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Cringely Predicts Apple to Ship OS X for Any PC
boosman writes "In his current column, and in a similar op-ed piece in The New York Times, Robert X. Cringely predicts that Apple 'will announce a product similar to Boot Camp to allow OS X to run on bog-standard 32-bit PC hardware.' I dissect why this is unthinkable and challenge Cringely to a public bet on the subject."
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Someone is going to do it eventually anyway. If apple wants to get any cash from PC's using their OS they will have no choice but to come up with a "real" version to conteract the hacked versions that are undoubtedly going to spring up on every torrent site sometime in the near future (if not already)
Stay tuned for new sig...
...dork.
Windows is the 800 lb Gorilla that forces all the manufacturers to toe up to its standard, now that the standard is there, you won't have compatability issues (at least not much), and the anti-MS group will jump at the chance.
"In his current column, and in a similar op-ed piece in The New York Times, Robert X. Cringely predicts that Apple 'will announce a product similar to Boot Camp to allow OS X to run on bog-standard 32-bit PC hardware."
Half the goodness without buying the hardware. Boy some people just have lust in their veins.* Hope you all are stockholders.
*Either a testament to how good Apple is, or how bad Microsoft is. Anyway it's funny watching people fall all over themselves for the Apple experience.
Random blogger issues challenge to PBS columnist / NYT editorialist!
ASCII animation at 11pm...
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
this is just stupid, no way in hell apple will open it up to normal pc's, it would kill them, it really would.
No way dude! Apple needs nown hardware configerashun.
That's what I did and have looked back after using Windows since Windows 1.0! Microsoft could do something about it but they would have to do like Apple did, leave backward compatibility behind and rearchitect the whole OS; start with a clean slate. To cover your base with backward compatibility, bundle VPC! They already bundle everything else.
Seriously. I want OSX on my Dell laptop. This isn't rocket science, people. Even operating system development isn't rocket science -- it's computer science. If some guy on the Internet can put OSX on a generic PC, why won't Apple? I would pay $200 to put OSX on my Dell, maybe even more if it comes with all the extra bits. And if not? I'll still use Centos, if Apple doesn't want me as a customer.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
I'll do you both one better:
Microsoft buys Apple and releases OS X in place of longhorn/vista/vaporware
iheartbeer!
The reason is simple. Linux is shaping up to be better and better at being user friendly and desktop quality. Apple will have to compete with that.
I'm actually interested in getting a linux box up at work, as an introduction to what office software is available on it..
o allow OS X to run on bog-standard 32-bit PC hardware.
You forgot the "r" in "borg" standard.
The whole "OS X is so stable because it only runs on limited hardware" is nothing but US Grade A BOLLOCKS. Apple actually has a quite variety of hardware within their own line. It's only an issue of drivers, and MS doesn't support a whole lot anyway. The architecture of the whole OS is just much better than Windows', because it was designed with more than one dried up brain cell. Take Linux or BSD for example. They run on almost any vanilla PC hardware, and are more stable and secure than Windows. And their drivers are often just reverse engineered since the HW vendors are often not forthcoming about the HW specs.
But:
1) as the article mentions, it undercuts Apple's hardware business. It only makes sense if Apple is going to become a software-only business (except for items such as the iPod); and
2) Jobs already went down that road with the x86 version of NextStep, and then OpenStep, when NeXT stopped making hardware. They couldn't make sufficient money on it, even with OS prices of several hundred dollars per unit. How has the equation changed?
3) Should Apple price their OS X on x86 offering at a level comparable to Windows, MS would do everything it could to undercut them -- it has deep pockets and an entrenched position with vendors. I.e. MS wouldn't stay still.
I think "no" is a pretty safe bet unless something fundamental changes (even more fundamental than Intel Macs!).
For a bet few years ago. The subject of the bet could have been: "Will Apple use Intel's x86 chips in next 5 years?".
I would be very rich by now...
what? you're on drugs, there's no competition there. apple's OS is light years beyond linux on the desktop...
In other words piracy means that the content provider competes with a lessor version of themselves. I rather doubt Apple's worried about the "hacked" version since that's a GEEK thing, not a common man thing. Plus the "hacked" version is always going to be the lesser of the two operating systems.
The eternal question about Apple is if they're a software company or a hardware company ... and when it comes down to it, I think they'll choose hardware.
The release of the Bootcamp Beta opens the door for Apple becoming a Windows OEM and shipping dualboot systems with Windows and OS X. Apple still has decent margins on their hardware, and can make plenty of money selling to customers that just want a stylish Wintel box. Plus it gives people a low-risk opportunity to try OS X.
Apple has also had a very strong relationship with Microsoft in recent years, and I don't see them competiting head-to-head for Dell's sales.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
I have to agree with this site that talks about Apple possibly resurrecting "Yellow Box" for Windows which would allow for running Cocoa (and possibly Carbon) apps under Windows after a paltry 150MB install. Sort of a sanctioned WINE for running OS X apps cross platform.
This would allow developers to continue developing Cocoa for Mac and have instant ports to Windows; no dual booting or emulation involved.
You see, it's because slashdot sucks anymore and is no longer the thriving technological discussion system it once was...
Well that and the fact that I'd have no life if I took the time to investigate the ramblings of every self-important prick out there. This guy has a blog and is taking on a seasoned vet? Well, I guess it could be worse, you know, like those fucktards who think that they have the singular insight into large R&D projects lead by real engineers who combined have hundreds of years of experience behind them. You know these guys, they're the ones that discuss alternative energy sources with their D&D buddies after they get off their shift of delivering pizzas and they think they're the only one with enough insight to see through "the man's" latest scam as reported on slashdot. I like to call them armchair engineers but I think that's giving them way too much credit.
Just about every professional should know when to leave their profession. john Dvorak should have left 10 years ago. He has been wrong on SO many things.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You know, the funny thing is I was wondering if were weren't going to see the exact opposite of what Dvorak is predicting yesterday when pondering boot camp with the local Mac zealot. It struck me that Boot Camp might be the first step in a Microsoft purchase of the Apple OS, allowing Apple to concentrate on being a hardware company. With the delays and problems with their future OS, one can imagine Microsoft quitely purchasing Apple's OS line, or even just licensing it, rewiring the GUI to look like Windows. It would solve some of their security and stability problems, and chances are that they could pull it off without the average user noticing the change.
Why does anyone pay attention to Cringley? I mean, do any of these 'industry pundits' ever have to keep track of the accuracy of their 'predictions'? No... they just make ever-outlandish predictions because it gets them some publicity and gets some eyeballs for ad revenue over to their website. Just say 'no'.
Nothing to see here except a crank who made a fairly obvious, if not very likely prediction.
Much more likely that Apple will start selling hardware to run Windows. It will be marketed as a "high-end" Windows platform that is certified and all that jazz. The drivers and everything will be tested (or written) by Apple just like they do now for OS X so they system will function as a cohesive unit much like OS X + Apple hardware does now.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
Apple doesn't seem to make much money on its OS. Think about it: Microsoft Windows ships for about 25 cents a copy. They have the code ready after all the R&D, it just gets burned to a CD and has a huge price tag to offset the massive amounts of cash spent developing the OS. But that price tag is enough to earn a lot of money, eventually.
Mac OS, on the other hand, ships on media that costs something approaching a thousand dollars in some cases, as you can only buy it on a computer. And the hardware that comes with that OS cost apple money. This is one of the reasons, I believe, that Mac OS is based upon Free/Net/Open BSD; to help offset R&D costs becuase the OS itself isn't that profitable. SO this would make sense as a revenue stream.
But the reason why Apple has such a great reputation for a solid OS that crashes considerably less than average is twofold:
1) It's based on other OSes that have a sane drivers/program space implementation, such that a single bad driver or program doesn't collapse the system
2) It only supports around ten computers.
The latter is very important. The real reason why Windows XP has retained the nastiness of BSOD is third party drivers being pieces of shit.
It's tempting to say that Apple would want to make a shitload of cash on their OS, but at the same time I don't think they want to have to surmount the drivers issue and start getting a piece of shit reputation.
How to use coral cache: http://slashdot.org.nyud.net:8090/~oscartheduck
I've people talk about this forever, even before the switch to Intel was announced. "If only Apple would make OS X for all PC's, they could take on Microsoft." I think Apple is always ready to do something like that, but only as some sort of backup plan. Like they've had Intel OS X as a backup plan all along. What would prompt them to do this? I don't know, but it's not going to happen any time soon if it does. They are just getting their feet wet with the switch to Intel.
If they were going to do anything, they would license installation of OS X to 3rd party PC builders (but very strict requirements so that hardware is stable), a repeat of the clones. But they are going to be very cautious going into something like that. Only after they have success with those types of arrangements would they allow OS X on arbitrary PC's. And that would only happen in some scenario where they have to do it. The only scenario I can think of is if some OS comes into existance that competes with their OS on all levels (and runs on all PC's) and starts to eat their market share.
I am the founder and owner of probably the most successful formerly Openstep based software companies. We were very successful, and I suspect but can't prove that we made a lot more money from Openstep than NeXT ever did. Apple acquired NeXT and after a couple of years refused to sell more Openstep deployment licenses at any price (reneging on a couple of years of promises to the contrary that I personally heard emanate from Steve Job's mouth).
We sold specialized vertical market software for a lot of money. We could easily have bundled a Mac with each license to use our applications as long as Apple let our customers toss the Mac in a dumpster and run the software on an embedded Intel based single board computer. Apple clearly did not regard such a proposition as an adequate business model for selling Openstep deployment licenses.
Neither Apple nor Mr. Jobs nor market conditions have changed in any way that would change this. Yellow Box is not coming back. OS X on generic Intel will not be sanctioned by Apple any time soon. The rules of doing business with Apple have become painfully clear.
Hmmm, I predicted this in January. To quote from my article:
"With the recent raft of underwhelming presentations on Windows Vista and the gradual loss of originally planned features in it, and Apple Macintosh moving to Intel processors, it wouldn't be unreasonable to see Macintosh gain ground this year, here's how I think it will happen.
Microsoft will release Vista with their usual marketing hype, claiming that it is fantastic and probably bring back the "10 reasons to upgrade". Apple will release their next version of Macintosh with a lot of marketing along the lines of "most of the stuff in Vista we had five years ago, and look what we've got now...even better, it runs on YOUR PC", effectively canning their "Mac Box Only" pseudo-restrictions. Apple, with their increased presence, thanks to the iPod, will gain customers with the more secure, and more impressive OS.
I am really gaining the impression that Apple have lost their "also-ran" status from public perception with the iPod and iTunes and their general "nice guy" appearance, this will help them win customers from Microsoft. Also I think the general public are starting to wake up to the fact that, despite Microsoft claims, new versions of Windows are rarely more stable than the last, and the "new features" aren't all that exciting after all. Whilst the general public will see this as a way to escape the MS security problems, IT people will see it as a way to make vulnerabilities less attractive to "malicious users" as they won't have the same large scale effect.
I forsee Open Office using this to their advantage, perhaps making a deal with Apple to include Open Office in Mac OS."
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
We need more bets on this sort of subject, public bets, in front of all /.
I tip toe like rats on vouge runnways.
Call me cynical, because I am. I would first like to clarify that I am not a Redmond Junkie.
I had a long discussion over lunch the other day about the future of Apple and the timing and purpose of Boot Camp. While I would like to see OSX more widely used, and I am sure there will be some individuals who will dual-boot and decide that they like OSX better, I see that vast majority of dual-booters using Windows on a unique, and expensive, piece of hardware.
I am concerned that there may not be a business case for Apple to maintain OSX. Why continue to branch an OS while windows is available? The bulk of Apples Revenues are from the iPod and iTunes. I believe that prevailing software laws indicate that you must support it for around 3 years after release and the move to Intel architecture could be the beginning of this phase out.
Contrary to Cringely, I can certainly foresee a day where "Mac" hardware will, by default, ship with Windows.
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
Microsoft is a company with a lot of talent, if they wanted to write a good new OS, they could do it. The problem is that they need to support DOS, 16-bit Windows apps and all the different incarnations of win32.
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
In reference to a recent User Friendly story plot line...
:) I totally agree, Jobs isn't that dumb.
Nicely done though..
I think Cringley was just offering some wishful thinking, not really expecting it to happen. I doubt he'd take that bet, even for $1US.
-=TekMage
Whether its Apple or Microsoft, having one company in charge is a bad thing, period. I more in favor of Linux desktops continuing to get improved interfaces and OEM support.
BTW - I still remember when Slashdot was more about open source and less about being gaga over Apple.
If Apple does ever release OS X able to run on commodity x86 32-bit PCs, you can be sure that a limited hardware compatibility list will be all that is supported, but I can also imagine them also shipping a hardware dongle (probably USB) containing some kind of clever encrypted key code with each and every copy of the OS, and branded with that copy's serial number. Some kind of "product activation" process will likely also be included too, to write a signature of your hardware into a flash area of the dongle as well as the product activation data too.
Who cares what this Bossman blogger says. I want to hear from Dvorak. His has the amazing ability of predicting things that will never happen, and if he concurs with Bossman, then Cringely is right.
They couldn't do it today, but once iWork is finished they can handle MS cutting off development of Office for OS X.
Unlike Be, Apple's not a competitor that Microsoft can simply destroy by threatening anyone who might include OS X on their PCs. They sell their own hardware, and also unlike Be, they could offer enough of a benefit to the Dells and Sonys of the world to be worth standing up to MS over.
Steve put a lot of things in play that had been considered over and done with for many years. I wouldn't rule out a play for OS dominance within ten years, especially if all he needs to do is top Vista.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Boosman's response is far better than Cringely's column in pointing out the real problem: device driver management.
My experience with OSX drivers is that Apple barely gets enough support from device manufacturers (DMs) to stay above water. In some cases they bring development in-house to try to improve quality. Doing so in the Darwinistic land of PC hardware is impossible: the DMs must provide good drivers. Getting OSX marketshare up to the 25-50% level necessary for DMs to pay real attention will require years. During that time, OSX-on-nonApple-HW customers would provide a stream of complaints that would tarnish Apple's reputation but, more importantly, would slow down their development of OSX and give Microsoft a chance to catch up.
I personally would love to run OSX on other hardware right now, but PC hardware is getting _so_ commoditized that prices are falling to the point where the human cost of a poor operating system may outweigh the marginal cost Apple charges for their hardware for many people.
Apple is now 100% on that commodity train and as long as their marginal cost stays rational, they'll slowly grow marketshare.
Basically, the benefits will come to the consumer as a result of teir being genuine direct competition in the marketplace. Right now, competition between Mac and PC is not as direct as it could be because of the hardware divide. Hardware commonality means that Mac OS and MS Windows will finally get to go head-to-head. And guess who wins? The consumer! Speaking for casual users, I think that's what we've all been waiting for.
And lastly, I think this will serve to bring down the wall between the Mac and PC camp, and hopefully help to get rid of some of the Us versus Them mentality, especially among casual computer users.
A-Bomb
Running OS X on a Gateway? Sounds like gilding a turd!
There's nothing new about his prediction in this week's column, he's just confirming that he still think it's going to happen, even though they released the reverse product from the one he said they would. In the same column he predicted "two new Intel Macs with huge plasma displays, but with keyboards and mice as options -- literally big-screen TVs that just happen to be computers, too" and an expanded
Did the switch to Intel precipitate all this? I think so. I think Apple may look back and say, "Man, we should have never changed over to Intel. It ended up destroying us."
- A disgruntled Mac PPC user
They make themself believe they have to. And this is one of the reasons for the mess they brought themselves into.
But this is so last century.
Virtualisation. Obsoletes. This.
605413? Yes, it's a prime.
Yeah, right. They may be `shaping up', but it will take at least a decade before they reach the level of Apple in 2006. Never mind that they'll have to catch up with Apple's 2016 experience then.
That's from a former on-and-off Linux user since 1998, full time user since 2001, who switched to Macs in 2005 and isn't looking back in the least. I had to suffer (strong emphasis on suffer) Ubuntu for a couple of days in February, and I was reminded how painful Linux is and seriously wondered how I managed these four years as a Linux-only user. Windows is paradise in comparison. (Oh, by the way: I've never seen such blatant imitation as KDE's Control Center is of OS X's System Preferences. I actually laughed out loud the first time I saw it. I'll forever use it as an anecdote to characterize open source developers and their culture of imitation.)
Join the NFSNET. Our prime goal is making little numbers out of big ones. http://www.nfsnet.org/
I've often wondered where the term bog-standard comes from. My friends from South England use it all the time . . .
As I said over on Macslash:
.NOT wouldn't have been able to take over the windows developers quite so easily.
I was yelling as loud as anyone else when Apple reneged on the promise they'd made at WWDC three years in a row that a Cocoa runtime would be available for windows, at no charge. I still think it's something Apple probably should have done, since MS's hammer-lock on the industry isn't because of their crap knock-off the the Mac's UI, it's the number of developers who are locked into their APIs. If Yellow box had been kept alive,
Nevertheless, the yellow box depended on Display Postscript, which Apple and Adobe couldn't come to terms on licensing (Probably because anyone could have written far better PDF-manipulating app that Acrobat in about a week using Cocoa.)
When Apple abandoned DPS for Quartz 2D, the amount of work necessary to implement Cocoa on windows got a lot bigger. Windows simply doesn't have a lot of the underlying facilties on which Cocoa depends today. Their POSIX layer is a joke. Their graphics are only begining to catch up to Jaguar. Their reliability? Well, don't get me started.
But, all that being said, the main reason why Apple's not going to revive Cocoa on Windows is that there just isn't enough money to be made selling developer tools on Windows. Compare Apple's revenues to RealBasic, Delphi, and CodeWarrior combined. It's not worth it just so that Apple can make life better for developers on the other platform.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Using the mouse shouldn't be more complicated than masturbation.
Oh Lord! Another "just you wait till I start playing with it, then you'll see how big it really is" post. How about the rest of the world pause for a year, and give you all time to grow that thing. Then we can do tape measures at dawn, and see if this is the year for "Desktop Linux".
Think about boot camp. It's actually a stroke of genius. Joe Sixpack walks into the Compuseless and likes the look of the mac mini. Says to sales flunkie " I really like it but all my stuff is on windows"
Sales flunkie says, "that's OK this will run windows as well" just download this and throw in your windows CD"
It will be a slow erosion of standard windows boxes and the Mac Mini will lead the way. When Joes XP blows up with spyware, malware etc Joe Sixpack will say "Fuck it I just need my email lets see if I can get it with OS X" I will fix/ reload windows later"
He's wrong for a reason. Dvorak has found a niche in publishing the unthinkable, and generating endless reams of flamebait from all kinds of industry pundits.
:)
Basically, he says alot of shit to get people pissed off and therefore generates hits.
Dvorak, Cringely and Jobs and all the Apple fans should take part in a public mass debate about this.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
A public bet ? Lame. And less space than a Nomad...
** ducks **
Apple's value lies in its name, not in its propagation. Apple has been selling by the credo of "unpack - plug in - work", i.e. their stuff is known to work. Unlike Windows, which is more renowned for installing, downloading and installing drivers, downloading and installing patches, tinkering with this or that to make it work, etc.
The hacked OS doesn't hurt them. It's neither a damage to the brand nor to the sales. It doesn't work? So? WE DIDN'T MAKE IT! It works? So? You wouldn't have bought it anyway. If you did, you would've bought a Mac as well.
If they did make a "PC OSX", though, it could hurt the brand. It could drop Mac sales, and most likely it would suffer from driver problems, at least in the first year or so. A year is a long time, time enough to ruin a brand name for sure.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Microsoft promised to continue to make Office for Mac for another five years. It's pretty obvious that Apple had to pay back. My wild guess is that they promised not to release a generic version of Mac OS X for another five years.
you got be kidding yourself if you think Linux is even close to Windows in usability... Linux is 10-15 years behind Apple in a stable OS. Its dead for all except people who like to tinker with things just to get them running.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
It would be madness to open a new market for the hope of gaining profits on a $x00 profit at the risk of the profits of a $x000 product.
Premise (1): I've noticed that Vista was originally due in 2003 and still hasn't shipped (it's now 2006). It's starting to sound more and more like Copland to me. I think Microsoft is in serious trouble - I think they've lost control of development and need to go shopping for solutions from competitors.
Premise (2): OSX is the best desktop OS that consumers can buy, and the best that developers can have the experience to work with- especially because of the Cocoa API. Notice that OSX inherits OpenStep's ability to break apart into components that can be attached to other OSes (Openstep APIs ran on NT and Solaris as well as Mach unix), even regardless of hardware architecture.
Premise (3): Apple is supporting Windows installs on their hardware. This is a mixed bag for Apple, and it seems to me that Apple was initially against the idea of users installing Windows on the intel macs. They've had an abrupt change of heart.
Thus: I think that Jobs saw MS in trouble with Vista, made a phonecall to Ballmer's office, and offered to liscence some parts of OSX to Microsoft. Especially Cocoa. If MS needs to drop its legacy and move to a new generation of APIs, liscencing Cocoa would be excellent in technical terms - its a very good API - and it already has a bunch of intel-native software on the way for it... I'll bet it would take a 2% rewrite to make a Cocoa OSX app run as a Cocoa Vista app.
This would effectively be a lighter version of the sale that Jobs made when he called Gil Amelio's office to sell NeXT to Apple. If he could pull that kind of a deal to get Apple out of trouble, I bet he could pull a smaller deal to get Microsoft out of trouble. Technologically and economically it would make sense, the only obstacle would be a political one, with Apple entering MS turf ... perhaps the political tradeoff was that Apple must allow Windows to be installed on their hardware. Maybe it will become a build-to-order option on the Apple site.
I'm really interested in comments, tell me what you think of this scenario. Could it be?
-apt
"The history of science is cluttered with the relics of conceptual schemes that were once fervently believed and that have since been replaced by incompatible theories." -Thomas S. Kuhn
Ugh. How can you equate the past problems of supporting both M$ x86 and special powerPC for MacOS to the current one of OSX, essentially BSD, on x86 as well as M$ on x86? The fact that anyone bothered with much larger old problems means that there will be more to tackle the much easier problem.
Apple has nothing to lose. They can come out with a hardware certification program, like M$'s, which is a cash source not a sink. They don't have to make promisses about OS performance outside of their own line of computers or offer support any more than M$ does. The Apple experience comes from having Apple hardware and they can sell the software part of that experience without changing their core business model. They have nothing to gain but sales and converts.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I've never seen such blatant imitation as KDE's Control Center is of OS X's System Preferences. I actually laughed out loud the first time I saw it.
.. all depends on what you want to do with the system. It is a tool like any other system.
Just curious.. what are you talking about?
KDE control center screen shot
Apple System Preferences
As far as linux "catching up"
So what will be the point of buying Apple hardware then if this happens. Gee thats nice its a pretty overpriced box.
I agree. I guess what I really meant to say is that backwards compatibility is the reason why MS feel they have to do what they are doing. There _are_ other options, just as you say.
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
From a business perspective it makes perfect sense. The hardware is an expense to the value that the OS adds. Or rather, the margins on the software are comparatively much higher. Without the OS it is just about the same hardware Dell sells (with a prettier case around it). Additionally the apple hardware is currently constraining the market size to a fraction of its full potential. Even modest adoption of mac os X on average PC hardware is highly attractive growth scenario.
So, the question is not why Apple should do this but why not? But then this Cringely seems to be rarely do much more than blurt out the obvious wrapped up in some inflamatory way. I'm sure the guy knows nothing more than we do.
Jilles
So he is basically the ultimate troll, trying to always say stupid things that have just enough sense in them that it is barely belivable that he didn't write them only to generate flames? Could be.
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
With stigma: What makes Cringely smarter than a random blogger anyway?
Apple doesn't have the resources to support 3rd devices. In controlling the hardware platform their able to spend less time on compatibility and more time on useability. Additionally, all that hardware support is bloat city.
substitute secure with stable above.
I find my XP machine is no more secure than ever
but damn, it is far, far more stable than any consumer MSFT os than before.
and I think that is more the general public's perception..
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The pundit game reminds me of a something I learned in college psychology class.
If you have an experiment where pushing button A in response to a flashing light gives you a reward 70% of the time, and pushing buton B 30%, college students will converge on a rate of pushing A of 70%, but rats will end up pushing A nearly 100% of the time.
This means that in a hundred trials, the rats get 70 treats, students 58.
Which illustrates the danger of trying to get predictions "right". If there is no downside, you shouldn't worry about guessing wrong occasionally, and go with the approach that maximizes your reward relative to effort, rather than attempting to be right 100% of the time which in many if not most cases is impossible.
So, if you're a pundit, an occasional wild stab in the dark doesn't hurt; if it doesn't come true, the downside is very minimal. But if it it does come true, you get to strut around like you've got a private channel to Gold almighty.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
yes...that is EXACTLY my point. Jobs' decision to "Intel" the Mac was the moment that "it" (whatever "it" was to the individual) ended for them, IMHO. Surely that decision was made for financial reasons, and for most Mac-ies, financial concerns were never an issue.
So go ahead, call it flamebait but time will show that my POV is correct.
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
You can use any USB Keyboard on a Mac. I use Windows multimedia Keyboards and Logitech mice all the time.
But, you see, there are no false predictions, only those that have not come true yet. Here's the relevant text from the NYT: Time line? A bit vague, to be generous. "I, Cringley" gives a slightly more definite time-point (Apple "settles" on 64-bit processors), but it's still vague enough (does "settles" mean "announced", "launched products with", "no longer has any products not"?) to give an out and extend the prediction to the point no one cares, because it's no longer relevant.
The Kubuntu control centre (i think it's called Guidance) looks quite damned similar to the OSX control centre. See here.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
It would be nice if that came to pass, but remember that this is MacOSrumors we're talking about, the "Weekly World News" of the Macintosh rumor industry; one should always take a large bite from the salt block before reading anything on the site. Their credibility rests somewhere between zero and zero squared, and their "rumors" appear to be nothing more than a wish list conjured up in the fevered imaginations of the site's editors. They are far and away the least accurate of the Mac rumor mills, and their information always sounds as if it was passed on to them by Bigfoot, who arrived at their office in a UFO. It always sounds interesting, but likely? Nope. It's not what they think will actually happen, it's what they hope will happen. They should just do us all a favor and change their name from "MacOSrumors" to "MacOSwishfulthinking".
From what I can see the sensible course of action is to split Apple into bits: iTunes/iPod; hardware; software
- iTunes/iPod focus on developing the downloadable media end, free from Apple litigation.
- Apple hardware focus on making the best hardware platform for any OS, with all those nice design aspects and for the first time some chance of getting big corporate orders.
- Apple software focus on getting OSX out there and onto PCs, getting many more sales than they will ever do at the moment.
Apple as a whole gains in that app developers can focus on development for OSX certain that the market is large enough to be worth the effort. It becomes a straight fight between Microsoft and Apple Software as to who makes the best platform for users and developers - a battle that Vista's lackluster showing promises a win for Apple.
From Apple's perspective it becomes a very sensible move that could triple the size of the company whilst still allowing them to say Apple Hardware + Apple Software = Trouble free match. Against that size of reward, Mac zealots won't really have much of a say. This looks like a done deal if the Apple shareholders are in charge.
Computer sales still represent 2/3 of Apple's revenues. How many copies of standalone OS X would they have to sell (and at what price), to offset the sudden disappearance of nearly 2/3 of their revenue? (I say nearly, because there are some people who would still continue to buy Apple hardware.)
The last time it was possible to legally run the Mac OS on non-Apple hardware, Apple nearly went under because nearly everyone stopped buying Apple hardware and their revenues dried up, and they didn't have anything to offset that shortfall. Selling OS X for generic PCs wouldn't offset the shortfall, either. They'd have to price it high enough to maximize revenue, but low enough so that more people would buy it than pirate it. I just don't see that price being enough to make up for the lost hardware sales.
I've fleshed out some other reasons in a journal posting, as well, the link's in my sig.
~Philly
Linux is shaping up to be better and better at being user friendly and desktop quality. Apple will have to compete with that. Are you high, man?
ACME Septic. We're #1 in the business of #2.
Thirteen years ago (or thereabouts) the US Government (NSA, FBI, NIST, etc.) were involved with Mycotronix and AT&T in the development and deployment of a cryptographic device (aka clipper chip) and were poised to unveil it as a standard for domestic and exportable strong crypto. This was met with no small amount of resistance due to the key escrow mechanism proposed. Likened to 'Now you must leave a key to your front door at the local police station' it was a stillbirth.
Fast forward, ALL major vendors are now shipping a device called TPM on their motherboards. This device has been created to create and store digital signatures, and establish a chain of transitive trust for the hardware it's installed in. This transitive trust chain can be used to provide trusted access to all devices under this chain. The HDD of said machines could be said to be within the realm of this trust. This is your data folks.
The new Apple Boot Camp and included Mac Drivers do NOT include the requisite TPM control drivers found with all other TPM shipping equipment that runs Windows. Furthermore, this device has NOT as yet been identified by Apple in their system specifications, nor has it been documented properly for their Mac OSX offering.
Apple has potentially opened Pandora's box by aiding Windows loading on their machines, in that there ARE TPM drivers available... and one of them just might work!
Many have argued that Apple has the right to DRM their OS, and provide a cryptographically secure method of doing so. I would agree, their software is indeed their property, and they should have the commercial benefit of that work. I would disagree with the extent to which they have gone to protect this software, including leaving a very contentious device undisclosed and undocumented.
I am writing this post on my iMac Intel Core Duo, happily running Windows (for once) in an unTPM'd way... (The device is not installed in Windows) In light of the recent illegal wiretaps by the NSA, I'm thinking I'd like to keep my data to myself thanks, and not provide them with the transitive trusts that they need to see into my house.
Surely someone else must see this situation needs clarification.
if I claimed I was emperor just because some watery tart lobbed a scimitar at me they'd put me away!
I don't think Apple is going to be shipping OS X for generic PC hardware anytime soon. I _do_ think we'll see something similar in 2-4 years time, however. Okay, the two big arguments against "generic" Apple computers:
1. Hardware support - part of what makes Apple hardware so reliable is that the hardware is relatively good quality, well tested together, and there's a fairly simple selection to test on.
2. Apple is not a software company.
So lets imagine a mid-way point. Apple start selling ATX motherboards with a copy of OS X bundled, and obviously which include all the DRM you need to let OS X run. So, if some random person wants to build their own Apple box, they buy the motherboard, pick components they like from an approved list, put the whole lot together, and bingo they have a nice, stable, customised Apple system. People who want to build their own, or put it an freaky case, or make it glow UV are happy.
But what about OEMs that want to go a little further? Well, have Apple provide a hardware certification program. The OEM picks the pieces, makes sure they work to a level they're confident in, posts a sample system off to Apple, who run their own stability/compatibility tests, and stick a nice friendly "Apple certified" logo on that particular combination of parts.
This is not perfect. It's going to be more expensive than just stuffing together generic PC components. I think, however, it's a good mid-point between generic OS X boxes, and only Apple boxes running OS X.
Thoughts?
Just about every professional should know when to leave their profession. john Dvorak should have left 10 years ago. He has been wrong on SO many things.
You mean like the Mac switch to intel a year early, which all the Mac geeks killed him for? Sure, he is right on some things, and wrong on others. His horrid reputation on slashdot however is a result of him not drinking the kool aid of slashdot group think.
If there is one thing his opinion columns always are, that is entertaining.
I will give you a break that IPODS are over priced but as far as computing goes mac minis are light years ahead and priced very low. The future of computing is small boxes and Jobs knows this.
Someone described business as war, and this is a classic example of warfare. Boot Camp came out because Apple decided it was to their advantage to do so. You'll be able to (reliably) run OS X on a Dell if and when Apple decide it will be to their advantage. In the meantime, they'll do a fair amount of work to prevent it. It has NEVER been about having the technical ability, as you suggest.
I have actually found that I get more support, faster support, and free support, from the Internet. Yes, I've called Microsoft, IBM, and Dell for support in the past. Nothing tops a Google search for support.
Also, another thing people seem to miss -- if the product works, and does not fail, there's no reason to call support. If the package is built in such a way so as to either be A) Obvious, and B) Unbreakable, support will simly not be needed, if at all. I am a former long-time customer service person.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
I already predicted this 2 seconds after Intel macs were announced. Apple will continue to make Macs but they will be similar to what Alienware was....a boutique hardware vendor who happens to also make great software.
Gorkman
If apple were to sell a version that runs on any generic x86 system, then they just won great interest in companies. Many companies want to switch to the Mac system because, let's face it, it is usually more friendly. Of course, it doesn't help that they also have to pay for a bunch of new systems. Compare that to the 500$ "economic" desktops and Apple looses a chance. If it could be that OS X were installed on that 500$ desktop, then you just got a win-win. Furthermore, it would help Apple develop diversity in applications. If the OS can be run on x86. them x86 can be ported to OS X. The same issue with drivers: companies would have to make a Windows and an OS X version. Apple is dedicated to serving the user, and once the issue of price-per-computer is eliminated, that gives them a lot of potential.
"I'm a well-wisher, in that I don't wish you any specific harm."
Don't mock, you're on Slashdot, a site devoted to saying shit to get people pissed off and therefore generate hits.
You wouldnt see much - generally little assholes like BobVila dont have much in that department either. All jerks like BobVila can do is put down others who have done better than jerks like he has in any field of endeavour. He's a failure, and an unknown in this field for a reason - not only does he lack a penis, but he has NO balls period... hence, why he is what he is - a loser. Misery loves company doesn't it BobVila? Is that why you tried to put down those who are known persons in this field when you are squat in it???
"In his current column" my eye. That links to your blog, not his current column. Why aren't the editors catching this crap?
This reminds me of an old Boardwatch Magazine article I read in 1997. Apple had just purchased NeXT and a columnist had interviewed Steve Jobs on the future of the then Rhapsody OS. He claimed they wanted to maximize profits as long as possible on powerpc hardware, but in the long run the plan was to move over to x86 hardware. He liked the architecture better because it was not part of IBM and his company had a history of working with it. His vision for a long term strategy was to release a version of Rhapsody OS which would run on mainstream PC hardware.
.NET application works today. (very ify)
This of course was a different era and a different OS. I think what you will see is aspects of OSX appearing on Windows, but I think a complete port is not going to happen (driver issues reducing the experience). It would be interesting to see OSX ported to run as a subsystem on Windows. I do not forsee Microsoft allowing this, however. Still, the Open API could be ported to run on Windows (Yellow box) and with somework the Carbon framework could as well. The real interest would be, whether they would offer a UI solution, but I think that would be beyond the scope of their effort and would only be implemented using some form of subsystem and running it as a standard X interface.
Why this would be important is because if the Cocoa and Carbon API could be ported to Windows it would remove the required effort of porting a Windows application for iTunes and Quicktime. Windows users could just download the Mac binary and run them essentially as a Windows application. Somewhat like how a Java or
A more advanced option would be to give a full Mac like experience on Windows (trojan). It would install as a subsystem (therefore adverting the driver requirements). The users would be given a full copy of OSX and it would be compatible with all applications and run the aqua interface. It would have some limitations and if the user wanted a complete experience they could buy a Macintosh computer. (Very unlikely)
I personally really do not see Apple changing its strategy from a vendoring using Intel chips in their boxes. I think their main line of thinking was not to release OSX to the masses but rather to get out of the PowerPC chip (which is dead) and into an architecture which has a bright future (x86). Further, I think it is unlikely they will move to AMD. Intel is where it is at for them (Apple).
For Linux to catch up with OS X, the following will have to happen:
Look, I do like Linux. It would be my second choice of environments, as I am very much a *nix guy since prehistoric times. But to suggest it will even be in the same ballpark as OS X is just plain unrealistic.
Actually I think his reputation on slashdot is due to him complaining about the "idle process" in Windows "draining 99% of CPU cycles" in Windows XP a few years ago.
I want to say Apple will never release OS X for crappy PC hardware.
I want to say they'll never find a way to make OS X on the PC profitable, and that they'll never be able to pirate-proof it.
But then, once upon a time, Apple moving to Intel chips was unthinkable, too.
Microsoft's problems are much more about their corporate culture and management.
Apple will go down windows' rathole more or less. Not today or tommorow though.
The way I see it, Steve is gonna wait to see how the mac sells after Vista is launched. When the first enthusiasm of a triple boot system (or virtualization) calms down and sales eventually stabilize to a percent, he will then license the DRM technology that essentially makes a modern mactel what it is, to vendors. To be 'Mac certified' and therefor be granted the 'Apple logo', the vendors will need to provide 100% compatible hardware so apple won't need to fuss about driver support. If this works out and mac sales raise even further, believe it, Hardware Vendors will be striving for a 'mac sticker' and Hardware components will be jumping over backwards to be Mac compatible. The Mac enthusiasts will still buy only 'the original mac', but at the same time Steve cashes in on ordinary PC sales. So does Intel. As you say, this is probably why 'the iwork crew is hard at work on replacing every part of MS Office with an app that stands head and shoulders above its counterpart, just as Keynote does', because microsoft won't like it one bit and eventually stop MS Office support.
So I believe we will be seeing a 'battle of the stickers' in the future.
Just my wild take at what might play out...
They're neither. Apple is a system company.
"if they wanted to write a good new OS, they could do it"
No offense, but if history is your guide, we have 20 years to say they can't.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I doubt that as long as Jobs has any involvement at Apple Computer, you will see the MacOS X client OS available for non-Apple hardware.
Now MacOS X Server on the other hand...
I've been saying that Apple should have had a deal to have IBM offer MacOS X Server on their hardware (PPC, Power, and Intel) for years... Perhaps Apple should be looking more in this direction, as opposed to the MacOS X Client?
MacOS X Server (Unlimited Clients) pricing is very attractive compared to Windows...
Just my $0.02US
OK -- I've got a pile of cash ready to give to Apple, and I explain why they ain't getting it, and what happens?
+ A bunch of zealots imply that I'm ignorant about Apple's products. WRONG.
+ Other zealots tell me my keyboard preferences are unnecessary. WRONG.
+ The zealots censor my perfectly valid point as Flamebait. Also WRONG.
I'm sorry, if Apple wants to put themselves in direct competition with Wintel laptops, you zealots have to accept comparative points and drop this Apple-Ueber-Alles crap. Again? Is the MacBook the perfect laptop? It would be if they fixed the keyboard/mouse.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
You know who I listen to? Joe Pesci. Two reasons: First of all, I think he's a good actor, okay? To me, that counts. Second, he looks like a guy who can get things done. Joe Pesci doesn't fuck around. In fact, Joe Pesci came through on a couple of things that Cringely had trouble with.
So I've been listening to Joe for about a year now. And I noticed something. I noticed that all the predictions I used to get from Cringely, and all the predictions I now get from Joe Pesci, are correct at about the same 50% rate. Half the time they're correct, half the time they're not. Same as Cringely, 50-50. Same as the magic eight ball and the psychic hotline, same as the Mojo Man, same as the Voodoo Lady who tells you Apple's future by squeezing the goat's testicles, it's all the same: 50-50. So just pick your pundit, sit back, make a wish, and enjoy yourself.
Joe Bless You!
With the delays and problems with their future OS, one can imagine Microsoft quitely purchasing Apple's OS line, or even just licensing it, rewiring the GUI to look like Windows
No, one cant.
...and that's all there is to it.
How so?
10-15 years is a LONG time. Linux was barely starting that many years ago.
It's all fine and good to be a fan of whatever OS you like (OSX in your case), but there seem to be plenty of people getting their work done, enjoying multimedia, whatever on Linux as well, not to mention Windows. They all do basically the same thing. Sometimes a bit different, but they all do the same thing.
Fanboys.
The reason Apple hardware works better is because they write the OS for their specific platform. Doing OSX for PCees would drive costs on OSX through the roof trying to support all the junk HW out there.
Essentially he has become an Ann Coulter of the computer industry. Same gig, different arena.
The OP specifically mentioned user friendliness and desktop quality. Anyone claiming KDE or Gnome is anywhere close to OS X has been blinded by fanboyism or is just plain practicing Orwellian doublethinking. And let's not even start on the quality of bundled applications, or the simplicity of installing an application on OS X (just drag it to the Applications folder), and so on. Apple is just years ahead and I seriously doubt that there is enough talent on desktop Linux projects to ever reach Apple's level (certainly in terms of designers there isn't).
Join the NFSNET. Our prime goal is making little numbers out of big ones. http://www.nfsnet.org/
In other words, he is a professional troll, much like Zonk.
I think Cringely and others are trying to project their own desires on their predictions. Now, the delay in Windows Vista coupled with high hardware requirements has open an opportunity for Apple. However, I don't think it is in a position to take advantage of it. I believe that Mac OS X can be a viable solution for businesses. It has many of the features already- Windows networking, Office, and Java support. But, the problem is Apple sells high margin hardware which isn't palateable. Though, Apple could partner with a OEM and offer a solution on specific PCs. A presence at the workplace could do more to highlight Mac OSX with the consumer than Boot Camp.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
The line between PC and Mac begins to blur...
The Intel stuff was all just a gauge to see how it would be recepted in the public. My guess is that you will see an AMD version of their system in 6-12 months, and a general version of the OS for any x86 hardware in 12-18 months.
Also, Cringley knows what he is talking about. He has for a long time, and still does. Hell, he was employee #12 at Apple, and helped move operations out of Steve Jobs parents' garage. That's gotta get him privy to something at Apple. :)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
OS X inherited so many linux genes, I don't think the idea is very far-fetched. Eventually someone will be able to do it.
Apple has a decisive advantage with its OS/Hardware Control. It delivers a product to the consumer that WORKS, period.
Allowing them to try out windows / cross compute -- still allows apple to maintain it's very very high hardware profit margins and provide a solid usuable computer (the macos partition).
Allowing people to install MacOS on nonstandardized hardware is going to be a support nightmare and will allow for the erosion of apples "it just works" business strategy.
IF, (BIG IF HERE): apple decides to dump the hardware market... unlikely but possible, it would start licensing 3rd parties to make hardware for it's OS so it could get a premium on their sales... and then eventually stop its own production and still get a premium for it's logo/OS from hardware companies (similar to MS). Steve Jobs has a history of maintaining strong control over the delivery of his products so i'm assuming every MacOS pc would need some kind of testing before apple would approve it. Very disimilar to MS's current strategy (which is, sell it on anything we dont care, just sell it).
First of all I don't think Apple can do it - they have an OS that works on a ridiculously small percentage of the possible hardware combinations out there. This will not change magically.
Secondly, Apple is not a software company, they make all their money selling hardware. If their OS could run on any hardware and tons of mac-heads buy the OS only, they would lose their hardware sales.
Jobs killed the Mac clone business for a reason, that reason is not gone. Apple fights the hackers that port the OS to other machines, but provide free bootcamp in response to the hackers that try to run other OS's on their machines. The strategy seems pretty clear.
Small boxes and mobility. I have dumped box PCs for Laptops now. 2.5" drives and more. I am sick of a box that sounds louder than my air conditioning and a power consumption equilivent to my tumble dryer or fridge freezer when my laptop now is powerful to run the latest games and only consumes 40 watts of power.
John Dvorak should have left 10 years ago.
Why? He continues to make a salary that you may only ever dream about. His type of journalism pays *very well*.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
If you define office software by something that is stable and usable enough to allow you to do any productive work, let me tell it to you so that you don't feel dissapointed: none.
Not to mention the fact that quite a large population of the world doesn't use standard ascii or only latin alphabet. Even if any of the available office suites manages some compatibility with existing software (think M$), none gets any fonts, encodings or just the fucking plain UTF8 right.
Apple will release OSX for generic PCs eventually. (PCs of some minimum specification, that is.) The question is simply when.
:-)
But it won't happen until one or the other of the following becomes true:
1) Apple PC hardware sales become insufficiently profitable to remain a (mostly) hardware company
or
2) Apple decides it is in its best interests to fight a head-to-head OS marketshare war with Microsoft
Which won't happen until at least:
2a) The minimum-spec PCs themselves have a very large market penetration. (I think minimum-spec will at least require EFI.)
and
2b) Microsoft's continued development of apps for OSX can be lost without serious strategic harm
and
2c) Microsoft interoperability protocols are sufficiently documented or openness is legally enforced such that MS would have serious trouble fighting dirty
and
2d) Apple is supremely confident that OSX can crush XP/Vista/Whatever in terms of user experience
Of these, (1) is clearly not the case. It seems almost certain that (2a) is not true. (2b) will be solved if Apple comes out with their own office suite, or once OpenOffice has a version truly native to OSX. (2c) is close, and (2d) is obviously here right now.
In all, probably not this year. If it doesn't happen by one month after Vista's release, then I think it'll be a long while yet.
(Hmmm... I wonder if the real reason 32-bit Vista does not support non-BIOS-emulating EFI is to reduce the number of "Vista-ready" PCs that are OSX-ready? Microsoft might well be fearful of this move and have already executed their countermeasure. Can Apple make a BIOS version of OSX? Would they? Will manufacturers generally support EFI if Microsoft doesn't require it?)
PS: Now that I've placed my bets, it's time to go RTFAs.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
Humm...but getting them in one place at one time would be tough. So it would be better to do it via a newspaper or something. But that's so 20th century. If only there was some kind of web site, dedicated to tech issues, where anyone who wanted to could come in and post an opinion, for everyone else to read....
Pity it hasn't been invented yet.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Windows will include Aqua in their desktop themes? Apple will be reduced to a shell(skin) of its former self.
What?
If I were Apple, I'd do something like this
- Produce a 30-day trial for OS X, running on VMWare player. They could tie up with VMware, to produce a one-click OS X/Mac experience for all the unwashed masses. However, I'm not sure if the video hardware can deliver the same experience under virtualization.
- Put this puppy on a CD, and hand them out liberally
That's the max I'd expect them to go.
What Un*x is OSX based on? And the kernel?
Even Jobs is a convert....
Microsoft is primarily a marketing company and now I see that Apple is primarily a user interface company. But All use common programming concepts.
I suppose it says something about Mac Fans starting to be getting not so positive towards the Linux flavor of Un*x. And the HURD... well that under the radar for now.
In one hundred years from now the most widely used OS will be something of OPEN SOURCE FREE SOFTWARE. For it is the accumulation of general human computer system developement, but there may still be companies pushing the edge of what will later be absorbed into the sum of mans computer technology development.
Its a given, called consumer choice. Where code writters themselves are consumers with a choice.
for the moment just realize with me that the only company that truly benefits from Boot Camp is Microsoft, because they'll get to sell a retail copy of Windows XP for every copy of Boot Camp now where did I put that link to the pirate WAV files collection?
I predict that Apple will make a MacOSX Live CD that will run on all Windows pcs. Why wouldn't Apple do this? It would allow Windows users to be able to use a great OS like OSX. And if they enjoyed their experience then they can buy Mac computer.
\
drivers.
Currently, OSX runs well on a limited selection of hardware - it's all chosen by Apple - and non of it at the time of writing can support third party AGP,PCI or PCIe cards. Opening up OSX for all PCs is going to cause all number of problems for Apple - firstly by making sure that OSX supports pretty much an infinite number of hardware configurations, and secondly to support people directly who are having problems.
One of Apple's strengths is its control of the hardware its OS runs on. Throw this away and you're also throwing away a large chunk of OSX's stability...
The students are getting treats a lot more than you think -- all the students pressing "B" are getting the thought-treat "I'm screwing this dude's research up...uh huhuhuhuh..."
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
Push both at the same time.
With virtualisation potentially allowing Windows in a Window under OS X, Apple can market their computers as luxury options with a bespoke OS free of many Windows niggles, and complete compatibility with Windows software there is not a better Apple alternative for.
If they made a non-Apple HW OS-C version, they can allow all Windows users the same option.
This could be very good, but Apple have demonstrated a great ability to pluck defeat from the jaws of victory...
Microsoft is a company with a lot of talent, if they wanted to write a good new OS, they could do it.
Yes, but none of the people with talent are in management. All the people in management with talent cashed in their options and quit years ago.
-----
PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
This is about Apple taking on HP, Dell, and the other hardware manufacturers.
No other PC box can dual boot two OS's practically out of the box. With all due respect, no PC box can boot ANY stable OS out of the box. PC manufacturers ONLY boot Windows, and poorly at that. Their job should be easier only having to write drivers and put the boxes together.
Once consumers realize that Apple hardware can run Windows with more stability from well-written drivers, they will realize the value of owning a Mac. We're already seeing evidence of better performance from the Boot Camp and hacked XP on Mac benchmarks.
The day OS X ships alongside a Windows OS will be sooner rather than later. It's a calculated move on Apple's part to ship OS X Leopard 10.5 around the same timeframe as Vista/Longhorn. It's a sure bet that Leopard systems will run Windows out of the box whether through boot camp or virtualization.
Lets face it, the only reason consumers are buying PC boxes is to run Windows. PC manufacturers didn't have to worry about Apple hardware before, but now that they boot Windows alongside OS X they're gonna start sweating.
Microsoft is more than willing to take money from switchers, but don't realize that the end user will end up hating Windows since it's so much easier to compare the two OS's.
Oh I look forward to the next 18 months.
He was referreing to linux relative to itself, not to Apple or Microsoft. (i.e. Linux is getting better and better every day...)
When you have to start guessing what you meant, you should know its time to shut the shope and go home.
Apple will *not* be putting OS X on a PC ever, it kills the whole image and that's why they are successful. However, they already anounced that in the third or fourth quarter of this year, an API will be released to allow OS X programs run under Windows. That is what they are doing. This is Apple's attempt at getting developers to come over into their camp, and start developing for Windows as a secondary consideration, and it might just work. If linux becomes a threat, they could so a similar thing for linux. As Steve Ballmer said, and he was actually right, "Developers! Developers! Developers!". Whoever has the developers has the market, and Apple wants the developers. Even if the software can run on other platforms, it will likely always run best on the original platform developed for and it will also be the platform recommended by the software company. Over time people will migrate simply due to mind share. I don't own any Apple computers, never have (hopefully not for long though), but I do hope they knock out MS.
Regards,
Steve
There are really two separate questions to allowing OSX on non-Apple PCs:
(1) Is is technically feasible? Yes, but it would be terribly expensive in both development & support costs to get OSX to run (particularly drivers) on all the same PCs that MS-Windows does. But that doesn't keep Apple from limiting the hardware it supports to only the most recent hardware (non-legacy) from a limited number of vendors.
(2) Does it make financial sense for Apple to do it? Apple makes about $60 profit from every Mac sold (5 million annually, see their latest SEC filing), but could make $90 from every copy of OSX sold (70% of 200 million annual PC sales worldwide in 2005), then Apple would make $12B/year profit instead of its current $2B/year. Even if MS still kept 50% of the OS market, Apple would still make $6B instead of $2B. The vast volume outweighs the lower margins. Seems to me like a straightforward decision for Apple.
Yeah, right. They may be `shaping up', but it will take at least a decade before they reach the level of Apple in 2006. Never mind that they'll have to catch up with Apple's 2016 experience then.
Having the better product doesn't seem to have helped Apple's market penetration so far, and imitation (*cough* rip off! *cough*) hasn't hurt their main competitor any.
Nothing personal taken, and I didn't accuse you of being ignorant.
In response to your question though: Yes.
I typed on a ThinkPad for 9 hours a day while at one company for over 3 years, and a Dell Latitude today for the last 6 months.
I still prefer my PowerBook, and even my sub-par iBook has a better feeling keyboard.
I don't know...
I think that it would make a lot more sense for Apple to help the GNUStep project to be 100% compatible with MacOSX APIS, or simply release their on APIs under an Open Licence.
XCode is a nice IDE, and Objective C is a sweet programming language... it only lacks cross platform support. If Adobe could use the same codebase to cross compile to MacOSX, Windows and Linux the universal binary for Photoshop woudn't take so long! Lots of software houses fall in this same category, they have to mantain two or three separated teams to code Windows, MacOSX and Linux versions of their applications!
If Apple port their APIs and frameworks, so they work under Windows and Linux(and possibly every other X11 environment), Macs would became the first choice among those who need to deploy their applications to diferent OSes.
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
No, his horrible reputation on Slashdot is from things like this.
Well, that's Kubuntu, not KDE.
I took a survey for one of my friends doing some psych project.
She came back later and was like "you were lying!"
I told her just because I'm outside the 'norm' doesn't mean I lied my way through her set of questions. I'm sure there was one idiot who hit the B button 100% of the time because that's just how he is. Normally those data points end up getting thrown out.
But yea, I've been known to screw with survey folks in the mall and people who want to ask you a few questions in return for a freebie.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I always thought open source developers took pride in the quality and `innovation' (God, I hate that word) of their software, not market economics. Guess that explains a lot of things.
Join the NFSNET. Our prime goal is making little numbers out of big ones. http://www.nfsnet.org/
Maybe linux is ready for the corporate desktop when you've got IT people running around. But we're a long way from my grandmother using a linux box, and she does just fine with a windows machine. And if you ask me, you'd have to neuter linux to make it usable by my grandmother. So why are we running around acting as if the greatest thing in the world would be if linux were just like windows? Ridiculous.
> Anyone claiming KDE or Gnome is anywhere close to OS X has been > blinded by fanboyism or is just plain practicing Orwellian
> doublethinking.
I don't know kde, but for me gnome is definitely more user friendly, I can switch between applications on different virtual desktops, have the menu bar where I expect it, a file manager that works like the one I've used on OS7 etc.
> And let's not even start on the quality of bundled
> applications
Indeed. Just compare Eclipse with XCode, OpenOffice with the toy application(s) that apple offers.
> or the simplicity of installing an application on OS X
Completely brain-damaged, as there's no way to manage the dependencies between the Applications/OS components. Until OSX ships with a package manager that handles package dependencies, it is impossible to produce and ship system components for this OS. I cannot query which components are installed and new components cannot declare on which other components they depend on. At the end you ship all relevant libraries with each application and for two separate platforms. No thanks, even MS does this better.
The real problem for me, is that OSX doesn't have the applications I need. No java 1.6, even 1.5 is still beta. Apple jdk1.4 is broken as it has serious problems with the class gc, some of my applications routinely crash when running on Apple sdk1.4 (a known problem when dynamic proxies are used).
You have a very high opinion of gold.
Just to note. Installing apps on OS X may be easy, but it's even easier in debian. I use adept to find the package I want, click install and it's done. No searching the internet for the package I may need. And the best part of all is that if I would like to upgrade my applications to the latest version, I can update all of them with two clicks in Adept. Please show me how applications are that easy to update in OS X.
Apple wants/needs to start pushing out intel towers and workstations, but cannot because Adobe has not come out with an intel / universal binary of Photoshop -- the #1 reason people buy the big Apple systems like the G5 tower. So Apple puts out BootCamp. Hey, you need to run Photoshop at full speed under our hardware? - boot into Windows XP and run Photoshop there till Adobe gets their act together. Because right now, BootCamp is the ONLY way you are going to get Photoshop to run full speed on your Mac Intel hardware.
I don't see any similar underlying push to have OS X apps run on Windows, but I admit the idea is attractive. Apple is a hardware company, sure, but they are also a software company but why pass the up the chance to sell Apeture or Final Cut to the people who cannot/will not buy Apple hardware? Their money is just as green. But go up against Windows in the OS market? That's just crazy talk.
planet texture maps and more
... proposing a public bet prevents you to counter argument ? Not that I care for the question but...
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Does anybody remember what happened last time Apple licensed it's operating system? Remember the dark days of the mid-90's? 94-97ish? Apple almost died from letting people license their OS. The competitors just undercut Apple, and did nothing to increase market share.
Apologies for the accusation -- like I said it boils down to personal opinon. You're just an innocent victim of "Silence The Heretic" moderation as am I.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
I agree. The keyboard on my Powerbook G4 is better than any other laptop keyboard I've ever used. Depth is good, the keys themselves - with the sole exceptions of the arrow keys and the top row - are actually reasonably sized, and they're not spongy. Additionally, the letters are *not* painted on, but parts of the keys that are not painted. Other than allowing the backlighting to work, it's holding up extremely well to wear and tear, in my experience.
I have OS X on a Mac and it's a reasonably nice environment to work in. Personally I think it's not as nice as XP but there may be occasions where I'd like to fire it up, even if just for a change of scenery.
Not as high as dada21
All this talk about "catching up to Windows" and "catching up to XP" is quite backwards to me.
For me, I recently tried to actually use Windows XP for work. I felt like my hands were tied, and I wanted the flexibility that Linux gave me. The Windows tool bar is primative, I wanted KDE. The Command window is little different that Win95 command window. I wanted Konsole, or another modern shell. Add-on software, compilers that are naturally available (install or a apt-get/yum command away) in Linux, aways seam awkward in Windows. Drive letters and two char dos newlines, yuck. And the requirement of virus software to work around MS bugs really does not help with my impression of security and stability.
So I switched back to Linux for good, and run the win apps that I must using Wine.
As for OS-X, I have a dual-booting Mac Mini-PPC. I tried OSX for a while, but again felt too limited. I just wanted to run KDE, firefox and thunderbird.
So again, I use Linux alone.
who is John Dvorak.
I am from czech (Central Europe). So I dont really know who he is. He is a republican politic. right
The reason is simple. Linux is shaping up to be better and better at being user friendly and desktop quality. Apple will have to compete with that.
You mean, just like they currently have to compete with Windows? Yeah, and Apple will continue to do that too. You know how? By selling their own computers running their own software, just like they always have.
Geez, everybody thinks that just because Apple is switching to Intel processors, suddenly their whole business model is going to change. Not bloody likely.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
one can imagine Microsoft quitely purchasing Apple's OS line, or even just licensing it, rewiring the GUI to look like Windows.
If Miscrosoft wanted to rewrite Windows with a Unix foundation, they could just make their own BSD-based OS. Just take FreeBSD, slap a fancy gui on it, and call it Windows. They would have no reason to buy out OS X unless they wanted Aqua or the name.
What's the ugliest part of your body? Some say your nose, some say your toes, but I think it's your mind. -Zappa
They are talented but each is doing their own thing with no particular direction to unified Linux as a complete OS
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Perhaps I wasn't clear on my needs for a workstation. I don't care what operating system it runs, as long as I can have dual batteries, record Wi-Fi locations (serial GPS + wifi), ssh with an xterm, and a reasonably current web browser. I also like Skype and GAIM. Bluetooth working properly and MIDI support are plusses. That isn't alot to ask. An old Palm Pilot is capable of handling these simple tasks with better battery life than any other option.
I would prefer to have a pretty operating environment, like OSX, and be able to use some of the hotly talked about things that are specific to that platform (like bluetooth actually working). I'm all set with Windows, but I am upset about having to configure every little thing in Linux, and recompile the kernel to get (kismet and other) things to work. I already want OSX, but there's no way I'm going to spend $3k on a laptop just to get it. I'll wait until Apple wants me as an OSX customer.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
I wrote a essay on the subject a few months ago. I think that (while Apple may not do it) this is their chance to take serious market share, when microsoft is at its weakest.
In the beginning the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry and is widely considered as a bad move.
I have had many a talk with many windows people that are stating(Wishing) Apple will come out with MacOS X for the PC computer. As much as the 'customer' would love this. There are some VERY significant facts these individuals that think apple will be a OS provider have overlooked.
First, Apple Computer is filed as a COMPUTER MANUFACTURER. They are in the business to sell COMPUTERS. All of the software Apple has created, ipods, iTunes, are strategies to encourage people to buy Apple computers. If you ask anyone about what is the best equipment to make movies with, everyone says 'The Mac'. That is an example of where Apple's strategy has succeeded. Apple is not great for everything, but Apple will keep what it has as #1.
Second, there are three attributes that make Apple computers stand out.
A) Appearance: This is subject to taste and style) but generally most people agree Apple computers do look very attractive.
B) It is not windows: Where many Mac users use Windows in the office, they do not want the hassle at home. Yet still use one physical computer. (The recent Mac-Intel narrows the canyon of making a single computer a reality)
C) MacOS X: When users are not required to use windows, they do like using a system that has low maintenance and low administration. This is what windows users wish Microsoft would do.... Nuff said about this (As this topic alone can go on forever....)
Third, for Apple to promise the same level of stability and security for the 1000s of different hardware models, motherboards, chips, etc, it would take a team three times that of all of the developers at Apple HQ and four years to write, test, and verify that much code. A monolithic tasks that when you look at the requirements would never make it into a business proposal.
Lastly, as much as Microsoft and Apple are rivals, they are also partners. Remember Microsoft has the Macintosh Business Unit which produces MS Office and Remote Desktop Connection and as of just the other year VirtualPC. The MBU had produced Microsoft Media player (Gag.. sorry.. couldn't help that) and Internet Explorer. Thus, the relationship is a love-hate one. So if you remove bias and hate for a moment. Apple allowing windows to run is a much better Win-Win partnership: Apple can sell the computer and Microsoft can sell Windows.
Sure, anything you're not used to will be unfriendly at first sight. Give it a week before you issue an opinion. That was about the time it took me to get used to the new menu bar placement when I switched to OS X. Now, being experienced with both menu bar styles, I can state that I find OS X's approach superior.
I can't even try out Eclipse, I only have a meager 512 MB of RAM which can't accomodate wasteful Java applications (running Azureus is enough of a chore). Xcode is good enough for my needs. Also, some believe iWork to be superior to the bloat of OpenOffice, and those that don't can always run it on OS X. And then there's the non-cheap types, which instead of using MS Office clones like OpenOffice, would rather run MS Office directly. Both of these options (iWork and MS Office) are available on OS X but not Linux.
But these weren't the applications that I was thinking of. How about Safari vs. Konqueror (or even the bloat of Firefox? I keep Firefox here for the couple of sites which don't work correctly with Safari, but I'd really hate to use it as my main browser), how about iTunes vs. XMMS or Amarok or whatever, Quicktime vs. MPlayer/Xine, and then there's the iLife suite (Garageband, iPhoto, iDVD,
There's lots of shipping software for OS X... maybe you're just too incompetent for the task?
Ah, I see, Java programmer. It makes sense now.
Join the NFSNET. Our prime goal is making little numbers out of big ones. http://www.nfsnet.org/
And on the other side of the transaction, this is why we have things like psychics, faith healers, televangelists, and other pseudoscience. The reason why is simply that lots of people will believe things they want to NO MATTER WHAT.
Microsoft can do this and they have in WOW64. Stop trolling around.
Love the "spanglish" ... That's something else OS X is years ahead of Windows and Linux, i18n.
please excuse my apathy
This concept has been entertained in the past by Apple; they decided not to. There are siginficant reasons why they may not re-consider this.
Apple is a hardware manufacturer - they want you to use and enjoy OSX on "their" hardware (of course they would!). For them to release OSX for "any" PC would require an expansion in their support infrastructure, and potentially other operations - and that wouldn't come cheaply.
It may affect the stability of the product, but who's to say - we have people booting OSX on standard PC's now. Apple is surely watching that situation. They may reconsider this for that very reason - they will have a hard time foiling the use of OSX on non-Apple hardware, so why not make a market for it if there's sufficient demand?
That said, if Apple were to take this direction, I would certainly buy it.
would be welcome. Make Darwin available with the X interface only. It works well with OpenOffice 2.0.
I don't want to see Apple do anything that could hurt the company, but I do think that given the chance, OS X could eat M$'s lunch in the desktop OS market.
My point here is that I think people would opt for quality and security, given the chance. M$ doesn't seem capable of providing either one.
Like the inimitable Groucho Marx, I would never join a club that would have me as a member.
switcher \'swi`ch &r\, n.
A person who thinks that they are a Mac user but are really just trying to be. The mistake they make is to try to become a Mac user, when real Mac users are all about not trying to be anything and following your own rules. There is no fashion code to being a Mac user. There are no rules as to what applications you have to run.
Recent converts like you are ruining the old school Mac community because you are posers. Apple releases one OS that popularizes Fitts' law and the Genie effect, and suddenly people assume being a Mac user is all about owning a Mac. But a real Mac user is born, not made. You "switchers" are misrepresenting yourselves and the Mac platform. You're giving people the wrong idea of what Macintosh is.
switcher: shops at hot topic, thinks Firefox is a good Mac app, waiting for OS X port of PayrollPro 2000, follows any hint of a fashion trend (instead of setting them!), wouldn't know Clarus from Carl Sagan.
real Mac user: someone true to who they are, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules and they have no respect for the status quo. The ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world.
So true. Perhaps I should cross the line, say really wild crap and retire on adsense revenue.
Think Deeply.
I'd rather they committed mass suicide. Maybe then I could get more tech news, and less literary fellating of Apple.
the "bog-standard 32-bit PC hardware" is a bit optimistic. it would be more like a pc with SSE2 support at least with some features needing SSE3 to work as they should since that is what the hacked versions of osx86 require now.
portfolio
...continues to be delayed, then I suspect this is exactly what they will do. Throw the current "Windows Vista" down the same shitter that Copland was thrown down in favor of NeXTStep, assimilate a flavor of BSD (Theo DeRaadt needs money now, he'd be Open to it, I think...) and that will be what "Windows Vista" ends up being.
Windows Vista! Now with BSD Unix goodness! Kiss the BSOD goodbye!
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
For everything else, I use OS X and I have purchased a number of shareware apps for OS X since I switched in 2002 including some upgrades to those programs.
Maybe what you say will happen but I think it is more likely that you will see Apple and OS X marketshare increase which will encourage "more" ports of not only games but applications rather than less. Have you actually used OS X on a regular basis?
I will admit that the hardware is sexy and they include some unique features with their laptops like the MBP which I bought recently but I initially bought an eMac because of OS X.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
That's got to be an april fool. How can anyone be so IT ignorant yet get paid to write about it?
Mind you, they say "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, write about it".
"I was reminded how painful Linux is and seriously wondered how I managed these four years as a Linux-only user. Windows is paradise in comparison."
And this got +5 Insightful on Slashdot ? With no other moderations (at the time of writing this comment) apart from Insightful ?
Remember this, next time someone claims Slashdot is only full of Linux fanboys.
Essentially he has become an Ann Coulter of the computer industry. Same gig, different arena.
Although he doesn't (yet) advocate rounding up Apple users and putting them in camps.
must... stay... awake...
But he's not a cute blonde.
[quote]Apple will *not* be putting OS X on a PC ever, it kills the whole image and that's why they are successful.[/quote]
Right, and Apple also said they'd never go to the "inferior" x86 architecture, either. Always touting the superiority of the G4/G5's, eh? Now look at what they're using.
That being said, I'm going to get a Mac for my next system, after I finish building my athalon 64 system.
I'd buy OS X for the PC. In fact that is the only way I will ever run OS X at home. At the office we'll likely buy two x86 Macs, but begrudgingly. I'd rather build my own PC using higher-quality motherboards and power supplies. Will it be as nice looking as an actual Apple computer? Not likely - they do have (IMHO) the best-looking cases. They tend to skimp on quality whether motherboards and power supplies are concerned though (look at G3 motherboards, and G5 tower power supplies), and somewhat limit expansion capability. Also, I'd never buy an Apple laptop, because their failure rate, according to surveys, is worse than even low-end HP and Dell hardware. And the iMac line? Ugh.
They really ought to consider licensing the OS to OEMs again - they can do what Microsoft did with Windows NT: have a hardware compatibility list and refuse customer support if you stray from that list; that would limit their support costs and keep compatibility very high. Leave it up to the user to decide whether or not to stray from that list, or leave it up to the OEM to provide the support on Apple-unsupported hardware. Apple hardware would of course always be stable running OS X.
OS X? Great stuff, high quality, very stable. Apple hardware? Meh. They've had too many lemons. Heck, with the warranty claims, they may be far better off focusing on the software (where they really shine) and leave the hardware up to others.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Neither is she
When you plug a standard Windows keyboard into a Mac, the Windows key acts as the cmd/Apple key :)
Microsoft is a company with a lot of talent, if they wanted to write a good new OS, they could do it
As ex-Microsoft I can confirm the former, but I don't agree with the latter.
Any development project that size takes a lot more than talent. It takes a cohesive vision, it takes a lot of sacrafices and tradeoffs, and amazing organization, communication, and cooperation. In my experience Microsoft lacks all these things internally. Which is a shame because again, they have a lot of very talented people there.
Cheers.
"When I hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete, I see that the System Idle Process is hogging all the resources and chewing up 95 percent of the processor's cycles. Doing what? Doing nothing?" -- John C. Dvorak
Classic. Absolutely classic.
PC hardware sucks. Too many drivers to develop for and too many devices that will just make things incompatible!
The moment OSX is out for PC is the moment people will realize that what makes it a stable and easy to use OS is the limited availability of hardware and software it runs on.
Windows is ugly, rude and scarred, because you can't be otherwise after spending 30 years out in the wild surviving on all kinds of hardware and living with all kinds of software.
If anything, this will get more people to buy macs and will cause more of them to get sick of dual booting, and will put pressure on companies to simply support OS X. After all, even if your customers can boot into Windows, do you want to force them to?
You mean like the Mac switch to intel a year early, which all the Mac geeks killed him for?
Take a look at that prediction again.
It predicts that
- Apple will switch to Itanium
- Apple will ship dual-architecture Itanium-PowerPC machines
- The switch would happen sometime between March and September of 2004.
Even today, that article is ridiculously out-of-touch. Itanium? Dual-architecture machines? Nobody with a modicum of common sense would buy that.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
+1, lawl.
Fat chance of this happening. The Mac is all about predictable, known and *finite* sets of hardware that will work with its system. That's the real secret of why it is so stable (aside from the usual pointing to the Unix core). With predictable hardware, you can tailor your system specifically to it: and you can build a stable and reliable system around it that maximizes the benefits of that limited set of hardware. The PC world, however, is a different beast. There is no regulation of hardware components (aside from interface standards in hardware and some loose API specs). Dispite the frowning-on of M$, it is really this lack of regulation that makes Windows unstable... or more specifically, the fact that it can't account for the innumerable variants and deviations from reccommended specifications and expected values. I highly doubt that Apple would want to get themselves out of this particularly nice and manageable niche they are in. It's a profitable niche, and a niche that leaves them with far less headaches. If they sold the OS X for the unregulated PC world, there would slowly creep into OS X the same problems one sees in the operating systems of the PC world. It would not be a wise move on their part. Their current strategy, of giving PC users a way to use their old system on their new environment, is the perfect strategy: it allows PC users to make the transition to the regulated Mac environment, and in a way it gives PC users a feeling that they are buying two computers for the price of one. One system that still uses their PC apps at full speed, and yet will use the Mac specific features that are greatly valued by the niche audience. If Apple is planning to release OS X to the general PC market, I would highly advise them against it. They've got a good thing going with Boot Camp, and they just need to keep it up.
-Vendal Thornheart
We look forward to your published columns then. Where are they?
"...and please don't knock them until you've tried them."
Having worked on Windows boxes for years, and now typing this on a PowerBook, I have a couple of points for you to consider:
1) In OS X, the Mac's "backspace" delete is mapped as the standard delete for most functions, so "Delete" deletes a file or whatever. I've also noticed that a slight unconscious change in habit was all that was required to adapt, such as clicking to the right of the character and hitting delete, as opposed to clicking in front of it.
Finally, studies have indicated that if you're a fast touch-typist, backspace and retype to fix an error is about twice as fast than the mental gyrations needed to do, say, back-arrow, back-arrow, back-arrow, back-arrow, delete, retype, end.
2) I too, missed Page Up/Dw, but I've also found here that I've begun to prefer the two-fingered "scroll" gestures one uses with the trackpad. After very little time my mind has again unconsciously adapted to it, such that I can simply "brush" the trackpad and page up, down, back a half page, down two, and so on. And it beats the heck out of a scroll wheel.
In fact, that adaption has become so natural that I've gradually stopped using the wireless mouse and trackball I used to use with the notebook when it was on my desk. At the risk of sounding like a fanboy, it's truly a great piece of interface design.
3) I do miss right-clicks, and find that the control-click substitute rather awkward to use. On the flip side, and for better or for worse, OS X software makes far less use of "context" clicks as does its WIndow's counterparts. And often the "missing" functionality is readily accessible via menus, cmd-keys, or toolbars.
In fact, via the control panel one can add or remap any command key in almost any application.
4) You also mentioned a docking station, something that bothered me as well. However, after a little research I now have an Airport Express next to my desk that has my speakers and my printer plugged into it. So other than the power cord, my computer is wire-free.
Now, you could also argue that if you wanted to use a big monitor, external keyboard and mouse, and so forth, that a station would be missed, and that would be true... except from my perspective if I'm going to do that, I might as well run them off a mini or tower, and simply access my files as needed on the PowerBook's drive via WiFi, or use "sync" software to merge the two (which, incidentally, gives me a backup as well).
In short, more thought has gone into the design apsects of the system than might be apparent at first glance. So to paraphrase, "please don't knock [the lack of] them until you've tried them."
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
I'm not saying that OS X is _not_ a good system. I think it is the best complete package for a desktop operating system available right now for home/creative use and it provides a lot of very nice apps that are really innovative and all of that..
However, there are a lot of computing tasks that simply do not need a garageband or iMovie or iDVD or any of that stuff. There are millions of systems out there that may only use one or two specific apps or utilize a web-based app.. Or perhaps is used exclusively for data entry purposes or a myriad of other well-defined tasks. For these types of users, Linux makes a great choice. It has a lower cost, has great thin-client capabilities (less administrative overhead, lower initial costs, lower TCO, etc..) and for a lot of office/pop/etc tasks, it is a real strong competitor in the marketplace.
OS X in particular is miles beyond it in so many ways, though even Windows has benefits. Take program installation. In OS X, you download a file, open it, and drag an icon from one folder to the other. In Windows, download a file, open it, and follow an installer (basically click "Next"..."Next"...over and over). In Linux, how many different factors and steps does the user have to consider? I still have problems with it from time to time, good luck converting someone who barely knows anything about computers and thinks IE is the Internet. Seriously, if you think that the average user could "just download a cd, burn it, and install it", you're out of touch with the abilities of the average user.
I am not sure if this "Mac will run on everything and even runs XP" is such a great thing.
I already hate the huge drives I need - now I have to double up on that.
Even if everything works flawless, do we really want to switch back and forth between linux-windows-OS X?
Are we just creating endless, fake goals, are we responding to endless fake challenges?
Eclipse and Openoffice are both perfectly usable with 512MB of RAM under Windows or Linux. OS X is bloated POS if it can't run a few apps well on 512MB, which is more than sufficient for normal desktop usage on Windows and Linux.
As for the apps:
* amaroK kicks iTunes' ass.
* I have yet to understand what's so great about Safari, compared to Firefox or Konq.
* Quicktime is crippled garbage. Apple should be ashamed to include a shareware-like app with their OS, especially after the consumer has spent a few grands on their overexpensive hardware.
Commercial software support is about the only plus OS X has over Linux.
I disagree, it's a _possible_ threat, but in reality, Apple's Boot Camp is a way to get MORE people to consider owning a machine that runs OSX. This will increase 'market share,' which we always hear so much about, and give companies more justification to develop software for OSX. More OSX in the marketplace = more people who need software for it.
I think people will want to run OSX over windows if they have the choice.
In fact, I think this Intel Mac thing is going to make the Macintosh THE power machine for tech-heads - it runs any OS you throw at it, all under the same hood... In a reboot, or in a virtualized window. And now the hardware is as fast as it gets (within reason and cost-effectivness, I mean). I think even the most die-hard Mac haters will seee that for $500-$1000 more you can run everything under the sun, and maybe even spring for a Mac...
News to me (and I used Amarok before switching to the Mac). The most remarking memory I have of it was how often it crashed -- I don't recall iTunes ever crashing on me. Anyway, why do you claim that? Because it plays some obscure format no one cares about?
I could start on how it doesn't take half a minute to load, and 15 seconds to be swapped back from the HD whenever I've been away from it for a while, like Firefox does. Then there's the `Apple polish' which is never present on any open source app, even when they try to imitate Apple (since they always mess some details).
Quicktime standard is fairly crippled, but I have no complaints about Quicktime Pro. It is certainly much better than the garbage media players available for Linux. Also, I can encode small and good quality video without wading through hundreds of KBs of man pages for weird commandline compression options (*cough*mencoder*cough*).
Join the NFSNET. Our prime goal is making little numbers out of big ones. http://www.nfsnet.org/
That won't happen because:
a) Drivers will have to be created for pretty much every piece of hardware that has a windows driver
b) Monopoly. One of the reasons Microsoft isn't bothered with monopoly suits in the US right now is OSX. Buy OSX and monopoly suits will be back (and European ones will be worse)
c) What will be left of Apple? As a pure hardware company, they wouldn't survive.
because Cringely's track record suggests he doesn't know much about where apple is going.
However, it seems to me that if apple wanted people to get cheap macs, they wouldn't make a "generic mac os" since this would require them supporting too much software at too great an expense. It would make more sense to do what they did in the past, license specific computer manufacturers to produce mac compatible machines. It would then be Dell's or whoevers responsibility to either provide hardware that worked with osx, or write their own drivers.
Many don't remember, but in the past apple licensed a number of companies to produce low margin mac machines. Their market share actually increased quite a bit when they did this... but it ended up cutting into their revenue too much, so they axed the clones. At the time the apple clones were both better and cheaper than the originals... I still have a Power Computing machine. It was totally badass back in the day.
Anyway, licensing would probably be the option apple would take (if they wanted osx on non-apple's *at all*) because
1. They've done it before.
2. It leaves them in control to say *who* can make *how many* clones, and *what market* they can produce them for. Apple could stipulate for instance that the clone maker would only be allowed to sell sub $1k machines with limited upgradability while apple maintained a monopoly on the high end high margin workstations, which is what they are good at making anyway.
Dell, I believe has expressed interest in being in such a role. If I were Apple, I would consider such an offer, but only a year or two down the line when apple had gotten over some more bumps in the intel transition. Specifically, I would wait until Microsoft had finished ports of it's mac software to intel. If they made the move now, they would leave Microsoft in a position to sabotage Apple if Microsoft felt its marketshare threatened. Microsoft could always justify not porting to osx intel, as such machines can always dual boot osx.
Wouldn't that be 49 treats?
Out of 100 rounds, students would press A 70 times, each with a 70% chance of a treat. That's 70 x 0.70 = 49, right?
Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
Well, for Vista 64-bit, most every driver has to be rewritten anyway. That's why XP 64-bit had about nobody use it- no drivers.
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
The fact is nobody has ever accomplished what Microsoft is trying to accomplish with Longhorn. Apple's strategy is right for Apple... for a company with a smaller number of more devoted followers, you can support a limited software and hardware base, and turn a new (incompatible) leaf now and then. But that's not an option for Windows, there's too much stuff built on top of it.
And you're right, the average user would never be able to tell the difference!
I don't mean in the way of generic Mac Os X but think of it, How many people do you think are like "oh that OS is nice but can I really get used to it and can I really live without windows" Well now you don't have to, you can run both! BootCamp is going to make it easier than ever for the switch to take place because people can do it one step at a time. They will do it too because lets face it, OS X is the nicest piece of desktop work out there right now and once the new users get comfortable with the Mac way of life I am certain that Xp partition will gradually become a memory! Except in cases of wanting to play the latest games of today that are not ported to OS X. So I don't believe Generic intel OS X is in the future as Jobs is too much of a control freak for that but Adopting the mac way of life has become easier then ever with no pesky and pricey VM required.
I find WindowMaker _very_ friendly. I _am_ a user, and I find Macs unfriendly (yes, I have used them). KDE and GNOME both suck.
:).
And when you are speaking of instllations, please let me know how you install applications automatically on a few hundred node farm. No drag and drop
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
Why not just ship an older version of Windows with the new release? Vista is big as it is, few people are going to cry about an optionally-installable VPCed XP that you use to run applications that aren't compatible with the new APIs.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
I certainly can. It's really too bad that you can't also. The excited squeals of mac users as they rush to flipflop again and proclaim microsoft the greatest company ever and the only one with elegant, usable interfaces. Oh, you should see the joy on their faces too. They look so happy as they wait in line for the midnight release of Microsoft WindowsOS. Really warms my heart to see such genuine happiness. Oh look, one of the little maclets has gotten away from his mother and is snuggling up against an xbox 360. SHE'S BUYING IT FOR HIM! He's so happy he's doing a little dance. It's so beautiful, I wish you could see it, nuggetman.
The Farewell Tour II
News to me (and I used Amarok before switching to the Mac). The most remarking memory I have of it was how often it crashed -- I don't recall iTunes ever crashing on me. Anyway, why do you claim that? Because it plays some obscure format no one cares about?
amaroK with the Xine backend is rock-solid. I'm guessing your past experiences were with GStreamer, which sadly is still the default on some distributions.
As for amaroK being better, well there's the automatic fetching of album covers, the larger format support (that of course Apple sheeps like yourself don't care about, because Apple told you to), the lack of an annoying built-in DRM selling store (yes, that's actually an *advantage* over iTunes), and lots of little things that make it fun to use.
iTunes is still nice though, I have to admit.
I could start on how it doesn't take half a minute to load, and 15 seconds to be swapped back from the HD whenever I've been away from it for a while, like Firefox does. Then there's the `Apple polish' which is never present on any open source app, even when they try to imitate Apple (since they always mess some details).
If Firefox takes half a minute to load, there's a problem elsewhere. I'm guessing this is under OS X, which proves again how much of a bloated mess it is. Under Windows or Linux it's pretty good, though I prefer Konq. You know, from the guys who MADE THE RENDERING ENGINE SAFARI USES.
As for the "Apple polish" thing, I'll give you that, even though it usually means "having as few features as possible". Those retards from Gnome are good at copying this.
Quicktime standard is fairly crippled, but I have no complaints about Quicktime Pro.
You had no problem with having to pay extra to uncripple something that came with your system? (rolls eyes)
It is certainly much better than the garbage media players available for Linux.
Ever tried VLC? Please tell me why it is garbage. C'mon go ahead, it runs on every OS anyway.
Also, I can encode small and good quality video without wading through hundreds of KBs of man pages for weird commandline compression options (*cough*mencoder*cough*).
Comparing an old and crummy command-line encoder to a GUI frontend? Apples and oranges.
... it will ONLY be on VERY limited configurations (for support and driver reasons).
;)
In the meantime you can always try running a hacked OS X in a virtualized environment in fullscreen
What are you talking about? Apple IS a hardware company, and not much else. Without iPod they wouldn't survive. They could easily drop the computer business (hardware and software) without a problem.
The Farewell Tour II
I don't know, it makes some sense. Apple's computer and OS divisions are already marginally profitable divisons hanging onto the gigantic iPod/iTunes division. In fact, Apple recently created a whole new division just for iTunes and the iPod, taking them away from their hardware and software divisions. Developing an OS has to be quite expensive, and selling custom hardware at competitive prices means no profit. I see a slow fade out of Mac OS. First, you get optional Windows Compatability (BootCamp). Then you can order their computers with both OS X and XP/Vista installed. Then they port their big name apps to Windows (Logic, Final Cut, ect...) Then they port their iLife apps, and maybe even some libraries allowing some Mac OS X apps to run on Windows. A couple years later, they discontinue OS X. There are several well publicised macfan suicides, and mac people refuse to buy new products for several days. 3 days later, all mac fans come crying back to Steve Jobs for their Apple fix. I predict this will all happen by 2010. At that point, Mac hardware is just fancy looking PC hardware, with no BIOS differences or wierd IRQ assignments.
It would solve some of their security and stability problems,
Oh, if it were only that simple. Drop OSX on 50 million desktops and watch it crumble like the once mighty NT did...
MicroSoft(TM) and Bill Gates, has understood the benefits of virtualisation, forever.
That was a possibility, but Apple will not bundle Windows in with their Macs. Apple also doesn't have X11 or developer tools installed by default, so developers can't be lazy; ie. "Just compile it from the command line and run it in X11, I'm not going to port it to Mac."
Some developers will be lazy and just keep running Windows-only apps, but there's already a plethora of Mac apps too, like Office, FileMaker Pro, Photoshop, business apps, etc.
writing non-sense that includes two or more huge companies drives eyeballs to his articles!
So insightfull!
BTW if noone has noticed (Cringely didn't) Apple keeps the sales by offering solutions. You buy it, it works.
iPod alone isn't good enough, nor is iTunes alone good engouh. They are together a solution that people choose.
OSX isn't good enough, not are the shiny boxes alone good enough. Even the shiny boxes + OS isn't good enough, you need to add iLife, Logic Pro and so on with the respective targets. Together they all make a solution.
Pull a piece out, and suddenly it's no better than a PC with all its compatibility/hardware/software issues.
I don't think Apple is why Microsoft avoids prosecution. Linux is also a competitor. Microsoft got punished by the US Justice department for its underhanded tactics of Microsoft Office, IE, and WMP on Windows.
I can't even try out Eclipse, I only have a meager 512 MB of RAM which can't accomodate wasteful Java applications
I used to develop J2EE apps under Linux using JBuilder on a machine with 256meg of RAM. Sure, it was slow, but it worked. If your machine can't run Eclipse in 512meg, I suggest your consider changing either your hardware or your OS.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
The eternal question about Apple is if they're a software company or a hardware company ... and when it comes down to it, I think they'll choose hardware.
But is this a false dilemma? Do they have to choose? Is there any reason they couldn't do both?
War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, right?
I don't live in the US so one of the first things I did was disable iTMS. I completely forgot about iTMS as far as iTunes is concerned.
Maybe it's the fact that my Mac is a bit underpowered (G4 1.42 GHz, 4200 RPM HD). Nah, can't be, Linux and open source is the best choice for old machines, as I hear practically every day from slashbots. I cringe at the thought of running OpenOffice at anything with less than 2 GHz of clock and 1 GB RAM. (Off-topic, I know, but couldn't resist.)
The fact remains that Safari is very efficient. In fact, whenever I use a Windows machine, I'm moving away from the habit of installing Firefox and just running IE (even if Firefox is installed), since it's so goddamned slow.
Why yes, I did. Let's start... the File->Open File... dialog is about as scary as the advanced options of a BIOS screen would be to a newbie. Open the preferences screen, there's hundreds if not thousands of options. I recall having problems playing movies with certain WMV codecs, which of course Flip4Mac runs just fine.
Overall, when I was switching, I had a choice between standard Quicktime (no Pro then) and VLC/MPlayer. Coming from Linux I was actually used to the latter. I couldn't help the fact that I was drawn to Quicktime and currently I only have VLC here as a relic. Quicktime is good enough to me and has that Apple quality which no open source app can achieve, let alone surpass.
Join the NFSNET. Our prime goal is making little numbers out of big ones. http://www.nfsnet.org/
Considering that you likely have former colleagues whom you still consider to be your friend at Microsoft, and that you are, by your own admission, an ex-Microsoft employee (fired or gently pushed out or of your own will? ... I'll take one guess what you'll respond with), both of your comments make absolute sense.
Thanks
Over the last few years, and especially since Apple switched to x86 and even more since Boot Camp was released, I've watched the usual suspects here on Slashdot rip Apple for not selling OSX on generic PC hardware. To be very honest, I don't think those people would ever be happy, whatever one were to do for them, but it did occur to me that one way that Apple can really swing in extra cash is for Applw to make a generic grey box PC ITSELF! That's right, for Apple to make a bog standard cheapo PC with mutiple drive bays, numerous free PCI and PCIe slots, in a cheap as shit case from GuShangHoo or where ever in China and sell it along with OSX for all the motherfuckers who complain here constantly about not being able to get cheap hardware.
It would be an interesting experiment.
it's probably unimportant, but herrnstein's matching law says that both rats and humans match their responses to their relative rates of reinforcement. humans, pigeons, and rats all behave very similarly in this aspect of behavior. check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.J._Hernstein
i think your metaphor may stand on its own, but the underlying psychology isn't quite right...
enjoy!
jacob rothstein reed college
What's amusing, "NutscrapeSucks", is that you imagine yourself to be some sort of daring, avant-garde maverick, when it's obvious to everyone else that you're just some crotchety old square utterly unaware of your own closed-minded ignorance. People like you SHOULD stick to PCs, it's true, instead of trying to fit into an environment designed for a more exploratory, flexible demographic.
Don't Talk shit about Dvorak.
/* Yes, I realize the Irony in quoting Apple's Think Different ads for a man who said that Apple will go over to the dark side. */
Granted he is wrong quite often, but he is still awesome IMHO.
Maybe reading his columns is like reading the Weekly World News. But sometimes what he says are distinct possibilities. He just likes to go off on a limb and scream things as opposed to just riding it out until there is more evidence than random events and hearsay.
But that is just my opinion...
Love him or hate him, I say "Here's to the crazy ones..."
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
That might have something to do with the ridiculous cost of MS support. My boss has only called MS support once, and they couldn't solve the problem that he had. It cost him $200 up front to make that call, and when they failed to provide anything of value, he had to twist arms to get the money back.
If you think MS's software is bad, I promise you that their support is worse.
Talk about your trolls. If this is true, please to explain Vista.
This ain't rocket surgery.
"Awesome" stuff like XP not rebooting *anymore* when he taps C-A-D twice? Right. Fuck off.
Oh, please. The Macintosh was released the year after I was born. I've been using a Mac on my desktop and Unix (A/UX, MachTen's 4.4BSD derivative, the free BSDs and Linux) on my servers since I could type (in other words, since probably the Mac Plus, or at least, the Mac Plus was my first Mac, a few years after it was released).
I love the Mac, don't mistake me. And, typically, I can constrain my visceral reaction to the self-satisfied chortling of Mac zealots to a simple roll of the eyes. But, sweet mother of Christ and all that is holy, when I read your comment I swear my neighbours heard me groan. They probably think I shot myself in the foot. They're on their way down now.
What you just wrote is as bad as those weepy beer commercials with pictures of honest beermakers and leaves dripping with dew.
You are not your brand. I tell you this as your trusty friend, the Anonymous Coward. We've gone back a long way, you and I. And I'm telling you: you are not your brand. The sooner that you realize this, the better. For all of us. Especially my fucking neighbours.
If you are looking forward to My published columns, you are making a mistake. I do have a few virology and biochemical papers (from the early 80's and never primary author), and 3 computer books where I am the primary author, and several others where am listed (from the late 90's). While I may write a few more computer books, They will not be Entertaining (which is both bad and good).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
People so often forget Microsoft plans multiple versions of Windows ahead. So, dropping DOS/16-bit in Vista and leaving 32-bit alone might seem lame but the version after Vista could very well drop Win32 support too.
The OS user experience will have to be cleaned up considerably and consistently. Installing is STILL a bugger compared to OS X. Configuring is a mess and a half. The desktops are still half-baked, designed by committee of nerds, beta quality at best.
What's so hard about picking a package in Adept and letting it do all the leg work?
All (ok some) applications will have to conform to standard practices and WORK TOGETHER..
KDE tools have been pretty consistent for me, picking them is easy too, just look for the Ks...
Apple will have to stop dead in its tracks for about ten years.
To say OS X, KDE, Gnome or even XP are ten years apart from each other is... a bit of an exaggeration is it not?
Apple has said it time and time again, they consider themselves a hardware company. Most of Apple's profits come from their hardware and not their software. Microsoft is the complete opposite, they make money off their software. Both have different advantages and disadvantages, one downside to relying on software primarily is the whole issue of piracy. You can't pirate a Macbook, I mean, you could steal one but...anyway.
This was said in another comment for the story about Boot Camp but I'll repeat it because its true.
Apple makes it so Windows can run on their hardware = PROFIT (more people on the fence about switching can switch, they sell hardware)
Apple makes it so OS X can run on anything = Not Profit
Sure, they would make some money off of the sale of said operating system but the hardware sales they'd lose in the future would make this a very stupid business decision. I'm not gonna buy an expensive Mac when I can grab that $300 Dell box and run OS X on it.
.... it's just not stable running an MS operating system. I have converted many an older PC to running Linux/FreeBSD and had it run just dandy for years with no reboots. I've configured Linux desktops to use Windows-based (SMB) printers faster than a co-worker could configure a Win2k desktop to do the same thing. Drivers aren't the cause of MS's operating systems' problems... it's their basic design.
There is no reason OS-X shouldn't be at least as stable on PC hardware as Linux/FreeBSD already is.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
I'd like to nominate you to be the slashdot representative in this debate, since clearly your public mass debating skills are second to none.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
You're describing what is known as Operant Conditioning, but it doesn't explain pundits like Robert Enderle or Laura Didio. For that, you need Classical (Pavlovian) Conditioning, at least to explain why pundits like these two are drooling idiots.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Apple will likely release a "Classic" like virtualization for OS X so that Windows apps can be run seamlessly from within OS X. This will allow the Windows user to be comfortable since Windows is "nearby" but also be able to access all of the apps available for OS X as well as Windows apps when working under OS X.
:)
You read it here first.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
Thank. You. Mister. Shatner.
Virtualization may, but it's only now that Intel has finally released x86 chips with an un-fucked instruction set that allows for full hardware virtualization (beyond virtual 8086).
It'll still be a while before Microsoft can discontinue support for all Pentiums without this new virtualization capability, and remove the compatability kludges from Windows.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
oh come on! mod that funny!
It is too early to tell how things will turn out but it does seem that Boot camp is the sound of one shoe dropping (to hopelessly mix metaphors). What would be the effect of dropping the second shoe if it were the ability to run the virtual PC on the Intel Mac at native speed and at a fair price point?
Presumably one would pay a little more to Apple (instead of to say, Dell) to get the benefit of running both OSes at the same time on the same box. Dual Boot, in comparison, is not so very useful since I operate in parallel rather than serial mode. And I time share rather badly what with the cost of interrupts/boots.
The irony(?) would be that the most stable wayto run your Windows Software and applications would be as a "Virtual" OS running on an Intel Mac from Apple. This would certainly is an attractive proposition to me.
The mind boggles.
Of course another way to go would be to get Tiger to run on a Virtual PC. Of course, for this to be feasible some limitations or specifications on the virtual "hardware" and BIOS would be required. But this is possible. The boggling mind now is rather ill at the thought but never mind.
Which company has the most to gain from Windows running (in parallel, forget dual boot) on Apple hardware/software?
> MacOS X Server (Unlimited Clients) pricing is very attractive compared to Windows...
Nah, the Windows os-tans *NSFW* are definately more attractive.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Quit writing retarded prediction articles and release some more NerdTV episodes!
Well, you have to build up some kind of reputation before you can ruin it by trolling and cashing in on the ad revenue. Dvorak has written for magazines going on what..a decade or more now? I really can't blame him for whoring himself out to advertisers. I mean, journalistic integrity is more important than cash money...right?
;)
Right?
Um... Microsoft already *did* this. It was called Windows NT. It had a VMS-like core, originally it ran on all kinds of hardware, and making it backward-compatible with DOS and whatnot was a lot of work.
;)
Of course, the VMS-like core might not have been the best idea, since, well, UNIX was also widely available... but oh well, live and learn.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
When you allocate memory in Windows NT (2000/XP/2003/Vista) with NtAllocateVirtualMemory, it starts out all zero. To optimize this, the "System Idle Process" actually zeros out memory pages all the time, in the hopes that there will be enough pages available when an application wants them. It works out pretty well. If there aren't enough pages, NtAllocateVirtualMemory will block while it does a rep stosd / rep stosq.
In case you're wondering, when the kernel detects it's on battery power, the System Idle Process becomes an "hlt" loop to shut off the processor instead of a memory zeroing process. (Similarly, if there are no more pages to zero when on AC power, it also goes into an "hlt" loop.)
Melissa
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
I'd like to say what I think about Cringely and his opinions about OS X on PC, but I like my karma too much for that. I can tell tho that it's definitly the un-insightful opinion of the day.
You just got troll'd!
OMG, speaking of drinking the kool-aid, did you even READ his Apple/Intel switch argument?
First of all, you'll recall that the IBM -> Intel switch was necessitated by TIMING. Dvorak's article, here, was written in March of 03. There was no G5 then. In fact, it was announced in June '03.
Also, consider, that his ENTIRE ARGUMENT is built using Motorola's processors. Once the IBM 970 took over the entire lineup, 2004(re: previous link for source), his reasoning became invalid, no matter what outcome was observed. His problem was not with the PPC architecture, but rather their availability, a problem unique to Motorola. Apple's switch to Intel processors had more to do with power-consumption, and a shift towards laptops, which I notice Nostradamus neglects to mention... Dvorak might as well have said Apple will be switching to Intel because their current processors continue to generate excess peanut butter in their cases. He doesn't EVEN consider the third memeber of the PowerPC alliance, who, I might add was spanking serious tookus with their Power server architecture.
Dvorak gets no break, no slack. He proposes a dual-architecture chipset for backwards compatibility; I'm no programmer, but I'm pretty sure that's gotta be hella difficult to accomodate, if not impossible. He also advocated a switch to the Itanium processor. Now, I'm no expert, but if Apple moved to Intel to supply their laptops with plenty of powerful chips, and Dvorak recommends Itanium, why can't I FIND ANY.
Remember, "waiting until 2004 might be a bit risky," Dvorak's analysis: Comdex 2003. Right under the section marked "Timing is everything."
Now, I agree, Slashdot's readers, myself included, can sometimes get swept up in a tide of zealotry, however, if you're going MOD up someone ACTUALLY defending Dvorak, I highly recommend reading his work first. You don't want to find yourself in an awkward situation, because you weren't entirely sure what cause you were supporting...
OSX requires SSE2/SSE3 which is only found with Intel. So is Apple planning to emulate these features? I dont see how they could release with intel only support without alot of people getting mad.
Actually drivers will not be a problem. The one factor everyone seems to be forgetting is EFI allows for OS independant drivers.
Remember OSX requires EFI. Once EFI is the industry standard hardware manufacturers will start producing EFI drivers instead of the traditional OS drivers. Why wouldn't they? If would give them drivers for all OS' for free.
The other thing is EFI is what is currently preventing people from putting OSX into a standard PC without massive hacks. Once all the legacy BIOS crap is removed what is going to stop people from installing OSX on their Dell boxes?
If you are looking forward to My published columns, you are making a mistake. I do have a few virology and biochemical papers (from the early 80's and never primary author), and 3 computer books where I am the primary author, and several others where am listed (from the late 90's). While I may write a few more computer books, They will not be Entertaining (which is both bad and good).
I agree that Dvorak's opinion is now completely useless. As opposed to years ago, when it was just mostly useless. However, in regards to your computer books, you should name them. There are a LOT of crap computer books out there. There have been times when I've walked into a book store, picked up a book which interested me, opened to a random page and started reading.... read something which I know for a fact to be wrong and then just put it down and remembered to never consult it or it's author again. Last time this happened, I opened a hacking book and the first thing I laid my eyes on was a claim that a one-way-hash was a type of encryption. Okay, thanks for playing, good-bye now, now where are the Schneier books?....
Name your books if you are looking for cred. If you have not got the guts to, then you should not be seeking it. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt though, because you are at least on the informed side of opinion on Dvorak.
This is such a ridiculous and unlikely idea. The IT industry has invested TRILLIONS of dollars in applications and drivers for Windows - not just commercial off-the-shelf but in house custom solutions - and ALL of that would be more-or-less discarded by using OSX. It's even less likely than Microsoft changing to Linux, because at least Linux has a lot of drivers already, whereas OSX has maybe 1-5% of the number of drivers available.
Sure, a Virtualisation solution is possible, but can you see anyone trying to sell an up-to 100x slowdown (where the worst is for 3D apps like games) for all existing software? Even Intel who managed "reasonable" performance with Itanium emulation of X86 suffered severely for this.
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
I was reading his bold-name gossip column in Infoworld back in 1982. Don't think he's gotten better since.
Things such as this have left him with a bad reputation. Then again, I've only heard of the guy since news of his mistakes have circulated on the net. His years in print media were irrelevant to people outside of the US possibly because his stuff was not considered worth reprinting in associated magazines offshore.
Back to Cringley - not in the same league because people outside of the readership of a single magazine have heard of him and seen his documentaries on TV for years. He has some credibility, and usually when he makes some wild speculations he makes some effort to label them as such. I'll really have to see the thing in context and see what he means as bog standard hardware. Obviously it wouldn't mean the vast range of PC hardware out there that not even WinXP is able to cover.
ok. ok. ok. But what if these report will increase the likelihood. Intel-Macs XP-Macs Everything is possible. I would prefer Apple to invest into WINE so that you will be able to run Windows applications on Macs. It is just a matter of time and money.
There's more to computers than pretty GUIs - but for a glass typewriter that's probably a major factor.
"... allowing Apple to concentrate on being a hardware company."
;-)
Remember the "Macintosh - it's not the hardware, it's OS X" (or something very similar) mantra that has been repeated over and over by Apple executives in the last months?
But then again, in most cases it has been Steve Jobs who said this. So you might be perfectly right referring to the next great thing.
"If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth -- and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago." -- Steve Jobs (Fortune, February 19, 1996)"
Walter.
P.S. As to "a Microsoft purchase of the Apple OS" - I'm not convinced that MS is willing to do such a thing as long as their own products (inferior and late as they are) are still selling great with minimal efforts in terms of R&D.
So, the advantage of sticking with Mac hardware is that they only have to develop for it. I think they should consider using linux as their Kernel then. Not too much developper time and they get a great, mature and highly compatible kernel for their system. Darwin is *nix. Can't they just ship Linux and stick aqua on the top of it? But this isn't all...
True, but I can remember Microsoft using a similar strategy the opposite way back in the days. Remember? They sold Pcdos to IBM and kept selling another, better version, on their side. Maybe that's the key. If apple sells Mac OS pc version to users to attact people and keep the better, more polished version for their hardware, they win on both sides: they attract users to apple software and keep their hardware market.
MS wouldn't do that because it would remove a lot of peoples' incentive to upgrade. After all, if your existing software will be running on an embedded copy of Windows XP, then it won't gain anything from all the much-touted security and UI enhancements that Vista has, so you might as well simply stick with XP, which for all its warts, is a known quantity. For business customers especially (a good many of whom are still stubbornly running Windows-2000), this would pretty much be a nail not only in Vista's coffin, but also that of any new versions of Office that required it.
Another downside for MS would be the need to continue supporting Windows XP for the entirety of Vista's lifetime. It's already turned out to be a support nightmare for both Microsoft and their users, so it's unlikely that they'd want to continue with it for any longer than is absolutely necessary.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
What are you talking about the "lets hire as many incompantant straight-out-of-Unis as possible and get angry people to shout their job title at them" culture?
Forget about booting Windows on Macs. That goes against Apples' best interests.
m ac/
What is the main reason most people won't run a Mac? Because we have one or more Windows apps that we MUST run. And the solution is very simple:
1. Change the Mac to Intel processors (underway).
2. Test Windows on the new platform (underway).
3. Develop VM technology inside OS/X that can run Windows (underway).
4. Jobs launches the new Mac tower as the only machine that runs OS/X, Windows and Linux AT THE SAME TIME.
This will allow Macs to be used inside corporations that are locked into certain Windows applications. They only have to displace about 10% of those Windows PCs to almost double their sales. And dual core processors could be setup to allow for one core per OS. Should run pretty darn good.
Want to see a VM that runs Windows inside OS/X? Look here:
http://www.parallels.com/en/products/workstation/
From the above site:
"Use any version of Windows (3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, Me, 2000, NT, XP, 2003), any Linux distribution, FreeBSD, Solaris, OS/2, eComStation, or MS-DOS in secure virtual machines running alongside Mac OS X."
The software is beta, can be downloaded for free, and will sell for about $40. I might have to buy a Mac...
Place nail here >+
The release of the Bootcamp Beta opens the door for Apple becoming a Windows OEM and shipping dualboot systems with Windows and OS X.
If they did that, what incentive would developers have to release an OSX version of their software? Users go where the apps are.
I predict that Boot Camp lost Apple their Photoshop port.
Because ignorance is ignorning information. Information can come from anywhere. Ignorning Anonymous Cowards by filtering them out is ignorance. You could simply read their comments, and then decide if you agree with them or not. To never read them in the first place is to block out a source. The less you're in touch with, the less you're exposed to, and the less rounded-out your view of things is. If you think ACs may say a lot of incorrect things, then you may be right, but knowing how certain people think is invaluable. Knowing what common disinformation is helps you avoid it. You have to keep in touch with every side of a subject to know how the subject relates to everything else. Knowing how everything relates helps you navigate life and the world. You may say that everything I wrote is in one paragraph so you'll probably just look at the format of what I wrote and decide I'm an idiot and not even read this. I might even have spelling or grammar mistakes, therefore anything I say is invalid! And you may have a retort to these last three sentences and ignore the rest of what I said because you have something to counter just this part!
Twinstiq, game news
Whoa, I didn't even know that was an option! Sweeeet
My list of multiplayer
Remember this, next time someone claims Slashdot is only full of Linux fanboys.
I wish it was. When there were more Linux users here, the comments were a lot more interesting.
I use Macs -- I'm typing this on one, as a matter of fact. But the amount of Apple gushing that happens here lately is just staggering. I used to be able to justify reading Slashdot at work because there were occasional interesting bits of news. How far away that seems now.
--saint
I want a tablet Mac.
I'm sitting here with this 800MHz G3 iBook, and I'm damn tired of waiting.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Having Darwin available as Open Source has opened the door for running Mac OS X on just about any hardware, because most of Mac OS X is really just applications running on top of Darwin. There's one exception, and that exception actually works in Apple's favor.
Drivers for Darwin for a huge number of cards and motherboards are already there. There's no reason there can't be more. The only drivers that are likely to be a problem are video card drivers, because the biggest part of OS X that isn't in Darwin is Quartz... Apple's video subsystem.
And that's in Apple's favor. They can get royalties off the video drivers to supplement the loss of sales from computers.
One of Apple's strengths is its control of the hardware its OS runs on. Throw this away and you're also throwing away a large chunk of OSX's stability.
Classic Mac OS never had a reputation for stability, even though Apple controlled the hardware and Apple controlled the drivers.
Contrariwise... free UNIX running on the same hardware as Windows already has a well-deserved reputation for stability compared with Windows. And Free UNIX running on Apple's own hardware was more stable than classic Mac OS and more stable than the early releases of OS X. Even now, though my Mac Mini at home is reasonably good, the servers at work we have most trouble with are XServes... not the FreeBSD systems running on cast-off desktops next to them.
What the hell are you talking about? Here's to the crazy ones? More like, here's to the psychotic and rabid ones. If Dvorak was someone's dog, he would have been put down long ago.
Once in a while, Cringley dazzles us with brilliance (cf Google network containers), but more often than not (as in this case) baffles with bullshit. Cringley can be a smart feller, whereas Dvorak is nothing more than a fart smeller who takes delight in his lily scented flatulence.
Besides, what has Dvorak done since inventing that keyboard layout?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
This guy is a clown.
Apple is not going to ship OS X anytime soon for everyone else. Why? One word - drivers.
It is concievable that if there were an installed base of x86 drivers that this might in fact, become a possibility. However, there are very few at the moment and there will most likely be very few for any user devices purchased in the last 6 months. In addition testing/compatibility is not something that Apple has a great deal of experience with. They prefer a more burning bridges approach.
I would even arge that boot camp heralds an end to agressive marketing of OS X as the face of "Mac" and the compelling reason to buy a mac product. By releasing boot camp Apple has effectively announced that they are a hardware company, not a software company. The reason for this is that Apple is now using the hardware to drive sales, not OS X.
In some ways I see this as a sell out, Mac has always been about Mac OS, and more recently OS X. To purchase a mac has always been about the Hardware AND Software. It was a marriage of sorts. Now, non-loyal mac users can bring another wife to bed so to speak.
The next two quarters are going to be very interesting for Apple, we will get to see how much the market really desires their hardware, over their OS.
You are doing the 'Orwellian doublethink' (or maybe you've been blinded by fanboyism). I use Linux on my main machine, and occasionally use a Mac mini. The Mac desktop is a little better, but to say that OS X is years ahead of Linux is ridiculous.
Ah no. /.. I have what I want in my professional life, and do not need it on this side of things. In fact, since mid 90's, I have maintained relative anonymity on the web except in my professional life. I have seen what happens. There are FAR too many nut jobs around here.
I am not looking for credentials on
Keep in mind, that I admire ppl like bruce and linus for exposing it, but even then, they run the gaumut.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I would strongly suggest having OSX running only on very special HW. If I would be Steve, I would go for key users. On some weblog I read, that in Silicon Valley commute train you can see Apple, Dell and IBM Laptops. Forget Dell, but definitly go for Lenovo. I would offer Lenovo OSX as is. Get your drivers going and offer it optionally on all Thinkpads. I am sure it would fly. In my area of influance there are about 2 dozend Thinkpads, all owned by key developers. 90% of them would migrate to OSX right away..... ... and they would tell others how sweet it is to use OSX, family, friends and so on.
I would definitly NOT go for Dell or any generic x86 HW.
But the key HW platforms would be of interest. You want key users and developers.
As Balmer once yelled: developers, developers, developers
And another thought: Go for appliances. I want OSX in my living room. Give me the HDTV ultra cool TV appliance.
No, I will not purchase a damn Apple laptop. I couldn't even find a used 15 inch powerbook for under $1500, with WiFi, cd burner, bluetooth, etc. My budget was $1000. So, I bought a refurbed Dell, and upgraded it. Apple just lost a grand.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
That's why Jobs shut them down.
I think Apple has two, or three, alternatives on releasing OS X to the Windows world. 1. Allowing the pirates to hack to their hearts' content. This way, the Mac has an underground rep, but no support responsibility. Your peripheral isn't supported? No drivers for x motherboard? Don't blame Apple. It's not farfetched, since there's an article in the L.A. Times Business section today about how much, worldwide, MS's overall sales are HELPED by piracy. People play with OS X on a Dell, and they're more likely to switch to a Mac. 2. Releasing the software to a select group of Windows machines. Dell. Ha, ha, that would be an irony. This would risk Gate's ire, but it wouldn't necessitate undue spending on driver-writing and the like. 3. General release for all. Charge Window's-type prices. $200 for "Home," more for "Pro."
Oh, and there's a fourth option. Stay with 1, wait for market timing, escalate to 2 if the time comes, and 3. is endgame, going for a big slice of the market.
You realize that Mac OS X did the exact same thing with Mac OS 9, right? ;) Yeah, maybe in corporate environments it wouldn't work out so well. Guess what, wait until people port all the stuff the businesses need to Vista and then not install the Windows XP compatibility.
I realize that my views are a bit skewed, but most of the businesses I deal with work with Microsoft, and about 4 other companies to put software on their machines. They're multi-million dollar sources of revenue for these 4 companies, if even ONE asked one of those companies to port to Vista, you bet your ass that the software would be ported in short order.
AMD also has SSE2 for most recent cores and SSE3 for Venice and up. AMD embraces every extension intel produces, it is intel that has no interest in some AMD extensions (3dnow). However, Intel did certainly embrace AMD64 (of course not calling it that...) At least I haven't heard of intel system doing that.
My intel system flags (Pentium M):
fpu vme de pse tsc msr mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 tm pbe est tm2
My most recent AMD system (pre-venice):
fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt 3dnowext 3dnow
It is of course true that whichever vendor has an extension released there is a short time in which it is exclusive to their product line, but it doesn't last long. I think AMD and intel have a long standing cross-licensing agreement that precludes either from locking out the other from new instructions/instruction sets.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Can you imagine what a nightmare it would become for Apple to have to try to support OS X on any hardware? You notice in the Boot Camp fine print it says that Apple will not support Windows running on Apple hardware. The support problem of OS X running on any hardware (device drivers, etc.) would be a thousand times worse than that.
Apple is currently known for the high quality of the support they provide--which is made easier because of the tight hardware/software integration, and the "finite" number of system configurations.
If Apple is smart--and I think they are--they will never, ever, never, ever, never, ever, never, ever, NEVER, EVER allow OS X to run on non-Apple hardware. Sorry, Cringly.
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Release OSX for x86 hardware, but charge $1,000 a pop for it.
the rebuttel stated: "Apple only has to design for hardware configurations that it itself has built. Were Apple to ship OS X for "bog-standard 32-bit PC hardware", it would be just as frustrating as Windows." I hear that argument made against Apple selling the OS for PC's all the time and its BUNK. Apple doesn't have to design for the hardware, it merely has to provide (which it already does btw) the api to hardware vendors so they can write drivers for it - just like Windows does. MSFT doesn't make drivers for your NVIDIA card, NVIDIA does, the same thing goes with add-on mac hardware. Apple would be foolish to NOT decide to ship OS-X for pc's. And I don't think it would hurt at all their computer hardware sales just like buying a copy of Windows to build a PC with doesn't hurt DELL. There are those who buy a whole rig and those who cannabalize old rigs and build a new one with, Apple would benefit from both worlds. All they'd have to do is only sell Retail copies and not licence it for OEM so that there aren't clone business' again. Even that IMO would be a good thing anyway, the model works for MSFT afterall. The only reason it didn't work before is because of mismanagement which is entirely changed now.
I just realized that Apple is already refining their EFI boot support while waiting for Vista to come out with DX10 support being an All or Nothing requirement by MS. This means that once EFI support is widespread and DX10 compatible hardware comes out, Apple no longer has to worry about Drivers. So Apple wont have any problems selling OSX with the statement that it needs EFI and DX10 hardware, nothing else will work and they don't support it on anything that doesn't meet those specs.
Talk about solving the gaming problems. Mac Games are Coming because all the game programers will be flocking to DX10 because they will be sure everything works instead of the bastard environment they're currently facing.
[+] bullshit, cringely, apple, osx, idiot (tagging beta)
?!!
I mean, this tag idea is not working right. Especially on topics with zealots.
If you used terms like "this is bullshit, cringerly is idiot" on a reply , you would get -1 flamebait. Is it OK to "flame" with tags?
The same idiot tagged whatever he/she doesn't like as "idiot" and "bullshit" btw.
If he/she is reading this: It is NOT a way to support a product/company. It is just called zealotry.
.....Without iPod they wouldn't survive. .....
/. don't seem to understand that the OS and its software is the soul of a computer. The hardware is irrelevant. If Apple sold you a Macbook Pro without any Apple markings whatsoever and had Windows installed thereon, you wouldn't be able to tell who the hardware maker is. Mac OSX with its software makes a far superior computer, regardless whether Apple or some other reputable manufacturer makes it. However, OSX will remain irretrievably wedded to Mac hardware, at least as long as Steve is still alive and running Apple. The fact that Apple hardware can run Windows is nothing new. I have been running Windows on my PPC Macs for years. That will continue, except without the processor emulation slowdown. For certain simple business apps which have no Mac equivalent, that has been perfectly acceptable. Windows users who have hesitated to switch to Macs because they have a few vital or favorite apps that won't run under OSX, can now safely buy a Mac and be assured that these Windows only programs will still run. Companies who now run Macs and other PCs can now standardize on Macs and still run their legacy programs, as well as OSX and lots of free UNIX type software.
So then how did they survive since 1984 when there was no ipod? Most people on
All theory is gray
Completely brain-damaged, as there's no way to manage the dependencies between the Applications/OS components. Until OSX ships with a package manager that handles package dependencies, it is impossible to produce and ship system components for this OS.
Are you saying that you are brain damaged? That would explain why you do not "get it". The .app packages are meant to be used to store all dependencies unique to your application. If you have need to support a suite of applications, then you would create a subfolder under /Library/Application Support/ via your installer or a preflight script in your application packages to support all your interrelated applications with a common framework.
Updates would occur either via a built-in updater in your application framework or via alters to download through a webbrowser. You do know how to maintain backwards compatibility through polymorphism and interfaces don't you?
Only larger application suites like Office or CS/CS2 install external frameworks. Again with libraries in OS X, the libraries are bundled as ".framework" bundle directories.
There is no need to "manage" dependencies other than through 10.4.x updates in OS X. You have to get out of the linux/windows mindset of spreading libraries and files all over central directories mindset. That mindset created the whole DLL hell and need for management of dependancies. If you feel the need to use a newer version of a library than what ships with the system, include it with your .app package, otherwise compile against the latest officially released version. The same holds true for libraries not usually present on systems.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
So, for the curious among us... were you lying?
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Apple will gain by offering their hardware with Windows on it--some people/companies would buy Mac hardware with its high quality, high "fidelity", and great looks, if only they could run their installed base of Windows-only SmackHead DBM. This reduces the initial cost of adoption for the customer, and increases market share.
Apple will gain by offering their Operating System on existing hardware--long story short, picture millions of PCs with little stickers that say [WinXP/Vista/OSX READY]. This reduces the initial cost of adoption for the customer, and increases market share.
Apple will gain by continuing to offer what they really want you to buy--Apple Macintosh hardware running the Apple Macintosh Operating System. But they're willing to let you walk in, rather than jump.
They are already moving into the low-cost hardware market with the Mac mini, which is a wedge for further expansion "down" the market space. How many more of those can they sell if you can still run your Windows games on it? What about your favorite SmackHead Groupware/CRM/ERP Client? Low end expansion is done through Win-on-Mac.
They are now also expanding "across" the market space into Sony's territory, where fidelity is such a concern that purchasers are willing to accept Sony's proprietary protocols and behind-the-scenes-isms in order to guarantee that the peripherals and the OS all get along. Tell me Apple can't do that and better?
Of course, if Sony doesn't cooperate, Apple can't get the OS onto the hardware reliably. So high-end expansion is done through OSX-on-Mac, and THIS REMAINS THE CORE BUSINESS.
But gee, how can we take advantage of the amazing fidelity offered by Apple iLife and iWork apps, combined with the ubiquity of the iPod? Hmmm... how to leverage the iPod and a collection of seamless applications?
People who say that OSX is waiting on applications have it backwards. The applications have been developed using OSX as an incubator, and when OSX comes to a computer near you, you won't have to worry about how to get your frigging photos off fo your frigging camera and onto a frigging CD or onto a friggin website. You'll just click [OKAY], and Thy Convergence come, Thy Will be Done, on HP as it is on Apple.
Besides, look at the product pattern since Jobs came back: High end laptop, low end laptop, high end desktop, low end desktop. Apple believes in the foursquare. View the iPod as an amazingly successful lever for convergence (so successful it grew FAR beyond expectations). So, OSX-on-Mac, Win-on-Mac, OSX-on-PC, Win-on-PC. In this case, the last one is off-limits, but it can be reduced by attacking it from more than one direction, which will also lead to an increase on OSX-on-Mac.
Don't trust anyone under thirty.
"Anyone claiming KDE or Gnome is anywhere close to OS X has been blinded by fanboyism or is just plain practicing Orwellian doublethinking."
I own an iBook and after two years still far prefer my PC with KDE. I cannot *stand* using OSX for anything but light internet.
With KDE i actually get work done the way *i* want instead of being railed into the "Apple Experience" with the "Apple Way" of doing things.
It's interesting, because i bought the laptop for my wife and lately she has been logging on to my PC more and more to get work done, "it's just easier" she says, "OH MY GOODNESS" i squeal "you just blasphemed against the Church of Apple, your obviously suffering from plain orwellian doublethink according to the fair and unbiased opinion of an expert i read on slashdot".
You offer no real argument to support this idea that OSX is so much greater than KDE or Gnome, as though we should just believe you because you say so, and if i don't well then, i'm just a fanboy or a nutcase, while you and the all the other rabid mac fanboys here are bastions of rational thought.
You make Linux zealots look moderate.
If OSX is just the greatest OS in the universe why is it still and forever a insignificant player in the OS market (what's that 2% i hear)?
OOOH i cant wait to hear the answers to that one.
I am not looking for credentials
Credibility. So don't crap on about all the books you've written then.
Of course one way hashes are a type of encryption.
Encryption by definition is reversible, a one-way hash function by definition is not. There is an important distinction between encryption and one way hash functions. One way hashes are not a type of encryption. They are sometimes both used to complement each other, but they each play seperate roles.
The goal of encryption is to disguise plaintext within the output ciphertext in such a way that it can later be reversed back to plaintext through the use of the appropriate decrypting function, usually along with a seperate key. The point being that the plaintext is emboddied within the ciphertext in such a way that it can be reversed.
A message digest from a one-way hash does not embody the input message, but rather a signature or fingerprint of the input message. The output cannot be reversed easily and it cannot be reversed with any level of confidence, since there can be an infinite number of collisions of exactly the same message digest for an infinite number of different input messages.
One-way hashes provide an authenticating function, which is sometimes used with, but are distinct from, encryption functions.
Obvious use is to compare hashes to see if my password is correct. It is not decryptable per se
That is not a type of encryption, it is a type of authentication using one-way hashes in a role which is perfect for them.
I would question the quality of a security book which claimed one-way hashes to be a type of encryption.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
OSX has nothing on win2k mm kay
rock solid
please type the word in this image: quelling
gradually becomes more and more clear.
Jobs simply has wanted Apples to run on iNTEL for a long time, and he was able to construct the timing last year, with a little help from IBM and Freescale (who really do have other, more useful things to do with their fabs than fueling Jobs's whachacallit envy).
Remember that unannounced, unofficial, incomplete processor upgrade in the Mini (not an IBM processor, BTW) last fall?
There's no way they'd have done that unless they were just having problems getting processors at the slow speeds.
I personally have no problem with Mac OS running on iNTEL. I do have problems with Apple dropping the PPC. They should not be dropping processors, they should be adding them. WHERE is the Darwin port to ARM?
Now, I perceived there to be encryption & decryption, whereby you seem to want to make "encryption" the entire domain. i.e. encrypting something is to take it from readable to unreadable until such time as I choose to apply decryption and make it readable. I was simply taking the stance that one-way hash is encryption with no decryption. Kind of a "by definition" stance, I know...
I'll take your word that the author was trying to use "encryption" in your interpretation, as a course of study, which is why you took offence.
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Hey, you're right - as an OS X user, I just looked at that and laughed out loud too! It looks like the stunted, brain-damaged, 6-fingered love child from a one-night-stand between an XP crack-addict and his Apple first cousin...
If that's the case, maybe it's just as well the Kubuntu people didn't copy Apple's internationalisation support while they were at it...
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
As I'm typing this, I'm looking at the keyboards on a PowerBook, an iBook, and a G3 iMac (compact keyboard). All have |, ~, and \ labeled.
Hang on. Let me go check the Apple Pro keyboard in the other room... Yup. They're labeled there too. While I was up I checked the old Performa 400 in the archive, and they're labeled there as well (though the tilde key is in an odd location). I'm curious to know what keyboard you're referring to.
Total side note- while it's true that Mac laptops don't have a designated "forward delete" key, the UNIX fans here may be interested to know that Ctrl-D performs the same delete function on OS X as it does on any "standard" UNIX system. Likewise Ctrl-H.
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
"Apple is now using the hardware to drive sales, not OS X."
Haven't you noticed? OS X and Apple hardware (and iLife) come as a bundle. I agree 100% with another poster that if you took any one of these three system components away, it wouldn't be "the Mac experience".
Ann Coulter is controversial, but her books are logical. Have you ever read one? If not, give it a try. Otherwise, you are basing your ideas on a bit of hear-say and a few facts. Go ahead, to the library, and get one of her books and really sit down and read it. Otherwise, why are you commenting on her?
If they are anything like her performances on TV, or in syndicated newspaper columns, you got some really novel definition of "logic". The woman gleefully operates by manipulating most base, animalistic instincts (which most civilized people are ashamed of admitting of even having -- never you mind flaunting), in her "audience" in order to exploit them for her profit and social standing.
Her kind operated throughout history repeatedly, on all sides of political and ethnic divides, and its method of operation very well understood by now.
To spare you a long story, some hardwired-in "pack" instincts people have, inhereited from the days of roaming the jungle, enable creation of social chierarchies, chief feature of which is existence of an "in-crowd", for which of course an "out-crowd" must exist. In order to solidify the cohesion of the "in-crowd", one needs the "out-crowd" to be a constantly villified enemy, accused of all sorts of unspeakable things, against which any action by the "in-crowd" is implicitely "justified" (for the "greater good", you see). Any opposition to this idea, or as a matter of fact any activity whatsoever by members of the "out-crowd" are to be used to create a perpetual persecution complex within the minds of the members of the "in-crowd", regardless of the factual balance of power. This is beautifully exemplified when one such group holds all three branches of governance of a powerful nation, owns most of its media and in fact most of that nations' resources as a whole, and yet still persists in casting itself as oppressed victims. Or if a majority religious group claims that a "war" is conducted on its beliefs by the very state they control. Every "in-crowd" needs a set of demagougues to maintain it. Some of these demagouges have to hold extreme positions, to invite ridicule and scorn, as is required, because stronger the attacks on the ridiculous nature of such positions, the better for the maintenance of the irrational persecution complexes and fobias of the "in-crowd". And so on.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Otherwise, you are basing your ideas on a bit of hear-say and a few facts ... Otherwise, why are you commenting on her?
See above.
Remember, Jobs & Co are 2 steps ahead of what's out there. What this allows is people to experiment with dual booting, getting a partition set up and running.
Then Leopard comes out, and supports virtualization out of the box and guess what, it uses the Windows partition already on your machine!
This will save them the trouble of having to make the Windows file system compatabile with HFS+, keeping all of those nasty malwares on the Windows partition.
" realize that Mac OS X did the exact same thing with Mac OS 9, right? ;)"
Indeed, but Apple also have the Carbon APIs to ease the transition of source code between older operating systems and OS X. Microsoft would be forced to do something similar for the existing Windows APIs, because developers would be unlikely to port applications otherwise until Vista gained enough market penetration to make a complete rewrite worthwhile. Remember that dropping the existing Win32 APIs for something better would not only invalidate vast quantities of existing proven legacy code, but also all the man-years of expertise that many companies have spent significant amounts of effort in finding and keeping. The cost of supporting Vista for ISVs would therefore be high enough to prevent a good many from bothering to support it at all, and that would in its turn slow Vista adoption.
"Guess what, wait until people port all the stuff the businesses need to Vista and then not install the Windows XP compatibility"
They'd be waiting a long time. Windows XP has been out for around five years, and it still only accounts for around 50% of existing Windows installations, and XP is compatible with most (although by no means all) legacy applications. If Vista were sufficiently different to require shipping XP alongside it to provide legacy support, then its adoption rate would be even slower because nearly everything companies want to use today would be running on the embedded XP, not Vista itself, so there would be very little reason for corporate customers to bother with it. This is Microsoft's quandary: if Vista doesn't provide immediate benefits for the software people already have, then they'll only be able to sell it to small business and home users, which in its turn means that ISVs who sell products into the large corporate space will not bother going to the effort of porting to it.
"most of the businesses I deal with work with Microsoft, and about 4 other companies to put software on their machines. They're multi-million dollar sources of revenue for these 4 companies, if even ONE asked one of those companies to port to Vista, you bet your ass that the software would be ported in short order."
Not if Vista is sufficiently different to require a significant rewrite, with all the consequent testing plus the requirement to maintain two significantly divergent source trees. Note also that large corporates don't globally implement a new OS just because it's what MS are pushing today -- they do limited test roll-outs with detailed impact analyses that can delay the process for years, hence the fact that so many are still using Windows-2000. It's irrelevant what OS ships pre-installed on machines sold to us ordinary mortals, because these are big customers who buy lots of computers without any OS on them, and then install their own customised and highly locked-down Windows configuration.
NB: I'm pretty sure MS considered precisely what you are proposing before scrapping large bodies of new code and further delaying the Vista launch. They have a lot of very bright people, so it's unlikely that Slashdot posters will come up with something they haven't already thought of and rejected.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
not going to happen. That basically puts apple in the unfortunate position of competing with Dell on even terms, which Apple is not going to do -- software is one of their cash cows, along with iTunes. They would stand to lose that revenue stream if they do what you think they do.
Also, Microsoft has free reign to copy since the 90s lawsuit, and vice versa.
So he is basically the ultimate troll, trying to always say stupid things that have just enough sense in them that it is barely belivable that he didn't write them only to generate flames? Could be. /. business model:
No, he doesn't try. He is stupid. It's just that he capitalizes on his stupidity and hits the jackpot a la
1. Write stupid things (whoa, I am glad I am stupid. I have plenty more of these)
2. ??? (whatever it is, I am glad I am wearing my asbestos suit)
3. Profit!! ($how me the money!!)
The Mac Clones lost money because Apple couldn't charge anything like a cost-recovery price to license generic Mac OS for the clones, because they had to entice companies to spend engineering money on a product that could only be sold as a Mac OS box. There wasn't a commodity market of Power PC boxes that they could sell into... they had to subsidise that market by selling Mac OS license for a fraction of the profit that they'd make on a comparable Mac.
The current situation is completely different. It's a win-win situation for Apple. Since they really don't have to spend a penny until after someone actually takes them up on it, they can charge as much for a license as they want... for example they could match their net profit on selling a comparable Mac. If someone takes them up on it they make as much as they would from selling the Mac and they don't have to worry about the production pipeline and shortages and inventory and hardware support. If nobody takes them up on it (unlikely, unless the license is really draconian) they can say "see, we're really not overpriced, nobody else can REALLY make a Mac any cheaper than we do".
MicroSoft doesn't want Apple and especially Mac OS X to die.
Thanks to Mac OS X MicroSoft Windows doesn't pay A LOT for abusing its monopoly in the OS market.
Remember some time back that Steve Jobs wanted to "give away" Mac OSX licenses to the FreePC movement about a year ago? Apple was rebuffed since OSX would still be licensed software, and the "Free" nature could theoretically be revoked at any time.
Looks like Steve is at it again.
If Mac hardware could run Win/V*rus, then how difficult would it be for Darwin/X and some "* Window Dressing *" be used on these generic PCs? If these generics are used in education and governmental services, it would cut seriously into the Windows bottom line, especially since Microsoft does not have product similar to Darwin/X without resorting to MSDOS 6.22.
A Generic PC with Darwin/X, iTunes, Quicktime, Safari, Mail, and OpenOffice would pretty much st^Heal those markets from Microsoft forever.
Also consider, as freeware, Apple Computer is under no warranty pressure to provide support and remediation.
Microsoft could gain complete control of OS X and every Linux distro, and the Justice Dept. wouldn't make a move against them.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Of course one way hashes are a type of encryption. Obvious use is to compare hashes to see if my password is correct. It is not decryptable per se, but your heavy handed dismissal of a book due to your own ignorance is laughable. Thank *you* for playing.
With encryption, you encrypt a MESSAGE with a KEY/PASSWORD through an encryption algorithm, with the intention that somebody will be able to decrypt that back to the original MESSAGE by passing the CIPHERTEXT with a KEY/PASSWORD through the decryption algorithm.
With one-way-hash algorithms being used for user login passwords, there is no MESSAGE. Only KEY/PASSWORDS. Those keys are not expected to be decrypted, which is a good thing because one-way-hashes do not encrypt anything.
Your comment is off-topic. You probably don't understand the discussion at all. Check the package mechanism from debian or redhat to get a clue...
> linux/windows mindset of spreading libraries
Linux does not "spread" libraries accross directories. It uses a global repository.
> That mindset created the whole DLL hell
There is no DLL hell on Linux. The problem appeared only on Windows. Since Vista Microsoft uses a similar technology to manage dependencies: Assemblies are now stored in a GAC along with their signature and depencies.
There are some embryonic attempts to add such a technology to OSX, but that would be a major change and too late, imho. Or maybe not, OSX on x86 doesn't have many applications anyway. Since OSX doesn't attrackt new developers, this probably won't change in the future.
So it could be that you're right that this technology is obsolete on OSX, if Mr Jobs plans to migrate to Vista as the base operating system for Macs
I understand very well what the OS and its software do. I think you seem to forget that very few people care about OSX and that pretty much no one likes to use it. OSX doesn't make a "far superior computer" (to what?), it makes a computer that is difficult to use, cripples the user experience, and doesn't have the one feature that keeps windows from being the same: a HUGE library of software.
Move along troll, we don't need you.
rock solid
Excuse me but I work on windows NT (XP) 40+ hours as a developer. I also recall running Win2k and it was pretty on my old PC but if you think Win2k is superior to OS X, then I'm afraid that you are either delusional or you are trolling. I'm thinking the latter.
Does Win2k have a GPU accelerated compositor? No. Did Win2k ship with a Bluetooth stack? No. Does Win2k have support for 32bit icons? No. Does Win2k have Fast User Switching? No. Does Win2k have a multiple local interface? No. Does Win2k have an image manipulation library framework like Core Image/Video? No. Does it ship with meta data search? No.
Get the picture?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
I have checked out the package managers thank very much. I have a clue but apparently you do not understand that package managers are not needed if you develop against a standard base of libraries and include extras proprietary to your project with your application or project.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
I don't think you get it. There is no need for such things if developers work together to agree upon community releases of frameworks.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
How the hell is this a troll? The GP does not seem to understand the difference between kernels and the rest of an OS such as frameworks/libraries and differing driver models between kernel types.
Wow. What a bunch of bullshit to say absolutely nothing. Typical of someone who doesn't like Ann but cannot refute any of her fact-based statements. And yes, they are fact-based - that is why her opponents resort to flinging pies.
I will be the first to admit she gets a bit pedantic about such things as Chappaquiddick but then, her political opponents get a bit pedantic about ignoring such things while trying to focus attention on similarly irrelevant issues.
Hope you have a pie handy. I think you will need one to win your argument.
You mean "facts" like, quote: We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity?
What "facts" are there to refute in that statement?
I will be the first to admit she gets a bit pedantic about such things as Chappaquiddick but then, her political opponents get a bit pedantic about ignoring such things while trying to focus attention on similarly irrelevant issues.
That is not the problem. The problem are her statements such as the one above. Do others do the same? Sure. Do Democrats have similar demagouges? Most certainly. None of this changing the very premise of operation of such demagouges on both sides, demagouges such as Ann Coulter, as is plain to see from her very own statements.
Hope you have a pie handy. I think you will need one to win your argument.
I already "won" any such argument about Ann Coulter's tactics, a priori, and with no need for pies, thanks to Ms. Coulter herself. Her own words are all one needs to illustrate what she is.