in some overly pretentious colour like magenta or something and how well it interfaces with their iPod. Most PC people I know are more interested in buying a $600 video card for their 5 year old PC.
Given the data points:
- The vast majority of studies estimate the installed base of the macintosh at somewhere around three to five percent.
- One study estimates it at sixteen percent.
The conclusion is:
- The studies estimating at three to five percent must have been doing something wrong
D...id I miss something here?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
with linux, I think they will eat up a lot of this 16%. SOme max will be reinstalled with linux too, reducing their number further.
I think sales numbers do express a good way to represent what is running. If only 2% of sold systems is from Apple, then their total market share is 2% not 16%. The other (wintel) systems are being moved down the chain too the same way as the Apple systems. So if there is any case to be made (like in detection of less virusprone systems), is that more and more systems are virus safe because of Linux & BSD.
Research with flaws is always easier than research without flaws.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
I've actually considered doing exactly this, with a powerbook. But then I remembered the insane 1 button mouse thing on Apple laptops, and realized that I was freaking retarded.
I rather like the hardware in Apple computers. The hardware is quite well coordinated, and works together nicely, as it's non-upgradeable for the most part. This just plain sucks for a desktop, but it's nice in a laptop. That makes it appealing to create a Linux laptop, in that you know everything is going to work, and it's going to work nicely.
And the Mac UI is just plain shit IMO. It's overly flashy, resource hungry, and completely lacks functionality. I will personally NEVER understand why anyone would ever want a dock. A cascading menu (ala Gnome or KDE) is much more compact, and quicker to use.
Or perhaps they also have an intel box, which they use to browse the web because they're sick of sites which discriminate against mac users.. www.raveshack.com being such an example
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
One of them is AT&T Natural Voices coming soon for Apple Mac OS X
So cheer up, they only count people buying software, thus most Linux users don't show up hereLars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
I would be interested in the statistics of user's OS visiting WAREZ sites. We know that these sites are where most of the Spyware and popups come from.
Let's face it, if you downloaded some hot new software for your MAC OX and it requested the ADMIN password to complete installation - hey presto, carte blance to put anything onto your MAC.
It is always said that there are no viruses on the Mac because it is a better/safer OS. But couldn't this be caused by the type of user alone? I believe there is a very high correlation between buying an Apple and being computer-savvy (or just weird?). Getting infected by a virus usually means some stupid user action (opening an attachment) or not having your patches up to date, both of which are influenced by computer knowledge. This combined with the fact that writers of malware will probably target the biggest install base might be able to explain the different infection rates even with equal number of bugs/level of security. Same story for Linux probably.
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
Didn't crash mine.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b2) Gecko/20050531 Firefox/1.0+
You do realize that there's probably a majority of computers NOT connected to the Internet, don't you?...
I like the Mac UI. I have Mac at work and the GUI -- and the way how, in contrast to Windows and Linux, things just worked -- got me interested in buying a Mac laptop in the first place. It's clean, intuitive and yes, IMO it looks great too.
The owls are not what they seem
Didn't crash mine (OS X.4.1/Safari 2.0) but it managed to open iChat.
A cascading menu is *quicker* than clicking on a huge icon that is always visible? How the heck did you figure that? :)
... A study recently showed that at least 16% of the population has stopped opening *.vb files in emails.
In the Rest Of The World(tm), at least 16% know how to use a dictionary.
There is, however, a small and rather insignificant piece of land on "the other side of the pond", where dictionaries are not common at all.
Yours Trolly,
A Euro-head
this may disquiet you, as would the howl of a Banshee in the Night, but some people actually find Linux easier to use, more interesting and perhaps, just perhaps, to their taste. some people
you may find it similarly unsettling that this also includes non-geeks, the curious, and those that simply prefer the look and feel of KDE or Gnome over OSX.
human beings, those semi sentient bags of mineral born from a long and absurd confluence of error, contingency and agency, might just (every once in a while) escape the steering gaze of mass-market engineers.
[...] According to US News and World Report, Macintosh owners buy 30% more software than their Windows counterparts. Further, Macintosh software comprises over 18% of all software sold, according to the Software and Information Industry Association. In addition, the Software Publishers Association (SPA) estimates that 16 percent of computer users are on Macs.
If Mac owners buy 30% more software than the rest and if 18% of all software sold is on Mac, then ~15% of the installed base is Mac. I think it is close enough to 16%.
O this learning! What a thing it is - William Shakespeare
Impressive, brought a fully patched WinXP Pro machine running the latest Firefox to a bluescreen within a minute. I tip my hat.
yeah... but :p
mac is not american-centric it is money centric.
where i live all the public schools use mac
maybe because our teachers are/were to stupid to use pc's
or cause they look so nice
every bigger ( and in switzerland bigger is still quite small ) postal office sells macs.
stop supporting microsoft with pirating their software!!!!!
Plenty of people still run Jaguar. And also, OS X isn't that old. Tiger was the last yearly release. The development pace is every 2 years or more now, IIRC. But for an OS that came out in 2001... it's doing pretty good. So grab Tiger, and sit back and relax for another few years. Or use Linux. I, quite frankly, couldn't care less. :-)
I like the UI...
Yes but how many Huge Icons can you fit on your screen?
If this actually starts to pan out, i.e. other studies point to the same numbers (and I'm not convinced because Google and other web studies point to a number more like the currently accepted 3%) then it means that there is a huge market for Macintosh software that is being neglected by software publishers.
It would mean that all those vertical market apps that have been windows only would make money for the developers if they were ported to the Mac.
When will people learn that you don't have to pay for the brand-new version of OS X each year? Plenty of people still run Jaguar. And also, OS X isn't that old.
Look, I don't want to run an old version of OS X without access to the latest edition of Apple's developer tools, when the alternative is getting regular free upgrades with Linux. Why would I want to keep running an old version of OS X?
Freedom is not increased by mere diminuation of government. Anarchy is freedom for the strong and slavery for the weak.
I should also mention that a lot of other useful software (e.g. Fink) won't work on older OS X versions.
Freedom is not increased by mere diminuation of government. Anarchy is freedom for the strong and slavery for the weak.
Hmmm, I wonder if virus authors will start trying to target Macs as it becomes more apparent that they have a reasonable share in the market. I also wonder what effect a few consecutive attacks on Macs will have on the market if a lot of users switch mostly based on the safety of Macs being "virus free". If Windows were not the majority OS then malware writers would surely focus on an OS that will cause the most impact, even if it is harder to exploit!
Warning, comments may not have been passed by the sanity department of my brain.
Also I don't like the MacOSX userinterface (too many animations and some of them can't be turned off, just too many eye-candy that gets into the way) and I don't need Photoshop.
So why the hell should I run MacOSX? What does it offer? It only annoys me.
Replying to my own post. I meant the www.halo3leak.cjb.net link crashed. (WARNING LINK MAY CAUSE BLUE SCREEN)
http://www.jgiannotti.com/pwned/imagecrash.jpg is fine on my machine.
Actually since you said 'openness' and not 'freedom', perhaps you are talking within the context of proprietary software - in which case you're right: openness per se is pretty much irrelevant. See RMS for further details.
Same here (OS X.3.9/Safari 1.3)
--Residential Interior Design
On monogon my web access logs show 12.9% of visitors are using Macs. Last month it was 14%, and I had nearly 3GB of traffic. Admittedly I am only one data point, but from my perspective the number from the SPA doesn't sound too far out of line...
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
Is a bad democratic government worse than a good non-democratic?
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
No need to get so defensive, delire. No-one's judging you here, You know, it is perfectly OK to prefer Linux+KDE/Gnome and to believe that it makes you all special and off-mainstream. Congratulations for your great escape.
The owls are not what they seem
And you do realise the 16% statistic comes from checking if computers are vulnerable to viruses OVER the web, don't you?
I've used Linux as my nigh-only OS since 1999, and I consider myself a user. So there.
That said... with Linux, the line between users and developers is very much blurred. It's one of the things I love about Linux. While I use other people's software for my work, I occasionally find I need to write a Bash/Python script or even a little C to make my work easier. And I can do this as an user, I don't have to go into a special developer mode or start some developer tools. While I'm working on the command line, I can write a script on the fly without going anywhere.
With something like Windows, there are artificial barriers to writing your own software. It's like a class division in a society. As a user, you can become a developer if you install some specialized software that most definitely doesn't come with the ordinary OS distribution. Even then you don't have access to the internals of the OS; it's reserved for the chosen ones that work for Microsoft, and I bet even there you find a class hierarchy depending on what you can access. On the contrary, open source is democracy and equality.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
I'm in Oz writing on my first ever Mac (a 20in G5) and have said farewell to x86 and Linux. Anecdotal evidence from here would indicate the halo effect is very strong for Apple.
This is strictly anecdotal in nature...but on more than one occasion I've run into people that have upgraded or replaced Windows machines that had begun to seem slow simply from the incredible amount of spyware, adware, malware and random crap they had running in their system tray. This wasn't always especially outdated or slow hardware either. And it isn't always spyware...Raise your hand if you've seen the stupifying number of things running in the system tray on a brand new Sony, HP or . It's mind boggling. But I digress I wouldn't be very surprised to find out that, the reason many Windows users upgrade or replace their computer is simply because of how "slow" it's gotten from all the random crap that accumulates over time in addition to all the stuff that is running in the background straight from the factory. Is part of the reason Mac users don't upgrade as often simply due to less accumulation of cruft?
:)
:)) to prevent myself from trying to make coherent posts to Slashdot at 4 in the morning...
On a slightly different note: I don't think that the reason there is no (or very little) Mac spyware/adware/malware is really only due to installed base. This might be reaching a little far but different operating systems (especially "minority" operating systems) seem to have different feels to their user and developer community. Many people who develop software for Windows seem to be out to make a fast buck, and therefore adware and spyware abounds. It is simply a logical extension of shareware. Even the freeware developed for Windows, usually isn't free for commercial use. Most Windows users wouldn't know what do with source code so it is rarely requested and even more rarely provided. Much of the free (as in speech) and open source software on Windows seems to originate on Linux. The BeOS community was kind of a mixed bag. It was made up of Linux, Mac and Windows users and as such was a mixed bag. A kind of comradarie did seem to prevail though. Users and developers seemed compelled to support their fellow users. There was freeware, some with source available, and the shareware usually either nagged you once in a while or was so reasonably priced compared to it's feature set that it would be considered worth the price. The Linux user community on the other hand seems downright hostile towards anyone who won't release their program under a free license. As such developers either deal with the fact that they can't really charge for software or they put donation links on their web pages. Either way, it seems like very few bother trying to sell closed source software to "Linux zealots."
I can't comment directly on the Mac community because I've never owned a Mac (the Mac Mini might changed that...), but it seems like Mac users in general don't mind the concept of commercial software and are willing to pay a reasonable price for good software. This seems to encourage entrepreneurial programmers to actually develop feature rich programs, knowing that people would be willing to pay for them. This is in contrast to many Windows users who want things that are free (as in beer) but don't care about freedom (as in speech). Now that MacOS is based on *BSD, lots of free (speech) and open source software is being ported as well.
So the point of this long rambling rant:
1) I think Windows users upgrade (hardware) more often because of spyware/adware/cruft
2) I think Windows users are a target of spyware/adware not only because Windows is the largest installed base, but because of the mentality that they don't want to pay for things, yet they also don't care about truely free (as in speech) software
3) I should create some little program (GPL of course
-Mr. Lizard
(I hit preview and realized how much I had actually typed. I don't feel like proofreading it, so hopefully it makes some kind of sense. Must sleep...)
^I'm with stupid.^
X.4.1/Firefox 1.04 - it *tried* to open iChat. Nothing else...
This statistic is clearly pulled from someone's arse, but for some reason you think it's OK because the arseman isn't a well known Mac zealot?
There are several ways to test the validity of a statement, and none of them have to do with who made the statement. In this case, you could ask how the statistic was collected and how large the sample was. You'll notice the number 16% is a fantasy based on an assumption that has no base in any evidence. It's bunk, 'bias' or not.
I can understand how someone would dismiss out of hand something coming from Rob Enderle or a politician, but not how it's possible to accept something just because the source seems neutral. That's just stupid, and shows an incredibly unscientific mindset.
Even if you burn the market and bring down the house, bill made his money already and may soon retire.
Sure it is, don't be stupid. It works and works very well thanks. I ditched Winblows 3 years ago, never looked back.
Free upgrades and more software choices. I've ran the Ubuntu liveCD on a g3 ibook 500 and it rocks. I may try it on this mini eventually.
I can't personally find a link to the SPA web site, but if it includes shareware developers, and I think it does, this could very easily be explained.
There's a creeping suspicion that the average Mac users spend more on software than the average PC (and by PC in this context I mean Windows on x86, because it's shorter to write) user. Why is this?
Most PCs sit around in offices and do stuff you'd normally do with Office - word processing, spread sheets, emails. Far from all PCs, of course, but definitely *most*.
A sizable part of the Mac installed base are those who do publishing, or video editing, or DVD production, or something with media in general. These people go out and buy font managers, editing software and plug-ins, each probably running up an average of 80 bucks per product, with the actual editing software running from 200 bucks and up, not uncommonly into 500+ territory. People do this on PCs too, but I would bet on the percentage of the installed base being a lot smaller.
Another sizable part of the Mac installed base are those who sit at home and buy lots of shareware. This has a direct counterpart in the PC world, and they're probably about the same size percentage-wise. Note that games fall in the same price spectrum, that the hard-core gamer is likely to spend more on extra hardware (mice, gpu, keyboard, display) than on software, and that piracy probably helps inflate this segment.
And then there's also the fact that, *for whatever reason*, people seem to use Macs longer. Getting three years out of a Mac isn't extraordinary, it's average. Macs also have a higher value on the used market, so there's no rush to sell it.
I think all of this adds up to a skewing of these statistics.
It depends how the OS figures are obtained. From a web server I can't think of a truly reliable way of telling that will always work when e.g. Javascript and Java is turned off. What people tend to use are the OS portion of the user agent string, which can get changed just as easily as the rest of it.
Right now my user agent says "Netscape 6.2 on Linux" rather than "Firefox on Windows 2000" because that works better with some nasty web-based software (ironically, running on a Windows server) that I have to use at work.
They won't come to you to let you fix their Macs because those don't need fixing, I guess.
(Say it like "Bad dog")
Man bites dog=worrisome news. That sort upsets people, so don't print it! People want to know what they already know.
OSX actually prevents the stupid user syndrome by needing a password to install or change any important files. ie Typical of a secure *nix installation. If my stupid users (I probably have a dozen of them easily in the big networks I manage) ever got hold of something from the malware scene they would need an admin p/w. Obviously they don't have that because we know they're stupid and don't give them a chance to break stuff. Case closed. My compnay also makes a small fortune selling anti-virus software that has no real use. The sig files for the OSX anti-virus s/w are always tiny because there are no viruses. But always the management of these places see viruses as a terrible threat because they all have wintel boxes and learn from that experience.
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
D...id I miss something here?
Yes:
"So far only "market-share" statistics are commonly published for the public"
Market share != installed base. Apple does not compete in a lot of markets where Linux and Windows are used. There are machines like frickin' ATMs running a version of Windows.
Now, can you think of any other reason why that may be? Like making an internet connection is the easiest on the Mac compared to all platforms I know of?
you have to be completely retarded to think that PC/Mac usage is anywhere even in the same ballpark to 50/50
Submitter didn't imply that. That figure was an example.
I constantly hear Mac zealots all excited about their new shiny G5 in some overly pretentious colour like magenta or something
Hmm, now this is a lie. Because for years Apple only made machines in white, grey or aluminium.
Most PC people I know are more interested in buying a $600 video card for their 5 year old PC.
I have the strong feeling you are trying to make a point there, I only can't see what that may be ...
Didn't do squat on my Tiger PowerBook... :)
I'm in the UK too... most of my friends and family have bought Macs. Most of the people I see at conferences, speaking about various things from Free Software, to the web, they too use Macs.
Join the Free Software Foundation
Apple is an Open Source Supporter, but not an Open Source extremist. There are some sets of tools that are better off Open Source and their are others that are better off closed sources. Things like Kernels, emulators and small tools and apps are perfect open source applications. While things that really need a good finishing touch are better off closed source.
So why are the finishing touches need to be closed source? Because those are the "Value Add" in the applications and companies put a lot of time in these little things that make the app from good to great. And they want to have a completive edge over their competitors. Even using KDE and GNOME which to their credit has done a good job but still they havenent became as polished as Windows interface and no where near the OS X interface. Most people who use Apple long enough to get use to the interface find that it comes with a lot of tiny details that just make the system feel complete when using it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Yeah , you can play DVDs on it as-well quite happily , play movies . . .
I can compile smaller things with no problem and if its a larger project i can push it off to my server for compilation.
If i want to play games i use a console or even on of my more powerful computers.
Most people btw do not do much more than office work on their PCs/macs
I don't use the old thing that often anymore its pretty much relegated to a media server as i do have more needs for it , though i do disagree that most people require more
Its nice to have a faster computer but it is not needed for office work
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
"SETI@Home 2.0.4 was the fastest version of SETI for Macs. It relied heavily on the amount of L2 cache on the processor. Since most modern macs have 512K or 1MB of cahe it was able to produce results far better than a PC of the same MHz. But when 3.0 came all that changed. The L2 cache programming was removed and the speed was based solely on the MHz. So then Macs fell behind in WU times." [...]
"The best part of RC5 is that it is Alti-Vec and multi-processor aware, and Macs crunch data 5 times faster than a PC of the same MHz. It is a great way to show off the speed of your CPU."
I would say yes. At least with the good dictator, things are moving in the right direction. With the bad democratic government, things could well be getting progresively worse and you're still stuck with them until at least the end of their term. 4 or 5 years is a long time to be stuck with a bad government, a lot of damage could be done.
Of course, a good, democratic government is the ideal, but if that's not an option, I'd choose the good dictatorship personally.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
The Mac users blog about their travel, so the public is aware of the problem and calls the train company to do something about it. Of course they are not able to reach anyone there in a timely manner because their email servers are down to virus problems. So the Linux user has to hack into the railroad system to activate a switchblade and change tracks. The windows users are completely unaware of any impending disaster and post anonymous comments to /. about how the tried to copy a 17 MB file from one folder on their harddisc to another on their freelance gig on a Mac G5.
Can't even kazoo in that puppy.
You want to kazoo inside a puppy? You'll never fit- wait until it grows up.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
> So I guess you'd also agree with the statement: 'GOOD government is "the way to go", and democracy is a nice bonus'?
Yes, yes I would.
Advanced users are users too!
(If for example 2 people are using computers and one replaces his 2x in a 3 year period and the other only does once, market-share dynamics dictate that one demographic has 75% market share while the other has only 25% -- even though install base is still 50/50.)
Let's go over this: Person A buys a peecee but feels compelled to upgrade later (by buying a new computer) resulting in an 2 peecees purchased while Person B buys a Mac only once. The install base is 50/50 but the market share shows that 2/3 of computers bought are peecees and only 1/3 are Macs. Where did the 75%/25% come from?
Now that we've established that your summary sucked (no offense), should I bother reading the article? It is /.
On another note, in the Astrophysics Department here at Caltech, I'd say something like a fifth of the install base is Windows, the rest being Macs and Linux (with more Mac laptops and linux desktops) and several other non-engineering science departments have many more Macs than Windows boxen but if you want me to believe that a macs make up 16% you've better have some really good data out there that no one else does.
(If for example 2 people are using computers and one replaces his 2x in a 3 year period and the other only does once, market-share dynamics dictate that one demographic has 75% market share while the other has only 25% -- even though install base is still 50/50.)
from my understanding of that sentence, person A has used 3 computers during a period of 3 years, while person B has used 2 computers during that same period. if that's true, it's a 60/40 split, and not a 75/25 split.
i guess it all comes down to the what the author meant by "the other only does once". by saying "does", i assumed he meant replace, since that's the verb of the previous clause. and by replacing once, that = 2 computers.
then again, when the author said replace, he might've meant that person A only used 2 computers during the 3 year interval and person B only used 1 computer. if that was the case, it would've been a 67/33 split instead.
HD Trailers
If a wintel user buys two computers in a three year period and a mac user buys one computer in the same period, what percent of the computers bought (market share) were wintel computers?
a. 100%
b. 75%
c. 67%
d. 50%
e. 25%
So, let's look at the supporting evidence here: an article, quoting a press release, quoting the SPA's estimation that the Mac install base accounts for 16% of personal computers.
I couldn't help but notice that the company that put out the press release has just released a Mac version of its software, and so is naturally going to be talking up the number of potential sales.
I'd like to see the original source of that 16% figure, and how it was arrived at. Until we do see it, this is just so much anecdotal evidence.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I can't personally find a link to the SPA web site
Not surprisingly, they ceased to exist in 1999 or something, when they became SIIA. The article references SPA numbers in combination with SII numbers, which seems more than a bit strange.
As most of this article, and the mind blowing pice of critical thinking the story summary is.
In other words it's not just about whether the government (or software) is good now, it's also what say you have over how things change in the future. Most people assign a lot of value to that power.
My UA:
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O;en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4
wow someone modded me as flamebait..! Is that because I mentioned RMS?
I don't think that the reason there is no (or very little) Mac spyware/adware/malware is really only due to installed base.
Of course it isn't. It's because of the way IE is integrated into the desktop the HTML control has to guess whether a document it's opening is trusted or not, so if you can trick it into thinking your spyware is a local file you can get local user access. Microsoft tries to pop up a warning dialog when you're in a gray area, but there's so much gray area that people get used to clicking "OK" automatically.
Of course Apple has started to open up the same opportunities, first by having Safari "open safe files after downloading", then by treating Widgets and software installers as "safe files", and finally by using a dialog instead of backing out the bad behaviour. It's nowhere near as bad as it is in Windows, but it's worrying.
TheCounter shows just 2% usage share for Mac OS. Combined with the 1-2% usage share for Safari reported by OneStat and 1-2% "other" browser usage reported by WebSideStory, it's hard to believe Mac OS has 16% of the installed base of desktops. Maybe the vast majority of Mac users don't use pre-installed Safari, or haven't upgraded to Mac OS X yet, or just don't browse the web nearly as much as other OS users?
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
This article is total bullshit. I can personally vouch for viruses on the mac. Learned that the hard way back on 7.5. Don't know about the newest OS X but I seem to remember there being one being reported on /. a year or so ago.
Linux is really boring from an os standpoint. Now Plan 9......
Eh, I'm not impressed. All it did was try to render an image at width="9999999" height="9999999". Definitely shouldn't crash any machine, but if it does, it's an OS exploit, not something ATI could fix (as a sibling poster mentioned).
I maintain three different websites, and the percentage visitors using a Mac for all three sites always ranges between 3% and 6%. This corresponds with the usually cited figures.
Don't know about the newest OS X
Well, I do. There are zero viruses in the world for OS X.
I seem to remember there being one
You remember wrong. There was a port of a UNIX rootkit floating around, and a couple of theoretical exploits based on holes Apple patched (albeit clumsily) quickly. A rootkit is software that's used after one's already broken into the computer... it's useless without a way to get it into the computer in the first place.
What you remember is probably that Symantec claimed that there WOULD be viruses and spyware on OS X, with no actual evidence. They've made the same claims before for Pocket PC and Palm OS when they were trying to push their antivirus solutions for those. Nothing has EVER happened to people who ignored any of these attempts by Symantec to use FUD to push their product. But... people have had their systems damaged by antivirus software on all these platforms.
Machine was unresponsive for about 30 secs, hard disk thrashed away, blue screen.
Great.
I know that the corporate penetration of Macs is understandably small, and business PCs are a huge percentage of the total pie. I would like to see some statistics on the U.S. install base for home users. I would venture to guess that the 16% figure is not too far off the mark in the home market.
Yeah, but that doesn't do anything for the crashing part. :-P It's just trying to spread the havoc while your machine goes down in flames by putting up an away message with the address in it.
Strangely enough, yes I'd agree with that. Good government is the way to go, democracy is just something to make the crowds feel involved.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Windows still has the remaining 384%.
Free, legal music for iTunes users.
"Market share" often implies number of users, not number of computers sold, depending on the context.
Question: If you have one Wintel user, and one Mac user, what percentage of users use Wintel computers?
a. 50%
I agree, it's a very silly question/statistic when you put it that way, but the submitter does make a point, that number of computers sold does not equate to percentage users of a platform.
There is a world outside US
liar
I wish that I was a catfish.
well it could be said that if you have a dictatorship the process of doing an "upgrade" is a bit messy but doable (of course if you can find a "large nation" to do the uninstall parts....
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
You'll have great trouble finding a mac in most Asian countries
Well, if you want to get into a personal experiences pissing match -- EVERY SINGLE PERSON I know who lives in Japan owns a Mac. Some own two. Of course, my experiences probably vary greatly from yours, so neither point is entirely valid.
That said, the last time I was in the Apple Store in Ginza people were buying Mac Minis by the armload. The majority of people in the checkout line were Thai, Chinese, and Korean. So, if your statement is true, where are all these Macs going?
World's tallest building rises in the desert
I'd imagine (maybe hope?) that a lot of americans are starting to think this way.
Of course, a good, democratic government is the ideal, but if that's not an option, I'd choose the good dictatorship personally
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n.
Milton, Paradise Lost
The user agent info you mention is nearly useless for these purpouses, and is probably responsible for the incorrectness of many user base statistics about non-Windows platforms. Mac users have been using settings in their browsers or third party shareware for years to "spoof" web sites that "require" IE X.Y or "better" (and are set up to refuse to function on anything else) but work just fine if your browser's "user agent" information says it is IE X.Y for Windows. The problem with changing these settings is that most of us who change them at all need or want to visit these wretched web sites often tend to change the setting and leave it there, thus reporting another copy of IE for Windows to lots of sites, even though it's a misstatement the user has been forced to make in order to use another site. Admittedly this practice doesn't seem quite a prevalent or easy to do now as formerly, but I'm sure it's being done, and with the longer usefull lives of Macs (including the one that I'm using now) there's probably a lot of "liars" out there. Also, although I can't say so from experience, I would immagine that there are quite a few Linux boxes out there issuing false "user agent" headers for the same reason.
From a fellow Brazilian, Mac Minis are bound to change that - sure, R$2,890 is not exactly cheap for a compy sans keyboard/video/mouse, but with the financing options, the Mini could stuff my socks at Christmas.
(For the non-Wall-Street type guys - R$2,890 ~ US$1,100 - RIDICULOUSLY overpriced, but anyway)
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
I lived in Japan in the 80s, and the Japanese I worked with loved Macs, for one basic reason. There was a menu item always present that switched the interface from English to Japanese (and back) instantly. It was a machine truly usable by both Japanese readers and English readers, way ahead of the PCs in the office.
This little anecdote is meant merely to underscore your "Mac is not American-centric" point.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
The "Start Menu" is oen of the worst user-interface conventions ever conceived, and Gnoem and KDE ripping it off doesn't make it any better.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Couple that with the fact that good government is small, unobtrusive, weak government, and we've got a hit!
According to US News and World Report, Macintosh owners buy 30% more software than their Windows counterparts. Further, Macintosh software comprises over 18% of all software sold, according to the Software and Information Industry Association.
I find these numbers more convincing since the sales figures on software are directly quantifiable if you assume that the levels of piracy on windows and macintosh are comparable. For example lets' assume no one pirates software.
in that case if the install base was about 13.5% then if mac users buy 30% more software per machine then that brings the purchase rate to about 18%.
Yet the google zeitgeist put the number somewhere closer to 5%. How to we explain this? Well what if windows users typically had more computers? maybe at work they have a windows desktop and a laptop AND THEY SHARE THE SOFTWARE, whereas the home macintosh user has only a single computer. In that case there could be more Windows machines yet less software sold per machine.
Then one can asume that home windows computers may pirate more software.
SO maybe this explains the difference. People replace windows machines more often and keep the old ones around. Macs tend to have longer useful lives and less "bit rot" characteristic of an aging dll and registry poisoned windows machine and so when you replace them they are truly outdated and get junked.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
In my experience, ONLY getting three years out of a Mac IS extraordinary. I typically see three years as the minimum length of service for a Mac, typical is more like 5 years. I know plenty of people who are using Macs from 7 or 8 years ago and they work just great for everyday tasks such as word processing, web, and e-mail. So well, in fact, there is almost no pressure to upgrade unless you are doing cutting edge games, programming, data crunching, video, or 3D work.
Sapere aude!
the last time I was in the Apple Store in Ginza people were buying Mac Minis by the armload.
They weren't buying Dells? At the Apple Store in Ginza?
Oh, btw: your sister and her husband, who live in Japan, hardly count as a representative sample.
Slowed my computer down a ton (And put me away...), but that's about it. Mozilla 1.7.5
I hate grammar Nazi's.
With the scalable size and magnification on? As many as I damn well please. Nevermind the fun you can have with "drawer" applications.
Viva La Revolucion! Buy a Mac!
Macintosh owners buy 30% more software than their Windows counterparts. Further, Macintosh software comprises over 18% of all software sold, according to the Software and Information Industry Association. In addition, the Software Publishers Association (SPA) estimates that 16 percent of computer users are on Macs.
o ut-computers' stereotypical Mac user, I think it is likely that a much greater percentage of Mac users over other OSes don't have the interest, inclination, or, ahem, ability to install a SETI@home client so I would expect a deceptively low statistic there. 2.3% is probably as ridiculous as 16%.
First off, I wonder: Do Mac owners actually buy 30% more titles or do Mac owners pay 30% more for the titles they get, Mac being a boutique brand with less retail competition? But, anyway. Assuming they do buy 30% more software and that software comprises 18% of all software sold, that is 130% of 13.8%, not 16%.
As someone who downloaded both Ubuntu and the lastest Knoppix yesterday, it is clear that this story is flamebait since it totally ignores linux in favor of market share while extrapolating that market share into a statement about total computer usage. Wasn't there an estimate last year that there was about a 5%/4% worldwide linux/Mac total share that actually had linux ahead of Mac? On the other hand, considering the 'just-need-to-get-my-critical-creative-innovative -masterpiece-composed-without-knowing-anything-ab
If nothing else, I think the statistic about software sold is interesting. A more heterogeneous OS market is only to the better and if the figures actually demonstrate strong Mac growth in the last year, that is great.
This did not do anything to my browser (konq 3.4) It's just a pic of a moron with a paintball gun.
I don't see why that should be so surprising. I use a Windows XP or Debian box at work. I do lots of google searches related to my job. Constantly need to look up error messages which I have never seen, and things like that.
At home, I use a Mac. I read my email, and slashdot. And that is about all the web surfing I do at home. So, my personal "install base" is that I regularly use one PC and one Mac. But, my pasge views are far far higher on the PC, particularly at a place like google.
Now, somebody who uses a Mac professionally is more likely to be running Final Cut Pro, or something like that. Their job doesn't demand much web browsing. If they have a problem, or need a driver update, they call me, and I track it down for them. They will use whatever they have at home for the majority of their web browsing.
Also, I know many people who hang onto ancient Macs which couldn't run OS-X, and would be a glorious adventure to get on the web. I know people who have PC's of the same vintage, but it seems more common with Macs.
I wouldn't put to much faith in this number for the US either. Maybe 16% of home users are Mac users, I might believe that. But every place I've worked has been 90% - 100% Windows workstations. THe only non-windows work stations I've seen in business are Unix, Linux, and even one place had FreeBSD.
A lot of my friends have Mac laptops... they use them for presentations/flash animations, music, etc.
I have a mini, which mostly sits there in middle of the pile of PCs unused (need to keep OSX on it to build software releases otherwise I'd put debian on it... never got on with OSX at all).
2% is about right. 16% would IMHO be good for competition but that's a pipe dream for Apple. The idea that is 16% is laugable. If that's true then Linux desktop use is at 13%.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
I'm heading into year 5 (maybe 6??) with my Dual G4 500. If it wasn't for the fact that DOOM3 is out I wouldn't even think of upgrading. My dual is awesome. BTW, if Apple's *installed* base were 1.6% or less then who in in the wintel world would even *know* how Apple is? My parents don't even know what Linux is - as far as they know, PC's are Apple and Windows (not Dell, Compaq, Sony etc, WINDOWS). So 16% of the installed base sounds about right. How many wintel users have bought a new windows PC at work or at home in the last 5 years? I work from home coding rich internet apps in Flash MX Pro and been doing so on the same $2000 investment for 5+ years. Far as I see it, not only do *I* win, but it really puts a dent in the rumors that PC's are cheaper than macs. My own FATHER has bought 3 PC's in that time!
Well, if you want to get into a personal experiences pissing match -- EVERY SINGLE PERSON I know who lives in Japan owns a Mac. Some own two. Of course, my experiences probably vary greatly from yours, so neither point is entirely valid.
That said, the last time I was in the Apple Store in Ginza people were buying Mac Minis by the armload. The majority of people in the checkout line were Thai, Chinese, and Korean. So, if your statement is true, where are all these Macs going?
I travel to asia often. In all the places in China I've been (Beijing, Xin hoa, Ghoung Zhou, Toa San) I have yet to see a single mac anywhere.
In the Philipines (Manilla, Valenzuala) and in indonesia (Jakarta) I have also never seen a mac.
Generally most people can't afford the hardware and a real licence to the software. They all use cheap PC's with pirated / legit versions of windows xp. You anicdotal evidence is pithy.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Blew up Firefox + XP SP2 + NVidia without even a bluescreen... it just reset the box.
The error report apparently was that the graphics driver exploded, but if it happens to ATI too it's definately an OS bug - userspace should *not* be able to cause out of bounds information to be sent to a driver.
You data point is biased. It seems to be a site about photography. Which means most of the interested parties will also be interested in photography and many artists/photographers use mac's.
Many, many different sites see about 3%-6% mac visitors. This number conforms with the market share numbers even with the alleged longer lifespan of macs. So 16% does seem to be pulled out of someones anal cavity.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
A statement like that... posted anonymously. What a surprise.
Yes. We sure are "hated," aren't we?
There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead. -V. Marchetti, CIA
The only browser/OS market share statistics I trust are the ones based on my own first-hand experience. All the others tend to ignore important relevant criteria, produce wildly differing results, and are often colored by ideological and/or financially-motivated bias.
Based on first-hand empirical evidence, it's perfectly clear that Mac users make up about 40% of desktop computer users, and about 60% of laptop users, and that approximately 75% use Firefox as their primary browser. Among Mac users, Safari and Firefox use is approximately 50-50%
Of course, this was the same method I used to predict last year's Democratic landslide...
" I'm still looking for a FREE Ftp program for my MAC other than the command line. "
um, RBrowserLite is a free GUI FTP client for Mac.
I guess you didnt search very hard for it though...
the history of the world
...that Mac Users are by far the best Software customers. They feel they're making a safe investment when buying it. (And they have more trouble getting pirated software)
I've spent more money on non-game software for my half year old iBook than for any other computer I've owned (and own).
Flash MX 2004 Pro and Lightwave 8 easily mount up to orders of magnitude in software costs.
Opposed to that, measuring productivity of Wintel and Mac in money earned I'd say the mac is about two to three times more productive. And after moving from PC Linux as my main workhorse to Mac OS X I must say that Linux doesn't cut it to good either.
Allthough I still like a good solid KDE 3.4 or E install like everybody else. But considering the fuss you have to go through to get a decent PC (good components that fit each other) up and running with a decent enviroment (good Debian Install or a beefed up, secured and patched Win2k) I must say I'm sticking with the Mac.
So be it that a current PC is faster. A 20" iMac, sans noisy ugly box with zero hard and software hassle is the better choice in most cases other than extreme gaming. Buy, unpack, turn on -> works.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
That's something I've always loved about OS X: it comes with the developers' tools built-in (at least, it does if you buy a copy of the OS; not sure about OEM versions). I'm not a programmer, but I've spent some time monkeying around with XCode and compiling software with GCC. I find it comforting to know that the barrier to entry into the Mac software development community is so low. I guess it kind of has to be when your "market share" is so low, eh?
There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead. -V. Marchetti, CIA
My mother uses Slackware for all of her day-to-day computing needs. This includes:
My mom is neither an admin nor a programmer. She is a just a computer user.
Non-upgradable?
You dont know much about Macs, only the latest iMacs and the newest Mini are non-upgradable. The G3 and G4 towers have upgrades for the CPU and videocards.
Of course you can add more memory or bigger hard drives.
The G5's dont have CPU upgrades, yet, but I'll bet they will become available in the next year.
Starman97@Gmail.com (bring it on spammers)
The point is why those people don't buy a PC. The macs are more expensive and the hardware isn't so different.
Rethinking email
It was more of a reference to how people think you're 1337 if you use Linux.
Didn't crash me (Safari/Tiger) but strangely enough, it launched Adium (IM client) upon closing the browser tab.
Here is the correct breakdown:
If for example 2 people are using computers and one replaces his 2x in a 3 year period...
Meaning person A buys 1 original and 2 replacement = 3 computers in 3 years.
meaning person B buys 1 original and one replecement = 2 computers. does in this context refers to the verb replace So, the total purchased computers in 3 years is 5.
Thus, the marketshare is split 3:2 = 60%:40%. The install base is still 1:1=50%:50% (each person has only one working computer).
Bite my shiny, metal PowerBook!
Nope... Apple hardware is generally high quality as opposed to what Dell or Gateway might put in a computer.
Also, Apple systems are based on the PPC processor, which is significantly better than x86.
The only real reason to buy x86 is if you can't afford anything better.
Luke-Jr
Going quickly through the logs of all the various sites I administer, I see 10% (as a round number) being the average for Mac users. As someone else pointed out, the fact that your site discusses photography may (and it's a bit of a stretch) bias it toward Macs, but your site's numbers aren't too far off from mine. (Plus, most other installed base quotes put the Mac at around 8% - 12% or so -- 16% is the highest I've seen).
Absolutely no effect on KDE/GNU/Linux running CVS Konqueror... A picture of some guy & a bike scaled up to a huge size...
Luke-Jr
That only matters if a significant number of users change the ID.
Democracy is not the goal. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness is the goal. (At least, that's the concise formulation I happen to like).
If democracy leads to the tyranny of the majority, it's bad. If democracy infringes on the inalienable rights of any person, it's bad.
So, yeah, GOOD government is the way to go. I happen to think democracy is the best current approximation of that concept, but it's hardly perfect.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
So which category do I fit into then ? Windows XP, fully service-packed and with a single application installed (Xilinx Foundation, approx $2500, it's all I use the machine for), BSOD yesterday after running a place-and-route for approx 10 hours. I would have used the linux box but it has been busy running a similar PAR for about 2.5 days now. Identical machines, same software, one crashes, the other just carries on working...
No, you're assuming they're assuming that. I read it as 'hey, these guys *aren't* paid to lie - fancy that!'. The truth (or lack thereof) of the article rests on its merits.
It works quite nicely, how ? Do you have any example rootkits that work remotely ? As far as I'm aware, a rootkit is only a threat when it can be installed remotely via an exploitable hole in the system. If you have root access to the system, you don't need a rootkit to make it vulnerable! Just as a data-point, linux rootkits won't work on a mac, for the obvious reason that they're running very different software and potential exploits will therefore be different!
Well, this is down to personal taste of course, but I tend to use commandline ftp even on a windows box... I'm a unix-orientated guy and that's the way I prefer to work. OTOH, you can just type 'ftp://user@host' into the 'Finder->Go -> Connect to server' dialogue box and it'll open up the directory just like any other Finder window. It works the same way for 'smb:', 'nfs:', 'afp:' etc. etc.
Sure, XP has *more* software, and there are a few areas where the Mac still lacks (eg: EDA, hence the XP box), but for the 90% of people who don't fall into that category, it's there waiting for the taking.
Physicists get Hadrons!
That's something I've never understood.
Mac hardware's nothing special - it's primarily the software that makes Macs so great in comparison to a typical Windows/Linux/BSD PC. Why the heck would anyone buy a Mac and then install a Linux on it? Just doesn't make sense.
How come Mac users say something like this, then in the next breath go on about how PPC is a superior platform to x86?
"Mac/Cowhand-A is a proxy Trojan for the Mac OS X platform. The Trojan may copy itself to the user's Preferences folder. In order to run itself on startup, the Trojan may add itself to the user's Startup Items. The Mac/Cowhand-A Trojan horse allows remote hackers to use an infected computer as a proxy to connect to the internet. By using the Trojan hackers can disguise their real location because the connection can only be traced back to the infected computer." Appeared in April 2005.
"AplS/Fromr-A is an OS X AppleScript Trojan that attempts to delete all files recursively in the user's home directory." Appeared in 2004.
"Dubbed MP3Concept (MP3Virus.Gen), the Trojan horse exploits a weakness in Mac OS X where applications can appear to be other types of files, according to the company. Intego told MacCentral today that the code is hidden in the ID3 tag of the MP3 file. The code will only activate when clicked, but once it is, Intego warns the Trojan horse has the potential to delete all of a user's personal files; send an e-mail message containing a copy of itself to other users; and infect other MP3, JPEG, GIF or QuickTime files." Appeared in 2004.
Note that these viruses exploit some of the same classes of vulnerabilities seen under Windows. The first one relies on a MacOS X hole that allows any unprivileged program to specify that a program should be run at startup. The second comes from implicit script execution. The third is a file type spoof. Those are all very similar to Windows attacks.
Note that these are all "Mac features", not "UNIX features". Apple put in "ease of use" features without considering security, just like Microsoft.
"You anicdotal evidence is pithy."
Do you know what the word "pithy" means? I suggest you check again.
I'll give you "anecdotal" for free.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I have a Mac, but I say it's no more than 5% tops. I would say it's closer to 3-4%
The only problem is that browser statistics in no way represent install base. It only gives you an accurate percentage of what browsers visit particular sites. Here's two major problems:
I'll second this. I really like Transmit as well, but that is shareware. RBrowserLite is a great FTP program and is free (and takes about 5 seconds to find using versiontracker, so I'm not sure why it would have been so hard for the original poster to find a free FTP program for OS X).
Neither one had an affect on my system, Linux /Mozilla.
I can't afford a sig!
Today's top-range graphics cards are not AGP 4x - it was dumb of me to choose old technology as an example - they are at least AGP 8x and already designed for PCI Express.
the way to determine if a machine is a Mac is a little screwy...
I have a windows machine running XP. I haven't had a virus in over 3 years... and I know plenty of people that fall into this same category. So did they count my machine?
You're generally correct about businesses.... but it really depends on where you work. I've been to a number of print shops in town, and almost all use about 50% Macs. Lots of newspapers use primarily Macs too. (Granted, our local paper seems to be migrating to PCs because of how cheap they can buy Dells and the like... but the writers still use primarily Macs as their notebooks and home desktops of choice, and they generally whine and gripe about the corporate change in course.)
I've also seen a few dentists and chiropractors who use all Macs in their offices. They're a minority, but they're out there. There are a few specialized packages for Mac OS X just for these fields.
If one only looks at sales, then I can see why the installed base numbers could be off.
I buy a new mac every 7 years. I bought my first, a 128K Mac in 1984. Although I added an extra floppy and a hard drive and upped the memory to 512K, it was mostly useless after seven years. But, it still worked and we used it for some games, word processing and some graphics.
Then in 1991 we got a Mac IIsi. It worked well and carried us into the Internet age.
It was still working fine, but in 1998 we splurged and bought a new 233 MHz G3. It's still working fine. I did upgrade the disk drive to 40G and added a USB card a couple of years ago. I run System 9.2 and it still handles 95+% of the stuff that one might want to do on a computer. I've got gobs of software that I could never afford to replace with new stuff.
By the way, I'm not a neophyte who never uses his computers. They get turned on in the morning and off around midnight every day of the week. We were one of the first families in the RTP area to get on cable. Our computers are used a lot.
Now that it's 2005, we're due for a new computer. What do you think I'll buy? I don't think people get this kind of milage out of WinTel PeeCeez.
maybe some are like me.
i was given an Apple machine (in my case at the workplace), tried OSX, decided i didn't like it for various reasons, and so installed Linux on it. chicken meet egg.
OSX isn't good software, it's interface is horrible designed, it's extremely feature lacking, and it tends to crash using third party apps. Not to mention the performance is really sorry for the cost of the hardware, which yes mac zealots, is considerably higher than an equivolently powered PC.
The vast majority of studies estimate the installed base of the macintosh at somewhere around three to five percent.
Incorrect.
The vast majority of studies estimate the market share of the Macintosh at somewhere around three to five percent.
Market share is about current sales volume relative to sales of other products.
Installed base is about deployed systems relative to other deployed systems.
If I own four Macs and buy a PC, then PCs have 100% market share in my home, but 20% of the installed base.
The article never said that people who don't get viruses are using Macs. It said the people who are using Macs don't get viruses. There's a very big difference.
In all honesty, Macs and Linux remain virus/malware free due to their limited install base. The effect of a virus targeted at Windows is far greater than the effect of a virus targeted at Macs and Linux. If the install base rises for both of these to a comparable level to Windows, we'll start seeing more and more malware targeted at Mac and Linux.
I've been running Windows on my desktop for many years now. I've only gotten a virus once, and it was due to hooking up my computer to an unprotected (and unfortunatly, infected) network. I knew the risks when I did this, and paid for it. Spyware and other types of Malware come along now-and-then, but a quick run through some removal tools once a month (if even that) is all it takes to get rid of those. And more often than not, as long as I'm aware of what I'm installing, it typically dosn't come around for months at a time. I hardly see where the "hours every week on security crap" comes from in the second quote in the article.
I work around 30+ programmers and various other help desk folks and support teams....of which most of them have a computer at home and at least half of them have laptops.
Not a one of them has a mac. I personally do not even know anyone who owns a mac.
On the other hand -- I am always hearing people talk about how they run Linux at home.
16% is way overblown. Now maybe 16% of Intel PC owners own an Ipod, I would find that a little easier to believe.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Open office runs quite fine on ubuntu for PPC .
MS office is rather bloated though , so if you need MS office features then you will be pretty hamperd unless you can get an older version
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
The Software & Information Industry Association hasn't been the Software Publishers Associtaion since the last millennium. The estimate that the macs account for 16% of personal computers is, at the very least, 7 years old!
just displayed a 100000x100000 image on my Firefox/MacOSX box. Also tried to set my away message in aim to something lame. (but I told it no to launching the application).
Nice try though. I guess your trick is unsupported by Macs.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Check out stats here.
More info on googledot from a slashdot poster here.
cache != cachet
Having read page one and not seen it noted, I'd just like to point out that at the bottom of the article is links to 4 previous articles where Mac user base is estimated at 8-12%. I find this pretty reasonable.
Mac's are pretty expensive, and for most intents and purposes they should be able to run for 5 years or so. It is not my personal experiance that unices demand as much more performance as windows does from upgrades, as well as the subtle point that most mac users are not gamers (ie. most computer gamers are likely windows users or own a console).
Also there is a larger 2nd hand market for macs. A PowerMac from 2 years ago will still be a pretty nice machine for a lot of people - while a 2 year old dell precision machine will feel dated with windows xp sp2.
Anyway, I personally believe that Windows installed userbase is someplace around 80-85 worldwie, and I don't think it's a stretch that Mac has 10-12 percent - afterall it is a bit more mainstream then os/2, linux, bsd or sunos, which would account for the rest 5-10 percent.
Yeah, you're right. My XP box at work doesn't ever show a BSOD. No, instead it just starts spazzing out every few days and requires a reboot otherwise it's nearly unusable. Sometimes, applications refuse to launch. Sometimes they refuse to stay running. Sometimes the video starts doing some freaky things. Sometimes, things slow to an unbearable crawl.
So you're right. No BSOD. XP is pure heaven on earth.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Good god, that's too funny. I'm going to print that out and put it on my fridge.
Do you realize what you're saying?
Precisely what we Mac users have been saying for years...
Precisely what my PC-using friends have been proving to me for years...
Precisely what Consumer Reports says in their annual report on computers...
...that Macs require considerable less "fixing" than their PC counterparts.
But yeah, go ahead and believe that your anecdotal evidence in patching up second-rate PCs is the same as reality.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
I've just spent the last two weeks in paris and seens loads of powerbooks, ibooks and imacs.
So just like the US isn't the world, neither is wherever you are.
Ryan
(sigh!)
Mac OS 9 has picked up a multitude of virii over the years, numbering the thousands by now, that is correct. Mac OS 9 is a defunct, and by now obsolete, version of the operating system. Also, the vast majority of these historical virii are no longer active - to wit, you can leave a Mac OS 9 system hooked up to the net, and exchange files for months, and upon running a virus checker will find, usually, nothing (MS Word Macro virii, notwithstanding)
Mac OS X currently has no known active virii that are capable, or actively, exploitig the operating system, and placing users at risk (again, MS Word macro virii, notwitstanding, since they don't affect the Mac user)
When talking about the Mac's lack of susceptibility to virii, the authors refer to current operating system usage, not something 4-6 years out of date.
Otherwise, by the same logic you would argue that Windows is virtually virus free (seeing as how none were around during Windows 1.0 and Windows 2.0).
Example: the first programs for the Mac (very very very first programs) still run in the "Classic" environment perfectly fine. Some other applications, like games, that took shortcuts to get better performance, don't work.
And if you are using Linux, why do you even care about OS X? Do you dual-boot?
I'm perfectly happy coding on my PowerBook 12" Rev. C. Tiger, if anything, has made it better. I didn't buy Panther for my iMac. It stayed on Jaguar. I never had any problems with things going from the iMac to the PowerBook.
His anecdotal evidence is no good but your's is?
Why not fork?
Thanks for the correction - duly noted.
Note that these viruses exploit some of the same classes of vulnerabilities seen under Windows. The first one relies on a MacOS X hole that allows any unprivileged program to specify that a program should be run at startup. The second comes from implicit script execution. The third is a file type spoof. Those are all very similar to Windows attacks.
Uh, these are not viruses. A big clue is the fact they all say "trojan" in their description. A trojan is not a virus, becase viruses spread by themselves, and trojans require the user to open a file, run a scripts, ect (read: user stupidity) to do their damage.
Also, the fact the the MacOS has some of the same class of attacks possible as a Windows PC, does not mean the MacOS is as insecure and as prone to viruses as Windows.
His anecdotal evidence is no good but your's is?
I'm pointing out it's just anecdotal evidence he has nothing to back him up, I'm nto claiming mine is any better.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
If you are interested asking Omniture about the discrepency, feel free to contact me privately.
When they compare the units sold in the x86 world, what are they counting? Windows Licenses, CPUs, Motherboards, full systems, or some combination of these factors??
Back when I used x86s, I frequently upgraded CPUs and motherboards, so my few systems could have shown up many times in the statistics. But, only one ran Windows, most ran Linux downloaded as an ISO online. So, counting OS licenses would not have shown mine at all.
I am primarily a Mac user now, and I have kept my PowerBook (without upgrades) for a lot longer than any PC I owned.
Depending on how they count the systems, there is a whole lot of margin for error..
What about all those zombie machines scouring google for topic.php? or phpnuke's latest exploit? Do those get counted for WindowsOS or what? If so, that'd greatly inflate the perceived relative percentage of machines running that(those) OS's. The fact is that just about all zombie traffic and other automated hits on sites come from non-Mac OS's. Anyone who runs a ssh server on the internet has seen their server hit (probably daily) with with dictionary attacks from machines trying to gain access. I bet a *VERY* small percentage of the machines trying to get into my servers via ssh are running MacOS...Does that mean that there aren't any Macs out there at all?
I am using OO.org on the 400mhz g3 right now , i have used MS office on the same computer .
In my experiance OO.org is alot quicker.OO features right now
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Unfortunately, Slashdotters will fall for just about anything they'd like or desire to hear...;)
I was very amused by the sentiment as it's been at least four years since I've had a virus and probably eight years since my last case of "malware" and I've never had "spyware" at all--and I've been using x86/Windows boxes the entire time.
I do, however, use a hardware firewall, a software firewall, and regularly scan for virii (never find any) with a virus checker, so--golly--I guess the SPA thinks I must be using a Mac???
NOT. Heh...;) Macs crash entirely too often to suit my tastes, are over-priced and underpowered, and are severely lacking in both hardware and software choice of the type necessary to draw my attention.
It's always nice to see the RDF alive and well surrounding Apple as it just reinforces the validity of the decision I made years ago to forego anything with Apple's name on it...;)
Do some research. Sophos admitted the the Cowhand/A is another 'proof of concept' virus that has been around for at least a year.
Good luck finding a single incident of 'AplS/Fromr-A' actually infecting anything or even existing and MP3Virus.Gen is a well-known proof of concept that also has not spread in the wild and does not cause any damage.
Some day there will be a bona fide, bad virus for Mac OS X that actually spreads in the wild and causes damage. That day has not yet arrived.
How is this Offtopic?? I merely replied to strengthen my point. I know that there are mods on crack, but these days it must be bad crack.
Poor countries.
M$ now does "sweet deals" for them, to keep poor countries using M$. Apple should just give it away -- it is not like they'll ever sell software to Chinese/Russians/Brazilians anyway.
Giving them a version OSX that works on x86 (with different graphics due to the lack of the coprocessor) would help to displace Bill without costing them much in lost US/Japan/Europe sales.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
If we assume that every single Mac sold ever was still in service as of 2005/1/1 (51.044 million) . . .
.
And that the number of all other personal computers in the installed base on 2005/1/1 equaled only the number of IBM clones sold in 2003-2004 alone (320.795 million, for a combined Mac+Others installed base of 371.839 million) . .
Then the Mac had an installed base of 13.7% (51.044/371.839) of personal computers as of January 1, 2005.
(Sales figures provided )
There is no non-ludicrous way to reach a figure of 16% for the Mac installed base. The numbers just don't work.
because some people just dont like the mac interface. I personally cant stand its bubbly backwards look. and any OS that doesnt have multiple desktops is practically useless in my opinion :). If someone gave me a mac, the FIRST thing I would do is wipe its OS and install Linux on in...
This article implies that Linux, BSD, and so on all have a 0% marketshare. I think the person creating this statisitic was confused, and thought only Windows and Mac OS X exists, and so in the data that only 84% of the people were running Windows so assumed everyone else is running on a Mac. Even then, 16% for the combined marketshare is more then I believe, I'm currently believing the W3School's 6.2% as the combined marketshare of Linux and Macs... I also believe there 25% Firefox statistic too, even though I'm sure most people here will flame me for that.
I believe that statisitic because as I meet people, around 20% of them already use Firefox, and around 95% use Firefox afterwards... I also know many people who just recommend it after I told them about it and they love it, even those people who literally know nothing about a computer, heck, the person who probably has switched more then me can't even spell computers. He's this really, really cool frat kid, he's grown to hate IE because of the spyware and popups and viruses and crap, doesn't know what "IE" is though if you say it to him, but he knows its not Firefox, and tells everyone to use Firefox.
Apple makes it work, mostly. My hope is that Novell wil make it work, and we will have easy to use wrapper around Linux. This might make the combined market share of BSD and Linux based systems enough to make developers stop designing for MS only, expecially in web pages. It might also make schools start teacher computer basics again, and not just MS Windows.
As far as getting in the machine. It depends how adverturous you are. I have been able to add stuff to every desktop mac I have own. It is not easy, the result may not be pretty, but the didicated hacker can do it. Of course, most hackers just want the easy, predefined, problems, so they can call themselves hackers without actually doing any work.
But your post did remind me of cars. I remember being able to crawl around in the engine compartment of my fathers truck. The parts were easy to get ot, and easy to replace. Even my 80's Hondas were pretty easy to fix. But the cars today, they are tight. But cars today are also CE, and tend to run better, so they do not need to be fixed as often. Some people like solving the same problem, and others like to find new problems.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
In my experience, ONLY getting three years out of a Mac IS extraordinary. I typically see three years as the minimum length of service for a Mac, typical is more like 5 years.
I 100% agree. My wife's been using a blue and white G3 from 1998, upgraded with a few new pieces. It just became our new Linux server last night since we both have laptops now. :)
I've got a 7300/200 sitting on the shelf next to it which does scanning and has a Wacom tablet hooked to it, running OS 9. That machine is probably from around '95. And it still feels plenty fast and does everything most people would want from a computer. Just amazing.
On the other hand, sitting next to that is a dual Celeron 500 running Linux which has been our server for years. Problem is, most people don't want to use anything but Windows on a PC, which effectively end-of-lifes them faster than they'd normally be.
Cryptic Allusion - New Mac and Dreamcast Games!
Not that it matters, me being a single data point and all, but the number of OS/2 users these days is certainly non-zero.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
dude, google for cyberduck. its has both ftp and sftp. And its OSS!
dude, I don't think your site's stats are very reliable when 0.12% of your users are still running "Windows 1"!
cpeterso
Regardless of marketing, tens of thousands of companies manufacture personal computers. "As Seen on TV", a Slashdot user claiming to work for Apple, has used the statistic "the fourth biggest computer manufacturer in the world", and that doesn't sound unlikely at all, regardless of metric.
I installed KDE/Linux quite some time ago on a Powerbook because I wanted... real 3-button mouse support. (Not that half-assed 2-button support in MacOSX)
Could you explain this please? Apple's laptops all ship with one-button trackpads, and installing Linux and KDE doesn't change that. I'm using a three-button mouse plugged into my iBook running Mac OS X, and have absolutely no complaints about support (except for Firefox, which is fixed in 1.1).
Now that I think about it, I suppose I don't use my middle button outside of a browser. It never really occurred to me that I should want to. Enlighten me - how do you use yours, other than for pasting text you've highlighted? (I absolutely HATE HATE HATE that behavior in X11, by the way.)
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Serious question (posted from a new mac mini)... What draws you to the PowerPC arch?? It would seem to me (moderate tech knowledge) that the only areas where PPC is better than x86 (stuff like register counts, etc.) are too low-level to be much interest to a user.
I like my mini, it seems well designed (apart from out of spec VGA voltage), but the compelling part was OSX; linux et all already run on my P4 just fine.
When pressed for what makes macs so great, 'it's the hardware, the pcc chip'
You've been asking the wrong users. The hardware is nice, but what makes Macs GREAT is the operating system and the applications.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Straight from Dictionary.com:
cachet n.
1. A mark or quality, as of distinction, individuality, or authenticity: "Federal courts have a certain cachet which state courts lack" (Christian Science Monitor).
2. A seal on a document, such as a letter.
[French, from Old French, from cacher, to press. See cache.]
Enlightening, innit?
You could have the same thing in Windows since Windows 98..... I also have worked in Japan for over three years and have yet to see anyone using a Mac.
I'm pretty sure that Windows 98 was not available in Tokyo in the late 1980s.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
I don't see why that should be so surprising. I use a Windows XP or Debian box at work. I do lots of google searches related to my job. Constantly need to look up error messages which I have never seen, and things like that.
That is a great point. Googles numbers are most likley heavily influenced by what people use at work, since they spend more time on computers there and as you say are probably doing a lot more searching. I do a ton of searches from work and some at home on my Mac, but it's probably only a small percentage of the PC searching I do. So even though I'm a Mac user I'm heavily skewing Googles results in favor if the PC.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
2) People who use Macs don't get many viruses.
Please note that while the Mac is not immune, that should read "do not get ANY viruses". That is the truth of things today. it may change tomorrow but it's not changed yet.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why aren't there 16% Safari/OSX.*Mozilla users on the web? These numbers are very much made up...
Name the stats you are thinking of and we'll be happy to point out the flaw in your thinking.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes is is possible to write trojans for the Mac.
But the ones you listed are all demos if you will, not things that are in the wild. Perhaps someday, but not yet.
So you have three trojans that people wrote to see if it could be done, vs 10k activley working viruses for the PC many of which are constantly scanning the net for victims instead of hoping someone will download and install them. I know which side of that equation I prefer.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
with OEM versions you have to install xcode off the cd yourself, so it's still there. (I just got my first mac yesterday)
Someone floated the idea that less mac users connect to the Internet - well nothing could be further from the truth. Those machines are geared up for connectivity. I don't know anyone with a Mac who wouldn't use it to connect to the Internet, and why wouldn't you?
Which makes me wonder, perhaps most of those 16% are Linux-based servers? Do they count?
Most PC people I know are more interested in buying a $600 video card for their 5 year old PC.
In other words, most of the people you know are gibbering morons? What good is a $600 video card going to do in such an ancient PC? Would the AGP bus even support anything that advanced? Quite unlikley. Your story is just not adding up.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I and most mac users I know use firefox. It may be the we are in the minority because we come from a linux background but still, not everyone who uses a mac uses safari.
evil is as evil does
Yes the old OS had many viruses, I remember the extreme fun of bootsector viruses permiating the labs.
However, currently OS X still has NO viruses or trojans in the wild. There were a few concepts people did to show it could be done (which it can) but still there is nothing yet. And one the ball is rolling it will be mostly trojans and not really viruses as we know them from the PC world, since there are no default open services to infect through.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What's more significant is that, even at the low end, it's a higher percentage than Mac has enjoyed historically. Good for them. They're turning out some good products and expanding their market share.
But I'll bet the real issue with most of the converts is security. With Windoze you pay for the OS, then pay for an antivirus subscription, pay for a spyware removal program...the active word in all those is "pay." So, yeah, Mac's may cost a little more on the front end but when you add on all those subscription extras for Windoze it evens out.
Windows is fine if you don't surf the internet with it. I surf with Linux and work on a Windows box on the segment not connected to the internet and it's fine. Otherwise get a Mac. My friends with the new minis just rave about them.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
i have to disagree. i love Mac hardware, it has always been something special, even back in the days i thought the OS sucked (preX that is) and i would run screaming form it. anyone who has taste and likes quality should buy Apple hardware.
...but i am still shopping for an older iBook to install linux on.
now me, i prefer OS X too, but i have used and continue to use linux, and enjoy it a lot as well. i can think of a lot of good reasons to run linux on a Mac. just not my primary machine, since i prefer OS X. and i know a lot of people for whom linux is a much better choice than OS X. my brother in-law for example. i hope someday he can afford to run it on real hardware (ie a Mac)
taoist, pantheist, dmozer, nut.
If that's too subtle for you, you'd better learn to stay out of grown-up conversations.
A virus or a worm is a piece of malware containing a delivery mechanism, a propogation mechanism, and a payload.
Cowhand is a possible payload. It has no delivery or propogation mechanism.
Apis us a possible payload. It has no delivery or propogation mechanism.
MP3virus is a test for a possible delivery mechanism. It didn't work without unusual user intervention, and Apple has changed the behaviour of Safari to make it less likely to trigger. It has no payload or propogation mechanism.
There are no viruses for OS X in the wild.
Mac users use their computers to work.
Windows users use their computers for entertainment (c'mon, honestly - how many games run on Macs? How many porn sites work for Macs?)
I would expect Windows users to use the web much more, as they're searching for the new Comet Cursors or KaZaa release, or trying to find the next big thing in joke movies, PowerPoint presentations, etc. People on Macs might use the web to find out about the latest plugins for Photoshop, or tutorials on Objective C.
Though this doesn't explain an 8-times differenential between Mac and PC users' behaviour. 16% is a huge number - far too big for me to believe.
Quite alright, I just wanted to be clearer.
now for some heat induced musings...
--curiously, when I first got my pismo, my office machine was a dual 733 xeon box, NT4, Wildcat video card, all the fun stuff of the day. I used to do finish work in AfterEffects, and for curiosity's sake, occasionally i would run renders of identical scenes on both. the pismo (g3 400) kept pace. this is the kind of thing that let's me ignore chipspeed arguments. you work with what you got, write to be elegant, and eventually there will be enough computer to do it fast enough.
I guess I'm "old school" enough to not mind a certain amount of 'offline' time in my graphics work. you just have to time it right so that the filter/action/render takes just slightly less time than the other thing that you have to do. that way you don't spend anytime just sitting there looking at progress bars.
needless to say this seems to be an unusual opinion...;)
anyway, I too am on the verge of an AlBook, have to hurry so I can still get the education/staff discount!
ooh boy the humidity is killing me
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
god I am totally incoherent this afternoon, sorry...
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
Anything other than democracy/representative gov't is not a long term solution.
Any government that focuses entirely on the wishes of a subset of the population will make more extreme/radical decisions than a government that focuses on the wishes of a larger or complete subset of the population.
I agree with the sentiment but shouldn't that be 67% and 33%? Three computers were sold.
No problems here... using Firefox on Linux.
Meh.
Apple made Dumb Security Mistake #1 here: they put in an implicit autoinstaller for downloaded programs. Just like Microsoft did with Active-X.
If you're going to have auto-install, the installed software must run in a jail. Java appplets are one approach. BSD jails are another. LOMAC and NSA Secure Linux offer a third. This problem can be solved. Apple blew it.
The main reason there aren't more MacOS viruses seems to be lack of market share, not lack of opportunity.
The first one relies on a MacOS X hole that allows any unprivileged program to specify that a program should be run at startup.
This is not a hole, any more than "cron" or "at" or for that matter ".login" or ".profile" are holes.
Are you saying that Intel chips are succeptible to viruses? Or are you saying that computers which have an Intel CPU need to be replaced more frequently? Neither of those are the case, so I don't understand where the shame comes in...
"They contribute to GCC"
fastest way to get optimizations and support for their platform
"based, in part, on BSD-licensed sources, so there was no requirement that they remain open-source."
i'm fairly certain they don't publish their kernel modifications
That's funny, it's been at least 2 years since my Mac has "crashed" and that was due to me loading a funky kernel extention. I bought this computer in 2000, and it is still running like a champ (with Tiger), and maybe I don't have the same needs as you as far as hardware and software choice, but I manage to do everything I desire with it. (Oh, and my mac is frequently DMZ'd and I have NEVER run any antivirus software on it -- it's just something I don't consider)Everyone has a story about how their platform of choice is superior, don't think you are any different.
die444die
This is why OSX is virus free.
You are harboring a common misconception that it's merely "Security by Obscurity" which is far from the truth.
What's past is NOT ALWAYS prologue for the future!
MSBlaster was actually a worm. It infected the system without the knowledge or assistance of an end user. The inherent vulnerability of the Windows platform to countless buffer overflow exploits enabled the massive large scale malware outbreaks that people think of by name - Code Red, MS Blaster, SQL Slammer, etc.
There exist however, countless email borne viruses, and for any one of them your point remains valid. A particularly clever email virus can trick an end user into clicking, "Yes", to the question, "Would you like your computer to be 0wn3d?" regardless of platform.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Apple has always maintained the policy of not breaking code unless the developer takes shortcuts. Then you have problems in the future..........Some other applications, like games, that took shortcuts to get better performance, don't work.
It looks like I'll have to repeat exactly what I said before. 1) The latest version of the Apple development tools will not run except in the latest version of OS X (last time I checked). 2) The same goes for the latest version of Fink. 3) I don't want to pay for upgrades when Linux is a viable alternative. I'm not sure what you're talking about in the quote above, really.
And if you are using Linux, why do you even care about OS X? Do you dual-boot? I'm perfectly happy coding on my PowerBook 12" Rev. C. Tiger, if anything, has made it better. I didn't buy Panther for my iMac. It stayed on Jaguar. I never had any problems with things going from the iMac to the PowerBook.
Again, not sure what you're getting at. Great for you, but I've explained why it is that upgrading to the latest version of OS X would be necessary for my purposes, and why I prefer to run Linux for this reason. I care about OS X only insofar as I get a bit anoyed by people saying that I'm stupid for not using it. I'm stupid for not shelling out on a new OS every 1-2 years?
Freedom is not increased by mere diminuation of government. Anarchy is freedom for the strong and slavery for the weak.
I use Safari and Firefox on my macs, but my bank requires me to use IE or Netscape to access their site. So, I set Safari's user agent to IE and everything works. Older versions of Netscape for mac (still widely used on older machines) also had the option to modify the user agent. I help out a few senior citizens with netscape on older macs and all their browsers are set to report as IE.
"When you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform." - Mark Twain
I "know computers" too and I come across people who own Macs constantly. In fact, I've watched numerous people I've worked with switch or consider seriously switching to Macs. I've watched the number of Mac retailers in my town double and the number of places selling Macs increase considerably. However, you don't see me extrapolating that out into the real world.
I dislike repeating myself, so here's something I posted earlier. Like many people here, you're citing anecdotal evidence which is meaningless beyond perhaps revealing a deeply held bias. You should carefully consider why you think such "evidence" is worth mentioning in this context.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Just how is it in the thousands? Popular app Disinfectant didnt scan for thousands. Norton I doubt had that many Mac viruses in their bank. I believe MacOS had under 30 viruses, and I only heard of once since OS 8.6, a quicktime autostart bug.
OS X has always worked with my 3-button mice. That includes the scroll-wheel and middle button, naturally.
With my MMB I can:
With Ctrl+LMB I can grab a window anywhere, not just the frame.
With Ctrl+RMB I can resize a window near the edge, I don't need to search for the narrow edge.
Yes, these are all things that are useful in day-to-day work after months if not years of experience. That's why all the so-called "usability tests" which only measure the first 30 minutes of experience and ignore any long-term usability, consider all that useless.
how do you use yours, other than for pasting text you've highlighted? (I absolutely HATE HATE HATE that behavior in X11, by the way.)
Why, because it's not the "Apple"-way of doing things?
KDE also has a MacOS-style clipboard, if you only use that clipboard you will never know that there is another.
You're missing the point. You say you don't know anyone who owns one. That's doubtful, but for the sake of argument, let's assume that's true. About half the people I know who own computers use Macs. So, how do you get to the point where you can assume that anecdotal evidence like that means anything? It's too subjective to mean anything. Graphic designers think everyone runs Macs. Gamers think everyone runs PCs. It's all in who you choose as colleagues and friends and that's hardly something to base an analysis of statistics on.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
I bit of wishful thinking on your part. Now that you've had your fun, it's time to come back to reality. :)
If OSX were vulnerable like a non-secure Windows PC, this would've already happened.
Sigh...
Why do I bother?
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
A quick look on their web site would have proved this wrong. Hint: It's in the XNU section.
Also, a quick glance through the FreeBSD kernel changelog would have show a few things back-ported from Darwin.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Google Zeitgeist says that 3% of google access if from mac users. Maybe mac users are so smart that they don't need to search the web...
I work in computer support for a school system I know the vast majority of our computer usage is for running stand-alone educational software or for hitting our intranet web site. Very little computer time in schools -- which is a major portion of the Mac install base -- is spent surfing the internet.
Not quite true. I bought my iBook mostly for OSX, but the hardware is much better than the Dell craptop I got a few years ago. I'm sticking with OSX because I want a computer that "just works", but Linux is still more flexible, and presumably faster than OSX.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Thanks actually for the link to the ftp ap. I paid for Transmit 3.x and I have not been able to find anything like it that's free.
I stand by the rest of my post.
I've been running XP Pro for three years on the machine that is used for video and audio editing. I've never seen a BSOD or any type of spaz out except when I'm using Quicktime(!!!). The only time I've know XP to randomly freak out is when it's running on complete crap hardware (EMachines eg.) and when folks use the generic ram. The system is running constantly and never turned off. Occasionally rebooted to reset the External Canopus ADCV300 which is somewhat flakey. Apple has a tighter control on the hardware which causes less OS panics.
Karma means nothing to me, so suck it...
Did you know that 16% of all Statistics are incorrect?
Who's leg do I have to hump to get a dry martini around here?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The share should increase significantly when Mac OS X Leopard comes out. Just wanted to be the first to say Leopard on Slashdot.
You know, your style of reasoning demonstrates that you lack a lot of the critical thinking skills that most people acquire by high school. I know teenagers who understand the problems inherent in using anecdotal evidence to support an assumption. Why you don't understand that is puzzling.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Mac OS X is only as secure as the person sitting at the keyboard.
Send out one of those stupid, "send this to 5 people and see what happens" emails with Opener as an attachment, and see how many zombie machines start reporting in to your home address.
People are dumb, plain and simple.
They weren't buying Dells? At the Apple Store in Ginza?
They don't sell Dells at the Apple store in Ginza, dumbass.
Oh, btw: your sister and her husband, who live in Japan, hardly count as a representative sample.
My sister lives in the United States. But thanks for proving my point, which was that the parent's observations do not count as a representative sample, neither do mine, and neither do yours.
World's tallest building rises in the desert