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Ars Technica Reviews OS X 10.5
E1ven writes "Ars Technica has published their in-depth review of the newest version of Mac OS X.
John Siracusa both covers the user-visible features such as the new UI tweaks and Time Machine, and dives into the increased use of metadata and the new APIs introduced and what they mean for the future of OS X."
I run Tiger. My regular userid is not an administrator.
OSX will prompt me to enter an administrator username and password under three circumstances (in my experience):
In all three cases, I expect the prompt and the reason is clear. I think it works well...
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
The point of the Macintosh is that you don't expose yourself to the inevitable problems that come as a result of that.
The Mac OS doesn't compete with Vista as operating systems, but the platform as a whole, as a device for doing things, does compete with other platforms and manufacturers.
I don't see any reason for Apple to want to try to do what Microsoft does, and as a user of their products I frankly don't want them to. The reason I've always felt that Apple gear was worth the price is because it's a predictable, known quantity, and because it's sold as a system rather than as bits and pieces. While being able to assemble it would admittedly be nice for hobbyists (and it was nice back in the day when Apple sold motherboards through their VAR chain, so you could build them), it's not a compelling feature for most of their core market.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
> They aren't bound by compatibility like MS is, or even Linux.
Oh, how I wish that were true....but Mac OS X has very strong compatibility requirements, far stronger than Linux and in many ways stronger than Microsoft.
When Windows and Linux went 64 bit, they just broke all the drivers. Apple maintained compatibility with 32 bit drivers while enabling 64 bit software.
When Apple migrated from PowerPC to Intel, they maintained binary compatibility with all the old software via a transparent emulator - something you don't find on Linux and that works only partially on the Xbox 360.
The application frameworks - Carbon, Cocoa - are very much bound by backwards compatibility.
Linux, with its tradition of open source and recompiles, has it easy.
I'd never consider buying a computer I couldn't rebuild or modify (or build entirely) so using Apple's software is never an option for me.
Nor would I. That's why I bought a Mac desktop, where I can replace all the same components I can with a PC desktop... and lets face it, with just about any PC chassis you're going to be almost as limited since motherboard formats change over time. Over the years people have offered processor upgrades as well, made easier of course by them using Intel chips now where processor swaps are just as easy as any other PC motherboard.
And of course I have a laptop. And just like most laptops, there are more limited changes I can make - but Mac laptops come with a good range of i/o options, including gigabit ethernet and firewire 800.
Are you honestly saying you never ever would buy a laptop? To me I just can't see saying that someone would never buy a Mac because they can't upgrade one, is just not being true to yourself. You don't want a Mac for other reasons, that's fine - but lets all stop pretending the upgrade options are so very different.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There is nothing new in Leopard that would interest most geeks.
Totally wrong!
In addition to great improvements in the dev environment, GC in ObjC, and the presence of Dashcode for quick things - you have whole new frameworks like Core Animation (which can be useful to improve usability if used in moderation).
Or for the pure UNIX kind of geek you have an optimized 64-bit kernel, that finally has a filesystem wit the BeOS featureset (read the article). And a new and improved Terminal.app.
So the normal users basically get a faster OS with Time Machiene and a shinier look along with lots of incremental app upgrades, while the geeks among us get so much more...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
After having used Leopard for the past four days, the one feature that I so far love to (almost) hate is Stacks. From a theoretical standpoint, Stacks sound great, but Apple's implementation leaves something to be desired. In it's current incarnation, Stacks are barely usable, especially if you relied on the old Dock functionality that turned any docked folder into a nested hierarchal menu.
There's currently a debate going on in the Macintoshian Achaia over at Ars on whether or not Stacks are a useful addition to the OS, or a horrible mess that should've been sorted out before Leopard's release. My personal opinion is that while Stacks show promise, making them a substitute for the old functionality (hierarchal menus) was unwise (to put it kindly). Stacks should have been an addition to Dock functionality, not a replacement for a widely-used system of navigation.
because it's sold as a system rather than as bits and pieces
You do realize that the majority of Windows machines are sold as a system, not as bits and pieces. It's a fairly small subset of the population that builds their own computers. And aside from the motherboard, everything else on a Mac is just as configurable / replaceable as with a Windows machine. Apple fans might tend to choose not to upgrade components, but there isn't any real reason that they can't (again, aside from the motherboard / mainboard)...
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
OS X can run on AMD fine. The fact is Apple prevents OS X from running on unverified x86 hardware to lock customers into Apple hardware. You can be for or against that decision, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the GP's point that "Most of the complaints about Vista are in relation to drivers" and that OS X somehow skates those issues to such an extent that it's unable to run on anything but a single x86 manufacturer's hardware
As the parent points out this is ludicrous - especially if you count the iPhone, OS X supports a much broader range of CPUs than Microsoft. I don't doubt Microsoft has spent more time addressing driver compatibility than Apple has, but there are a number of other issues in play, such as Apple's willingness to break backwards compatibility for the sake of cleaner APIs and a saner OS, and their utilization of third-party components wherever possible - BSD tools/Mach/KHTML/DTrace/ZFS(soon)/etc. Microsoft has full-blown NIH syndrome, with the end result that they go out and build everything from scratch, with 90% of it being worse than open source solutions. They're getting crushed by their own proprietary codebase and enormous level of legacy support
There's a website written by a self-confessed
ObjC is elegant, powerful and simple at the same time - it's what C++ ought to have been. Objective C is (by leaps and bounds) my language of choice these days, it's one of the most under-appreciated languages in modern use. Certainly, the comparative perception I get is that the frameworks are way ahead of
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
- He didn't invent a vocabulary, it's a well-established definition
- I think you'll find the acronym would be FTFF, not FFTF...
- Most of the complaints about the Finder are rooted in the old single-threaded networking behaviour. That *has* been fixed. I doubt you'll get too many more FTFF threads. Of course you can't please all the people all of the time, but the low-hanging fruit has definitely been gathered in now...
SimonPhysicists get Hadrons!
That's application status information. Just like the mail counters, the Adium message indicators, Toast status indicators, and the other unobtrusive information it contains, the Dock. It's not task-oriented, but rather application-oriented.
The Dock is an application switcher/launcher, but not a task switcher. You can subdivide it two ways--an All Windows Exposé for a one-key direct shot, or you can switch to a busy application and then use Application Windows Exposé for more effective task switching within an application--far superior to a pop-up list (e.g. when you're working with 15 files in Photoshop or 10 palettes in a drafting application).
It is more or less the opposite of Windows priorities. It's not a good taskbar because it's not supposed to be. To do so would be redundant.
Others are set to join him.
Almost 12 months since Java 6 was released on other platforms. Still waiting, Steve.
It was the single most comprehensive, interesting, thorough, thoughtful, and worthwhile review of *any* product I have ever read, *ever*.
I personally don't care about your accusations of fanboy-ism. You are irrelevent. You did not produce an absolutely awesome review, with about as much balance and fairness as is humanly possible. The author at Ars Technica *did*, and your unfounded accusations and complaints are just not even worth reading. Which is why I only skimmed your post.
I did read your last sentence though, and honestly, do you think anyone *cares* if you shudder when you read reviews that don't match your personal preferences? Or that you are going stick to running two operating systems?
Seriously man. This was an incredibly good review. It did not deserve your accusations of fanboy-ism. I don't even own a Mac, and my total time using Mac OS X amounts to probably less than 5 minutes. And yet, even I could recognize the quality of this review. You say that the review didn't "slam" OS X for its user interface inconsistencies???? Did you even read the review? It *did* slam OS X for the new UI inconsistencies; maybe it didn't do it using obscenity and OMFG THIS SH** IS THE SUCKS language, so you didn't understand what was being written. Regardless, it definitely slammed OS X pretty hard for these problems. But it also recognized that these are relatively minor faults that most people probably won't even know or care about. Which is undeniably true.
I think there is something so insidious about the kinds of complaints that people like you make about reviews. You express this sort of unprovable accusation that "if you were reviewing product X instead of product Y, you would have a completely different bias". But they aren't reviewing product X, they are reviewing product Y. How is what they would do when reviewing product X even relevent? It's mud-slinging that you engage in when you accuse the author like you have, and I think it's pretty lame, especially when considering how clearly well thought out, detailed, and just all around *excellent* that review was.
So, let me deconstruct them: First, the shortcuts are not consistent from program to program. Firefox, for example, uses Ctrl-D to deny cookies, while Safari uses Command-D to deny. Browsing back and forth is Command-Left and Command-Right, but that is also the shortcut to go to the beginning/end of line (when typing into a form field, for example). Microsoft Word for Mac uses Windows-style shortcuts (end/home etc). I realize that this is not an OS X problem, but in a way it is -- these keys are not enforced like they are on other OSes What a load of horse crap. Firefox keys aren't "enforced" in Windows to be similar to Windows keys, they just happen to be. This has nothing to do with the OS - that has to do with the programs you CHOOSE to use. (yes, linux has good shortcuts). These impede my flow of thought when I have to fish for the right keys to move from word to word, use the delete key (on a laptop), show the desktop (F11? wtf). I could go on and on about bad shortcut keys, but I think I have gotten my point across. Not really, since you can change all sorts of shortcuts in System Preferences. Oh, and using Open Office is not feasible in OS X. I'm sorry, but it plain sucks (slow, inconsistent, requires X11...) That's why people use NeoOffice. Second, window switching is abysmal. In fact, you can't switch between windows. You switch between applications. THEN, and only then, can you switch between windows with Command ~. Again, this is your preference. I enjoy this feature very much. Furthermore, you can't even switch windows if one of them is minimized. Yep, you have to fish for it with your mouse (this makes the minimize button and Expose completely useless). And no, Expose does not show minimized windows either. So, my shortcuts are all messed up, my desktop is cluttered, and the "zoom" button has unpredictable behaviors (try it in iTunes, for example). You are correct about this. Check out Quicksilver or Witch. In other words, learn the tools of the trade. Third, I have had weird things happen with my MBP -- fans just started spinning at 6000rpm for no good reason. I had to reset the PRAM. Why? Also, when the battery goes empty and the system goes to sleep, plugging it in does not let you turn the system back on! Err what? I have to wait 10 minutes or so for the battery to get charged at least a little. WTF? I have no idea what you're talking about here. Also, what does this have to do with OSX?
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