Slashdot Mirror
Leopard Vs. Vista
Rockgod writes to point us to an ongoing series of articles, "Leopard vs. Vista," by Daniel Eran. The latest is part 4, Naked Sales, and it's a meditation on hardware without Windows, Apple's strategy of hardware-software integration, and the dissatisfactions that arise from the creative tension between Microsoft and hardware manufacturers. (The earlier articles in the series are linked form this one.) From the article: "The vast majority of PCs come with Windows pre-installed, and actually can't be sold without it. Leading PC hardware makers can't freely advertise PCs sold without Windows, or with an alternative OS such as Linux, without having to pay Microsoft significantly more for every other OEM license they ship. That's why all name brand PCs prominently repeat their own version of the cult-like phrase 'Dell recommends Windows XP Professional,' as if there were a choice in the matter and they thought it would be helpful to provide some guidance... Apple's current Get a Mac advertising campaign doesn't compare Mac OS X to Windows, it compares the complete experience of a Mac with that of a PC. After all, Windows is only half of what's wrong with the PC as a product."
it's hard getting anything naked.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I'm aware of their old contracts, but are they still in effect? Can't they be renegotiated?
I'm surprised that Dell, Gateway and HP would still be taking it up the rear. Ubuntu is a good enough system for a lot of homes that only need to do email, web, and type grade and high school papers.
Why would they still be subject to such ridiculous terms, especially after MS has been convicted of abusing their monopoly status?
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
From the original Mac, back in 1984, to the iPod, Apple has always been about integrating hardware and software into one seamless experience. They certainly haven't always hit the mark, but it seems they have an advantage in an era where experience design continues to become more important.
Discussion about whether Apple is a hardware company or a software company has been going on for ages, but Apple has always been a systems company. Microsoft has subordinated hardware to software, and the PC industry has developed according to that dictate. Maybe that is why so many people immersed in the Windows world have a hard time understanding how the Mac is different.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
From the article:
Macs aren't more expensive because Apple ships them with an OS, just as Microsoft's bundling of Internet Explorer does not raise its cost for Windows. Windows would not be cheaper if the company removed IE, just as Apple wouldn't save any money by shipping Macs without Mac OS X.
Err...well, yes Macs are more expensive because Apple ships them with an OS. That's because Apple has to recover the cost of developing that OS through sales of Mac hardware. Note that I'm not comparing the cost of Macs and PCs here, I'm talking about the cost of a Mac as an absolute. A Mac would be cheaper if Apple didn't have to develop OS X. Whether it would be worthwhile for them to do that I leave as a (rather obvious) exercise for the reader.
Cheers,
Ian
"Windows is only half of what's wrong with the PC as a product."
Yeah, but hardware is at least half of why I haven't gotten a Mac.
I don't *LIKE* the touchpad, I have both the touchpad and the
clitmouse on my laptop and I finally disabled the touchpad because
it got in my way more than I used it. I also have a built-in
fingerprint reader, and am quite fond of using it for 2-factor
authentication. For anything but play, I wouldn't go back to a
machine without it. Sure, I could carry a mouse and fingerprint
reader, but I don't *LIKE* mice, and really don't need more crap
to carry.
Combine that with a friend with a Power Book complaining about how
the pretty from part of the palm rest is too "sharp" and bothers
his wrists, where mine has a nice 30 degree on-ramp, and the
nifty metal cases on the Power Books significantly cuts down
on WiFi range...
I know that Apple wants to both simplify their software support
requirements, and continue to get revenue from hardware sales.
However, they're cutting themselves off from software revenues
by requiring it to be used on their hardware. I'd have bought
and tried on a spare laptop already if I had the option.
It boils down to this: If Apple's hardware is so fantastic,
why do they feel that the only way they can compete is by
forcing people to use it? What are they afraid of?
Sean
They're allowed to sell different OSes without retaliation, that was one of the hallmarks of the antithrust case. The reason they don't do it is that they don't want to support it. Yes, the 'recommends XP Professionnal" is, AFAIK, standard marketing.
E-nuff already - just buy what you like!
I second that! A Mac is a PC that will also run Mac OS and You can do anything you want to do on Mac OS and on Windows or Nix just with different applications.There is no difference beyond that pick which applications you like and buy the appropriate machine/OS.
Not apologizing for Windows, but when you only write for specific h/w, you 'should' be able to get it right. Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX '86 all suffer from the crappy h/w syndrome.
;P
I built a Smoothwall firewall last week, that kept crashing. I finally tracked the problem to a bad NIC (that was just good enough to run in Windows and to not to generate error messages in the log).
Does that make Macs better than SW? maybe h/w-wise
Do I blame SW for the crappy NIC? I shouldn't, although I cursed them repeatedly while trying to find the problem
Do I blame Microsoft for the crappy NIC? of course, this is Slashdot
Vertical
72 CD D7 52 D0 7E D8 47 44 91 D5 84 D1 59 F1 A9-This is my 128bit integer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
It was deemed illegal to have "per-processor" licenses. So they don't have them any more.
But it is still "legal" to pay Dell to be part of your "advertising campaign". Which, in effect, reduces the cost Dell pays Microsoft per license. Those who do not want to be full partners in the campaign will be paid less than those who do.
Logical, isn't it? So if you push Windows instead of Linux, you pay less for Windows than if you did not. And the profit margins are so slim on computers now that the OEM's will take whatever deal is offered in order to increase their profits.
And since Microsoft still has the monopoly on the desktop, all the OEM's have to offer Windows. Even if they don't like the terms of the deal.
I must say, as one of the biggest apple fans, I'm really sick of seeing people take Roughly Drafted stuff seriously. I like reading sites about Apple, I doubt for the near future I'll buy anything non-Apple when it comes to computing, and I love OSX, but all of Eran's constant pro-mac articles, no matter what are as transparently biased from beginning to end, and I can't read them without nearly throwing up a little.
Perhaps if the guy didn't write like he'd been given a conclusion (one beneficial to Apple) to write towards from the beginning things might be better, but they're so predictably pro-Apple no matter what the topic, everything reads like a decree from upon high by his enlightenness, Steve Jobs.
Literate writing it is, but I take it as seriously as an SCO press release.
"The vast majority of Macs come with OS X pre-installed, and actually can't be sold without it. Leading Apple hardware makers can't freely advertise Macs sold without OS X, or with an alternative OS such as Linux, without having to pay Apple significantly more for every other OEM license they ship. That's why all Macs prominently repeat their own version of the cult-like phrase 'Apple recommends OS X,' as if there were a choice in the matter and they thought it would be helpful to provide some guidance... Apple's current Get a Mac advertising campaign doesn't compare Mac OS X to Windows, it compares the complete experience of a Mac with that of a PC. After all, OS X is only half of what's wrong with the Macs as a product."
There. Fixed it for ya.
Why doesn't Apple themselves fight harder against this?
It seems they'd have decent grounds with all these OEM deals.
Or am I missing something and they actually are, or have been but have lost such a case?
It just seems without these deals, Apple would have quite a bit to win.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
"Discussion about whether Apple is a hardware company or a software company has been going on for ages"
Not with anyone I talk to. Apple is most definitely a hardware company, if you measure this by income. Their software is merely the hitch, at least as far as consumer level offerings. You see this most clearly in OS serialization. Where MS has it calling home, wanting your first born child, and your left pinkie as collateral, the Apple OS has never been serialized. Legalities aside, you can install that single licensed OS X on a thousand machines without any issues whatsoever. Same with iLife, iWork, etc... all of the consumer level offerings are not serialized.
They are a hardware company. They sell Macs and iPods (soon to be phones). People buy Macs because of the software, not the other way around.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
Today I watched my dear father struggle for four hours (4! whole hours) trying to make his complicated new digital camera work with Windows XP. I could not believe the complications he experienced. On a Mac, this would have been simple, easy, intuitive. What amazed me was his persistence. That's what Windows people do, they persist. See, the Windows experience is not just an OS experience, it is an application experience. So f***ed up. Like most fans of the Mac, I let fanbois of the Mac do my talking for me. I sit back and keep quiet. I am more than a little pleased when they go overboard. As electric as they get in their praises for the Mac, I am silently even more electric. On a Mac, you hook your camera up to the computer and you're done. On XP, you persist for 4 hours. What a difference a sixth of a day makes. So the "Mac user experience" is about how not to waste time. My dear old dad is in his 70s and won't switch to Mac. I enjoy watching his frustrations, actually, because his comments are priceless, and he doesn't have that much to do. But seriously, who would willingly accept Windows as the way to experience the wonders of modern CPUs? People with a lot of time on their hands.
It's not racism -- PCs aren't people -- it's bias, but I'm with you. The whole argument is tiresome and really quite pointless. Get what does the job and forget the platform bigotry.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
> A Mac would be cheaper if Apple didn't have to develop OS X.
Of course it wouldn't be a Mac either.
no taxation without representation!
After all, the hardware half of a Macintosh is just a PC.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
And yet the hardware in a Mac is only half of what makes it a Mac. Apple designs products that seamlessly combine hardware that is compatible and optimized to work with the other hardware (i.e. motherboard is completely compatible with processor, etc.) and well-engineered software to effectively work together efficiently as one unit. The hardware that Apple selects alone does not make a Mac, and at the same time Mac OS alone does not make a Mac. It is the seamless integration of the two.
"There is no Honor, without Pie."
-Weeble
Selling a PC with Windows is a bit like selling a typewriter with a ribbon. Last century's market.
But that's not really a wise way to "measure" it. Apple is a hardware and software company. Where would Apple be without their OS and software? It's integral to their strategy. The original Mac was revolutionary because of the software design in the OS, not the hardware (although there were hardware innovations as well.)
Same with iLife, iWork, etc... all of the consumer level offerings are not serialized.
But Apple sells a lot more than just consumer-level software. Final Cut Pro, etc. Logic Pro is not just serialized, you need a hardware dongle to run it.
They are a hardware company. They sell Macs and iPods (soon to be phones). People buy Macs because of the software, not the other way around.
If people buy Macs because of their software not the hardware, then isn't that an argument that they are a more software-driven company than hardware-driven?
... and then they built the supercollider.
It's a common misconception that Apple computers are more expensive than similarly priced computers from other Windows VAR's (Dell, HP, IBM, ect)
I did a comparison between a Dell D620 and a MacBook. Guess what? The price was almost exactly the same. And depending on how you configured each to get a close match between the two, either one could be more expensive.
Bottom line, there is no appreciable difference in price when it comes to base features, warranty, ect.
A Mac would be cheaper if Apple didn't have to develop OS X. Whether it would be worthwhile for them to do that I leave as a (rather obvious) exercise for the reader.
It might be worth while and they have already lessend their development costs with free software. Did Macs get cheaper when Apple started using GCC? How did they suddenly start shipping $500 minis? Did the quality suffer for that or the use of KDE? No, OSX is the best Mac ever. Apple is not immune to the truism: the more free software you use the better off you are. The social and dollar cost of proprietary software development never made sense to begin with.
What's that I hear? "If Apple makes OSX free, anyone can make it and the competition would kill them?" Sorry, staying non free won't keep that from happening, but will make it faster. Free software already provides compelling alternatives. Those alternatives will just get better, regardless of M$'s dirty tricks or how far into the sand Mac fans want to put their heads.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I wouldn't bet on it. If Apple did not develop MacOS, then Mac hardware would not be as popular. If their hardware was less popular, economies of (lack of) scale would kick in, and make it more expensive. As their popularity grows, Macs get cheaper.
... and then they built the supercollider.
"After all, Windows is only half of what's wrong with the PC as a product."
Is it possible to have a post that is flamebait?
I think the problem with the PC market is the faction that seeks to undermine the popularity of the PC. For what reason? Their personal financial gain perhaps?
Yet another ad disguised as a post.
>>"The vast majority of PCs come with Windows pre-installed, and actually can't be sold without it..."
Actually they can't be bought without it, not sold. There's a difference. You have plenty of options for buying PCs without Windows. There's only one place you can go to buy a PC to run OS X.
A lot of Windows users don't even realize how insecure they can be about their OS. I recently watched an experienced video editor give a software demo on Windows, on behalf of a major software company that isn't Microsoft, and obviously he felt he had to make Windows appear to be as good as a Mac for that task (which in all fairness it certainly can be). He plugged in a peripheral, pointed out the little taskbar balloon that comes up to tell you that a new hardware device is connected, and used that as evidence that Windows was just as easy the Mac. "Ah, Found New Hardware Device, you see, it's totally plug-and-play," he said. He pointed out stuff like that more than once, even though no one asked him to.
What he didn't recognize was that the presence of the pestering little balloon can actually shape your subconscious attitude toward your OS. On the Mac, you just expect it to work, so you get an alert only if it doesn't work. On Windows, you get an alert if it works! Which is a subtle but important difference in shaping your subconscious expectations of your OS.
By having so many notifications for successful operations, some users like that editor are conditioned to expect that operations are not working until they see the confirmation. The Mac approach conditions users to relax and expect that it's working, which is a less stressful default attitude to take.
Now, Mac fanboys are insecure in a different way...they have the defensive paranoia of those who feel persecuted, whether they are or not.
(I am a lifetime Mac user, but more of a quiet supporter than a fanboy.)
E-nuff already - just buy what you like!
Hmmm, how about a nice Dell Power PC, preloaded with Debian? What, I can't buy such a nice hardware and software combination from the world's bigest PC maker? What gives? Oh yeah, the M$ monopoly I had almost forgoten about.
The market is not free to provide people what works best or even what they want. The Mac people, like everyone, puts up with the higher costs and intentional waste of M$'s dirty little tricks. It's worth documenting, but it won't last forever. The price is so high that people are looking for alternatives. M$ won't last much longer.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Of course they're not people, that would be silly!!
My mac, on the other hand...
"The vast majority of PCs come with Windows pre-installed, and actually can't be sold without it. Leading PC hardware makers can't freely advertise PCs sold without Windows, or with an alternative OS such as Linux, without having to pay Microsoft significantly more for every other OEM license they ship."
This hasn't been true for several years. PC makers can and do sell PC without Windows and MS cannot raise the OEM price in retaliation.
Windows may eventually topple as the operating system of choice, but no time soon. Even if companies like Dell could freely advertise other OS's without penalty, I doubt it would make a dent in their sales of Windows PC's. Say what you like about MS, they have built remarkable brand name recognition. To erode that in the minds of people who say "the internet is broken" when IE won't launch is going to take a long time. Apple too, while having strong brand name recognition is seen often as cool, funky and not serious. Do they build a superior platform? Absolutely! Apple has always had superlative hardware and the easiest to use OS. I don't know why anyone would buy a mac and put windows on it, expect maybe to play games. There's an irony, Apple is often viewed by the general public as not serious and yet they have a superior suite of work applications while not having anywhere near the number of games available for windows. Windows is seen as the machine for work while having a mediocre suite of work apps and a killer selection of games. Apple has made inroads into the mass market, but with the iPod. At the rate macs are penetrating it is going to be ages before they make Bill Gates sweat buckets on the OS front. Right now he's laughing. In the PC wars, so what if a mac is a better windows machine? So much better for his market share.
Linux, Ubuntu is a step in the right direction, but until you no longer need to be an ardent computer hobbyist or know one to set it up, it ain't happening fast either. What Linux really needs is some kind of mature plug and play especially because people keep buying crap to hook up to their computers and they want to use it. There's lots of good software, the hardware link is what's needed if Linux is ever going to have a "Year of the Desktop".
In any event, in terms of manufacturer's offering an OS, it's going to be a Windows world for them for quite a while. There is no incentive for them to upset the apple cart until MS brand recognition go south. Geeks and their friends may think it has, but not enough to make a difference. In the meantime, all people who favour a particular OS or platform can do is enjoy their difference and show their friends. Someday it will make a difference.
What I would like to have is a comparison of how many developers apple has working on os X, vs. microsoft working on windows. It seems to me that apple can develop features faster and better than microsoft, and with what I assume are less resources. How can apple promise a feature like spotlight and develop it in a less than a year and a half, for example, and windows users are still waiting. In fact, most if the features of vista have been available for years on os x, the vista release date keeps slipping and the feature list keeps atrophying, and apple jumps another light year ahead of microsoft with each point release of os X. At this rate, windows will NEVER catch up. os x is just getting much better too fast. So my question is again, what are the stats on how much apple spends on os x development for such monumental gains, and why cannot microsoft with all its money hire the developers needed to, if not catch up, at least keep pace with apple?
After all, Windows is only half of what's wrong with the PC as a product.
The PC's drawbacks are also its strengths. Freedom of hardware choice means that not everything is going to work great together. The Mac is like a dictatorship. One company decides almost everything. This means that everything can work great together and look pretty, but the consumer gets less freedom.
I've recently got a Mac Mini and it's kind of handy, though I'm undecided as to whether my PC will get upgraded, or replaced, or if I"ll stick with Macs. What I do know is that I won't be plumping for vista given the high system demands it's got. 1GB memory at least? Er, no. What Leopard has going for it is that it doesn't require a significantly higher spec than a Mac running OSX 10.4.
The problem was that those solutions were very expensive, and what MS did was decouple the OS from the machine to create a myth of an equally powerful cheap machine. I say myth because if all the costs were factored in, the savings often were not that great. What was the benefit is that a person could buy a much more flexible machine, and if they were on a budget, but a lower quality machine than would be available from a company that actually cared about reputaion. As time went on, MS forced it's OS onto every machines, and created the monopoly. Any OEM, really system integrator that actually provided support to the end user, was forced to supply only MS OS, while MS could sit there raking in the profits while doing comparatively little.
But the front line is still, and always will be, the system company. These are the people that provide the front line support. The problem with the PC industry is that though they provide the front line support, they do not in fact reap very much of the profit. MS, who does relatively little, get the money, while all the real producers are fighting for the crumbs. But it is thier decision.
The point is that the long term successful companies are system companies that keep attuned to the users needs. IBM is a good example. HP is a good example. Apple is a good example. In fact, when Apple tried to be a hardware company, with spin off of Claris, the Newton that did not integrate, and a failing OS, the company floundered. It bought into the idea that hardware companies were more viable than system integrators. As much as people wish for Apple clones, supporting every cheap piece of trash on the planer comes at too high of a price.
Even MS is going to be a systems company, if it will survive. It will survive on the XBox, which is an intergrated product. It will survive on phones, if it will ever just make one instead of trying to force the phone companies like it did the computer OEM. Otherwise it will just be a speciality shop, serving legacy machines.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
This is truly getting old.
Incorrect facts.
Bad assumptions.
Pure 'idealistic' bias.
The licensing of the 'discounted' OEM copies of Windows was something that the monopoly suit again MS changed dramatically.
However with that said, companies were providing 'exclusive' discount deals since IBM was first dealing with software back in the 70s, and most companies STILL continue to so to this day. Go ask an OEM why they only offer WordPerfect as their Office Suite, it is because they get a discount from Corel to do so. PERIOD.
I don't see any articles telling the world why PCs suck because some manufacturers only offer Corel WordPerfect and that this is why Mac are superior because they can buy MS Office and aren't forced to chose from retailer to retailer. (Quite Insane...)
The sad part is, Apple FULLY controls the hardware as shipped in addition to OSX, yet when it comes to reliability it doesn't even best Linux, BSD, or Windows where OEMs are dealing with 1000x the different components and configurations.
This is where people should be going, wow, why can't Apple get the reliability status of even freaking crappy Windows that has to install on an infinite amount of hardware and configurations? This is the real story.
As for the MS licenses being the 'problem' with PCs, last I checked most manufactures easily will sell a computer without and OS, and some even offer *nix alternatives - yes even Dell.
However it isn't the MS licensing that 'forces' manufacturers to 'bundle' Windows, it is the simple cost equation that when you ship a COMPUTER without an OS, you have no baseline to support the Hardware. So for 'most' consumers it is easier to ship an OS that provides a baseline for support. If all PC OEMs provided tons of distributions or OS choices it would be a support nightmare for them and their support cost would MORE than override the cost of the MS Windows License that they can use to baseline the system and provide support to their users.
When Apple starts selling their hardware with 5 Linux distributions, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and even offers Windows as a choice in addition to OSX, then this will be a story.
Until then, the story avoids the facts and writes out of pure 'idealistic' views that are self-serving at best.
After reading the article, apparently the only thing wrong with the PC market is that people are not bright enough to bow down to Apple and admit how perfect and wonderful they are and everything they do is. Basically calling all non-OSX desktop users idiots.
And even though there are a lot of idiots using computers, this is the wrong crowd to make that claim to. I think the majority of the *nix crowd at SlashDot should be more than a little outraged at this undertone and presumption.
The only thing truly wrong with the PC market is ignorance, and this article is a good demonstration of how ample it apparently is.
If you remember the early days of personal computers, companies only sold systems. They designed the hardware and the software, you bought the whole package as a system.
When the IBM PC was introduced, the whole "system" idea was almost completely forgotten by the general public. In 2006, when you say "computer" most people think "I buy a box from someone and install an OS from someone else on it".
Apple simply never stopped selling systems, but we still hear people "I want to buy the Apple OS for my beige box" comments.
Apple sells complete systems, you can't have the software without the hardware, or vice-versa.
..i see some kind of strategy: beginning with apple's switch to x86, in this case intel, i just have the feeling, that intel, as a secretive company, did trust apple enough to lay out before them there palomino concept, and apple came to the conclusion, that this could be the leverage needed to break into the windows market on the long shot. when virtualisation on the processor level is finally a reality, it will be possible to run windows "emulation" whithout beeing dependent from microsoft at all, because the windows will run on one of the cores of intel's (or amd's) processors, which will finally be the chance for apple to sell /their/ computers with all what makes them superior /and/ selling full windows compatibillity. than see vmwares announcement to have 3d-graphics support in future products and everything falls into place.
PAT
SEO Test: TIGI und SEBASTIAN - Online Shop - V
Only havening a lowend system or a high end workstation system with out a build in LCD is keeping people off of macs. Apple why can you put out OSX for all x86 pc's?
Software quality and software interoperability matters the most to computer users. Hardware enthusiasts are more interested in building system than actually using them. If you care about what hardware you have more than how well the software works, then you are not a computer user. Building machines might be a fun hobby for you but you really do not have a clue about how to actually "use" the machine and whether or not the "user experience" is a positive one or not since that is not your main interest.
BS. Don't forget to ground yourself when you open up the case again.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Maybe your dad just doesn't know how to use a computer. Yeah, the drivers aren't in there already on Windows. Okay, put in the cd, install it. Plug in the camera, and you're done. That's how it's always worked for me on Windows. It's not that hard. Actually, I didn't even need any drivers for my camera for my parents' computers. It just shows up as a USB card reader, same as it does on Linux.
look! it's a bird, it's a plane, it's....a girl? yes, a girl browsing Slashdot on Linux
You can add a 256MB NVIDIA® Quadro NVS 110M TurboCache(TM) in the Dell D620 for $60 or pay $500-$1000 for a macbook pro to get better video then gma 950 / a video card with it's own ram.
ROFLMAO, yes, of course, the $500 Mini is a direct result of Apple using GCC. Yes.
regardless of M$'s dirty tricks or how far into the sand Mac fans want to put their heads.
Wow, everything was mostly OK until I got to this point. Nice troll. I guess we Mac users should all "get our heads out of the sand", spell Microsoft with a dollar sign and use GNU/Linux, right? I absolutely love you "proponents of freedom" on Slashdot.
haha just because noone else makes hardware for apple doesn't mean they are one cohesive a pretty meeting of hardware and software. Give me a break. If Apple has been so great at integrating hardware and software.. then why are there SO MANY game controls, 3D visualization equipment, Wacom tablets, hardware in gernal for the PC?
A bit more stylish perhaps, but only major architectural difference at the platform level is the use of EFI boot - which the PCs will get to shortly anyway (it's been around for years and is superior to BIOS, but conservative vendors have held off using it).
Apple probably wanted it because (other than being more powerful and better) it gives them some control of what OS goes on Macs and lets them also make it more difficult to run OS/X on non-Mac non-EFI systems.
Oooh! Mod this one: "Score 10, right-on-the-mark)"!
I buy Apple because I want to own the machine and the software; not own the machine and have the software company own me.
"It's time to take life by the cans." ~ Bender ("Bendin' in the Wind", ep. 3-13)
Something Mac only:
Delicious Library
Comic Life
Grid Computing out of the box
Handbrake (although I hear there's a Windows beta now)
MacTheRipper
iLife (iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, GarageBand, iWeb)
Shake
Logic, and Logic Express
Final Cut Pro
This list of Mac-only software was written from my memory in less than 30 seconds. I'm of the very strong belief that tides have turned, and now OS X has the strongest line-up of software available on any platform at any price. Sure, there may be 10x more contenders for various tools (like DVD rippers, editing software, etc.) but the best in class is on the Mac. And it keeps getting better all the time due to technologies like Core Data, and Core Image, (and now Core Animation) that means that one person developing for the Mac can produce something that would take ten people to do the same on Windows.
This sig has been deprecated.
dude, step away from the comma. seriously.
native german speaker's heritage - read Kant to see some /real/ commata ;)
SEO Test: TIGI und SEBASTIAN - Online Shop - V
After reading the article, I can't quite tell why the hell this is on Slashdot. It's just someone's rants on a stupid blog - why the hell is that newsworthy at all? It's not even really a comparison of Mac OS and Windows at all, it's just a rant about how much better OS X is.
The blogger is so stupid that he somehow thinks it's appropriate to bundle operating system sales and hardware sales on the same chart, to make it look like Macs are more popular than they actually are. You can't turn a 2.5% market share into a 5% market share just by giving Microsoft 50% of the PC market! The numbers HAVE NO MEANING if you do that.
They're allowed to sell different OSes without retaliation, that was one of the hallmarks of the antithrust case. The reason they don't do it is that they don't want to support it. Yes, the 'recommends XP Professionnal" is, AFAIK, standard marketing.
You are only half right. Yes they are allowed to sell different OSes without retaliation. However, if they want to receive the coop revenue from Microsoft and the heavy discount for each copy of Windows they ship, then they must sign up for the voluntary "recommends XP..." program, in which they agree to not sell other operating systems (or at least not advertise them). So, Microsoft isn't forcing anybody to join their discount program. However, since margins are so low in the OEM business, you can't compete with the other OEMs if you don't.
If you read the license agreement, I think you'll find that they're actually selling the dongle, not the software.
I'm subscribed to Apple's Developer Connection, and they recently sent me an email "Start innovating now with the Leopard Early Start Kit". After a few clicks, it turns out you have to be a Premier member to see that content. Costs $3,500 / year. And even if you shell out the money, developing on the Mac sucks. Compare developer.apple.com to MSDN. It's not even in the same league. Compare CodeWarrior or Xcode to VS. Not the same league. Something like .NET on MacOSX? Maybe Java, but would you use it for GUI development? Or how about a 3D visualizer?
Compare that to Microsoft's approach to developers, which is reflected by Steve Ballmer's comic "DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS!" dance. Eg. Microsoft gives away free versions of Visual Studio.NET, you can downlad all the SDKs for free, etc. Visual Studio is by far the best IDE out there. The other ones don't come close to it in long-term usability (as Carmack said on his blog some years ago).
Right now, the VS/.NET combination is really hard to beat. There is no serious competition to this duo in the MacOSX world. Given that MacOSX is not even a "moral" platform in the Free/Open Source respect, there's really no good reason to develop for it. Thus it will never be a feasable alternative for very many people, or power users / developers like me. It's just not a development platform. Apple is not a software technology company.
Too bad, because their hardware kicks ass. I'm writing this on a MacBook Pro running... XP.
Cheers
If it's close to as bad as the Tiger "upgrade", can I just pay the $129 NOT to move to Leopard?
I feel like a broken record. Apple is not a hardware or software company. Apple is a technology integrator. They buy (or get for free like BSD) technologies, integrate them, pretty them up, and sell them for a huge markup. They don't manufacture their own hardware. They didn't develop the vast majority of their OS. They didn't invent the portable music player or the online music store. They integrated technology in a way that the mass market finds useful.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
I wish I had the time to play all of the Mac games I have bought. And I don't even have to waste time getting Windows to work.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
The whole article series is full of "interesting" interpretation which many could find fault with. I'll stick to a key factual error that is highlighted in the original slashdot post. The quote:
" Leading PC hardware makers can't freely advertise PCs sold without Windows, or with an alternative OS such as Linux, without having to pay Microsoft significantly more for every other OEM license they ship."
That would have been an accurate statement in, oh, say 1989 or 1990. Then Microsoft was sued by the Federal Trade Commission (well before the DOJ days) and had to make a variety of changes in the way they license MS-DOS and Windows. Since then there have been no OEM license provisions that punish OEM's that ship PC'w without DOS or Windows and no provisions that prevent OEM's from promoting other operating systems. The big news: consumers don't want other operating systems on their PC's so why would OEM's advertise them? Whether or not MSFT has co-marketing deals with OEM's like Intel does with OEM's that promote "Intel Inside" is a totally separate issue. But to say that OEM's have to pay more for an OEM license to Windows if they advertise Linux is ignorant, wrong, stupid and, dare I say, suggests that the author has an axe to grind.
I've been using macs for about a week and a half, so I wanted to chip in that this mac is definitely nippier than windows, it's somewhat nippier than most linuxes too. The only thing that comes to mind off the top of my head that is better is FreeBSD.
Just my $0.02
How to use coral cache: http://slashdot.org.nyud.net:8090/~oscartheduck
Apple MacBook 1.83 Core2Duo / 512 / 60 / Combo / 1280x800 / full battery / Pro OS = $1,099.00
HP dv2000t 1.83 Core2Duo / 512 / 60 / Combo / 1280x800 / full battery / Pro OS = $1,097.99
Woo hoo! One dollar and one penny.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Nice twisting of logic and language. The author of the article made the explicit point that OEM's had to pay a higher license for Windows if they advertise non-Windows operating systems which is blatantly false. You sort of admit that but then go on to say, somewhat disparagingly, that it's still "legal" to pay Dell to be part of Microsoft's "advertising campaign."
Who the hell cares and why shouldn't that be "legal?"
Dell is still free to do similar deals with other OS makers if there were any who wanted to do that and there would be no penalty from Microsoft. Why don't they? Because the vast majority of consumers could care less about whether they can get a Dell with Redhat and Redhat either doesn't have the money or the sense to try to make a deal with Dell. Don't blame Microsoft for that.
why are there SO MANY game controls, 3D visualization equipment, Wacom tablets, hardware in gernal [sic] for the PC?
The PC market is larger than the Mac market, so there are more third-party hardware vendors for PCs. That doesn't, as you implied, mean that "noone [sic] else makes hardware for apple [sic]." There have always been many third-party hardware vendors that make Mac-compatible gear. But I don't really see how this has to do with the level of hardware/software integration in Apple products one way or the other.
One could actually make the argument that the presence of fewer third-party hardware add-ons is proof that Apple does a better job of integrating its hardware and software (after all, if it is already well-integrated, you arguably don't need as many add-ons). But I don't think that argument makes any more sense than your argument does, because I don't think that the presence of third-party hardware add-ons is really indicative of overall hardware/software integration.
The real proof of integration is in how well these add-ons work with the computer's own hardware and software. We all know the story of Windows "Plug & Play," which came on the scene after Macintosh peripherals had been happily working seamlessly with the OS for years. Even now, in my experience it is simply easier to install and use hardware add-ons with a Mac. Just the other day I bought a USB thumb drive. The instructions were rather humorous, because there were two steps for Windows users, and just one for Mac users. I simply plugged in the drive and it worked.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I'm not sure what Apple's business would look like if they didn't offer Mac OS but I suspect they'd still have a business. I'm one of the many (hundreds of thousands? more than a million?) people who bought a Mac and use it to run Windows XP most of the time. The hardware is nice. The OS is over-rated and lacks a lot of the appliations I need/want. I know this is probably an unpopular point to make on /. but I know many people who are using their Mac's as...PCs.
I have a new iMac. I like the hardware b/c it lacks the wires of my PC's and looks good in my kitchen. I run Windows XP on it most of the time. MacOS is over rated. Safari truly sucks...vastly inferior to Firefox and not even as good as IE7. I know of many other people who are also using their Mac's as PC's.
Why do we need USB for connecting a kayboard and a mouse. I don't exactly know how it works on the hardware level, but it seems that the PS/2 connectors do a good job as an interface for keyboards/mice. The PC industry has gotten to the point where every new technology does not have to be better than what it replaces. It's like saying that everyone should use WLANs because they are easier and newer than wired Ethernet. Great, but moving this 4GB file doesn't feel quite as.. "snappy". And is it really as stabl***CARRIER LOST*** Same goes for EFI. There is no reason to rush it, the BIOS works great! No-one cares about the BIOS anymore, the OS (drivers) just talk directly to the HW, so who cares if the system needs partitioning and boots in 16-bit mode , I don't notice that, and neither do 99% of the developers.
My late boss and I did an internal study for our company on the total cost of ownership difference between Macs and Windows pcs several years ago. He and I both happily used OS X, Linux and Windows for various functions.
:wink:). So I have NO idea why his machines hate him. Strangely enough, other than the normal "Why is this happening (or not happening) from the other Windows users in the company, their computers don't suffer from 1/10th of the problems of his.
At the time we were (and still are) building our own pcs for desktops and servers and installing Windows XP Pro on the desktops and Windows Server 2003 on the servers.
As far as hardware went, buying Macs were considerably more expensive than our build-it-ourselves machines.
Software though was almost the same between the two and either platform would serve our needs just fine.
Where the difference came in was when we added in the cost of additional software required for Windows like anti-virus, anti-spyware, etc. and the cost in downtime/manhours spent rebooting Windows, reinstalling to get the network working again, etc. i.e., the day to day maintenance of a Windows machine in a business environment.
Our final decision was that at least for our purposes, Windows vs Mac was Leasing vs Buying. Windows + our home brew machines gave us a much lower initial cost than buying Macs. However, the cost in downtime and maintenance over the life of the computer was much higher than that of our Macs. Total cost was about the same whether we went OS X or Windows. OS X would just keep us more stable over the life of the computer which is a very good thing when it comes to servers.
But not long after deciding that we were going to start moving to an all Mac house, he died from liver cancer. I'm just the system admin and his partner detests Macs. So we're still running Windows for everything.
Funny though, he gets bent because his computers are constantly getting infected, run slow, etc. while my two computers never have any problems. Of course my two machines run OS X and Linux and he seems to spend a lot of time on pr0n sites (even though he denies it.
So as far as I'm concerned, neither is more expensive than the other. When I can, I use whatever will do the job the best. When it comes to servers, I tend to use Linux and build-it-yourself server hardware. At home, we're almost completely OX X now.
I have no idea what you're talking about right now.
Marky Mark Killed Jason Bourne!
Yeah, but hardware is at least half of why I haven't gotten a Mac. I don't *LIKE* the touchpad, I have both the touchpad and the clitmouse on my laptop and I finally disabled the touchpad because it got in my way more than I used it. I also have a built-in fingerprint reader, and am quite fond of using it for 2-factor authentication. For anything but play, I wouldn't go back to a machine without it. Sure, I could carry a mouse and fingerprint reader, but I don't *LIKE* mice, and really don't need more crap to carry.
I prefer mice to touchpads but as for clitmouse, I don't recall ever hearing of them. Years ago when I had a working laptop, now that Apple has released the Macbook Pro with Core 2 cpus I'll get one, I had a second mouse I kept in the laptop case to use when away from home. Sometimes I even carried a keyboard. Now, when Apple is actually shipping MacBook Pros, I may get a graphics tablet with it. Of course if so I'll run into the problem of being able to carry it all in one case.
I know that Apple wants to both simplify their software support requirements, and continue to get revenue from hardware sales. However, they're cutting themselves off from software revenues by requiring it to be used on their hardware. I'd have bought and tried on a spare laptop already if I had the option.
Apple isn't just a hardware or a software company, as someone noted earlier in this thread Apple is a systems company. If Apple were to release OSX for generic PCs, to tell the truth I'd like to see that, then they woud run into more than one problem. First Apple would have to support more than just one hardware system or a multitude pieces of hardware. Then if for whatever reason, a computer system or hardware didn't work, Apple would get blamed, it wouldn't "just work". Two, Apple would see a decline in hardware sales. And conceivably the biggest mistake is that they would run smack dab right into MS's territory, the commodity desktop OS.
It boils down to this: If Apple's hardware is so fantastic, why do they feel that the only way they can compete is by forcing people to use it? What are they afraid of?
Apple doesn't force anyone to use thir hardware, I'm using an HP PC so Apple didn't force me to use a Mac. Yes, if you want to use OSX you have to use Mac hardware but that's a choice, you don't have to use OSX. Simply if you use OSX on a Mac then you know it's going to work, Apple couldn't guarranty that if they allowed OSX to run on any old computer, on top of which as stated above Apple would see a decline in hardware sales.
FalconShould there be a Law?
But they must be a vanishingly small portion of Apple's market, because this has only been possible for a very short time. Not very many Intel Macs have been sold yet.
Also, it is only recently that Windows has gotten anywhere near as good as MacOS. In past eras, there was no competition (well, Amiga was competitive in some areas, but still a minor player). Historically, the OS and applications have driven sales. Apple nearly died when they decided to allow "clone" hardware to run MacOS. Everybody bought the clone hardware, but continued to run Apple's OS and Mac applications.
Another reason your experience is an anomaly, is that many people buy Macs to run software that is not available on Windows, such as Final Cut Pro today. In the "olden days," Photoshop was only available for Macs. For many people, running Photoshop was the reason to own a computer. And that computer had to be a Mac.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Most of Apples software now does require a serial key including Iwork and Ilife (very anoying)
I find it just as easy to get Windows to work as OSX...it's either pre-installed in which case it's child's play for both...or it's not and it's 30 minutes to an hour of work for each. Also games like Tetris don't count...the only game I've heard of recently that was even decent that had a Mac version was WoW and I don't play that one. So whenever you find time, go play your Starcraft...I'll be here playing Splinter Cell : Double Agent, Counterstrike : Source, Scarface, Need for Speed Carbon, Battlefield 2142, and plenty of other PC only games. So keep telling yourself that you have tons and tons of games...but not everyone wants to play rehashed puzzle games while they listen to emo music and smirk with glee when they think about how well their shiny new Mac matches their wallpaper.
Marky Mark Killed Jason Bourne!
when virtualisation on the processor level is finally a reality
Its long available, e.g. from www.parallels.com
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Just to note... Shake is a compositing application, and a fairly nice one at that.
s oftware)&oldid=84014269
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shake_(
And as you can read there, but I'll say here because I just love saying it in any MS vs Apple discussion: Apple killed support of Shake on Windows shortly after acquiring NothingReal.
So yes, GP poster, it's "Mac-only" (actually, there's the Linux version - but they charge you considerably more.) - but only because Apple made it such.
That is equivalent to MSFT partner programs which cost a lot more than three and a half grand. It gives you access to compatibility labs at Apple and other perks including discounts on hardware and early access to the next version of OS X seeds. None of MSFT's programs offer that.
Compare that to Microsoft's approach to developers, which is reflected by Steve Ballmer's comic "DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS!" dance. Eg. Microsoft gives away free versions of Visual Studio.NET, you can downlad all the SDKs for free, etc. Visual Studio is by far the best IDE out there. The other ones don't come close to it in long-term usability (as Carmack said on his blog some years ago).
Right.... MSFT gives away lite versions of their expensive VS.NET product which you cannot be used for large projects. Apple includes gcc, all the SDKs for shipping and previous releases of OS X, Xcode and interface builder with every release of OS X on the DVD. Anyone can sign up for a free account to download free updates to the tools and SDKs.
Speaking of MSDN:
Sorry, but you are going to have to try harder. I have the top tier MSDN subscription through work.Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
They could just dump MS.
Every Dell machine could be sold with Ubuntu on it.
Cheaper PC for the consumer, no OEM costs from Dell to Microsoft. Hanging out on Slashdot for so long and listening to your whitterings it's suddenly so clear to me. Maybe I should sell my idea to Michael, I'm sure it's just something he's never considered...
If you think about Apple, they work in precisely the same way. They have business units. One writes OSX, the other...well they basically seem to point Mr Ive to a Taiwanese system builder and source parts. Then there's a third unit that sells the shiney boxes.
Dell's just basically those second 2 units (with their own assembly) and MS the first. The money still floats around in the same way between the units.
Does anybody ever protest that you can't buy a Mac from one of those lovely white shops without OSX installed and a cut being kicked back up to the OSX dev division? Big demand for naked Macs?
No - there isn't - mainly as a naked Mac is just the same as a naked Dell - so why not get the cheaper Dell?
The person who buys the Mac, buys the Mac as he wants OSX, so we then get back to the old favourite here - why can't I buy 'naked' OSX and install it on a naked machine I already have? Well we know why that is, because Apple wants to shift the marked up hardware.
I think to summarize my point, why complain about MS getting $20 when you buy a Dell, when you pay Apple $2000 for hardware when you want OSX?
But you can all ignore this post and the whole thread to be honest. We live in a free market. You see a hardware/software spec and a price and if you want it you buy it.
If you don't like this system, then might I suggest you buy your own hardware and write your own OS. I know, quite ridiculous, an idea like this would never take off.
Apple & MS are rather different beasts, so comparing them is a bit difficult. Because MS's main market is the business sector, it has to telegraph its moves way, way in advance so that its main customers (corporate clients) can mesh their upgrades with that of MS's. Another consequence of MS's business orientation is that backwards compatibility is one of the top requirements, so it has to keep pulling along all this ancient legacy code into the latest version of Windows, & I have no doubt that this sucks up all sorts of developer resources by itself. (I won't get into all the driver/hardware headaches brought about by all the niche PC & peripheral manufacturers on the planet.)
As for Apple, it's more oriented towards the home consumer, & in this market, you don't announce something's ready till it is done, finished, tested, & debugged to death. If it doesn't work out of the box (without reading the fcsking manual), most customers simply will return it as "broken", so first impressions are pretty much the only chance it has to prove something. So, we don't really hear much (outside of unreliable rumors sites) about new features till Apple's ready to roll them out. And if some nifty whiz-bang code can't be made to work in time for the next OS release, it simply (& quietly) gets yanked from the code base, & no one outside of a few development teams in Apple will be the wiser.
We don't have a good idea of just how competent Apple's developers are in comparison to Microsoft's; we simply hear a lot less of Apple's failures than we do MS's.
What if I want an ultralight notebook? Lenovo, HP, Dell, and Sony already have lightweight notebooks, but Apple's smallest notebook is over 5lbs.
Apple fans seem to think that two sizes should fit everyone. I want a platform that allows me choice in hardware and choice in manufacturers. Apple doesn't offer that.
Not everyone thinks only two sizes are needed. I'm switching from Windows PCs to a MacBook Pro. A couple of weeks ago I saw a 21" laptop in a store, unfortunately it came with XP preinstalled, and started wishing Apple would release a MacBook Pro that big. And I've heard others say they wished Apple made a 10" laptop model. Me, I want a desktop replacement I can take with me. Man, if a few pounds were too heavy then I'd never have been able to hike with a 50bl backpack more than 12 miles.
FalconShould there be a Law?
It's a common misconception that Apple computers are more expensive than similarly priced computers from other Windows VAR's (Dell, HP, IBM, ect)
Naw, really?
It's interestesting to read about the OLPC project and think about what it could to do this kind of cyclical lockin. The OLPC doesn't use intel hardware and it doesn't use Windows.
Wait and see.
TFA says the following:
"Macs aren't more expensive because Apple ships them with an OS, just as Microsoft's bundling of Internet Explorer does not raise its cost for Windows. Windows would not be cheaper if the company removed IE, just as Apple wouldn't save any money by shipping Macs without Mac OS X."
Is he saying that the costs of developing OS X don't add to the price of a Mac Pro? Or that I couldn't make a nearly identical system for less if it were possible to buy OS X for my own hardware?
Is he really saying that IE and OS X are similar in scope and how expensive they were to develop, respectively?
Maybe Apple wouldn't save any money by separating their OS and hardware, but their customers sure would. Especially now that Macs are built around Intel processors. What exactly is Apple adding to the hardware besides a cool-looking case? If Apple loves us the way they claim, I wish they'd release a OS X for home-built hardware, even if the requirements were set way up high. Is there something so special about the way Apple assembles a PC that only they can make a machine that can handle OS X w/Leopard?
Please understand, I love Apple AND Macs. I'd just like to pick my own hardware and put it together just so.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Ummm I think those are apostrophes actually.
... Standards and Practices !
PenGun
Do What Now ???
iLife '06 does NOT require a license key.
So my question is again, what are the stats on how much apple spends on os x development for such monumental gains, and why cannot microsoft with all its money hire the developers needed to, if not catch up, at least keep pace with apple?
The answer is "The Mythical Man Month", an essay on productivity, which, greatly summarised, boils down to the more people you put on a software job, the longer it takes and the worse the result. Small, close to the ground groups will outperform large mismanaged groups every time.
http://www.amazon.ca/Mythical-Man-Month-Software-E ngineering-Anniversary/dp/0201835959/ref=pd_sxp_f_ pt/701-7008168-5551547
Okay, time to burn a karma point on a must-post joke parent poster set up perfectly.
..."
"... freenixes
This instantly led me to: "Phroenix"
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I pretty much agree with that. The only thing that is bothering my Mac clients is the lack of Intel Adobe apps. It's getting slightly serious that situation. I installed a top-of-the-line MacPro this week with 4GB RAM for a graphics company. Should have seen their faces when I said "No, actually Photoshop is not going to run that fast on this machine - it's being interpreted on the fly".
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
The same goes for a lot of hardware, just about anything that you connect on the outside of your computer and isn't more than 10% below what would be considered normal for that type of hardware tends to work with macs. Of course, if you're one of those guys buying $12 USB wireless NICs and then wondering why it's not running well then maybe it's just a matter of you being a "PC guy"...
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
1) Overcharge for your operating system 2) Give large discounts to companies that maintain an exclusive license 3) ??? 4) Profit
First post = troll. Cleverly worded post designed to enrage others = flamebait.
Not with anyone I talk to. Apple is most definitely a hardware company, if you measure this by income.
And Google is an advertising company, and if you go to www.google.com you're not a customer but the product they're selling.
Most people wouldn't say that, but then, most people aren't always right.
First of all, you have no idea what "TurboCache" means, do you? Let me enlighten you -- it's Nvidia marketing-speak for "fake memory." The "256MB Quadro NVS TurboCache" doesn't have 256MB of memory; it's named that because it can use up to 256MB of system memory. It's not actually much better (if at all) than Intel's integrated video. And it certainly isn't comparable to the MacBook Pro, "with up to 256MB of dedicated graphics memory!"
Second, the MacBook Pro is also most likely better in several other ways, so you'd have to upgrade all those other things on the Dell to make it comparable. You can't go around saying "Macs are more expensive" when you're cherry-picking particular aspects of the machine -- they have to be comparable in every aspect, not just (for example) graphics.
So, in other words, your argument is both wrong and stupid. Have a nice day.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I pretty much agree with that. The only thing that is bothering my Mac clients is the lack of Intel Adobe apps. It's getting slightly serious that situation. I installed a top-of-the-line MacPro this week with 4GB RAM for a graphics company. Should have seen their faces when I said "No, actually Photoshop is not going to run that fast on this machine - it's being interpreted on the fly".
Yea, that's something that kind of gets to me, Adobe not releasing Universal apps. Myself, I'm switch from PCs to Macs and am thinking of getting Photoshop CS however Adobe has already announced they will not release it for Intel Macs until they release the new verson of CS which is scheduled for spring next year. I may get an older version and wait until the new one is released, as I'm planning on working in photography as freelance, but I'm wondering how the upgrade can work as you save a lot off of CS if you're upgrading and not buying for the first tyme.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Control Panel -> Sharing -> hit the 'XGrid' checkbox. Done. I guess that qualifies as "best in class".
The parent poster's argument was that a lot of the Mac apps are "best in class", and I think he has a point. Certainly nothing you've said has managed to disprove it. As for "the only reason people buy
Physicists get Hadrons!
Damn right,
If I could get OS X on a Fujitsu slate tablet, I would do so in a heartbeat... I'm pretty pissed that I cannot as a matter of fact. Securing Windows between a CDMA modem, wireless, and ethernet was an effort in futility.
The next step would be getting a tablet without Intel graphics! Grrrr.
I think Apple programmers are more productive than their MS counterparts, but not because they're in any way "better" - I think they have an easier life.
To code a Windows app on your own isn't particularly hard, but I don't think it scales as well to large groups - there's too much cruft in there, and too many ways to screw up with C++ because it's a complicated language. A group of 30 clever people, experts in the language, can be let down by one not-quite-so-expert person not realising some subtle interaction.
Apple, on the other hand, don't much care about backwards compatibility (just upgrade, and get all these extras too), have a much cleaner OS (basically unix), and a much simpler object-orientated language to work with. Objective C is 90% as powerful as C++, but it works in a different way and although it's very powerful, it's simple to pick up and use. Apple's guidelines are simple as well, and this helps when group A are relying on something that group B are developing, when groups A and B haven't even ever met.
So, Apple get to leverage lots of frameworks in an easier fashion. I think MS have a complexity-management problem forced on them by their language choice and their commitment to backwards compatibility. If I'm right, it's only going to get harder for MS as time goes by...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
You obviously have not used iLife if you say that. What's a good alternative to GarageBand? Under Linux Ardour is the closest, but still doesn't compare. Under Windows you'll have to pay a few hundred to get something about as good.
"The Federal Reserve is a fraudulent system."--Lew Rockwell
End The FED. -
My experience is that Apple tends to have the LEAST amount of originality and they actively frown on people thinking outside of their box. Apple is the ultimate "mental monopoly" model, designed to lock consumers in as much as possible and force them to think and work the Apple Way.
MS is almost as bad. They practice economic monopolies. Most Apple fans consider this nothing more than crass capitalism compared to Apple's more artistic monopolistic model.
Linux is the only truly "free" solution. Do whatever you want, however you want to do it, and don't worry about making the wrong choice because the only cost to the consumer is their time.
The fact that many PCs can not be sold without Windows is not relevant to a comparison between OSX and Vista unless it is a positive attribute for PCs. Macs as opposed to these "Windows locked" PCs MUST come with Mac OSX. There is no choice in the matter period.
Being real with you for a moment, because I feel surprisingly close to you for some reason...I'm a software pirate, I pay for nothing.
Marky Mark Killed Jason Bourne!
Typo : I meant Software/Music/Movie pirate...and yes I'm aware of the problems that causes, and yes I even pirate from the poor artists...I hope they never eat again.
Marky Mark Killed Jason Bourne!
The author behind these pieces clearly has no understanding of how markets are defined or represented. He continues to insist in his articles that it's possible to combine Microsoft + OEM marketshare in the PC industry into a single number, then give 48.3% of it to MSFT. Reality is, market share is measured in only [b]one[/b] product category at a time. If we're talking operating systems, that's Microsoft. If we're talking hardware PC shipments, it isn't. The kind of arbitrary graphing he produces (and bases a number of his arguments on) is nothing but made-up garbage. If I sound slightly peeved, it's because I read and emailed the author a few weeks back (after another /.ing) and tried to engage him in dialog on some of these issues and got no response. Now here he is again, continuing to tout his made-up numbers and methodology.
That's not really true. Apple ACTS like it's a hardware company and the MacOS exists to sell more pieces of hardware.
If Apple was a hardware AND software company then they'd have never developed bootcamp. For a hardware company, bootcamp makes a HUGE amount of sense - it allows them to sell computers that run a competing OS, which is a win - every Mac running Windows is one more Mac sold. For a hardware/software company, however developing bootcamp makes no sense - releasing bootcamp reduces the value of the hardware/software combination.
According to OSX Intel, it's a TPM chip that makes it a Mac.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
I recently bought a 20" iMac, my first Apple product ever. While researching it, I went through and configured, as best I could, a Dell with exactly the same components. In the end, the Apple was $4 cheaper. The baseline Dell was initially cheaper because the hard drive was 5400 RPM, the video card was an integrated Intel thing, the screen had a lower native resolution, etc. Once it matched the iMac's components, there was essentially no price difference.
Despite what Cory Doctorow eloquently ranted about some time ago, Apple has only used the TPM module in the initial developer-only "transition kit" computers. Some Intel Macs do indeed have TPM chips on their motherboards (as do most other Intel machines, of course), but the firmware doesn't talk to the chip and OS X has no driver for it. Furthermore, not all of the Intel Macs even have the module. http://www.osxbook.com/book/bonus/chapter10/tpm/ Singh also makes a point in that article which I'd noticed when I'd actually, y'know, read the TPM specs, which I don't think many people have -- the idea that the chips can somehow, in and of themselves, prevent you from running "unapproved" applications, let alone lock you into proprietary data specs, is pretty bogus. While the chips have the potential of being used for evil, that's certainly not intrinsic to their design, and in fact TPM chips could be used to implement public key security and signing for users in a more secure fashion than can be done in software alone. At any rate, the idea that OS X is being locked to Mac hardware via TPM chips appears to simply not be the case. It's locked to Mac hardware primarily by Mac hardware just not being quite as interchangeable with PC hardware as the "Intel Macs are just PCs in new cases" crowd thinks.
Yes, you're right.
However, on a heterogenous platform (Windows, for example), manufacturers write these things called "device drivers" that facilitate communications between the operating system and devices. In a homogenous environment (OSX, BSDs), the operating system manufacturer writes the device drivers. Linux is mostly along the lines of a homogenous environment, but lately companies like ATI and Nvidia are writing their own.
Since device drivers have more privileges than your ordinary program, Microsoft has a certification program for drivers, where they test them to make sure that they don't do bad things to the computer. If you try to install non-certified drivers, it pops up a dialog asking you if you're really sure that you want to install this.
Oh, that's right, this article is about Vista, not XP. In that case, 64-bit kernel mode drivers have to be signed or the OS won't load them. Period.
There is also a hidden argument here: Who should be responsible for the device drivers? The company who knows the OS or the company that knows the hardware?
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Ah, thanks for the clarification. Forgive my ignorance. The statements made in my previous post were primarily comprised of my own observations, no acctual research or anything went into it. Just personal speculation of 'what makes macs macs'.
"There is no Honor, without Pie."
-Weeble
Flamebait funny...
I could say really critical things about the Linux kernel, the BSD kernel, or even question some of the 'accepted' OSS concepts people hold quite dear.
Yet the only time my posts get modded down is if I say anything that is non-supportive of Apple.
Keep modding the post down without one counter fact or argument, you are only proving my point about the fanatic mindset...
Is Steve Jobs really that good looking or what is it I am missing about the blind following?
http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,70072-0.html
But maybe I am the strange one, I personally like to stick to facts, technology, and strange things like science.
one is equipped with 16MB of local memory, the other with 32MB. Both will use up to 128MB of main memory, a forthcoming 64MB version will support up to 256MB though, which means that the GeForce 6200 series will be available as effectively 128 and 256MB graphic cards."
So what you are saying here is that the card in question is really a 64MB card, with access to system memory as well.
Please explain why that does not utterly suck in comparison to a card with 256MB of dedicated RAM. It's a little better than the integrated Intel solution, but hardly as desirable...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Two things anyone who has a basic clue about computers should know.
One no drivers no work.
Even the all mighty Apple doesn't support everything. I've watched my girlfriend scream at her Mac when it wouldn't recognize a device and then spend hours crawling the web looking for a solution. The funny thing is she usually never finds one since very few Mac users actually know how to set up hardware on their machines beyond simple plug and play.
The second is direct camera interface with either a PC or an Apple is crappy, slow, and unstable. This has to do with the camera and it's drivers, not the OS, neither of which were created by MS or Apple.
So instead of being an Apple Elite (aka snob, aka prick) and a shitty son why don't you go by your dad a $20 card reader (they are much faster than camera transfers anyway) so that he can transfer his beloved pictures to his machine with ease instead of sitting there gloating. While your at it get him an external hard drive for Christmas so he can back up his photos as well. Get yourself one too because even a Mac is not immune to hardware failure.
You're an idiot.
#exclude <ms/windows.h>
... would this be a better world?
:)
iDon't think so
Recently (Monday) I thought I would try Ubunutu (64 bit version) which so many have been praising, the expearence was less than I'd hoped for.
For one theres no simple installer, everythings done through terminal, now I didn't mind figuring out how terminal works it took the better part of the day but I managed it. What happens when my Dad who worries about windows installers has to add a new device? Or install software? Until theres a friendly GUI that can act like terminal thats going to keep your basic user from adding any new hardware.
The Nvidia driver installation was a nightmare (my first time using Terminal) I managed to stop xorg.conf, since there was no usefull guide on how to not get Ubunutu to boot into Command Line I tried reinstalling.
13 installs, Ubunutu wanted to write changes to two drives I don't want it touching, when I refused to let it the installer would crash, when I tried to install Ubunutu to a slave drive, Ubuntu crashed, I had to remove two drives to install it. Other times the whole install app would crash when it tried unmounting the CD drive at the end.
I use two sound cards a Audigy LS and a onbaord Realtek, for inputs I use the Realtek for outputs the Audigy. Ubuntu won't let me do this, further more it defualted my onbaord realtek as the primary card. Something I would have noticed if the ALSA sound mixer specified card name instead of chipset (since the device manager see both cards and a sub category shows their chipset why can't it?)
The lack of drivers due to the many distros, my TV card comes with a Mandrake, Fedora or Suse driver, I have tried figuring out how to put these on but so far its elluded me and I'm begining to think its impossible. I have two other devices which have the same problem.
Why isn't there NTFS drive access built into it? I've been told its possible but to me such things shouldn't require arranging.
Lastly WINE, I can't get this running on Ubuntu I've tried and tried and its still escaping me, I've had friends, Linux expearenced friends try and they have met with problems. There are industry standard app's which I need to use which are windows only, you will find this sort of problem with people from all walks of life, its one of the reasons I couldn't switch to OSX.
Ubuntu is great I'm willing to persist to figure out whats going on, but if people think its ready for joe consumer your sadly mistaken.
out of interest I tried HandBrake just now, it compiles fine under Linux but I believe it's only a command line version at the moment....
also it segfaulted after 2 seconds...
> Because the vast majority of consumers could care less about whether they can get a Dell with Redhat and Redhat either doesn't have the money or the sense to try to make a deal with Dell.
I think you are wrong. Most consumer wouldn't buy a Redhat machine from Dell. Why do you think that they would?
Part 5 in this series is available now:
B 5F-4A6A-B1FE-ED016E93DC7F.html
0 98-460A-8276-39CC96170D6E.htmlA 77-4FA9-BB3F-7BB89A7BEBF9.htmlD 88-40F0-9543-33A05AD2585E.html
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Q4.06/D1C45F9C-C
And you can enjoy parts 1-3 also:
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Q4.06/18839BF9-5
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Q4.06/859889E4-D
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Q4.06/17E71735-2
I'd hardly say that they're a vanishing breed. Rather, it seems to me that they're a *growing* breed, Nevermind the occasional beige-box company offering naked PC's in certain markets for short periods of time (last one I saw was from Dell I think).
Last April, I bought two systems from SMK Superstore, built exactly to my specs, and shipped with no OS (in fact, I opted to not even include hard disks, didn't need new ones yet). I ended up paying some $550 for a socket 939 AMD 64x2 3800+ processor with 1GB RAM on a decent Gigabyte motherboard, with a low-end nV MX4000 card for my husband's box. The second system (mine) cost about $650, due to my getting an nV 6600 from another website to go in it.
Before I bought them, I checked a few key sites (HP, Dell, one or two others) and decided there was no way in hell I was going to pay the prices I was seeing, for a PC that was less than half as fast as what I ended up with.
The only downside on my purchase was that I didn't make a good decision on the heat sinks, so the CPU on mine (the workhorse of the two) tends to overheat and switch the computer off if I run it full-bore for too long (thank you lm-sensors for helping me sort this out!). Big deal, good copper heat sink/fan combos will set me back about $35 each (with a tube of grease) and I'll replace the under-specced ones when I can be bothered to do so.
Just to get back on topic, I can say that while I don't use one, I do like the Mac and I like how OS-X looks (what little I've seen anyway). I can't imagine Apple selling their systems in any other way than as a computer and an OS in a single inseperable package; something just doesn't seem right about the idea of Apple going the way of the beige-box market.
I've switched permanently from Windows to Debian in 1998 (after toying around with it for a couple of years) and 4 years ago bought an iBook G3 and used Debian on it for everything except watching DVDs. The main reason I bought the iBook was its long battery life. This was before Centrino came out in Europe. One and a half years later, Skype came out and suddenly the fact that microphone wasn't supported under Linux made me try out OS X more regularly. After two weeks or so I nuked the Debian partition and switched to OS X. Haven't looked back so far, and my next laptop will be a Mac as well. OS X beats Linux as a desktop any time, it's simply no comparison.
It's not so much that OS X is shiny as it is polished and doesn't get in my way when I want to get work done. Of course, a properly configured Linux box does this as well, when you compare it to a Windows machine. But you miss out on the great integration that the Mac offers, not only between the apps that Apple makes, but also how third-party apps integrate into the desktop.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
Because he lives in libertarianworld where products that don't do what the monopoly in the market does can be counted as competition because they are written for the same processor.
'Dell recommends Windows XP Professional,' as if there were a choice in the matter
As if I can buy a mac and install Yellow Dog Linux or whatever. AFAIK Mac's come with OSX and you can't order them without OSX either.
Same thing folks - if you want to be a fanboi, that's fine, but remember Apple does the same crap and even worse sometimes than Microsoft...
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Wow. That's quite a post.
I have recently written an Anal Clown Sodomy simulator that's "Best In Class", You'll find it without peer among any and all Clown Sodomy Programs. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should, and that definitely isn't a bragging point.
OK, I call your bluff!
Please show me your Anal Clown Sodomy simulator.
And I'll show you mine.[http://www.ouchytheclown.com/prodom.shtml]
I seriously doubt Norton pays anywhere near enough to cover the cost of the XP license. (although it'll help).
``As time went on, MS forced it's OS onto every machines, and created the monopoly.''
I don't think that's how it went. Rather, IBM licensed DOS from Microsoft for shipping with the PC, and the clones did the same (although a few might have used MS-DOS clones). However, PCs with DOS weren't the only game in town: Apple sold Macintoshes with Mac OS, Commodore sold Amigas with AmigaOS, Atari the ST with GEM and GEMDOS, and, of course, there were the home computers like the Commodore 64 and the ZX Spectrum, and Unix workstations, and, later on, the BeBox and the NeXTcube.
The reason Microsoft came to be in such a dominant position is that people chose the PC over competing systems. By the time DOS began to see serious competition on the PC, Microsoft was already firmly established. Even now, with a multitude of operating systems available for running on PC hardware, people continue to choose Microsoft. That's what makes Microsoft so strong. Microsoft isn't forcing their OS onto anyone, but people largely refuse to buy computers that don't come with Microsoft Windows.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Then you probably just don't know what you're doing.
Marky Mark Killed Jason Bourne!
You'll find my karma is quite good, and I'm no troll...I just have a deep seated hatred for Mac zealots who think their system is somehow superior to all others. Bottom line is that the best OS\Hardware combinations are reflected by market share, yes some may be more stable than others, integrate better, be more user friendly...but at the end of the day people use what works. You'll find Windows still dominates market share because, quite frankly, it's a better OS...now before you guys jump all over me, hear me out. In my opinion the WRT54G (original revision) is the best router for the money out there because of the user base in place, the 3rd party firmware, the mods available for it, and so on...and although I could go out and spend a lot of money on a "better" router, I won't because this ends up with me having a better user experience overall. I tend to think of my OS the same way, I use a Linux/Windows dual boot configuration at the moment because it allows me the most control and options over what I can do with my hardware. Let it be known that I'd use OSX as well if it would run on my X86-64 hardware along side my other OS choices, but it won't for only one reason...Steve Jobs doesn't want me to. My job requires me to work on them along with PC's, but there aren't enough reasons for me to spend a lot of money buying one just to run some flashy, easy, trendy operating system that won't help me do anything that I can't already do. That was my original point, and I apologize if it wasn't conveyed very well before, as I was quite drunk and belligerent. Anyone who wishes to continue this conversation should do so by e-mail as this, if left unchecked, could fill this topic to capacity and then some. Mac vs. Windows vs. Linux is not a debate that will be settled anytime soon.
Marky Mark Killed Jason Bourne!
Please elaborate on what "nippier" means in the context of operating systems.
IBM licensed PC-DOS from Microsoft for every PC that hit the street. The clone makers licensed MS-DOS because it was compatible with IBM, but not bound to IBM by copyright. Microsoft 'conquered' the desktop because no business would buy anything but IBM because 'nobody ever got fired for specifying IBM'. The clone market took off because now people could buy a cheaper computer for home and take their work home at night.
The killer app for the PC was Lotus. Everybody had it. You could put in your floppy, turn the computer on, it'd come up, you could work all day, save off your work at 5 & just redswitch it. Lotus was an industry standard.
Apple, SGI, and Commodore ended up fighting it out in the graphics arena. When it was all said and done, Apple pretty much killed them all; graphics was the Mac's killer app.
People chose the PC for business reasons, not because it was so much better than anything else. Back in The Day, IBM meant business. And no clone maker would put anything other than DOS on their machines so they'd be compatible with what you used every day at the office.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Let's talk economies of scale.
Assume you spend 20 million bucks to create an operating system. Remember, this is a thought experiment, the 'real world' costs might be higher. Or lower. But in any case, me & thee will never know. Assume the marketting wanks are lying when they say 'This operating system cost $DOLLARAMOUNT to produce'. Odds are, they are lying.
Your brand spanking new computer is the only computer in the universe that can run this operating system. Thus, its price is 20 million dollars plus the hardware costs.
Assume now that you sell 20 million copies of that computer. Your amortised cost of developing that operating system is now down to 1 dollar per computer. Sell 100 million of those computers and the cost is now down to 5 cents a computer. And the more you sell, the cheaper the operating system becomes. The unit price of the computer stays the same, say 800 dollars retail, Parts would run you maybe 150 in quantity. (Hell, I can build my own machine for under $300) You get half the retail price of the computer from the wholesaler, who jacks up the price to 600 dollars and sells it to the retail outlet who adds 200 dollars to bring it up to the full $800 retail price.
You, as the manufacturer, make $400 for every computer you sell to the wholesaler. If you sell 20 million computers to the wholesaler, your profit margin is $249/machine. You've paid for the $150/machine & amortised the 20 million for the OS. Your total profit on that 20 million unit 'run' is $4,980,000,000. That's right, almost 5 billion dollars. Starting to see why vendor lockin is such a big deal to Microsoft and Apple?
The questions you now need to ask yourself are, 1) How much did Apple spend to develop their OSes? 2) How many units did they actually manufacture and sell? 3) How much did Microsoft spend to develop Vista? 4) How many copies of Vista are going to be shoved down everybody's throat?
It costs me about 50 cents to get a DVD I can write to. How much is Microsoft going to spend per DVD for several MILLION copies of Vista? I'm guessing pennies. And that's just for the home market. OEMs will put Vista on the hard drive with a reinstall partition that's hidden away from Joe Sixpack.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Bullshit. CP/M was around for years and years while the OS and machine and applications where all considered separate. By the time MS copied CP/M (by buying qdos), the hardware, operating system and applications were still all different brands and people looked for best of breed. It took until Windows NT for MS to be able to kill off that way of thinking in the public. Now few, even otherwise intelligent individuals, can make abstract thinking enough to tell the differenct between data from an application, or between an application from a specific brand of application.
Now, I recognise that this is an extreme case. And it's hard for a gamer to understand the desire. But for professionals in many fields, the workspace size is important and the 3D accelleration is not.
Final Cut Pro does not require a dongle. I just built 2 work stations with Final Cut Studio.
Logic Pro I don't know about, but from what I've heard, you are right.
And to the other person who said iLife requires a serial, no, it doesn't. iWork does.
iLife serial, ha, funny.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
plain stupid. There can be no comparison.
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels
I'd hardly say that they're a vanishing breed. Rather, it seems to me that they're a *growing* breed, Nevermind the occasional beige-box company offering naked PC's in certain markets for short periods of time (last one I saw was from Dell I think).
It may be that this is the case in the US but my personal experience in the UK when I bought a custom box a while back was somewhat different. The place I bought mine said it was more or less the last one they would ship because of EU regulations about build processes. On that basis there was no money in it for them. This may be a few years back but it's a different position to the one your in, which is much better IMHO.
[snipped]
Just to get back on topic, I can say that while I don't use one, I do like the Mac and I like how OS-X looks (what little I've seen anyway). I can't imagine Apple selling their systems in any other way than as a computer and an OS in a single inseperable package; something just doesn't seem right about the idea of Apple going the way of the beige-box market.
That's my view. As soon as they stop selling OS X with a mac, they run the risk of becoming just another box shifter. They also throw away the advantage they have over control of what goes into a box that OS X has to support. And that could lead to the same stability and driver availability problems that seem to bedevil the Windows and Linux worlds respectively. Though Vista seems to be trying to address stability and Ubuntu looks to be pretty good in terms of support.
Because you're stupid?
The BSD part converning OS X (or NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP for that matter) is pretty much irrelevant to the actual OS, even if in sole application size it might appear huge. Remember OPENSTEP could be run on pretty much any OS and hardware, OpenStep, WinNT, Solaris, you name it.
The biggest and main part of OS X is the great integration of the hardware and the OS and the applications with the OS and the interoperability of the applications with each other. This is all thanks to OS X (or NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP) which concerning the user experience and usability can be reduced to Cocoa and its core foundation, all made by Apple resp. NeXT. So in fact the vast majority of the OS (where it really matters) was developed by Apple/NeXT.
Also again the point of the iPod is not it being an MP3 player. The reason for its success lies in the integration of the iPod with iTunes and the overall ease of use of the iPod itself. This "usability" has been developed and designed by Apple.
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
ok. i'll bite.
. let's see if your free music software measures up to _even_ logic express (the cut down version). hopefully by now it should be clear to you that there is no PC equivalent of logic. and don't even bother mentioning the other DAWs, they are just catching up in many respects. just letting you know that pro tools and logic pro are the two most widely used DAWs in the industry. it's no wonder macs dominate the music studio scene - in recording and mixing especially.
I don't see anything in that group that I don't enjoy a better version of on both my XP and Gentoo install... like? you have an equivalent to garageband? imovie? idvd? and free? where is it so i can download it for all my friends to use.
This is a plugin for a proprietary piece of movie software, not a program itself...and nothing unique or innovative. funny that, i seem to recall that shake is currently being sold as a STANDALONE program without final cut pro (or any other program) required.
The only thing I can see different from this and MY music software is you have to shell out 300 dollars for it... wow...now you are really showing your ignorance here. have you actually USED logic pro? or for that matter ANY form of professional DAW (i.e. cubase, pro tools, sonar)? well, there are reasons why you pay all that money for logic pro et al. logic pro is professional-quality music software used by professional musicians hence the so-called "high" initial cost (including the mac), which, in the long run (providing you're using the software to earn money) is actually insignificant as you repay the investment many times over. but logic pro/express is also great for the amateur home studio as it includes everything that you need out of the box.
so does your music software have this? - almost unlimited audio and midi counts, multi-channel recording, powerful scoring functions, a huge array of high-quality plugins, unrivalled midi features, almost unlimited flexibility via the environment and screensets and industry-wide hardware and plug-in software support? actually if i had to buy each of the bundled plugins separately, it would cost me thousands, especially the big ones such as evb3, sculpture, ultrabeat and space designer which would be outrageous for a typical home/project studio. actually, i read a comparo (i think it was in future music UK or sound on sound) in which space designer was pretty competitive wtih altiverb and waves ir-1 both of which cost _hundreds_. and the evb3 is one of the best hammond emulations out there.
just so you'd know, i'd advise that you visit: http://www.apple.com/logicexpress/comparison.html
logic pro "just" a music program? so high-profile logic pro users like depeche mode and nine inch nails and radiohead are "just" musicians, right? or do they use logic because they are "mac fanbois"? musicians don't give a stuff about whether it's a pc or a mac - just whether it gets the job done or not. and macs get the job done more often in the music biz.
list of VIP logic pro users
and yes, i use both logic and pro tools le to compose, record and mix as i'm a music major (drums) and have a bit of experience recording myself and other people in studios.
oh yeah, here's an interview showing that radiohead was using logic back in the emagic days.
http://www.audiohead.net/interviews/radiohead
I see Daniel Eran is spamming slashdot with multiple accounts just like he has done on other sites. Slashdotters, now that Daniel has been rightfully banned by Digg for cheating the system, expect alot more of his crap to get posted here. Also expect lots of replies that are basically love letters to Denial Eran, despite the fatc that his "articles" are written like a 12 year old would write, and are filled with utter inaccuracies. You've been warned.
"The latest is part 4, Naked Sales, and it's a meditation on hardware without Windows" WHO Exactly is meditating?
What if you want a $400 notebook? I've never seen a $400 notebook that wasn't total junk. Obviously Apple cannot make "thousands" of variations of their laptops to please cheap bastards like you. What a screwed up way of thinking! If Apple were still running PPC hardware you would have a slew of other complaints and now that they are running on Intel hardware you geekazoid types are still finding something to bitch about. Amazing! I wondered once the move to Intel happened what the PC weenies would bitch about. Keep running Winblows on cheapass hardware brother, you deserve it.
geez! how incestuous can this possibly get? oh - Vista is horrible! Microsoft is evil! Apple is great! There - I've said it! Now go back to alphabetizing your netflix queue!