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Apple to Unveil New Leopard OS in August
Max Fomitchev writes "Looks like Apple is going to reveal its new cool and fast Mac OS code-named 'Leopard' in the upcoming World Developer's Conference in August. Good news for Apple! And terrible news for Microsoft. If 'Leopard' is really what it claims to be, i.e. fast and efficient, in sharp contrast to slow and resource hungry Windows Vista, we certainly would see Apple's remarkable market share gain next year."
I mean c'mon. A day's worth of submissions, and you can't do any better than information that's been on the street for over a week, rewritten by a fifth-grader?
If "Leopard" is really what it claims to be, i.e. fast and efficient in sharp contrast to slow and resource hungry Windows Vista, we certainly would see Apple's remarkable market share gain next year."
Maybe the reason fewer people are taking Slashdot seriously is because Slashdot doesn't seem to take itself seriously.
Hire a f-ing editor to check out and rewrite the most egregious but still post-worthy submissions. No, a real editor, not one of your friends.
Even if it weren't for the fact that this was announced, what, a week ago, it doesn't take a genius to realise that Apple will talk about their next OS at the forthcoming WWDC. It's what they've always done. Duh, that's what it's FOR. And those who care will know about it, and those who don't will ignore it. Just like THEY'VE always done. Fuck me, Slashdot gets lamer every day with shit "stories" like this. And I speak as a nominal Mac fan.
Neither the submission nor the article actually says anything about the OS, yet we're told the Leopard is "cool and fast" without any evidence whatsoever. Yet somehow this magic OS, which we know nothing about, is going to cause "remarkable market share gain next year." Nope, never heard that before.
It seems as if journalists (or Apple proponents in general) have caught whatever afflicted the Linux fan-boys. Every release or change in Apple software/hardware is seen as something that could trigger a whole bunch of Windows users to switch.
Seems a bit out of character..
"...we certainly would see Apple's remarkable market share gain next year." Remarkable market share? Ok, I'm a Mac guy - have been for ... too long, but are you kidding? 3-5% is remarkable?
Well, maybe in so much as how small it is given how good it is, but I don't think that's what you meant when you used "remarkable market share..."
Did the submitter even READ what he wrote?
If "Leopard" is really what it claims to be, i.e. fast and efficient in sharp contrast to slow and resource hungry Windows Vista, we certainly would see Apple's remarkable market share gain next year."
WTF is that? First off, it's wrong. It's very very wrong. Tiger is better than XP now, but did we see 'Apple's remarkable market share gain this year'? No. There is nothing certain about Apple and 'market share gain' no matter how superior their products. Forget 'remarkable'. Second off, it's written so badly I had to go over it three times to make sure it really said what it said.
One of the reasons that MacOS can provide a relatively consistent stable experience is that there is a limited range of hardware on which it is expected to run. Sure, Macs don't always have the very fastest of graphics chipsets (although we'll see what comes with the new PowerMac replacements), but the Apple engineers working on drivers can know exactly what chipsets are out there.
If Microsoft could seriously limit and control the hardware on which Windows would run, they could probably do a lot better with drivers, too.
These days, now that Apple is using more standardized Intel chipsets, they are able to pick a few configurations that are identical to perfectly good PCs out there and develop for those machines. As technology advances, they'll still have a limited group of configurations to develop for. (And yes, they aren't putting out high powered gaming configurations right now, but they will have high powered graphics workstations when the high end desktops come out.) If they had to start supporting everything, they would be opening a Pandora's Box of compatability issues. Dealing with the required driver variants would eat up the same resources they're using to innovate.
Besides, the reason Apple sells OS updates for $99 is that they know that everyone buying a copy has already bought a machine they produced.
-JMP
The article had NO MEANING. It was one of those things you say to your buddies while hanging around. "You know, if Leopard is as fast as Apple says so, MS could be in deep [insert colorful adjective here]." Then you're promptly shot down by your friends, reminding you that the masses have a "Crapple" frame of mind because their last experience with Mac OS was with the pizza-box LC IIs running System 7 from back when they were in high school, and they don't care any more.
Not only does this bode poorly for Slashdot's credibility as having important and accurate information, but what does this say about journalism in general, when this passes for a good article. Oh, wait, it's not even an article! It's a blog posting! Do we even know who this Max Fomitchev is? I've never heard of him. This place is slowly becoming a rumor mill full of dupes.
Come back when you've got an article from a credible source, no less than 500 words, with some real analysis, facts to back it up, and maybe a cool graphic or charts or something. Until then, stop wasting my time.
Rawr
Because Apple is a HARDWARE company. They want to sell BOXES. To make OS X available for other hardware would mean the inclusion of countless drivers, support for vitually limitless hardware configurations, and the hiring of a huge support staff to manage the problems associated with a market that is far from manageable (among other things). These are just some of the problems Microsoft must deal with on a daily basis. But because Apple is a HARDWARE company, they can keep a short leash on the hardware they support, which helps keep their OS lean, the development cycles short, and launches rock-solid.
"How do you expect me to see the forest with all these damn trees in the way?!"
I felt the same way until my Windows PC broke and I was forced to borrow and live with a PowerBook for a couple weeks. At first, I hated it, until I got over my Windows habits and started to get used to the new UI. I absolutely hated Apple products, but now I'm more efficient and can't live without 'em. In any case, my advice to anyone thinking about switching is to spend more than just an hour with the thing. Force yourself to use it for a few days and actually be honest enough to give a go at learning how it's supposed to work. It may not fit your needs better, but then again, it might. You'll never know if you only try it long enough to get frustrated or you go into the experience planning on hating it.
I suspect that has something to do with the fact that, with Apple, you constantly have to upgrade your hardware as well as your software. It's not like you can go back and install OS X on your 1998 PowerPC 740 and expect it to run faster than the OS it originally came with.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Yes I agree. The article had no substance, and now this Formitchev guy earns thousands of pageviews worth of ad revenue from all the Slashdot users expecting to see something new and interesting about Leopard. Seriously, what a scam. The editors are supposed to filter out submissions like this. How did this ever get through?
I've had with these editors. I'm assuming they get paid for their work, yet they can't even check articles like this for substance, or spot that the sumitter and blog owner are the same person and probabably looking to get some quick ad revenue.
And even if the editors work for free, you'd at least expect they had enough pride in their work to do a decent job.
I'd say mod parent up here because this is important.
Slashdot stories are almost always links to blogs which links to reprints of stories. Half of them are uninterestingly written or contain nearly no information. BUT
Even if there was no link, if it was just a headline: Apple to soon release OSX Leopard!...without even an article..it wouldnt matter because slashdot is about the discussion. I want to see what people think about leopard..i want to see people uncovering cool features that arent mentioned in most stories..i want beta testers to come forward and tell about their experiances...THIS is why slashdot is great. Much more interesting than sites with many stories, but no usable forum to speak of. (digg,etc)
That beeing said, I have no idea why anyone would subscribe. I just block ads and get the stories ad-free anyways. And as for seeing them early...who to discuss with..yourself?
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Actually, I'd say that implementing Win32 on Mac OS X would be a way that Apple could screw Microsoft, but good. A second implementation would freeze it: "Why aren't you using the normal win32? I want to use your app on my Mac!"
This was already tried with IBM OS/2 and it failed, and IBM was even requiring that users have a real copy of Windows. The future is vitualization and being able to run any version or patch of Windows. BootCamp is cool but it is temporary.
No, I think you'll find that most /. readers looked at the blurb and thought 'this article probably has no content, but the discussion might be interesting' and came straight here without R'ing TFA.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage