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."

Comments

"Macs aren't more expensive..[shipped] with an OS"

[mccalli]

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

When you write for specific hardware....

[vertical_98]

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.
 
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 ;P
 
Vertical

Re:Hardware and software...

[Kjella]

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?

1) Piracy. By making you buy complete Macs they know they got paid for OS X as well, the hardware is the biggest and most complex dongle possible.
2) Support. By having just a few fixed configuration, testing and support is much easier. Many crappy experiences with Windows is due to crappy hardware and crappy drivers.
3) Image. Apple wants to have an image, for example they've never released a low-end machine. The iPod was built on image, like "You can have any color you want, as long as it's white" which most people thought died out with Henry Ford. They're not going to give up on their hardware image easily.
4) Pricing. Apple doesn't really charge a fixed price for OS X, they can price-gouge you based on what hardware you intend to run it on. If they had to offer one price that'd run on anything from Mac mini-class to Mac Pro-class machines, they couldn't.

Re:subject

[Nexum]

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.

Re:the silent mac minority

[JPRelph]

I don't know what Mac you have but any Mac with an Airport Extreme card can use WPA2. Also to mount SMB/NFS shares at login just make sure the password is in your keychain then drag the share (from the Dekstop/Finder) into the "Login Items" pane under System Preferences>Accounts.

Re:the silent mac minority

[Spencerian]

Your problems reflect a lack of knowledge in making these features work. I do this for a living. Want SMB volumes to mount on startup? If you're working in a Microsoft Active Directory network, make your Mac a member of the domain for single-sign-on authentication and many other features. Or make an LDAP domain if you have Linux servers and get it done. That's just one way to make that work.

Not all tools are perfect (the Finder does have problems sometimes), but to blame the tool because the building won't go up, well, that's just uncool.

There is nothing you haven't mentioned that hasn't a resolution that requires you to spend a lot of time on it. Tired of using the GUI? Go around it; this is a BSD after all. It'll likely work.

Troll

[aristotle-dude]

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.

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:

Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition with MSDN Premium subscription: $2,499 (renewal: $1,999)

Sorry, but you are going to have to try harder. I have the top tier MSDN subscription through work.

Parent is wrong, not insightful

[mrchaotica]

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.

Just a few problems in your post...

[Space cowboy]

In the interests of accuracy...

• Comic life - if you haven't tried it (and by your comment, it seems you haven't), then you're just uninformed. Comic life isn't the most essential app I've ever used, but it's more like "DTP for comics" than "add a few speech bubbles"... And it's interface is gorgeously intuitive. It's sort of in a class of its own, but it's *really* nicely done, to the extent that it was a showcase app at one of Apple's events.
• Grid computing - lots of (linux) systems can be configured, but I doubt any of them are quite so easy to configure as a Mac:
  Control Panel -> Sharing -> hit the 'XGrid' checkbox. Done. I guess that qualifies as "best in class".
• iLife - um, either you don't know what you're talking about, or you're just wrong. Show me the gentoo program that can create a DVD menu by dragging photos, adding transitions and behaviours (akin to "Motion") to make them move/interact, drag/dropping movies for both menus and content, allowing layout of all this and interaction-scripts to be written. Now show me a program that does all that with an intuitive well-designed interface. I could do the same for pretty much all the iLife apps (not just iDvd) - they're textbook examples of "best in class" apps.
• Shake is not a plugin. I was privileged to know and work with the Shake team, and it's a truly awesome (in the traditional, rather than Californian sense) piece of software. The coders are demi-gods - yes I mean you Christophe and Arnaud. Shake is a compositing application that is used to create entire movies - just about every movie in recent times will have been through either Discreet Logic or Shake (probably both). I used to work in the post-production business, I know of what I speak - a licence for Shake was ~$10k. A "plugin" it is not. Sadly it's been discontinued, however the original team are hard at work on (presumably) its successor.
• Logic, Logic Express, FCP - I've lumped these together because your ignorance is showing here. These are all standout-applications. Go to the BBC, or CNN, or just about any post-production house and you'll see FCP being used. Really used, as in workhorse-used. These are flagship applications for Apple, and it shows. I have a friend in ops at CNN - almost every journalist there will use a Macbook (Pro) in the field, with FCP to do rough-edits and provide EDLs back to the studios. The BBC are the same. When the two largest news organisations on the planet swear by your software, you're doing something right...
• Core-data is not "old technology" just catching up. It's a full object-relational model, built into the OS that can use a SQL (or other) back-end as storage. You get full undo/redo functionality "for free" because of its comprehensive object model. It's essentially "Enterprise Objects" scaled down for the desktop. There's nothing (that I know of) like it bundled with any other OS. "Best in class" I guess
• Core-image is a top-notch image-io framework. It's the basis of Quartz composer, and it's how Aperture can (in real time) apply effects to enormous images without having to write a new image every time - Aperture just stores the instructions on how to get an image from a raw source, and Core-image is the grunt behind it all. There are only 2 programs I know of that can do this, and of the two Aperture is by far the more impressive. The other is Lightroom, and its still in Beta. "Best in class" again, I suppose.
• Core-graphics - another cool technology that provides innate use of the GPU, and is the basis for Quartz (the compositing engine that the Mac UI uses). CG treats the VRAM like a hard disk, and can "swap" textures in and out automatically, effectively providing an infinite amount of ram on the graphics card.

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