Leopard Early Adopters Suffer For The Rest of Us

News.com tallies up the minor annoyances early adopters have experienced dealing with the newest version of OS X. From a change in folder design to install issues, and beyond to lack of support for Java 6, Mac users have had more to grumble about than usual in the last week. Just the same, the article notes, there have been no major problems and (compared to other OS launches) Leopard kicked off fairly well. "Let's give thanks to the early adopters, however masochistic they may be. You can do all the QA in the world before releasing an operating system, and it's not going to compare to what happens when the unwashed masses get their hands on the product. Microsoft's Windows Vista had years of developer releases, and was released to manufacturing several weeks before it went on sale to the general public. Still, compatibility problems cropped up because it's extremely difficult to anticipate what people are running, and in what combination. It's easier for Apple because it tightly controls its hardware and software, and because there are fewer potential combinations in the wild, but it's still a Herculean task."

Comments

Early Adoption

[Gricey]

Isn't this always the case? If you jump in first, yes you get your shiny, and you put an end to the wait, but you're gonna have to live with the niggles.

Same with the iPhone, same with Vista, hell, same with Debian testing.

Longer wait = More Stable
GET IT NOW = Put up with some mild issues

M.

Re:Early Adoption

[Carthag]

Yes, the summary pretty much says it's always the case :)

Re:Early Adoption

[SCHecklerX]

same with rockbox on my sansa e280. I'm going to wait awhile, I think.

Re:Early Adoption

[elrous0]

Not always true. I just want to say that the DVD player that I bought in 1997 is still running strong. I can't say the same for three of the el-cheapo $100 players I bought later.

Re:Early Adoption

[eebra82]

I think that the point of the article is that Apple is getting closer to where Microsoft is today with its Windows. More complexity will result in more flaws.

Re:Early Adoption

[Khuffie]

The only difference is, because it's Apple, people make excuses and say "oh, it's a new OS, it's natural there are bugs." When it's Microsoft, people's reaction is more akin to "M$ sucks! Windoze sucks! Burn it at the stake!". For the record, I installed Vista when it launched (in fact, I ran the beta exclusively the last few months), and didn't have any major problems aside from an incompatible codec that was fixed before the launch. I'm waiting to get my hands on Leopard to install on my MacBook (which blasphemously is running Vista almost exclusively, I still can't get used to a lack of taskbar) and see how things go.

Re:Early Adoption

[corvair2k1]

Anyone who's used Apple products for any length of time knows that the 1.0 release is going to be quite shaky. Remember 10.4.0? Yeesh. The difference between Apple and Microsoft, I think, is that Apple actually fixes it, and fixes it somewhat quickly.

Re:Early Adoption

[Cannelloni]

I most definitely agree. I had a VCR made by Hitachi which lasted 12 years before I gave it away to a friend. It was still working flawlessly. As far as I know it still works fine. I think I used it almost every day since I first bought it. Indestructible! The two VCRs I bought later lasted a year each (a Sony and a Samsung). They don't make stuff the way they used to, because they are no longer manufactured in Japan. They are cobbled together by underpaid poor bastards in a horrible place in China.

Re:Early Adoption

[toQDuj]

The difference is that at Microsoft, they had 7 years to fix the bugs. At Apple, they had 2.5 years.

Re:Early Adoption

[somersault]

And just where is Microsoft today that Apple hasn't been first, in real OS terms? Have you ever used an Apple? Did you try an Apple in the late 80s, and then try Windows 3.1 and go.. ewww..? Probably not..

Re:Early Adoption

[Stamen]

I'm a happy OS X user, who complains about Vista. Let's get two things straight:

1) Apple ships buggy 1.0 stuff, this has always been true, they are kind of known for it. This isn't a good thing, and Apple is pretty lame for doing this, as there really is no excuse for it. They do, however, fix the bugs pretty quick, usually within a week to a few months.

2) Vista has many, many problems, which are well documented. It isn't because Vista is new, I don't complain about bugs that they will obviously fix in a service pack (although they wait too long to release the first service pack), I complain about poor engineering decisions and design issues that aren't going to go away.

Oh and lastly, you'll get use to no task bar, and no maximize, and no start menu. At first, I found it all strange and difficult, but once I got use to it, I started looking for ways of changing Windows to make it more OS X-like.

Re:Early Adoption

[Anonymous Coward]

My iPhone is remarkably polished and annoyance-free for such a complex first edition device. In fact the things I hate most about iPhone are the awful corporate policies attached to it (two buck Apple-only ringtones, AT&T only, etc.), not technical issues at all.

Re:Early Adoption

[Khuffie]

I don't deny Vista having problems. I don't deny OS X having problems. Both of the bugs and poor engineering/design decisions kind. What I have a problem with is when it's Microsoft, everyone is up in arms about how M$ sucks, and when it's Apple everyone's like "it's okay. it's a 1.0 release. they'll fix it."

Re:Early Adoption

[Khuffie]

From wikipedia: "Faced with ongoing delays and concerns about feature creep, Microsoft announced on August 27, 2004 that it was making changes. The original "Longhorn", based on the Windows XP source code, was scrapped, and Vista development started anew, building on the Windows Server 2003 codebase, and re-incorporating only the features that would be intended for an actual operating system release. "

The fact that the current code-base of Vista has been in development for 7 years is a myth. This gives Vista the same time-frame Leopard had. Yes, it was stupid of Microsoft that they ended up in such a hole that they had to scrape all their work.

Re:Early Adoption

[log0n]

You're comparing one-off appliances with user purposed and modifiable systems. There's a world of difference and not a very good comparison.

Re:Early Adoption

[jdray]

...you'll get use to no task bar, and no maximize, and no start menu...

You know, I have to say that I like the Maximize feature in Windows. I keep thinking that there's probably some Cmd-Option-Shift-Click the Green Dot option in OS X that I'm not aware of to do the same thing (I haven't cared enough to look it up), but I still lament that, when I want the window I'm in to take up the entire desktop, it's click to "bigger," drag the window into upper-left position, then resize the window to the extent of the screen space. I don't miss the Start menu, and I could take or leave the task bar.

I upgraded two machines to Panther last night, and it went pretty well. The registration function doesn't seem to be able to pull my .mac account password out of my keychain, and I've evidently forgotten it. It was too late to fool with it further by the time both upgrades finished, and I haven't QA'd the whole thing yet. Today, QuickBooks 2006 is evidently running fine, which is a huge positive for us.

Re:Early Adoption

[Just Some Guy]

What I have a problem with is when it's Microsoft, everyone is up in arms about how M$ sucks, and when it's Apple everyone's like "it's okay. it's a 1.0 release. they'll fix it."

That's because there's a wide historical gap in what kind of bugs are there and how they're fixed. MS has long been criticized for basic design flaws that may or may not be fixed when a service pack rolls out a year or so later. Apple tends to have bugs along the lines of "Mail.app's spam filter gives false negatives in this corner case because we accidentally used an int instead of a float in this function", and most of them are usually fixed when a service pack rolls out a few weeks later.

Re:Early Adoption

[Sparks23]

There's often a lot of unwarranted blind "ZOMG Microsoft is evil!" or blindness to Apple's flaws due to the Reality Distortion Zone, but in this case I think the earlier posters were saying they're less concerned about issues in Leopard because they expect a 10.5.1 or 10.5.2 fairly quickly after release based on user-reported issues, where they have no such assurance of any significant Vista improvements until Vista SP1.

This isn't an 'Apple is better, Microsoft is evil,' I think, more just an observation that Microsoft will roll all their significant (non-security) updates to an operating system into one or two big updates more widely-spaced, while Apple has a history of making a lot of little point-release updates over the course of an operating system's life.

One method isn't necessarily 'better' or 'worse' (Tiger could be a headache-inducing moving target for a programmer at times, with developers surrendering and arbitrarily going 'This will only run on 10.4.3 or higher,' or 'this will only run on 10.4.8 or higher' and so on), but I think the gist of the comment is that early adopting with Apple is slightly less of a risk since there's a higher likelihood of point-releases to address issues quickly after release.

Re:Early Adoption

[Stamen]

Regarding maximize, I think it has a lot to do with your resolution as well. If you have a high resolution monitor, maximizing often produces a little tiny bit of content with 80% whitespace. When I'm using my laptop disconnected from my monitor, I tend to max out my screens as well, but not with my monitor. OS X's zoom feature (green dot) is designed to make the window just big enough to hold all of its contents, but no more.

Maximize works well in Windows, because you have the taskbar, which if you think about it acts as an upside-down set of tabs. So basically you have 1 large screen of tabs that you flip through with the taskbar. Also Windows (at least XP and below) doesn't highlight the foreground window real well, so if you have a bunch of windows opened and showing, it's really hard to tell which one is the front most window.

Since OS X doesn't have the taskbar, it does a good job of highlighing the z-order of the windows, and it has stuff like Expose, having floating windows, rather than maximized windows, works really well. I always use a desktop manager like Spaces or VirtuaDesktops so I layout my windows and switch "spaces", rather than minimizing.

It's just a different way of approaching the problem.

OS X also uses drag and drop a whole lot more than Windows, so that necessitates having windows next to each other rather than on top of each other. Someone in Windows will always go to the right-click first, and old Mac user will try drag and drop first; which also explains why a right-click wasn't very important to Macs for a long time.

It's interesting to look back at Photoshop, which started out exclusively on the Mac. Older versions were very Mac-like, with many small floating windows. But once they came out with a Windows version and that became the dominant OS for their software, they started to make it more Windows like, without the floating windows. This happened to Macromedia's stuff too.

Re:Early Adoption

[ImdatS]

I keep thinking that there's probably some Cmd-Option-Shift-Click the Green Dot option... Close, hot, very, very hot: Shift-Click on the Green Dot does the trick - in most cases anyway.

Re:Early Adoption

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to be kidding me, comparing a DVD player to an operating system with millions of line of code and thousands of hardware combinations. I mean honestly, how can you sleep at night?

Re:Early Adoption

[aidan folkes]

There's often a lot of unwarranted blind "ZOMG Microsoft is evil!" or blindness to Apple's flaws due to the Reality Distortion Zone, but in this case I think the earlier posters were saying they're less concerned about issues in Leopard because they expect a 10.5.1 or 10.5.2 fairly quickly after release based on user-reported issues, where they have no such assurance of any significant Vista improvements until Vista SP1.

There has actually been a stream of updates for Vista that fix various issues. I know because I have Windows Update set to ask me every time!

Re:Early Adoption

[kestasjk]

That's because /. has gone from a Linux/FOSS zealot haven to an OS X zealot haven. It's sad but true.

Re:Early Adoption

[palndron]

Maybe sad to you, but coming here since 98 and watching that transition has been very enjoyable for others

Re:Early Adoption

[Mister Whirly]

"And just where is Microsoft today that Apple hasn't been first, in real OS terms?"

On over 90% of desktops?

Re:Early Adoption

[Stamen]

I'm a Unix zealot, that covers all bases, except, of course that wonderful OS from Microsoft. To quote myself in regards to Microsoft:

"... I supported them for a long, long time; but like an abusive father, one day you start to punch back, and then you leave; because you realize, it's just not worth it anymore."

Re:Early Adoption

[Anonymous Coward]

And you just proved khuffie's point to a T.
Flaws in MS OS = "basic design flaws that may or may not be fixed when a service pack rolls out a year or so later"

Flaws is OS X = ""Mail.app's spam filter gives false negatives in this corner case because we accidentally used an int instead of a float in this function", and most of them are usually fixed when a service pack rolls out a few weeks later"

Funny, all those MS fixes that roll out the first Tuesday of every month must have all just been a product of my wild imagination.

P.S. All of you "there has never been a trojan or virus in the wild for OS X" can all all shut up now.

Re:Early Adoption

[somersault]

You're taking that a bit out of context, it's obvious that it's widespread, but just because something's in widespread use doesn't mean it's a good product..

Re:Early Adoption

[Blakey Rat]

Feh, short-timer!

Remember System 7.0? People get upset about bricking an iPhone, remember bricking your entire OS because you had the audacity to drag a font out of the Fonts folder?

Re:Early Adoption

[Stamen]

P.S. All of you "there has never been a trojan or virus in the wild for OS X" can all all shut up now. Wow, malware and viruses in the wild on OS X, you got us, you're so right, I wonder how much I can get for my Mac on ebay, I'm switching to Windows right now.

It's like me saying "my new car gets 1,000 miles on a gallon of gas, and yours only gets 25", and they you respond "Aha! you admitted it, yours still uses gas, just like mine, you can shut up now, it's no better"

Re:Early Adoption

[Anonymous Coward]

"... I supported them for a long, long time; but like an abusive father, one day you start to punch back, and then you leave; because you realize, it's just not worth it anymore."

And then one day you grow up and realize your father really wasn't that abusive - you were just a dumb little kid with an attitude.

Re:Early Adoption

[dave420]

To be fair, Microsoft has boosted the performance of Vista quite substantially by releasing a performance pack. Both Apple and Microsoft are in the same boat - they release a new OS, get even more feedback about performance from real-world testing, and address problems when they arise. The coverage of the performance boosts for Vista were overshadowed by the coverage of it being slow. I'm not being a fanboy here (best tool for the job and all), I just wanted to offer another perspective :)

Re:Early Adoption

[Anonymous Coward]

I was curious about this, so I looked it up: how long between Apple's 10.x.0 and 10.x.1?
  - 10.0: Mar 24 - Apr 14 (22 days)
  - 10.1: Sep 25 - Nov 13 (49 days)
  - 10.2: Aug 23 - Sep 18 (26 days)
  - 10.3: Oct 24 - Nov 10 (17 days)
  - 10.4: Apr 29 - May 16 (17 days)

To compare, I looked up Microsoft's track record with SP1 here:
  - 95: Aug 24 - Dec 31 (130 days)
  - 98 ("SE"): Jun 25 - May 5 (315 days)
  - ME: no second edition (but made PC World's "Top 25 Worst Tech Products")
  - 2000: Feb 17 - Aug 15 (181 days)
  - XP: Oct 25 - Sep 9 (320 days)
  - Vista: Nov 8 - 2008Q1? (~60-180 days)

I'm a Debian user, so I appreciate being able to get fixes the day they're checked in by the developer. But if I had to pick a proprietary system, I'd sure prefer one where the .1 release followed a month later, rather than one where it followed 6-12 months later, if ever.

Re:Early Adoption

[Just Some Guy]

Funny, all those MS fixes that roll out the first Tuesday of every month must have all just been a product of my wild imagination.

They fixed UAC being obnoxious and playing MP3s while networking and glacial file copies and all the other design issues? You don't seem to be grasping the difference between architecture and implementation. People are complaining about Vista's overall design. Other people are complaining about bugs Apple wrote while executing a generally well-respected plan. There's a world of difference.

Obligatory car analogy: I'd rather drive a BMW with a broken tape player than a flawless Pinto. Well, I'd really rather drive the car equivalent of Linux than either of the other two, but that's a different conversation.

P.S. All of you "there has never been a trojan or virus in the wild for OS X" can all all shut up now.

And I don't like cranberries, as long as we're hitting unrelated subjects.

Re:Early Adoption

[Anonymous Coward]

You dont understand somersault, it doesn't matter!

Re:Early Adoption

[epee1221]

As far as Apple products go, it seems to be more and more the case in recent years. I may start delaying on a lot of their patches until I hear how they go for other users. It's great to have a bleeding edge system to play around with, but I want my primary one to just work.

Re:Early Adoption

[fbjon]

blindness to Apple's flaws due to the Reality Distortion Zone Speaking of that, am I the only ohe who thought of this when reading the headline? :

Steve: Eeearlyadopterssufferfortherest of uuussss...
Apple congregation (with organ): Aaaaa- meeeeennn...

Re:Early Adoption

[Bill_the_Engineer]

On over 90% of desktops?

I remember when over 90% of the home/education was an Apple ][ or clone. So yeah, Apple was there too. ;)

Re:Early Adoption

[supermansuper]

Patch Tuesday 1 (30 days) Patch Tuesday 2 (30 days) . . . You see what I am getting at?

Re:Early Adoption

[elrous0]

how can you sleep at night?

On a pile of money with many beautiful women

Re:Early Adoption

[Mister Whirly]

Your memory may be a bit hazy then. Atari and Commodore were easily beating Apple in the early 80s in the home market (most likely due to pricing factors). The Atari 800 was a far superior machine with bitmapped color and sound, and the capability to use a TV as a monitor all for a lower cost.

"In 1980, Gartner reported Apple's worldwide share of the computer market at 15.8%"
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Home/D579148C-8563-4FFB-8E97-C2613215F98E.html

http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/total-share.ars/4 - look at the chart at the bottom of the page. Apple was 3rd in sales after Commodore and Atari from 1980-84 (the years the chart covers). The chart on the next page from 84-87 also has Commodore and Atari ahead of Apple too.

While you may be closer on the education side because of Apple's educational discounts, there are a far more number of homes than there are schools. Even if they had 100% of the education market it still would have been less total market share than the others.

Re:Early Adoption

[Dishevel]

Although it will make you forever known as "The guy who stuck feathers up his ass."

Re:Early Adoption

[Darby]

My iPhone is remarkably polished and annoyance-free for such a complex first edition device. In fact the things I hate most about iPhone are the awful corporate policies attached to it (two buck Apple-only ringtones, AT&T only, etc.), not technical issues at all.

Those *are* technical issues. At least I treated them as such and solved them as technical problems ;-)

Re:Early Adoption

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed: for 4 of the last 5 major releases of Mac OS, Apple has been able to roll a new OS release even faster than Microsoft is able to release a regularly scheduled security patch.

I omitted this from my list because I only wanted to see if they were worse than Apple, not pour salt in their wounds.

Re:Early Adoption

[DECS]

Microsoft's "Patch Tuesdays" solve immediate, exploitable flaws with hotfixes. They do not address significant architectural or stability problems, which is why Microsoft doesn't count them as minor (5.x) updates. Apple also releases frequent security fixes. Those aren't counted among the +35 minor updates (10.n.x) to Mac OS X in between the five major updates (10.x) since 2000.

In contrast, Microsoft has released only two major updates, and only 2 minor updates for its consumer systems since then. (On the server side, the situation is similar).

Ten Myths of Leopard: 2 - It's Only a Service Pack!

Re:Early Adoption

[Josef Meixner]

Do the terms "preemtive multitasking" and "memory protection" sound familiar? MacOS introduced both with MacOS X in 2001 (MacOS 9 still lacked it), while MS had introduced it to their line of OSes with NT 3.5 in 94 and Win95 in 95.

But honestly neither are really fast to take up features invented often decades ago in different OSes, be it IBMs range of mainframe OSes (virtualization is a really, really old story on the /360 for example), MULTICS, UNIX, VMS and a hundred more.

Re:Early Adoption

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if you had been claiming all along that your car NEVER used ANY gas, then the point would remain. Somehow I knew that the "no malware ever" crowd would respond by saying, "well, it's still less than Windows". Except Windows fanbois never claimed that Windows NEVER had a piece of malware in the wild. And THAT is the difference my friend.

Re:Early Adoption

[tcc3]

Window management. OS X needs a real taskbar that keeps track of open windows. The dock tries to do too much and doesn't do any of it as well as the Windows taskbar. its far too easy to lose windows in OS X. Expose helps, but seems like a subpar hack rather than an improvement in interface design. I'll grant you that the Windows interface follows the Mac lead, but they did make some substantial improvements.

Re:Early Adoption

[Emetophobe]

Also Windows (at least XP and below) doesn't highlight the foreground window real well, so if you have a bunch of windows opened and showing, it's really hard to tell which one is the front most window.

That's simply not true. Windows since atleast Windows 95 has made the titlebar of the window a different colour than the background window(s). It's quite easy to tell which window is in the foreground and which windows are the in the background.

Here's a comparison shot of the foreground and background windows in XP using the default fisher price theme: http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/1133/foregroundbackgrounddefav3.jpg. I don't see what's so hard to understand about that, the window that isn't greyed out is the one which has the keyboard and mouse focus. Ever since Windows 95, you can also customize the foreground/background window titlebar colours and make the foreground blue and the background grey (for instance), if you really have trouble distinguishing between the two. I've never seen or used OSX, so perhaps Apple does a better job of highlighting the differences between the two.

OS X also uses drag and drop a whole lot more than Windows, so that necessitates having windows next to each other rather than on top of each other. Someone in Windows will always go to the right-click first, and old Mac user will try drag and drop first; which also explains why a right-click wasn't very important to Macs for a long time.

Though I've never used OSX, I think you are correct. The only time I ever seem to drag and drop is when I'm copying files in Windows Explorer. For individual applications, I always use the file open/save dialog. I still have the option to drag and drop files in Windows, but I find it more time consuming and I prefer to have certain applications maximized, which makes dragging and dropping a pain.

Re:Early Adoption

[sqlrob]

I much prefer the one key combo to switch apps and one to switch windows in an app over Windows one for all windows.

Re:Early Adoption

[eh2o]

Depends how niggly the old version is. Some software is so volatile that the best place to be is always on the leading edge (several open source projects fall into this category).

If multiple versions are maintained then one has the option of deferring the upgrade, but only for a limited time, as there is an inflection point in the quality/time curve due to limited back-propagation to older versions when bug fixes are made. The unfortunate consequence is that the upgrade schedule pretty much always has the same rate.

Re:Early Adoption

[eh2o]

*the car equivalent of Linux*

Ah, you mean a soap-box derby with a 600hp V12 and a broken door handle.

Re:Early Adoption

[Anonymous Coward]

"OS X needs a real taskbar that keeps track of open windows."

Been using OSX for years. Never had a problem knowing what apps are open or minimized. What is the issue?

Re:Early Adoption

[tcc3]

Yes, Flip 3-d is essentially a flashier version of expose. I can't really say which one I like better. I still like the task bar. It provides a quick visual tally of what windows are available and which one is active. Child windows rarely get lost, in large part due to the taskbar.

Re:Early Adoption

[mdwh2]

It's like me saying "my new car gets 1,000 miles on a gallon of gas, and yours only gets 25", and they you respond "Aha! you admitted it, yours still uses gas, just like mine, you can shut up now, it's no better"

No, it's like claiming your car gets 1,000 miles per gallon, and it turning out it only gets 25, the same as my car. The point is that the claim being made has been proven wrong.

Re:Early Adoption

[shmlco]

Uh, huh. I have about twenty windows running in nine Spaces at the moment. On Windows that taskbar would would filled with marvelous and meaningful entries like:

Mou... Mic... Mic... Sla... Exc... Mou... Mic... Mic... Sla... Exc... Mou... Mic... Mic... Sla... Exc... Mou... Mic... Mic... Sla... Exc...

So much for not getting lost. (And yes, I know I could have a two or three line taskbar, How much screen real-estate do you want to waste?)

Re:Early Adoption

[Anonymous Coward]

Those Mac OS X releases are actually feature and bug fixes, not just security patches. Apple releases security patches as separate items (which may or may not require you to run the latest Mac OS X point release).

Re:Early Adoption

[Bert64]

That's because OSX offers what people want...

It's easy to install
It has an easy to use GUI by default
It comes preinstalled, and fully supporting the machine it runs on with no hassle searching for drivers
You know that all subsequent versions for as long as your likely to use the machine will also fully support the machine and will run without hassle, and all the drivers you need will be bundled
It's unix underneath the pretty interface, offering a powerfull and flexible command line to those who want it
The underlying OS is well designed, has source code available for most of it, and is easy to hack with

Linux and windows can be harder to install, and often require screwing around with third party drivers to make it work properly.
Linux doesn't often come preinstalled.
Windows has a weak inflexible command line, no source available and a very messy directory structure and confusing often contradictory design that discourages tinkering.
Windows doesnt let you remove or replace the gui if you dont want the default one (yes i know you can replace the default shell with a different one, but its not like how osx lets you replace aqua with X11 or shut down the gui completely)

Re:Early Adoption

[Discordantus]

From the article you linked to:

Threat Assessment
Wild

• Wild Level: Low
• Number of Infections: 0 - 49
• Number of Sites: 0 - 2
• Geographical Distribution: Low
• Threat Containment: Easy
• Removal: Easy

Damage

• Damage Level: Low

Distribution

• Distribution Level: Low

Looks like a real big scary virus to me... it infected 0 to 49 computers!!!!!

Re:Early Adoption

[Bert64]

It's a different way of doing things...
Windows users tend to open one program and maximise it, and when done either minimise or close it and bring something else up maximised...
You can see this is how it was designed too, the taskbar (its a windowbar btw, it represents windows not tasks/processes) becomes quite unusable when there are lots of windows open, but that was less of a concern when it only ran on very low end hardware that wasn't capable of much.
This is why unix window managers typically have multiple workspaces, since unix traditionally ran on far more powerful machines and through X11 you could use a single workstation to display applications from loads of servers... It's not uncommon for a unix user to have 50+ apps open, which would render a windows style taskbar completely useless.

Macs kind of sit somewhere between, tho as of leopard osx now has multiple workspaces natively too, it's the biggest feature that compelled me to upgrade. Prior to that, expose was still a lot better than the windows task bar, but not on a par with unix workspaces.

The only apps i will run full size, are things like video players... If i'm watching video, i don't want anything wasting space on the screen, not even controls for manipulating the video (keyboard shortcuts or a remote control work fine thanks).

Re:Early Adoption

[Stamen]

Yeah, I'm aware that Windows changes the title color for the fore-ground window. I was just noting that OS X does a better job of showing you the z-order of windows (it does this with varying drop shadows). Knowing the z-order does help when you have a bunch of non-maximized windows open.

It's interesting how little Windows uses drag and drop. You don't notice this until you work in an OS that uses it a lot. For example, you can't even drop a document on a running app in the taskbar. Most Windows users wouldn't even notice that doesn't work, but when you're so use to it, it seem strange to be missing. I don't think one approach is better than the other, they are just different.

Re:Early Adoption

[Stamen]

The claim that OS X will never get viruses or malware? Really, someone was stupid enough to claim that?

I don't think you get my point, so I'll type real slow this time. My point was that everytime anything about OS X comes up, such as a virus, malware, or bugs, someone jumps on it and shouts "Aha!", as if that somehow proves that OS X does indeed suck, and their beloved OS (usually Windows) isn't as bad as everyone says. They never get the point, that even if OS X gets 50,000 known viruses (rather than the 60 it actually has now) it will still have half as many as Windows. If you can't understand that having 50% of something bad (in this case, more like 99%) makes your product better, then I really can't help you.

Re:Early Adoption

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Actually, I was referring to the very early days of Apple II. The Atari 400/800 (former 800 owner here) actually was a response to the success that Apple was having. The Apple II was introduced in 1977, the Atari 800 was introduced early 1979 and commodore vic 20 was introduced in 1980 and the C64 was introduced in 1982.

So, Apple did in fact own the home computer market once. In fact, the Apple II proved that a home computer market existed and paved the way for both the Atari and Commodore machines..

So my memory is just fine.... thanks for asking.

Re:Early Adoption

[jdray]

This brings up an interesting question: Is the window manager in OS X set up to display remote applications? I don't want to say "the way X is," as X has some challenges with modern environments and efficiency, but the basic idea is that it displays remote applications in windows, as you point out, allowing your workstation to become just that: a place to do your work, even if the resources are remote.

Making a system that left the details of that sort of remoting nearly transparent to the user and having a nice network of easily-extendible machines (grid computing) at the other end of a network would make for an overall attractive setup.

Re:Early Adoption

[Anonymous Coward]

On a pile of money with many beautiful women

--McBain from The Simpsons

Re:Early Adoption

[wavedeform]

Yes.

Re:Early Adoption

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, huh. I have about twenty windows running in nine Spaces at the moment. And you had to spend $130 within the past seven days to get Spaces.

On Windows that taskbar would would filled with marvelous and meaningful entries like:

Mou... Mic... Mic... Sla... Exc... Mou... Mic... Mic... Sla... Exc... Mou... Mic... Mic... Sla... Exc... Mou... Mic... Mic... Sla... Exc...

Or download a free Microsoft PowerToy to get virtual desktops. Better free options for Windows include two SourceForge projects: VirtuaWin and Virtual Dimension.

Re:Early Adoption

[cyber-dragon.net]

Actually you are ignoring context... at the time of the statement being made it WAS true. No proof has been provided that it was wrong at the time of making it.

Now if you REALLY want to count something you have to download off a porn site and run, then put in your password etc etc as equivilant to something which will install because you recieved (note reading not required) an email or went to a website and never clicked a thing then sure... OS X and Windows are the same... you win, enjoy your fantasy world.

I still contend, and have yet to be proved wrong, that OS X provides me the power to protect myself. No OS will protect you from being stupid. Windows however does not even afford you the opertunity. If and when I am proven wrong in this belief I will change my opinion and take appropriate action.

Re:Early Adoption

[Khuffie]

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/12
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/13


Sure sounds like complaining about design issues to me!

Re:Early Adoption

[Bert64]

And Commodore introduced it in 1985 in the Amiga line of systems, which ran on the same family of processors as Apple machines of the time.
I never liked MacOS prior to X, and neither did a lot of the people who are now using X.

MS had multitasking in Xenix too, and Apple had it in A/UX (Apple Unix), which were serious OS's, while windows/macos were intended for small scale home use, so they are better compared to amigaos than to unixes.

Re:Early Adoption

[Bert64]

That only works on a very small scale, it completely breaks down when you have a lot of windows open.
Apple are catering to different requirements. Windows users will typically run one or two programs, and divert 100% of their screen space to each program as they're using it, and then close it when they're done. Mac (and unix) users will typically run lots of apps, and leave them running in the background unless they're completely finished with them. If the apps are idle, a decent OS should be able to swap them out anyway if it needs the memory. I very much like spaces on leopard, lack of multiple workspaces was my biggest beef with OSX.

Re:Early Adoption

[tcc3]

To the replies above:

And how much information is the dock providing you on these open windows?

Even less. Only that a program that lives in the dock is running. And it only shows windows you had the foresight to minimize. And if you minimized them all you'd have the same issue as with the windows taskbar.

Neither the dock nor the taskbar scale well. In the 20 windows scenario you'd need a "ctrl tab," expose, or flip 3d to effectively sort them no matter the OS.

I'm sure theres a better way that no ones thought of yet. But for right now I'd kill for a taskbar clone in OS X.

Re:Early Adoption

[mdwh2]

The claim that OS X will never get viruses or malware? Really, someone was stupid enough to claim that?

I never said that, but it is a bragging point that OS X doesn't, er, didn't have any viruses.

I don't think you get my point, so I'll type real slow this time. My point was that everytime anything about OS X comes up, such as a virus, malware, or bugs, someone jumps on it and shouts "Aha!", as if that somehow proves that OS X does indeed suck, and their beloved OS (usually Windows) isn't as bad as everyone says.

No - the point is that Windows has viruses, Mac OS has viruses. Maybe Windows has more, but big deal - the point is that in both cases, you should exercise some basic caution, and are not invulnerable. Mac OS X only has a plus point whilst it has no viruses, but as soon as it has some, you have to exercise that caution. I've never experienced a virus on Windows, btw.

And mods should learn what flamebait means - I wasn't the one who started the car analogy (but we're used to anything said not in praise of Apple getting modded down - it's why I always have to browse Apple articles at -1, because it's the only topic on Slashdot where the moderation system simply doesn't work).

Re:Early Adoption

[mdwh2]

at the time of the statement being made it WAS true.

Well yes, it was true, and it isn't true any more.

Now if you REALLY want to count something you have to download off a porn site and run, then put in your password etc etc as equivilant to something which will install because you recieved (note reading not required) an email or went to a website and never clicked a thing then sure... OS X and Windows are the same... you win, enjoy your fantasy world.

You have to jump through hoops to be stupid enough to get a virus on Windows too, but apparentely that's good enough to moan about it. Only if you use broken products like Outlook are you subject to risk of viruses without warning. I've never had a virus on Windows, even though I don't even run a virus checker. Avoiding them is easy if you don't go downloading off porn sites or running obviously suspect programs etc.

Re:Early Adoption

[Bert64]

No, OSX doesn't do that natively...
You can use X11 applications in that way, tho X apps have some issues with spaces in leopard...
Or you can use VNC or Apple Remote Desktop, but that gives you a full workspace and isn't integrated with your local apps.

Re:Early Adoption

[shmlco]

Ah... no, because I just bought a new iMac. So Leopard cost me $9.95. Regardless, I would have paid the $130, because having ALL of the new features helps me do what I do. Spaces and Time Machine may be the "flagship" features, but there's a lot more to it than that.

And the "PowerToy" lives up to its name. The "toy" aspect at least. Comparing the level of integration between the two is like comparing a Pinto to a Ferrari. Add in the fact that the Pinto is likely to crash, burn, and go up in flames, and the comparison is even more apt.

Re:Early Adoption

[Stamen]

First, I'd never mod you down for having a different opinion; the whole point of /. is to have these conversations. Sure there are problems and you have to wade through the muck, but while wading, you often find some real gems. Thus is life, and especially Internet life.

I understand that all OSs have viruses, and of course everyone should exercise basic caution. I was just commenting on how anytime any virus or such is mentioned about OS X, people jump on it with vigor and suggest that it proves OS X is just as bad as Windows. In these people's black and white world, you either have no issues are all the issues, which is silly. My point is one should compare things relatively, if something has fewer issues than something else (even if it still has issues), then it is better.

There are actually real problems with OS X, and I can always tell when the person who is complaining about it has actually used it (more than for a few minutes at a friends house or the Apple store). I have no problems with these complaints, because they are valid, and useful. However, it's just noise, when these other people who've never actually used OS X personally, complain so bitterly about it. This is just a "mine is better than yours" pissing contest, and just about as useful. Now you may complain that Mac people do this too, which is true, and I happily hark on them when they say something stupid about Windows. But the one big difference is: I guarantee that the Mac people have had a lot of experience with Windows, as it's hard not to.

And lastly, OS X is much better than Windows on Viruses, this is a fact, not opinion. It is because of the fundemental design of OS X. Vista actually copied this design (which is also used by Linux) and now Vista is much, much better. But the truth remains, if I buy my mom a Windows XP machine, I will install Virus, anti-spyware, etc on it. If I buy my mom a Mac, I won't. This is reality; you may claim that someday it won't be like this, but who cares, it's a reality now. Heck, I can set my mom up without admin rights at all, and she can happily use her computer, and even install applications; the worst that can happen is something bad can destroy all of the files she has rights to, which isn't much.

Re:Early Adoption

[mfnickster]

So, Apple did in fact own the home computer market once. In fact, the Apple II proved that a home computer market existed and paved the way for both the Atari and Commodore machines..

I'm not so sure about that: http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/total-share.ars/3

Apple competed very well in the early days, certainly, but I don't think they ever had 90% of any market.

Re:Early Adoption

[somersault]

Agree with the other user, my Amiga had pre-emptive multitasking, probably not the memory protection though. I spent many a lonely night wishing that Amiga OS would become the prevalent mainstream OS

*cough*

:(

Re:Early Adoption

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Apple competed very well in the early days, certainly, but I don't think they ever had 90% of any market.

I would agree that the TRS-80 would give Apple II a run for its money. I will say that the article you referenced talks about the personal computer market as a whole, and not the home personal computer market. The Commodore Pet never gained traction as a home computer (to my recollection - it has been over 30 years and I was young), and the TRS-80 computers didn't seriously target the home market until the Color Computer was introduced.

I think if we limited the statistics to the type of machine that most likely found itself at home, it would be an Apple. All the old advertisements competed with Apple for sales. It wasn't until the Commodore 64, Atari 800, TI99/4A and TRS80 Color Computer were introduced that the home market became too multi-segmented to have a clear majority (not to mention that all the competitors had a price advantage over Apple).

The one thing I miss about the old days is the number of different computing options we had. TI, Sinclair, Commodore, Apple, IBM, Eagle, Bear, Pear, Altair, Kaypro, Osborne, Compaq, Magnavox, Coleco, and some guy in a hobby shop. Hey the personal computer market was in its infancy. Now if we applied the same logic to current statistics that was placed on the statistics given by the arstechnica article (you know the charts with "other"). I seriously doubt Microsoft would have 90% of the share. It would be high, but not 90%. Why? Because we would have to count all the embedded systems, network appliances, cellphones (w/ data access), and hobbyist robotic kits to the mix. Some of the microcontrollers sell for less than $10, and the quantity alone dilutes the general description given to the arstechnica article.

But you are right, 90% is a tall order in any era.

Re:Early Adoption

[mfnickster]

I think if we limited the statistics to the type of machine that most likely found itself at home, it would be an Apple.

Do you have any such statistics? As far as I know, nobody kept count of how many were used at home vs. the office, so we just don't know.

It wasn't until the Commodore 64, Atari 800, TI99/4A and TRS80 Color Computer were introduced that the home market became too multi-segmented to have a clear majority (not to mention that all the competitors had a price advantage over Apple).

As the article states, in 1977 Apple only sold 600 computers out of 150,000 - less than one percent of the market. Even in 1982, after Apple had caught up to TRS-80 sales, the Atari and Commodore VIC each sold at least twice as many units as Apple. These were definitely home machines, not office machines. I just don't see any reason to think that the Apple II was ever the most popular home computer.

Now, given that, my memory also leans toward Apple being the top contender in those days - but I think that's mostly because I saw them in school every day. I certainly didn't survey homes to see what computer they had bought, but the numbers say it probably was not an Apple. I miss the variety of the old days, too. I remember pining after the Amiga for years, and never getting one.

Nonetheless, regarding your original assertion ("90% of desktops"), it's clearly not the case. Your attempt to compare to embedded systems, appliances, etc. is just shifting the goalposts. Like it or not, Microsoft won the war. They are on almost every desktop today; Apple never was.

Re:Early Adoption

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Now, given that, my memory also leans toward Apple being the top contender in those days - but I think that's mostly because I saw them in school every day. I certainly didn't survey homes to see what computer they had bought, but the numbers say it probably was not an Apple. I miss the variety of the old days, too. I remember pining after the Amiga for years, and never getting one.

No, I have no statistics right now. I doubt I'll be able to find any for 37 years ago, but maybe someone else can.

I think my memory suffers the same influence. I saw mostly Apple IIs and the Apple II had a very large users group where I lived. This is while I owned an Atari 800 and later an Atari ST. I use to sell the Amiga (working through college), and always thought it was a great machine but I already had an ST.

Nonetheless, regarding your original assertion ("90% of desktops"), it's clearly not the case. Your attempt to compare to embedded systems, appliances, etc. is just shifting the goalposts. Like it or not, Microsoft won the war. They are on almost every desktop today;

My intent was not to "shift the goalpost" rather to give a comparable measure to the statistics that you presented. The systems available in the late 1970s through early 1980s, are directly comparable to the embedded systems and hobbyist kits available today (BTW these would fall in the same "Other" category in the stats your referenced). I bought my first computer from a specialty electronics store. BTW, what does the result of Microsoft's monopolistic practices today, have anything to do with 70's and 80's? Microsoft wasn't a contender until 1984ish.

Apple never was.

That may be your opinion, but you still haven't proved your assertion. Even the article, that you reference, mentioned that Visicalc gave the Apple II a much needed boost. The article says "In 1981 the company sold 210,000 units, leaving the PET in the dust and nearly equaling the TRS-80's numbers." Wierd since the Model I was discontinued in 1981 and only sold a little over 250,000 in its production lifetime. It was replaced with the Model III in late 1981.

About the TRS-80, the only thing most models of the Tandy machines had in common were the TRS-80 moniker in the beginning of the model Name. The Model I, Model II, and Model III, and the Model IV where largely incompatible with each other (not to mention Model 100, 200, 16, ad nauseum..). The Apple II was basically a platform that included the II+, IIe, IIx, IIc, IIgs...

Re:Early Adoption

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows users will typically run one or two programs, and divert 100% of their screen space to each program as they're using it, and then close it when they're done. Mac (and unix) users will typically run lots of apps, and leave them running in the background unless they're completely finished with them

And your reason for thinking all Windows users do this is based on what? Do you have anything to back that up? Anything at all?
I work in an office environment, these people always have many open apps running all of the time and are at least using using alt-tab to switch between them. I personally use the applett that comes with my ATI video driver called Hydravision to control my multiple "screens" on my multiple monitors. I can even preload specific Windows with apps that I use often when I login or with a keyboard shortcut. MS Powertoys package comes with something similar. This concept is nothing new in the Windows world.

Re:Early Adoption

[nolife]

You don't have to drag it to the taskbar, just double click on it and it will open, or you can drag it to a desktop icon representing the application you want to open it will, the app will then open with that document you dropped on it. There is no reason to drag it to the currently running app that is showing in the task bar. After all, it is a task bar of what is already running, not a launching point for additional items you would like to open. At least that the way it seems to me
I agree though, I guess it would not hurt to accept items dropped to a running task but what would the default be? Open a second instance or incorporate the dropped item into the existing item already opened?

Re:Early Adoption

[Bert64]

Experience, most office workers i see have a single app fullscreen and may switch to other fullscreen apps (perhaps with alt-tab as you describe). Most of them aren't able to install additional tools like powertoys or the ATI tool you describe.
Switching with alt-tab is pretty clunky too if you have lots open, you cant go direct to the app you want you have to keep hitting alt-tab until you find what you want.
Windows is all geared up to running a small number of apps, and having one taking up the full screen at any one time. The default mechanisms like alt-tab and the taskbar are pretty useless when you have loads of things open. And all the multiple workspace tools for windows i've seen were rather klunky and had problems... The window management simply isn't designed to do it properly.

Re:Early Adoption

[mfnickster]

My intent was not to "shift the goalpost" rather to give a comparable measure to the statistics that you presented. The systems available in the late 1970s through early 1980s, are directly comparable to the embedded systems and hobbyist kits available today (BTW these would fall in the same "Other" category in the stats your referenced).

Perhaps they are comparable in some ways, but including non-desktop devices in an argument over desktop computer market share is indeed shifting the goalpost. It's cherry-picking on the level equivalent to saying that x percent of MS installs are on laptops (which didn't exist in the 1970s) and therefore are not part of the "desktop" market.

BTW, what does the result of Microsoft's monopolistic practices today, have anything to do with 70's and 80's? Microsoft wasn't a contender until 1984ish.

You tell me! You're the one who claimed Apple had already been where Microsoft now is, on 90% of desktops.

Apple never was.

That may be your opinion, but you still haven't proved your assertion.

It's not my opinion. This is a factual question. And I didn't make an assertion, I refuted your assertion that Apple held at least 90% of the desktop computer market once upon a time. The figures are clear - Apple never had more than 15%, let alone a majority 50% (outselling all competitors put together). When refuted by the sales numbers, you shifted the goalpost, saying you were talking about just the home market. True, the Apple II didn't become a useful office machine until VisiCalc came out, but even then Atari and TRS-80 were still both outselling it! Home market, business market, or combined, Apple was never the top seller by units sold.

And since this is a pointless Slashdot argument that has no bearing on anything, it's basically about Who's Right. You have provided no evidence at all to rebut the numbers in the Ars Technica article, just the anecdotal evidence of your memory and some old computer ads.

So at this point, your options are: 1) provide some statistics contradicting Ars Technica's research, or explaining why it is incorrect, or 2) admit you were wrong and move on. I love Apple too, but facts are facts.

Re:Early Adoption

[Anonymous Coward]

A legitimate statistic relevant to the conversation labeled flamebait. Well done Mac fanbois!

Re:Early Adoption

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Perhaps they are comparable in some ways, but including non-desktop devices in an argument over desktop computer market share is indeed shifting the goalpost. It's cherry-picking on the level equivalent to saying that x percent of MS installs are on laptops (which didn't exist in the 1970s) and therefore are not part of the "desktop" market.

Am I the only one who remembers and actually purchased heathkit, or the $99 sinclair that originally came out as a kit? All I said is that since back in the 70's and early 80's there were systems sold as kits, or from specialty electronic stores. Since these systems are in the "other" category in the arstech chart (well how do we really know, it only says "other") we should include simular devices today. Are you going to say that Microsoft and Apple are the only two games in town? Are you going to say that PowerPC and Intel are the only two CPUs in existance on a desktop machine? Just because the media tend to focus only on the largest players (with advertising revenue) doesn't mean they are the only two players. If we include a "other" category in today's statistics, would microsoft have 90%? How should we count game consoles? How should we count PDAs? Does all IBM-PCs automatically mean Microsoft? Well? You have quoted only one stat that not only not cover 1977 (which was the premise of my original humorous comment) but that one stat source has no references.

It's not my opinion. This is a factual question. And I didn't make an assertion, I refuted your assertion that Apple held at least 90% of the desktop computer market once upon a time.

Techinically, you have an opinion that Apple never enjoyed 90% market share which countered my original comment. You cited a single article from arstechnica that asserted that your opinion was correct (and may be). I countered by questioning the sample space of that single stat, after all if you want to use the stat we should make it apply to both time periods. Face it, someone was offended by my 90% remark so why not also question that if we used the sample space of arstech to prove that Apple had a low percentage of the market in the early days, why not see how that stat compares to today's market with the same sample space (does Microsoft still have 90% of the market share?).

And since this is a pointless Slashdot argument that has no bearing on anything, it's basically about Who's Right. You have provided no evidence at all to rebut the numbers in the Ars Technica article, just the anecdotal evidence of your memory and some old computer ads.

So at this point, your options are: 1) provide some statistics contradicting Ars Technica's research, or explaining why it is incorrect, or 2) admit you were wrong and move on. I love Apple too, but facts are facts.

You must new here. But seriously, I'm just engaging in a dialog with someone else (who showed signs of intelligence) because it was interesting and hell I may learn to view something differently. Anyway.

Problems with your single stat source:

1. The graph is useless, so going by the text there were 253,300 Apple computers on the market and approx 250,000 TRS-80 Model Is (I can't help but notice that the Apple stats are detailed, but both the PET and TRS-80 are vague). So at this point we have an approximate 50% of the desktop share.

2. Later years, TRS-80 is discontinued. The desktop computer market becomes fragmented due to the introduction home computers from commodore and Atari. So it's like a multi-contender race where 90% is impossible in an actual free market economy. Politics aside, should we count game consoles as home PCs? If so, why can't we count playstations? You can run linux on a PS2, so technically its just as much a home PC as the Atari and Commodore computers. So with game consoles in the statistical pool, does Microsoft still enjoy 90% of the desktop share? BTW, how many Atari and Commodore periphials were sold (ie.

Re:Early Adoption

[cyber-dragon.net]

No actually Windows will happily install a trojan or a virus for you so long as you are using IE, a default part of the OS. And yes, I say OS and not web browser as it is so integrated with the OS M$ has testified to the government it is an essential part and that is why it is so hard to remove when they are found guilty of criminal anti-trust violations.

No manual intervention or passwords required, the browser will just do it, as will the email program, word processor etc etc

Re:Early Adoption

[mfnickster]

Anyway, didn't mean to frustrate you. Just wanted a little depth to the conversation... are we good?

Well, I'll put it this way - you're an excellent dancer. I don't know how good of a boxer you are, because you haven't thrown any punches yet. :)

Am I the only one who remembers and actually purchased heathkit, or the $99 sinclair that originally came out as a kit?

Oh, I surely remember all those "others," but your problem is, even if you exclude them it doesn't give Apple the majority.

All I said is that since back in the 70's and early 80's there were systems sold as kits, or from specialty electronic stores. Since these systems are in the "other" category in the arstech chart (well how do we really know, it only says "other") we should include simular devices today.

Forget what we should include today. I'm not arguing whether Microsoft truly has 90% market share on the desktop today. Let me say for the record that I am talking about operating systems running on the desktop, which is what the OP meant by "90% of desktops." He certainly wasn't implying that Microsoft was selling hardware, but in the pre-PC days you mentioned, if you bought Apple, Radio Shack or Commodore, you got the operating system by buying the computer. Unit sales corresponded to desktop OS installations.

So, forget Microsoft - I only took issue with your words:

* I remember when over 90% of the home/education was an Apple ][ or clone.
* So, Apple did in fact own the home computer market once.

You just asserted without any proof that Apple held that kind of market share. I was skeptical, so I looked it up. Just so you understand the burden of proof on you, you'd have to show either that Apple outsold all the others, or that a mere 10% or less of the other machines were not used in homes (to give Apple 90% of the home market), and so far you have completely failed to do so.

You also said:

In fact, the Apple II proved that a home computer market existed and paved the way for both the Atari and Commodore machines.. The Atari 400/800 (former 800 owner here) actually was a response to the success that Apple was having.

Make that "the success that Apple and Radio Shack and Commodore were having" and you would be correct. The TRS-80 sold more units in its first month than Apple sold in all of 1978.

Are you going to say that Microsoft and Apple are the only two games in town? Are you going to say that PowerPC and Intel are the only two CPUs in existance on a desktop machine? Just because the media tend to focus only on the largest players (with advertising revenue) doesn't mean they are the only two players. If we include a "other" category in today's statistics, would microsoft have 90%? How should we count game consoles? How should we count PDAs? Does all IBM-PCs automatically mean Microsoft?

All of this is irrelevant to your claim, which you have still not been able to defend.

Well? You have quoted only one stat that not only not cover 1977 (which was the premise of my original humorous comment)

Oh yes, 1977, when Apple sold 600 machines? Clearly they were king of the hill that year. :)

But that one stat source has no references.

True enough. And you have no references which call it into doubt, so you're holding an empty hand.

Techinically, you have an opinion that Apple never enjoyed 90% market share which countered my original comment.

No, that's not opinion. It's either a true fact or it's not. My opinion would be something like whether the fact is reliable, or relevant, or interesting, or whether the criteria are valid. Apple didn't have 90% by any criteria you've suggested.

You

Re:Early Adoption

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Here's a list of Apple II clones:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_II_clones

Keep in mind that both the Franklin Ace 1000 & 1200 and the VTech Laser 128 was carried by Sears.

I'll leave it to you to figure out the total sales.

Re:Early Adoption

[mfnickster]

Thanks for that link, I didn't realize there were so many! I thought there were 3 or 4.

You realize that splitting the pie into more pieces doesn't make Apple's slice bigger?

For example, if you wanted to compare against each individual model of machine, saying that the Apple II Plus sold twice as many units as the TRS-80 Model III, that still wouldn't put an Apple on a majority of desktops. FYI.

Re:Early Adoption

[Bill_the_Engineer]

For example, if you wanted to compare against each individual model of machine, saying that the Apple II Plus sold twice as many units as the TRS-80 Model III, that still wouldn't put an Apple on a majority of desktops. FYI.

True if we were speaking hardware. However if we were talking about "Desktops" as in software (granted CLI instead of GUI). The number of different machines running the same type of OS, actually improves the percentages. The article you referenced placed Apple at approx 50% (if not a tad over), and these clones pushes it into the majority.

Looking at hardware wouldn't make much sense, due mostly to the fact that Microsoft (the origins of this thread) maintains a 0% share.

The TRS-80 models hurt Tandy's percentage a little due to the fact that the Model I and Model III were totally different beasts.

Re:Early Adoption

[mfnickster]

The article you referenced placed Apple at approx 50% (if not a tad over), and these clones pushes it into the majority.

Oh, for Pete's sake. WHERE on the graph or in the stats do you find Apple with anything near 50%?

If you're actually an engineer working on orbital devices, I'm surprised they're not falling out of the sky due to your inability to grasp numbers.

Re:Early Adoption

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

When you're writing AIs for games there's a problem called the horizon problem. If you only look N moves ahead then the move you choose to play might not be a good move at all, it might simply be a delaying tactic that pushes some disastrous upcoming problem to N+1 moves away where it can't be seen.

The GP poster pointed out that maximize is broken on Macs. You then wrote 6 paragraphs in the hope that the GP's complaint would fall off everyone's horizons. But my attention span is longer than that. Maximize is broken on Macs and you haven't given a single reason why Apple couldn't make maximize work. You did give a whole lot of historical waffle that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that right at this moment now I'd like to press that little green button and have the paper I'm reading fill the screen. But I can't. It's completely broken and Apple have deliberately made it so. And if you think this situation is acceptable, your brain is broken, and possibly you've deliberately made it so to fit the broken software you use.

Re:Early Adoption

[mfnickster]

Maximize is broken on Macs and you haven't given a single reason why Apple couldn't make maximize work. You did give a whole lot of historical waffle that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that right at this moment now I'd like to press that little green button and have the paper I'm reading fill the screen. But I can't. It's completely broken and Apple have deliberately made it so.

Maximize is not 'broken' just because it doesn't expand the window to fill the screen. In fact, it's not a 'maximize' button at all - it's called the zoom button.

Seriously, take a look at Apple's interface guidelines. It's supposed to toggle between the 'standard state' and the 'user state.' The reason it's inconsistent is because Apple leaves it up to the developer how to handle the behavior. The real reason it's broken is because it's a toggle button, but doesn't look or act like a toggle.

Re:Early Adoption

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

In fact, it's not a 'maximize' button at all - it's called the zoom button.

Yes, it's broken because in the place where the highly useful maximise button should be they put a largely useless zoom button. Nobody wants to toggle between a 'user' size and some arbitrarily determined 'standard size'. They want to toggle between a multi-window arrangement and a single-window arrangement. Your comment about it not looking like a toggle button is a red herring. It's only confusing because it toggles between two sizes nobody wants to toggle between. If it behaved correctly it'd be obvious whether your window was in one state or the other.

From the guidelines:

Don't assume that the standard state should be as large as possible; some monitors are much larger than the useful size for a window.

That's the dumbest thing I've ever read. That's why we have applications with individual windows, because we don't always want to work on the whole screen. The Maximize/Zoom button is for when we want to break that model. And when we want to break that model, we no longer want a window that just occupies part of the screen. Well maybe 1% of people have a screen big enough that when they hit 'zoom' they don't want to fill it.

Over the years, the guys at Apple have done amazing things with the user interface producing strokes of genius one after another. But unfortunately, success breeds an unwillingness to look at one's mistakes.

Re:Early Adoption

[mfnickster]

Yes, it's broken because in the place where the highly useful maximise button should be they put a largely useless zoom button.

Who says there 'should be' a maximize button there? Microsoft? Apple did theirs first, so why should they change to be like Windows? I'm not saying maximize buttons aren't useful - but why would you expect an older OS to behave like a different company's OS?

Nobody wants to toggle between a 'user' size and some arbitrarily determined 'standard size'.

Speak for yourself. Anyway, the issue only came up because users need to resize windows. The question then becomes, the next time the window is opened, should it have the location and size that the application thinks is best, or with the size and location the way the user left it last time? The zoom button is supposed to allow both.

Your comment about it not looking like a toggle button is a red herring.

Well, if you mean in regards to its function, then yes, it's irrelevant to that. It's still broken because it doesn't look or act like a toggle.

That's why we have applications with individual windows, because we don't always want to work on the whole screen. The Maximize/Zoom button is for when we want to break that model.

Nope, that's what maximize buttons are for, but not zoom buttons.

Over the years, the guys at Apple have done amazing things with the user interface producing strokes of genius one after another. But unfortunately, success breeds an unwillingness to look at one's mistakes.

This is true. Apple still suffers from NIH Syndrome, and they seem to have a hard time acknowledging that someone else's way might be better. Just look at contextual menus - they added them to the OS, but made the user CTRL-click to get to them because a two-button mouse is "too confusing." WTF?

Re:Early Adoption

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Oh, for Pete's sake. WHERE on the graph or in the stats do you find Apple with anything near 50%?

As I stated earlier, The graph is flawed. Now if you would read the article (as opposed to looking at the pictures), "A combination of great marketing and even better luck propelled the Apple ][ from an also-ran to a serious contender. In 1981 the company sold 210,000 units, leaving the PET in the dust and nearly equaling the TRS-80's numbers." This fact is not accurately reflected in your "chart". Again, I'll refer to my earlier comment about what category should we place the Atari 400/800 in? While the PET, TRS-80, and Apple were usually sold as personal computer systems, the Atari was sold as an advanced game system. The chart doesn't reflect the number of Atari 800s sold with at least a disk drive. Many Ataris were sold as a cartridge based game system. Should this case be included in the desktop market? Does the fact that the Atari 800 has a keyboard automatically make it a desktop computer? Should we at least require a cassette drive or disk drive? If the existence of a keyboard is all that is needed, then what about the Intellivision, Magnavision, etc..?

I also mentioned that there are no references cited in the article that you linked, and questioned the fact that the Apple figures seem pretty exact compared to the estimations given for the PET and TRS-80s.

If you're actually an engineer working on orbital devices, I'm surprised they're not falling out of the sky due to your inability to grasp numbers.

Wow so you are reduced to name calling? You cherry pick small portions of my comments and don't even attempt to offer any rebuttal to the issues that I presented. Hell, you didn't even know about the Apple II clones. You conveniently ignore the "other" category, and on top of it all you keep referring to a questionable statistic on brand name hardware sales to refute my original humorous comment about desktops which lately is considered software. Especially since Microsoft has 0% of the hardware market, yet seems to own 90% of the desktop market.

Let me point out something else from the arstechnica article:

Atari, flushed with the success of PONG and its 2600 games console, released the 400 and 800 series of computers in 1979. The 400 was essentially a cheaper version of the 800 with less memory and an awkward "membrane" keyboard. Designer Jay Miner had fitted these machines with impressive technology, including a custom blitter chip that could blast large sections of graphics on the screen without involving the CPU. The 400/800 could play games, like Frogger, that were indistinguishable from the arcade versions. However, Atari kept most of the details about its hardware secret in order to try and give an advantage to its in-house software developers. This limited the long-term success of the platform, which peaked at 600,000 units in 1982 and went steadily downhill.

Besides the obvious fact that the Atari was designed for games, why does the text describe a peak in 1982, yet the graph still shows exponential growth through 1984? This looks like another disconnect between the article and the graph that goes with the article. (One of the dangers of using a cumulative line graph).

BTW, how many Atari clones were there? Companies usually make clones of computers that have a large and growing market share, otherwise why risk the legal damages? Speaking of clones both Franklin and VTech still exist today (of course no longer making Apple clones), I guess the initial capital they accumulated from the early home computer market was put to good use.

So do you have a reliable statistic that accurately reflects the number of Apple (and clones) versus the other desktop systems of its day? Evidently everybody is content to using the arstech article despite the lack of references.

I should have taken the clue that you are stuck to using an article that was ref

Early adoption problems for Apple.

[RandoX]

Clearly they're pandering to the Windows market.

No real problems here

[Hellad]

My install as relatively smooth. It did seem to stall on reboot after install so I did a force shutdown, but it restarted with no problems. Once I turned off safesleep, my system has been fast and very responsive.

Re:No real problems here

[troc]

my system has been fast and very responsive

you mean snappier (tm)

Re:No real problems here

[kleznik]

FYI, my installation appeared to stall at about 95% completion, but I left it alone. It finished up about 10 minutes later. Glad to hear that there were no adverse effects of rebooting before the installation was completed. -Dan

Re:No real problems here

[pilgrim23]

My install, on a Macbook went flawless. Now, I am not a typical Mac user in that I crossed the divide some 10 years ago but with only one foot in the camp. I own 7 Macs, but about 9 PCs; plus old Commodores Apple IIs and even an Altair, and an Osborne (CP/M ROCKS!). Yes I am old school. Also I know a wee bit about DOS, and every Windows since Windows 2.03 and every Mac OS since 5.0 on floppy. Also I have played with Linux since kernel 2.0 and know BSD in both Free and Net flavors. I even dabbled with BeOS.

Leopard has fixed most of the annoyances that remained in Tiger. Yes it is a new folder look, but the change was for a reason and seems to work quite well and quite intuitively. A counterpoint would be Vista and change for marketing sake. At least I assume that was the reason; I can see no advantage to the user nor benefit to operation for those changes.

I took an existing not high-end Mac and upgraded it. The result was a more robust system, all files intact, all settings working. Also the machine responds noticeably quicker. I have done exactly this same process with a PC and Windows Vista. The machine was a generic Dell P4 so it was not a experimenter model with weird boards or strange configurations. THAT experience yielded a sluggish machine, wizards that seemed to be confused, a security structure from hell, and messed up settings. and mind you I LIKE Windows.

Conclusion: Apple did their homework. Leopard delivers.

Re:No real problems here

[Anonymous Coward]

Did an upgrade, and experienced no problems, nada, zilch. Even my custom unixy stuff still functions as expected.

Perhaps the only complaint I have is that the estimation of install duration was waaaay of: said 3 1/2 hours, instead of the actual 1 - 1 1/2 hours.

Re:No real problems here

[Kelson]

I upgraded a G4 PowerBook on Wednesday, via Archive+Install. The only real "problem" I've run into is that the TWAIN-SANE scanner drivers are gone (my scanner is plugged into a Linux box, so I use the SANE network drivers on the rare occasion that I want to scan from another computer), but I pretty much expected that. I usually scan from the other box anyway, and the project seems alive, so it's not really an issue.

That, and I have to agree with the criticism of the new dock and folder icons being less readable at a glance.

Otherwise, everything works fine.

There's one other Mac in the house which won't get upgraded without a little more preparation. There are a couple of Classic apps on it (Classic is being removed), and Photoshop 7 (which has been widely reported to not run on Leopard, and Adobe isn't updating anything older than CS3).

Re:No real problems here

[DurendalMac]

Good thing you didn't try Leopard Server. Software Update Server and Netboot are broken, and I'm sure as hell not the only one having this problem. Did Apple bother testing Leopard server upgrades on PPC machines, or do they just not care?

Re:No real problems here

[Anonymous Coward]

Did Apple bother testing Leopard server upgrades on PPC machines, or do they just not care?

No, it's just you. They sent you the "Joker" disc to make you mad.

Re:No real problems here

[tverbeek]

Manga Studio EX reportedly doesn't run properly on Leopard either, so I'll be holding off on this upgrade. {sigh}

Re:I hope this will end to those obnoxious Mac ads

[ByOhTek]

Since when has inaccuracy stopped them from putting something in one of the Apple ads?

For that matter, it's been a long time since inaccuracy has stopped most ideas from becoming advertisements.

About as good as non free can be.

[Erris]

Bravo to the Apple people for pulling things off with nothing more than minor annoyances. They are a reminder that non free software does not have to be as rapacious as others have made it.

At the same time, Apple is a reminder that non free will software always depend on the free software world and will always have problems. Upgrades of Debian are always smooth and lossless.

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what world you live in, but free software is not a panacea for bugs in new software. I'm glad Debian has always worked out for you (or you at least have a pleasant form of bug amnesia), but all operating systems have upgrade blues. "apt-get dist-upgrade" is awesome, but it doesn't mean all your software still works.

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[morgan_greywolf]

Upgrades of Debian are always smooth and lossless. How, exactly, did you say that with a straight face? Sorry, I've done Debian upgrades, and they're not always that smooth ... just because apt-get dist-ugprade works doesn't mean everything works well after that, especially if you have any customizations, or odd bits of hardware or applications.

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[Blakey Rat]

At the same time, Apple is a reminder that non free will software always depend on the free software world and will always have problems.

Non-free-will software? What is that, software you're forced to use while some jack-booted thug holds a gun to your forehead? I don't think we have any non-free-will software in the US.

More seriously, I have no clue what this is supposed to mean. Non-free software will always depend on free software? Explain DOS, Mac OS Classic, OS/2, Netware, etc. (Actually Netware probably does depend on some free software.)

Upgrades of Debian are always smooth and lossless.

With all apologies to Baghdad Bob:

"I can say, and I am responsible for what I am saying, that they have started to commit suicide [at their keyboards]. We will encourage them to commit more suicides quickly."

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[Anonymous Coward]

Upgrades of Debian are always smooth and lossless.

Hahahahaha!!!

Boy, you actually typed that in and meant it, didn't you?

I hope you are kidding, because "funny" is the only moderation I can think of that your post deserves. Wow.

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[dedazo]

The irony of your funny moderation just kills me, considering you were absolutely serious when you wrote this. Especially the part about "smooth and lossless".

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[Anonymous Coward]

DOS copied the standard POSIX I/O functions (read, write, etc.)
MacOS Classic copied the standard UNIX commands for MPW.
OS/2, well...

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[Erris]

just because apt-get dist-ugprade works doesn't mean everything works well after that, especially if you have any customizations, or odd bits of hardware or applications.

If you can tell me exactly what you mean by "customizations", we might find the root of the problem. If by customizations, you mean things like non free software and by "odd" hardware you mean hardware with binary blobs, your experience is no different from mine.

My Debian upgrades have been free of both major and minor annoyances. I've lost only one piece of hardware in the last five years to a Debian upgrade that was the result of free software improvement, dma reworks. I replaced it and it probably works again now. Other than that, transitions from Woody to Sarge and then Sarge to Etch have been flawless. Even where programs change, the user data is preserved without loss and is often usable in place. For an ordinary user, it just works. Source code and compiled executables are also transferable between upgrades and distributions. Things I compile on Debian work just fine with Fedora so that rsync is all I need to keep projects working in more than one place over years of development.

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is twitter. I am actually surprise he (she?) didn't go off on a rant about Microsoft.

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[B3ryllium]

You know, just yesterday I tried upgrading Ubuntu Hoary Hedgehog to Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon, and it went so smoothly it was almost like nothing happened!

(Oh, wait - nothing DID happen. Silly lack of legacy support ;-))

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[Y-Crate]

At the same time, Apple is a reminder that non free will software always depend on the free software world and will always have problems.

Yeah, because the free software community doesn't spend an inordinate amount of time imitating non-free software, and demanding that big companies simply hand over the source to products they've spent millions developing, rather than simply innovating and writing all of their own code.

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[Anonymous Coward]

He did. The surprising part is that it was (relatively) subtle.

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[ImdatS]

If by customizations, you mean things like non free software and by "odd" hardware you mean hardware with binary blobs, your experience is no different from mine. I have learned two things from your posting:

a) I understand that installing "non-free software" is a problematic customization for you.
b) There are such things as "Binary Binary Large Objects" - or what does "Binary BLOB" stand for you?

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off hippie bitch. I hope you take in the ass and
mouth every day by the niggers.

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[Wdomburg]

I must have imagined the time a Debian upgrade broke every PHP application I was running (due them knowingly moving to a release with a busted serializer in 3.0).

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[Wdomburg]

Heh. I gave up on Ubuntu after the upgrade to Edgy Eft managed to break GDM (startx worked, gdm claimed it couldn't start X11), PAM (no longer recognized the console user), sound (simply gone), suspend and hibernate (discovered when a wave of heat wafted out my bag after getting to work) and several other smaller things that escape me at the moment. Decided it wasn't even worth diagnosing.

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[Erris]

a) I understand that installing "non-free software" is a problematic customization for you.
b) There are such things as "Binary Binary Large Objects" - or what does "Binary BLOB" stand for you?

Non free software, like X drivers and flash players can cause problems on upgrade. Occasionally a library will change but the non free software won't be aware of it. Solutions to this kind of problem is usually to reinstall everything with a fresh copy of your distribution. This can be quicker and easier than a regular dist-upgrade but you then have to remember and reinstall all the other packages you like.

Binary blobs and associated problems are well explained here.

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[Anonymous Coward]

That explains a lot. Looks like his twitter account got bitchslapped recently.

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[jeremyp]

I don't know what your definition of free software is, but neither Unix (which is not Free in the Gnu sense) nor POSIX which is not software (it's an API specification) count.

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[__aajfby9338]

Non-free-will software? What is that, software you're forced to use while some jack-booted thug holds a gun to your forehead? I don't think we have any non-free-will software in the US.

My employer makes me use Outlook for my work email. Does that count?

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[Anonymous Coward]

So when you say "Open source or you're not a patriot", you actually mean "Use anything but Microsoft or you're not a patriot".

It's amazing how quickly you're willing to sell out your principles to take a cheap shot at Redmond.

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[phliar]

just because apt-get dist-ugprade works doesn't mean everything works well after that, especially if you have any customizations, or odd bits of hardware or applications.

If by customizations, you mean things like non free software and by "odd" hardware you mean hardware with binary blobs, your experience is no different from mine.

No need for non-free software, or exotic hardware supported only by binary blobs: I had a dual-headed video setup (two monitors) and a Wacom serial graphics tablet, for a really nice GIMP workstation. (I was using Hoary.) One day I foolishly ran apt-get dist-upgrade and that was the end. If you ever had to edit a config file to get something to work, you'll be fucked by dist-upgrade.

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[petermgreen]

Upgrades of Debian are always smooth and lossless.
A sarge-etch upgrade I did on a bytemark vm left sendmail (I know probablly not the best MTA but the tutorial I was following at the time used it) in a weired state where it seemed to be working but got itself in the CBL twice for no apparent reason (the really annoying thing about the CBL is they won't tell you why you got in there).

in the end I ripped it out and switched to postfix, still annoying though.

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[Anonymous Coward]

willy there's a lot of people in this thread you have to call 'liars' and 'stupid' and 'm$ astroturfers'. i suggest you get on it. don't want to disappoint your sponsors.

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[NateTech]

I agree that Debian upgrades are some of the best I've dealt with over the years. I decided to dig into the WHY of that once, and found that bugs in upgrading from one package to another are considered release-CRITICAL bugs by default and DO have the power to stop an entire release of an OS.

Comparing that to what I've seen behind closed doors in numerous commercial software release "Change Control Board" meetings, I'd have to say that commercial software is far more likely to start arguing over "how many people do you think that will affect?" so they can figure out a way to justify a release NOW so a) revenue comes in and everyone still has a job, and b) the developers make their deadline for a bonus. (Sadly, #2 is more powerful than #1, even.)

I then watched, and sure enough -- during freezes right before release, testers report things, and developers in the Debian world actually tag things as CRITICAL and the entire distro has to stop and wait. It's pretty impressive to see that ANY software management "shop", free or non-free... does that anymore. On some occasions they'll simply remove the offending package, if pressed for time and/or a dev simply says they can't fix it. Bravo!

(Oh and judging by the above and by the problems I've encountered with their upgrades over the years, RedHat more likely follows the "Change Control Board" decision making process above, than the Debian one. There's no rule at RedHat that ANYTHING has to upgrade cleanly, let alone EVERYTHING...)

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[Anonymous Coward]

I love that you got modded as funny. I think that's the best antidote against zealots like you.

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[CableModemSniper]

Binary blobs and associated problems are well explained here.

Ah thanks. I'll check that out right after a quick trip to the ATM machine.

Re:About as good as non free can be.

[PastaLover]

But then, you weren't running debian...

Anyway, dist-upgrade (which hasn't been the preferred upgrade method for at least 2 versions) doesn't always fuck up your config files. The thing is that new versions of software sometimes come with a new config file format and the developers almost never bother writing a script or whatever to convert your old files to the new format. Usually in debian it would ask you if you want to overwrite the config file etc. but I seem to recall ubuntu has different defaults.

My experiences

[robosmurf]

I've installed Leopard on both my PowerPC Macs (yes, I got the family edition).

One install went very smoothly (though Leopard does run slowly at first due to Spotlight indexing everything again).

The other install ran into two separate problems. Firstly, I got the Blue Screen freeze (solution - reboot to single user mode and delete APE). Secondly, the Finder would hang on launch (solution - bring up a terminal and remove the divx support library).

Both of these I resolved fairly quickly with a google search, but the solution each time would be worrying to a non-technical user.

Re:My experiences

[Anonymous Coward]

A "non-technical" user using APE is playing with fire, anyway. That's like someone who doesn't understand command lines messing with the Windows registry or Linux's /etc directory without having a backup.

Re:My experiences

[pthor1231]

What about a non techincal user that had installed DivX?

Re:My experiences

[robosmurf]

Although I agree in general, I should point out that I didn't install APE. Another program that I used (then ditched because it was too flakey) installed it. This was why I forgot that I might have it installed.

Thus, non-technical users may well have APE installed, even if they didn't explicitly install it themselves.

Re:My experiences

[WorkerGnome]

I think my assumption would be that if you are sophisticated enough to be doing either of those two things, you are probably sophisticated enough to google for answers when they don't work...

Re:My experiences

[quangdog]

I have several macs, and while I updated one right away (a MacMini, as it happens) I have held off on updating the other macs in my household. I put together a write-up about why on my website, but the nuts and bolts of it is this: I use some software that is not yet supported, and I dislike the look and feel of the new unified theme.

Re:My experiences

[Anonymous Coward]

"The other install ran into two separate problems. Firstly, I got the Blue Screen freeze (solution - reboot to single user mode and delete APE). Secondly, the Finder would hang on launch (solution - bring up a terminal and remove the divx support library)."

And yet Microsoft would be vilified for similar issues. "M$ is lazy! They didn't bother testing! The rushed out an untested release! M$ is treating its users like unpaid QA department!" bullshit.

The fact is Apple has orders of magnitude fewer configurations in their testing matrix, yet they get a free pass when problems crop up but Microsoft does not. Apple clearly didn't test against APE or the divx support lib. CALL THEM ON IT!!

Re:My experiences

[arminw]

.....And yet Microsoft would be vilified for similar issues.....

Yes, but only by those who are ignorant about computers, but unwilling to admit that. I have not heard of any problems with Leopard for those who did a clean install or bought a new Mac. If you get a computer with VISTA installed or erase the HD and then install VISTA it will also be largely trouble free. Apple has to test only their own products. If the OS works with those, their job is done. Anyone who has installed other people's hardware or software needs to get a fix from them, not blame Apple if their third party stuff doesn't work with the new OS. Until such a fix is available, it is best to stick with the older OS that works.

Re:My experiences

[Anonymous Coward]

I installed Leopard the day it came out on my MacPro (after making a clone of the old System to an external drive).

I used the standard Upgrade procedure because I'm too lazy to install everything again, digging up CDs and serial numbers. So I've been running it for nearly a week for several hours a day, I did even actually *work* on it using production software like Final Cut Pro, Shake, Photoshop, Indesign et al. Had to upgrade some Freeware/Shareware software I'm using, most of them had a fix out after a day or two.

So far I only had one interface glitch with Toast (quitting the app solved it and it hasn't happed again) and a slow network issue that was solved by adding static DNS servers. Other then that, it's been a joy to use and I like the overall look and speed a lot (although some of the interface changes could be indeed considered as stupid, such as stacks in the docks).

Note that I usually do quite a bit of customization of my system, but I'm clever (or chicken) enough not to change anything in the System folder, and I refuse to install hacks like APE (which has been a problem for as long as I can remember).

I admit that upgrading a system on day 1 is actually not a very clever idea and would recommend against it if you're not a long time mac head, but this one was actually a lot of fun.
++ chris

Hasn't Been That Bad

[kannibal_klown]

I guess I'm one of the lucky few. It hasn't been bad at all for me. Install went well, everything I needed to install right away worked, etc. There are a few apps I'm holding off on installing because I hear they aren't Leopard-ready, but they're not that critical.

Honestly, you can't expect any new commercial OS version to be flawless.

But let the flame wars commence.

• Anti-Mac zealots will point-and-laugh, though they usually fair just as poorly.
• Mac-Zealots will beat their chests and defend their platform to the point of pig-headed-ness.
• Linux-Zealots will talk down to everyone else, stating that using a non-open OS is a war crime or some nonsense.

Why can't people be more moderate?

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[mattgreen]

Why can't people be more moderate? Because people at this site attach exaggerated importance to the choice of one's operating system when it really doesn't matter. Additionally, extremist viewpoints are rewarded with mod points, so there's little point in being moderate, because you won't get attention. Since there are so many voices, recognition becomes a coveted thing.

That said, intelligence and dogmatism (about technology) usually don't run hand-in-hand. Technology is about solving problems, not getting into pissing matches about your preferred technology. Unfortunately, few people seem to be able to see beyond themselves.

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[gardyloo]

Spoken like a true vi user.

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[R.D.Olivaw]

Isn't that the whole point of the mod system? If a post is too extreme, you moderate it.

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[yakumo.unr]

They point and laugh despite fairing just as poorly because Apple themselves, and not just the zealots, mocked vista for the same things as if it would never happen with an apple system, and frankly with the VASTLY smaller hardware and software set it really shouldn't.

The only thing I find makes me chuckle though tbh is the last minute removal of features (time machine to airport, that's really messed some people around buying hw specifically for it) and the approve-everything UAC like functionality so mocked in vista also (no X second grace on after elevation any more).

It's nice to hear when it does install properly most are pretty happy with it so far though.

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

...and you have clearly stated which of these three groups you belong to.
You are telling everything right here: Honestly, you can't expect any new commercial OS version to be flawless.

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

But let the flame wars commence.

        * Anti-Mac zealots will point-and-laugh, though they usually fair just as poorly.
        * Mac-Zealots will beat their chests and defend their platform to the point of pig-headed-ness.
        * Linux-Zealots will talk down to everyone else, stating that using a non-open OS is a war crime or some nonsense.

Why can't people be more moderate?

I am pretty much critical of all operating systems. I use Windows, Linux, and OS X. Here's my take:

Mac OS X - Slick OS, but don't believe the hype, Apple's apps crash (not all OS X apps, just Apple's), they crash a LOT. "It just works" is biggest load of bullshit, and somehow, people actually believe it. Being an early adopter hurts, as I experienced with iLife '08 which is currently very buggy. Even pro apps, like Final Cut Pro crash. I am going to wait until some time next year to install Leopard, at least on main machine (a Mac Pro). I may install it on another drive or on my G4 Mac Mini just to play around with, though.

Windows - Vista? The thought of upgrading to it hasn't even occurred to me. I am just now considering upgrading my Windows machines and VM's to XP Pro (from Win2k). This is mainly because there is a lot of software being released that requires at least XP. I use XP Pro at work. It's not my favorite, but I can do my work (software development) without any issues and I have Linux in a VM as well.

Linux - I've been burnt a little by early adoption of some of the last few Ubuntu versions, but 7.10 is pretty impressive. Wireless and power management now work on my laptop out-of-box, though reconnecting to wireless is slow and power management is slow and not perfect. If anything, I'm a Linux zealot (having used it since 1995), because I'm a UNIX fan and really like software freedom. Linux is the most comfortable for my UNIX needs. And if something doesn't work, I can always hack at it until it works, rather than have to wait on a third party to fix things.

Oh, and I'm a shameless pirate, so costs of Windows and Mac software are not an issue for me. I did have a good run for a while where I was completely legal software-wise running Linux. If I get fed up with OS X and Apple software (which might happen due to how often it crashes), I might do that again if I can adapt my video and music editing workflow to Linux.

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[pedestrian crossing]

Hey, you left out the grammar nazis who would point out that it is "fare", not "fair"...

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[TiggsPanther]

But let the flame wars commence.

• Anti-Mac zealots will point-and-laugh, though they usually fair just as poorly.
• Mac-Zealots will beat their chests and defend their platform to the point of pig-headed-ness.
• Linux-Zealots will talk down to everyone else, stating that using a non-open OS is a war crime or some nonsense.

Why can't people be more moderate?

I agree. I see the early months of Leopard as no different to Vista or Gutsy (or the latest release of any Linux distro). The early adopters will run into the snags that don't show up as easily until the public ghet their hands on things. And things will improve over time.
Heck, I still don't get why early adopters of the latest gen games consoles were so surprised about initial faults. Expecting the initial releases to be totally fault-free is, unfortunately, unrealistic. Yet many people went to buy on release day and seem shocked that things had issues.

All three of the major OS platforms have their own variations of the problem, but all three suffer - and no amount of love for whichever your favourties are will change the fact that chances are your chosen favourite will hit some glitch or other in the early stages.
Windows suffers from the sheer size of its userbase. The minor glitches get as much exposure as the major ones, simply due to size of exposure.
Macs can suffer from the size of its userbase, in that it's smaller. So third-party software and drivers may not get updated as speedily as their Windows counterparts.
Linux distros, especially the repository-based ones, can suffer from having to weigh up wheter you want stability (use the repos, and only the official ones), or going bleeding edge (roll your own installations). And if you do want to keep repository-based, yet you need an app that's upgraded (or only added) in the next version up then it might mean upgrading early even knowing the inevitable Early Adopter problems.

Different problems, but none of them are perfect. This is not a sign of Apple being on a downhill trend. I recall a similar bunch of threads here (and elsewhere) back when Tiger came out. And Vista. And Ubuntu. And probably other Linux distros, also.

Honestly, you can't expect any new commercial OS version to be flawless.

Exactly. Or non-commercial ones, either.

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[atezun]

Hey, you left out the grammar nazis who would point out that it is "fare", not "fair"...

Despite this, they still can't tell me what a fair fare is to take a girl out to have a fair-sized fare at the county fair.

I want answers!

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[cleatsupkeep]

I agree with your assessment of the Apple Apps. Ironically enough, I got most of my trouble from two Apple app's - Safari and Mail.app - even with Leopard, they are both memory hogs and can be slow and unresponsive. Also, I am not a huge fan of iChat - no tabbed windows - seriously?

I went to Camino and Thunderbird, and those run great for me - also Adium is definitely the way to go. I feel like 3rd party apps on Apple are very stable and good if you pick the right ones - but I guess you could say that about any OS. Also - TextMate - le awesome.

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[Augsburg]

Why can't people be more moderate?

Most people are moderate; they just aren't motivated to post on forums since they don't have strong views on the subject.

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[mattgreen]

Can someone explain to me the humor in this?

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[Deag]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editor_war

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[C0rinthian]

Umm, iChat is tabbed now. (Altho you need to turn this option on in preferences)

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[bidule]

Isn't that the whole point of the mod system? If a post is too extreme, you moderate it. Yeah, except most moderate them up, not down.

Do extreme posts match the criterias:

• Insightful - a one-sided comment is rarely insightful
• Interesting - do you find extremist interesting?
• Informative - NPOV cannot be extreme

On average, I spend 2/5 mod points to weed out extreme posts. Extremist POV? Flamebait or Troll. Undeserving post? Overrated.

I'd say half of the +5 are overrated and should have stopped at +4. And this "abuse" repeats itself at lower level ("But I have mod points, I have to spend them!"). I have therefore no qualm to pick la cream of the overrated and moderate them down.

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[iknowcss]

He is using irony. Only an emacs user could have that much insight.

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[jasampler]

Because people at this site attach exaggerated importance to the choice of one's operating system when it really doesn't matter. Of course it matters. You should know that a big number of users for certain technology surely makes it better, because the efforts of those users to have something reliable.

Not for nothing Windows is the system that covers most of the needs of every computer user, and Google is the best search engine around.

You speak like those Windows zealots who think that currently everything is fine with the IT market. It's not, and many things should change to have it in the way that we the users really want.

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[dave420]

Not all /.ers are like that :) Some of us strive to use the right tool for the job and don't sit in any "camp".

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[mattgreen]

I'll bite.

Actually, I generally think IT is caught in a spiral of downward mediocrity driven by users who demand more silly features, pretty graphics, and aren't willing to pay for bugfixes, engineers who don't take their job seriously enough, and management who doesn't understand what is going on most of the time. The whole industry is very immature and quality is the exception, not the norm. I'm not okay with that. It is absurd that most of the applications we use nowadays don't feel significantly faster than they did 5 years ago, despite the huge increase in RAM and processor speed.

All that said, I have a good life outside of software development, and I don't see the point in bitching on a website because people don't run my choice of operating system. Really, your choice of OS doesn't matter that much, because technology doesn't matter that much in life. I've stopped giving two shits whether people say good or bad things about what OS I run. It doesn't matter at all. I get my work done, and I do it well. I enjoy computing, most of the time, and I'm able to express myself. I don't need to have other people agree with me to feel validated. 99% of people will use what gets the job done and stop there. That is a perfectly acceptable use of the technology, despite what you might think.

If you want to join a religion, then find a religion. Don't make open source your religion just for the sake of needing to be a part of something bigger.

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[mattgreen]

Meta-sarcasm considered harmful? Or at least undetectable...

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

nah, vi doesn't support speech recognition. i hear they're working on function keys though.

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus, do you actually listen to yourself?

Go look in a mirror and say everything you just wrote out loud. Seriously. Maybe then you will realize how ridiculous and shallow you sound.

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[cleatsupkeep]

I know - I was just speaking in general - also I don't think it supports that many protocols - bad example. Where is the option BTW?

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[imadoofus]

Don't you mean Esc-Ctrl-Shift-Meta-sarcasm?

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[C0rinthian]

Preferences > Messages > Check "Collect Chats in a single window"

As for support, I know it works with .mac, AIM, and Jabber. Personally, I use it for googletalk, which is Jabber. I avoid Yahoo and MSN like the plague.

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[arachnoprobe]

Technology is about solving problems, not getting into pissing matches about your ...

Obviously, you don't know a lot of engineers!

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[kabz]

You mean the "country Fayre"?

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[strikethree]

I guess I am screwed then. I use every major operating system out there and a few niche ones as well (AmigaDOS).

strike

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[jasampler]

Okay. I understand. You think that the operating system you choose doesn't matter. That's all. I think it does, you know.

You have a tool (a system) that you can use to get your job done, and I imagine that you got it at no cost or paying a reasonable prize for it. But different people always have different needs, and, depending on what software they are using, could end being dependent on this software. Yes, you can get a tool that "owns" you. And people wants to be free. Call it religion, rights or whatever you want, but I want freedom, and in order to get it, I have to make the right decisions along the way, OS included.

Re:Hasn't Been That Bad

[R.D.Olivaw]

My comment was a poor attempt at humour. I agree with your explanation though.

A few things

[Klaidas]

Well, firstly, aren't early adopters 'suffering for the rest of us' in pretty much all things that are new?
Early upgraders are the ones who face incompatibility first. And someone's got to be first anyway.
And the second thing, maybe apple will be a little more gentle with their 'biased' ads? (Not that they aren't funny... :) but, as we can see, apple is not that perfect after all)

Re:A few things

[east coast]

Well, firstly, aren't early adopters 'suffering for the rest of us' in pretty much all things that are new?

But you don't understand... since it's an Apple product the early adopters who are suffering are cool for it instead of just being jackass morons like those who are early adopters of other technology.

It's an Apple thing, you wouldn't understand.

Re:A few things

[filterban]

Actually... the reason Apple early adopters are cool are twofold:

1. The products themselves actually are cool, in the truest sense of the word. What's cooler than an iPhone? (And if you say Neo1973, I will laugh.) Do you think the Zune 1.0 early adopters were ever seen as having something cool?
2. The products generally have far fewer issues than competing products. Leopard early adopters generally are not suffering at all - the OS works great. Personally, I've early adopted many of Apple's products and I have yet to run into any real issues.

Microsoft (Xbox 360 overheating, Vista compatibility), Ford (flaming tailpipes on the F350), Sony (PS3... but with no games) and many other early adopters have a much different story to tell. They got their item early but it is fraught with core problems and ... it doesn't even look good.

Re:A few things

[east coast]

You know, my original comment was kind of meant as a joke but since you have to be so high on yourself and such a fanboi...

My experience (and yes, I have lots of it from friends with too much money and no real use or understanding for the technology they buy) is generally most early adoption problems are the users over the tech.

Marketing normally has much more to do with a products acceptance or failure than the product itself.

And it's easy to keep things running smooth as long as you don't let people mod your equipment or use it with a competitors hardware.

Little do they know

[sircastor]

Steve is going to drop the price next month. It'll be $200 less than the original price, so... -$71

Re:Little do they know

[varmittang]

But I got the family pack for $199, so do I only get $1 back. =(

Re:Little do they know

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone needs some serious help with their math. Or they need to come to my shop and let me be their cashier.

Re:Little do they know

[jZnat]

That'll teach you to be an early adopter!

Re:Little do they know

[Firehed]

Nope, you get $200 per user - $801 back! And lucky me for buying in NH and not paying sales tax... I get the full rebate.

Odd Number Phobia???

[The Assistant]

If 668 is the neighbor of the beast (must live across the road) what about 665 and 667?

Do you have something against odd numbers???

As a result of your omision, you are ordered by the department of psychiatry to attend weekly sessions with our corrections facility psychiatric staff.

Re:Odd Number Phobia???

[PHAEDRU5]

You obviously don't know anything about the way streets are numbered in the US. Even numbers for one side of the street, odd for the other.

You sir, are ordered to multi-culti-thought-control-reprocessing. And may God^H^Haia have pity on your neurons!

Re:Odd Number Phobia???

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously don't know anything about the way streets are numbered in the US.

Actually, a lot of places number their streets with every other even/odd number, in case someone redivides the lots and builds houses inbetween. In these cities, the neighbors of 666 would be 670 and 662 ;)

Re:Odd Number Phobia???

[PHAEDRU5]

Hey! Hey! Leave off or I'll have my neighbor on you.

Re:Odd Number Phobia???

[M. Baranczak]

You obviously don't know anything about the way streets are numbered in the US. You obviously don't know anything about the way "neighbor" is spelled in the US.

Re:Odd Number Phobia???

[M. Baranczak]

Unless you live in that weird part of the US that they call Canada. In which case, I apologize.

Re:Odd Number Phobia???

[The Assistant]

My appologies

I seem to have experienced a brain fart. I do indeed live in the US, just a little east of NYC in fact, and I seem to have become disoriented when thinking where 668 would be in relation to 666. I'm not quite sure that I need to go through the multi-culti-thought-control-reprocessing though!

You seemed to have experienced a brain fart as well. (See below)

And may God^H^Hai have pity on your neurons!

Are slashdot'ers usually prone to brain farts on Fridays? :)

It is Friday, right????????

Re:Odd Number Phobia???

[PHAEDRU5]

I like the extra "u". Gives an ould-wourld feeling oune wants when discussing the Apoucalypse.

unwashed?

[Anonymous Coward]

hey, I washed plenty this morning!

Minor annoyances, eh?

[EveryNickIsTaken]

News.com tallies up the minor annoyances early adopters have experienced dealing with the newest version of OS X. Had this been a windows release, I'm fairly certain that these would have been called "major GUI design flaws" and "critical systems bugs/security issues."

Re:Minor annoyances, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely. Only Apple can get away with a stinking BSOD and have it labeled as a "minor annoyance".

Re:Minor annoyances, eh?

[foniksonik]

Well, when there isn't much you can afford to lose.. every little bug is critical.... if Vista had offered some serious new value to users, it would have gotten off a lot easier on the small things. WinFS anyone?

Re:Minor annoyances, eh?

[Firehed]

What GUI design flaws are present in Leopard? I'd give you security issues with the firewall thing (though across all operating systems, I'd classify it as largely a non-issue thanks to the very widespread adoption of wireless and thus hardware firewalls), but I've yet to come across any UI issues.

The ONLY app I've had any trouble with since moving to Leopard is Firefox, and that's a trivially minor issue (it doesn't regain focus properly after cmd-tabbing into it or clicking the dock icon from a different space) specific to the app. I had similarly few issues with Vista when I'd first tried it - at least, as far as Microsoft was responsible *glares at nVidia*.

Re:Minor annoyances, eh?

[supun]

I think I've seen two so far, however they are rare and not persistent. The first was the chat window of Adium being lost. I could see it in Expose, but if I selected it it would disappear. I think a strangeness with Spaces and Expose. Had it once, never had it again. And the other is a graphic glitch with Cover View. I had a few icons strobing between the clear icon and the extension icon. That might be because I was looking at an NFS mounted drive.

So far I'm perfectly happy with 10.5. They gave me tabs in Terminal :). I didn't like that iTerm kept scroll-back in memory, kind of eats up memory when you have 10 tabs and a million line scrollback (yeah, I need that much).

Re:Minor annoyances, eh?

[darkshadow]

I noticed the strobing effect in World of Warcraft after installing Leopard. The trees kept flickering like that.

Re:Minor annoyances, eh?

[Zephyr14z]

As someone who is currently running Leopard, I have to say I haven't even experienced minor annoyances, let alone major GUI design flaws or critical systems bugs or security issues. Everything runs really smoothly, everything works better than in tiger, and some of the new features (spaces, time machine) are really useful.

So What

[MBCook]

That's what happens. I installed Leopard on day 1. And I'm happy.

The only issue I've run into that is of any importance is that junk mail filtering on Mail seems to have stopped working for me. I don't know if it won't kick in until it has seen X number of messages or such, but it's starting to annoy me. The setting are all right. It is supposed to listen to the headers my ISP sends (SpamAssassin, which worked before). But nothing gets moved into Junk if I don't do it manually. Starting to bug me.

It's a tiny bug considering all they did. By and large, I'm happy. The only other thing I'd like is to be able to live-resize disks with a DOS partition format (instead of Mac). You can't do that.

Re:So What

[porcupine8]

I don't know if this is the same issue, but my Tiger mail chokes if I get more than 10-20 junk mails at a time. I find that if I make sure the junk mail folder is selected as I do my first mail retrieval of the morning, it's far more likely to filter them all correctly. Though they are still marked as Junk, they just go to the Inbox - if they're not getting marked as junk, you probably just need to keep training it.

Re:So What

[InadequateCamel]

I've found the filters to be fine so far. Perhaps something is wrong with your Mail?

Re:So What

[gb506]

That's what happens. I installed Leopard on day 1. And I'm happy.

Don't connect to any SMB shares, do you? Give it a whirl and come back. We'll wait. You'll not be happy.

Re:So What

[Spyky]

I've had 2 kernel panics (one last night) on a year old MacBook Pro with Leopard. Something about freeing buffers that were already freed. Somebody definitely missed that in quality control. That said, it is a .0 product, no service releases at all, and I've had kernel panics in Vista too (at work). But it's definitely a lot buggier (for me) than Tiger was when it came out. But I like the new features, I have a hard time thinking of features that I want that it doesn't have, Tiger had several areas I thought were lacking (Finder, Mail, printer configuration, network configuration, etc...). I'm confident that Apple will have the issues fixed in some point releases, Tiger at .10 was rock solid.

I had some weird bugs in Leopard Mail.app as well. It got into a loop where it was trying to add mail to the "Sent" folder on an IMAP server, but the IMAP server would return an error, so it would keep trying. But apparently it was actually working while reporting that it wasn't working, so I had the same mail in my sent mail folder 35 times before I finally deleted the settings for the IMAP server and re-added it. It's been fine since then.

-Spyky

Re:So What

[MBCook]

OK, figured it out. It was caused by a plugin I used to use called Act-On. The plugin was disabled but the rules were still there. The rule that said "Stop processing other rules after this" apparently includes the junk mail rules, even though they aren't listed.

My fault, which figured.

Still, I like Leopard quite a bit. I won't write down all my thoughts here. I've already written about Leopard on my Blog.

Re:So What

[AnotherShep]

I've connected to SMB shares, and I'm happy. What should I avoid doing? Also, lots of blue screens when you browse a network... ;)

Re:So What

[gb506]

Go peruse the Leopard:networking section of the Apple Support Discussion groups and you'll find that you're in the minority.

Re:Java complainers

[pshumate]

And for those of us that don't have the skill or time to make our own JDK? Or aren't entirely sure what a JDK is? We should just STFU and deal with it, when we've come to expect (based on track record) that the system "just works"?

Re:Java complainers

[Jano-r]

Duplicating the effort of apple in providing the quartz pipeline that provides resolution independent for 2d graphics in java won't get you java 6 any sooner.

Re:Java complainers

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah - tell an average user, they have to compile source code. Great idea.

Re:Java complainers

[not already in use]

Well, not supporting Java 6 kinda deviates from the whole "It Just Works" mantra, doesn't it?

It's Beta

[Anonymous Coward]

If companies have learned anything, it's that people will willingly pay to buy crap.

The first adpoters of any new technology essentially get shafted. Companies know that the consumers have no elgal recourse that they can persue.

The programmers know that no matter how crappy their code is, they are just simple programmers and can't be held accountable.

Software is great, release a steaming mound of code, get wads of cash.

Re:It's Beta

[mrv20]

Somehow 'elgal recourse' sounds a far more elegant option than merely suing them.

The good outweighs the bad

[virgil_disgr4ce]

I got Leopard with a new MacBook Pro; previously I have been using Tiger since it came out. I've come to the current conclusion that of all the changes in Leopard, the good ultimately outweighs the bad. A huge chunk of this is due to massively improved networking in Finder -- the "Shared" section in the left-hand list makes networking with my several other machines (windows, linux or otherwise) so much easier, faster, and logical. For whatever it's worth, this is one case where coming closer to windows was an improvement. However, this particular one, like its implementation in Windows, still suffers from the problem of DNS updating -- it doesn't appear to cache entries, and there's no way that I can find to force it to update (note: I'm a bit of a newb on that stuff, so I might be misunderstanding it).

My friends and I were both worried we'd have to actually go back to Tiger, but I've adapted quite quickly to the changes and find the overall experience dramatically improved. The speed increases are downright monumental; using spotlight is actually a viable idea now!

--Ted

Re:The good outweighs the bad

[tf23]

[...]still suffers from the problem of DNS updating -- it doesn't appear to cache entries, and there's no way that I can find to force it to update
[...] Try this:

dscacheutil -flushcache

In 10.4 it was

lookupd -flushcache

Re:The good outweighs the bad

[Tony Hoyle]

They haven't made the networking a whole lot better than 10.4 - it's presented better, and now you can occasionally see a list of machines (only windows machines, and not all of them, but at least it's a list.. plus for some bizarre reason the list doesn't include osx machines) but they still haven't figured out login - you still have to enter a username/password for every single network share and store it in your keyring even though you're logged into the active directory (smbclient -k works so it's merely the UI that's busted). Of course that means if you change your password you've got to manually re-login to every share again and update your keyring.

They also haven't got WINS working yet - as in 10.4 there's a place to enter the server IP (not the name, oddly) but it still only uses broadcast to find the machine so can't find the machines in the other subnet even though the wins server (and all the windows and linux boxes) have no issues finding them.

Re:The good outweighs the bad

[Firehed]

I quite agree. The only serious improvement they've made to networking support in Leopard is that the Finder doesn't commit suicide if you're disconnected from a network share unexpectedly. I've had the opposite experience as to what shares show up in the devices list (Macs show up fine, Windows boxes only if I've manually connected - though I think this has to do with the Bonjour protocol) but the reliability is still a touch flaky and not having the equivalent of a "Map Network Drive -%gt; Reconnect at Login" is completely unacceptable.

As simple as OS X makes networks, it's still hugely lacking in power - something that's not really the typical case with Macs. Often times it's simple but there are powerful controls underneath, but network share support still largely sucks. Airport Disks (USB drives on an Apple router) have become distinctly worse with Leopard, as that's the one network share utility that did auto-mount shares. Why they haven't completely copied the Microsoft (and likely Linux; I can't say thanks to lack of experience) approach with mapping/disconnecting/remapping network drives and a little X through the icon if the share is unavailable continues to perplex me. Why the hell can't I right-click a mounted drive and tick a "connect to this drive whenever it's available" box?

So far, so good.

[tgibbs]

I've installed Leopard on one of my Macs so far. I even did an upgrade install instead of the far safer "Archive & Install," which creates a new, pristine System Folder. I was amazed at how smoothly it went. It's pretty much gone as expected. Low level utilities and system customizations mostly don't work (although I had some pleasant surprises--Default Folder X seems to work OK) or have minor glitches). Applications generally work fine. The only major failure I've seen at this point is Photoshop 7, which now crashes on launch. On the other hand, some minor bugs seem to have evaporated.

Overall, I'm happy that I installed it. I am particularly pleased with Time Machine, which is far more convenient and intuitive than my current backup system, not to mention the additional safety of having hourly backups. I'm also beginning to use the built-in virtual desktop feature. I'd say that these two features are worth the price of admission

I'm not crazy about the esthetics. They certainly are no improvement, but they are not terrible. I'm giving the glitzy new Dock a chance--I've even put it down at the bottom of the screen for a while to see if I'll warm to it (I'm used to making it very small and stashing it over on the right). I have my doubts about the value of the feature that pops up icons of the files associated with a Dock item. I think I preferred the old list method, but I never used that much. I'm using the Finder again a bit, although I still prefer Path Finder for most actions.

Overall, I'd say it was a successful roll-out.

Re:So far, so good.

[An. (Coward)]

I don't know if you're aware of this or not, or if it's an issue for you, but if you use FileVault to encrypt your home directory, you should be aware that Time Machine backs up things like your Applications directory hourly, but doesn't do the same with your home directory--that gets backed up only when you log out of your account. If you ask me, this is a big problem that seriously undermines Time Machine's usefulness, as I tend to remain logged in unless I have a good reason to log out (such as a required restart after a software upgrade). I'm really surprised Apple did something that bone-headed.

Re:So far, so good.

[tgibbs]

I don't know if you're aware of this or not, or if it's an issue for you, but if you use FileVault to encrypt your home directory, you should be aware that Time Machine backs up things like your Applications directory hourly, but doesn't do the same with your home directory--that gets backed up only when you log out of your account.

I only use FileVault on my laptop, and there isn't enough hard disk space for Time Machine to be all that useful--I do periodic network backups to my Desktop machine using a file sync utility--and that is backed up by Time Machine.

I can see a lot of potential problems with backing up FileVault protected volumes on Time Machine. If the backup is not itself encrypted, then you would be throwing away all of the security that you gain with FileVault. And if you back up the encrypted FileVault image, then every little change would require a backup of the entire image, and if Time Machine tried to do hourly backups then you would run out of hard disk space in no time.

So backing up at log out is a reasonable compromise. After all, FileVault only provides security when you are logged out, so most people who use FileVault probably log out fairly frequently. I suppose that a more sophisticated solution could be devised if there is really much demand for it--maybe your FileVault image could include a separate partition for Time Machine backups, but I'm hardly surprised that Apple did not have this worked out for the first release of Time Machine.

Re:So far, so good.

[An. (Coward)]

I'm no OS expert, but I don't think it's necessary to back up the entire image. All Time Machine does is receive notifications that certain files have changed, then copies those files to your backup disk. Presumably the OS can generate the same notifications when a file is written to an encrypted disk image like your home directory. It seems like it should be simple to just have another encrypted disk image with the same key as your home directory, and have Time Machine write the files to that disk image on its regular schedule while you're logged in rather than backing up your whole home directory disk image when you log out.

Re:Java complainers

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think the average user is going to be writing java.

Fixed the Headline

[Udo Schmitz]

Early Adopters Suffer For The Rest of Us

There, that's better

Re:Fixed the Headline

[daybot]

Early Adopters Suffer The Rest of Us

Fixed it for you...

Re:Fixed the Headline

[Geoff]

Agreed. The principle is pretty much a truism for any technology out there. I'm more than happy to be the second or third person on the block, for just these reasons.

Re:Fixed the Headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Somehow I just can't picture the early adopter thinking to himself, "I really don't want to have to do this, but somebody's got to suffer for everyone else".

Surprise surprise

[tomcatuk]

So Apple are able to write software that runs reasonably well on hardware they design and control - hurrah! I hardly see how this is in anyway comparable to what Microsoft is doing when it attempts (albeit badly with Vista as the obvious example) to write code that will run on an almost infinite variety of machines they don't have any part of the design of.

Re:Surprise surprise

[dave420]

Vista isn't as bad for most folks as lots of the coverage is stressing. I'm no zealot, and I bought a Dell with Vista installed, just so I could check it out (and remove it and put XP on it if what everyone was saying was true). It flies. It uses resources intelligently, is really slick and speedy, and does everything I want. I'd use Ubuntu if it did everything I wanted, and if not I'd use OS X. As it is neither do, so I'm stuck with Windows :)

3rd Party hardware

[bhima]

All of my Leopard update problems stem from 3rd party hardware.

Highpoint apparently will not be updating their drivers for the PCI-X RAID cards and using the Mac OS 10.4 drivers allows for accessing your drives in some sort of freaky read-only state. This caused a cascade of bizarre problems, culminating in my iTunes database and my iPod being corrupted. I suppose this comes from the actual MP3s residing on a read only partition (which claimed to be read write). So I guess I'll be buying a new RAID card soon and you can bet it won't be a highpoint product.

I've got a few other issues but nothing I can point back to Apple and complain about.

My biggest complaint is that I want to buy a new MacPro and they haven't updated them in quite some time.

Re:3rd Party hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

All of my Leopard update problems stem from 3rd party hardware. Well all my problems with Vista came from 3rd party hardware... oh wait a minute.

Re:3rd Party hardware

[xjerky]

Dude, just so you know, new MacPros were released just yesterday.

Re:3rd Party hardware

[mailseth]

Highpoint has updated their drivers. Re-download "v1.10". Here's the link that HPT support sent me:
http://www.hptmac.com/US/productfiles/bios_driver/rr222x-mac-v110-110107.dmg

Re:3rd Party hardware

[bhima]

I find news that MacBookPros were updated but not MacPros.

Re:3rd Party hardware

[retiredtwice]

"My biggest complaint is that I want to buy a new MacPro and they haven't updated them in quite some time"

Actually, they updated them -yesterday- !!!

Santa Rosa chipset, 2.6 ghz, and added a 250G 5400 rpm drive to the options. Minor stuff, but welcomed. Made me cancel my order from 2 days ago and go for the new options.

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?nnmm=browse&mco=7B723642&node=home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro

Re:3rd Party hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac Pro != Mac Book Pro. The latter were just updated, not the former, but it's nice of you to help GP stay abreast of news he otherwise probably never would have seen.

Re:Java complainers

[FranTaylor]

Dude, I work with Java all the time. Some vendors are having a tough enough time supporting Java 5. Java is very important, but it takes development effort to do a good port, and Apple has been very busy lately. Face it, there are not a lot of Java 6 apps. If you really have to run one, get a Linux box, or run one in VMware.

Like I said, it's in Fedora 8, which is shipping any day now. If OSX actually had dedicated java developers, they'd be all over this, and they'd have their JDK just about ready, too. You don't have to be a developer to help out with a port. If you can run java programs and fill out good bug reports, then you can be a big help. If OSX supposedly has so many dedicated users, they should be able to pull this off in a snap! If RedHat can do it...

Re:Java complainers

[damaki]

Have you already tried to compile Sun's Java? It's a painful mess. I tried it once for OpenBSD, never again...
Far too much stuff to compile, needs several GB of free space.

Filevault problems

[mikael_j]

I installed Leopard this morning, at first everything seemed to work but then I made the mistake of running software update and then rebooting resulting in Leopard complaining about my Filevault partition being corrupted.

After about an hour of screwing around I had managed to get access to my files by making a .sparseimage file out of the Filevault file, deleting my account and then recreating the account and granting it admin rights, all of this through single-user mode with apple's wonky terminal apps, but hey. At least it works now! :)

I found a pretty big thread about this on Apple's support forums so it seems I'm not the only one with this problem.

/Mikael

Re:Filevault problems

[mikael_j]

I actually agree that Filevault not working when upgrading is a serious drawback and even more so that the fix requires screwing around in the terminal, but at least there's a way to fix it. When I upgraded an Ubuntu install with encrypted /home, /var and swap a couple of versions back it decided to stop mounting the encrypted partitions, took the better part of a day to get any kind of access to those partitions and I never could get it to mount them again and ended up settling on the trusted backup and reinstall path..

/Mikael

Re:Filevault problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Thankfully, OS X "just works" and even your mom can use it.

Other OS releases

[russotto]

Just the same, the article notes, there have been no major problems and (compared to other OS launches) Leopard kicked off fairly well.

I don't know about that. I haven't gotten my copy of Leopard yet. The people who I know who have had things go fairly smoothly. But so have the people who upgraded to Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon -- just minor problems. IIRC, Debian had a release a little while ago and there were no major problems with that either. I don't recall any major problems with Panther, Leopard, Edgy, or Feisty either. Perhaps "a few minor problems" is NORMAL for OS releases, and total disasters <cough>Vista</cough> are the exception.

(Oh, and anyone who used the Unsanity APE and didn't remove it before upgrading really ought to know better. The similarity of "haxies" to "hacks" isn't just marketing. Nor is the company name)

Re:Other OS releases

[ubernostrum]

(Oh, and anyone who used the Unsanity APE and didn't remove it before upgrading really ought to know better. The similarity of "haxies" to "hacks" isn't just marketing. Nor is the company name)

From what I've seen on the issue, it appears that Logitech installed an ancient version of APE as part of one of their driver bundles, and so there were a fair number of people with said ancient APE lying around on their drives without their ever realizing it.

Re:Other OS releases

[russotto]

Hmm. How do you hit a company with a rolled-up newspaper? Bad Logitech! Bad!

Re:Other OS releases

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple's whole X/10.5/Leopard naming mess is a little screwy, but at least I don't have to run an OS called "Gutsy Gibbon".

Re:Other OS releases

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the latest version is Fistfucking Fawn.

Re:Other OS releases

[Stamen]

It's sad really, Logitech use to rock, but I'm getting more and more disappointed with their products. Am I really only left with Microsoft mice (which admittedly are good mice)?

Any opinions out there on really good quality mice, that work well in both Windows and OS X?

Re:Other OS releases

[MsGeek]

You don't need to install the Logitech drivers to make your Logitech mouse work. The Marble Mouse is my pointing device of choice, and I have NEVER installed their drivers. Right click works, trackball scroll works, and that's with Mac OS X internal support. So the stupid little internal buttons don't work. BFD. I don't miss them.

Re:Other OS releases

[bar-agent]

there were a fair number of people with said ancient APE lying around on their drives without their ever realizing it

Ancient Ape? I thought the new Ubuntu was Hardy Heron!

Installed for 5 days

[fermion]

Computer does not seem slower, but it does not seem faster. No major problems other than a problem at shutdown. Less that a gig or ram, 1 gig processor. Spaces works pretty fast.

The only GUI issue I have is that it is no longer easy to tell if an application is open from the images on the dock. Perhaps switch back to the old look and feel.

As far as developer problems, and resulting application problems, so of this simply stems from the compromise apple has made. Apple has always treated developers like paid professionals and user like, well, paying customers. This may not be right choice, but it gives users a much better overall system. One implication of this is that the Applications are often not ready as soon as the OS is. OTOH, as any sysadmin knows, one does install a brand new OS on production machines. That is why I am phasing in the installation. I can see what works and what does not, and if the OS is ready. I may or may not install the OS on my main machines for several weeks.

Re:Installed for 5 days

[XnavxeMiyyep]

You can switch the dock back to its old appearance with this information.

I have yet to try it though, as I don't have Leopard.

Re:Java complainers

[FranTaylor]

Why are you complaining? If Java "just works" then you should be able to run your app just as well on a linux box. Your nifty new mac will run linux very well in VMware. If your are so damned motivated to run a Java 6 app on your mac, then you won't mind doing a little extra work. What is this Java 6 application that you absolutely must run, anyway?

What's the freaking big deal?

[jvd]

I mean, you can install a Trojan like that on a Unix-like (other than OS X) machine if you follow ALL the necessary steps to install it. The problem is not whether it's possible to install a Trojan on certain operating systems; the problem is the easiness of how it can be done. In Mac OS X you have to click through several screens to "get infected" while on Windows you're only one click away of getting infected. That's the difference.

HMmm

[Anonymous Coward]

No major issues?

And there I was thinking that automatically TURNING OFF the Mac firewall becuase of an upgrade was a pretty serious thing.

What is funny is the different views Mac and Windows users have, I mean these problems would have been hyped up no-end had it been a Windows OS, yet because its Mac it's "OK" to have a few issues.

Right?

My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[TheRaven64]

I installed Leopard on the release day, and it's not without problems. First, the good:

• The kernel no longer sucks. XNU is actually a pretty nice kernel now. When the open source release is done, I might even consider running OpenDarwin on some systems (Launchd is pretty nice too, and the new security frameworks are pretty shiny). This is the first OS X system that my mmap torture test failed to kill.
• The new unified look is definitely an improvement.
• Spotlight actually works. In Tiger it was a complete waste of space and resource.
• RAM usage is way down (or, rather, the new VM subsystem handles swapping a lot better). Leopard works okay in 512MB of RAM on an Intel system. Tiger felt a bit cramped in 1GB.
• Terminal.app is much improved. Bye bye iTerm.
• Preview is much improved. I can now ditch PDFPen (buggiest piece of crap I've ever had to use) and may AppleScript hack to reopen windows when I update a PDF from LaTeX.

Some of the bad:

• The menu bar is hideous unless you set your desktop background colour to black. If anyone happens to meet the UI designer who thought a transparent menu bar was a good idea, please slap them once for every Leopard user (two million slaps and counting...)
• The new look doesn't work with Aqua widgets. Third party apps will all need updating to use the newer widgets.
• I got a kernel panic which wiped out my home directory after about a day of use. Might have been a hardware issue (CPU failed to respond to IPI was the error). Made me very glad I keep regular backups...
• Time Machine doesn't work properly with File Vault. It only performs backups when you log out (and how often do laptop owners do that? Once a month?) and you don't get any of the nice revision control stuff: you can do a full restore by booting from the install CD, but that's it. This forces laptop users to make a choice between security and safety for their data. Good call Apple.
• Spaces is really buggy. Switching spaces sometimes restacks your windows (you can see why it happens, but it's still wrong). There is a race condition in the NSWorkspace code that causes new windows to sometimes open in the wrong space. No ability to pin windows, rather than apps, to all desktops.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[King_TJ]

A few comments:

First and foremost, if you haven't seen it already, check out the mod someone did to the dock to make it "rainbow glass". (The rainbow effect might not be your thing, but you can use slight variations of what they did to change it to any color of "tinted glass" you like, making it much easier to see.)

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=516253&posted=1

If you want a non-transparent top menu bar, see here:

http://www.manytricks.com/blog/?id=10

I agree on Time Machine.... It's very cool, overall, but needs a little more work. (For example, Apple's solution to incompatibilities with their Aperture application is to exclude Aperture's photo database from your backups. Great... so if I'm a pro photographer, Time Machine can't even back up the most important data on my whole system for me?) It also needs a fix (supposedly coming soon) to allow using a shared disk off an Apple Airport Extreme router.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[jameshowison]

@PDFPen and Preview re-opening, perhaps you should check out Skim.app:

http://skim-app.sourceforge.net/

It does auto re-reading for use in a LaTeX workflow, but it has a pile of other features, most obviously hugely improved PDF annotations and a great full-screen reading/note-taking mode. Persistent pop-ups for checking diagrams or screen-shots while reading text and roll-over pop-ups of link destinations (great for skiming and checking references in Scientific papers).

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[Altus]

one issue I have found with spaces is the inability to set finder to "all spaces". I want to have finder windows in every space for drag and drop. I don't want to change spaces just to browse the file system.

This is a bit of a pain... but if it pisses me off enough I will just stop using spaces. Not a huge loss.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[0100010001010011]

You can't Command-Click URLs in Terminal anymore. As long as I can remember (OS 8 days) if you Command-Double clicked on a URL it opened the URL. I used this all the time in Ircle and definitely use it all the time now with irssi and pork. For some reason this doesn't work in the "new" terminal.

Spotlight is so much faster now finding applications that it's replaced QuickSilver.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[GiMP]

I agree on Time Machine.... It's very cool, overall, but needs a little more work. (For example, Apple's solution to incompatibilities with their Aperture application is to exclude Aperture's photo database from your backups. Great... so if I'm a pro photographer, Time Machine can't even back up the most important data on my whole system for me?) It also needs a fix (supposedly coming soon) to allow using a shared disk off an Apple Airport Extreme router.

There are hacks to get TimeMachine-over-the-network working, I'm expecting someone will have this automated before too long.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[TheRaven64]

I don't remember the old terminal having that feature - getting it was one of the things I liked in iTerm - but there is now an Open URL item in the terminal context menu if you right-click on a URL.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[0100010001010011]

Do you have to select it first? That was what was fast about the old method.
Command-Double Click and it figured out the start and end of the URL.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[Geoff]

RAM usage is way down (or, rather, the new VM subsystem handles swapping a lot better). Leopard works okay in 512MB of RAM on an Intel system. Tiger felt a bit cramped in 1GB.

This is interesting. Are you saying that overall memory usage is actually down in Leopard, or just that paging isn't as huge a penalty? I'm curious because it kills me when my Tiger system with 1.5GB starts paging. This alone could be enough reason to jump on the Leopard train.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[rekoil]

You can automate it in one line:

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[TheRaven64]

No. Right clicking anywhere on the URL gives that option. Selecting all of the URL will also work, but selecting part of it only works if that part is also an URL.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[TheRaven64]

The VM subsystem has been seriously overhauled. I think the biggest improvement is that the page fault handler is now either preemptible or just very fast (I haven't looked at the code to find out which). In Tiger, nothing (including context switches to apps that are not swapping) happens while a page fault is being handled. This makes the system's performance degrade very suddenly when you run out of RAM. Since page faults were so expensive to handle (probably due to Mach overhead, since the VM subsystem was down in the Mach layer) any program that used mmap was insanely slow (an order of magnitude slower than using POSIX aio, while the two are about the same speed on FreeBSD).

I wrote a simple program that mmaps a 2GB file and scans through quickly modifying each page in turn in a tight loop. This means that you are basically reading in and then writing out 2GB of data via the page fault handler. On Tiger, the entire system would freeze if you tried this. On Leopard, it slowed down a bit, but was still useable. This test program grew to use about 1.45GB of my 2GB of RAM, but even with only 512MB left for other programs (and I was running about a dozen of them) and constant page faults from this process the system was still useable. There was a little lag, but it was not anywhere near as bad as I've seen Tiger get.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[benbean]

Try this:

Open System Preferences / Exposé and Spaces and got to the Spaces tab. In Finder open /System/Library/CoreServices and drag and drop Finder.app into the Application Assignments box in the Spaces preference pane. Change the "Space" drop down next to Finder to "Every Space".

Your Finder windows should now be on every space.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[failedlogic]

I agree. Terminal.app, Preview, Spotlight and Memory usage are much improved. On my iMac G5 w/ 1 GB RAM memory usage is considerably down and I can run more apps at the same time. It makes using Adobe CS2 much more enjoyable. YMMV. Automator, which wasn't mentionned, is really a point and click operation and much simplified. I didn't use it in Tiger but am enjoying using it now with Leopard (not for everything) but the GUI is cleaner anyways.

Coverflow rocks. It quite fast on my system - much more so than iTunes albums ever were. I have a lot of PDFs, and using Coverflow which shows an image of the first page helps me identify the file right away. Handy if you use academic articles, forget to rename it and try to remember what 012434fddf.pdf has as contents.

My only grudge at this point is the Icon Previews. There doesn't seem to be a way to disable it either on the desktop or in Finder in icon view mode. Leopard is displaying the picture of the contents of the file (which is either rendered in QuickTime or Corewhatever). Either case my system with its limited CPU and RAM, slows to a crawl with this feature. I'd appreciate it if there was a way to disable this.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[I'm Don Giovanni]

"I got a kernel panic which wiped out my home directory after about a day of use. Might have been a hardware issue (CPU failed to respond to IPI was the error). Made me very glad I keep regular backups..."

I laughed at the way you reported this. You "buried the lead" (as news broadcasters would say). ;)

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[Trillan]

To be fair, Spotlight was only a complete waste in the early releases of TIger. It actually improved in one of some of the double point release and was pretty decent by the end. It's certainly better in Leopard, though.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[Geoff]

That's awesome! Thanks.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[Anonymous Coward]

Any hacks to deal with how folders in the dock are dealt with? Right now it just makes an ugly mess piling all the icons in the folder on top of each other.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[Anonymous Coward]

The kernel no longer sucks

Well whoop de doo. Can't they find something a bit more critical to work on, like desktop themes?

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[Mr. Underbridge]

So I'm sitting with a 1.25 GHz PB with 512MB of RAM. I was planning to avoid Leopard because Tiger was a helluvalot slower than Panther, and I assumed Leopard would be worse still. Do you think Leopard would be better than Tiger for such an antiquated system? Do the paging improvements tend to reduce the 'beach ball effect'?

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[Anonymous Coward]

Out of the bad stuff, I think the transparent menu is the most harmless one. It's not hard at all to add a black strip on the top of your wallpapers. It's annoying and should've been unnecessary, but it can be resolved fast, especially if you have Photoshop and create a droplet to do it.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[SkipRosebaugh]

If you're using FileVault and you want safety, you're an idiot. Because god knows encrypting your entire home directory as a single disk image could never blow up in your face.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[vocaro]

I may AppleScript hack to reopen windows when I update a PDF from LaTeX.

If you do, feel free to use my Reload Preview Document script as a starting point.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[ToasterMonkey]

Time Machine doesn't work properly with File Vault. It only performs backups when you log out (and how often do laptop owners do that? Once a month?) and you don't get any of the nice revision control stuff: you can do a full restore by booting from the install CD, but that's it. This forces laptop users to make a choice between security and safety for their data. Good call Apple. To be fair, that sounds like a feature. Creating unencrypted backups of your home directory would defeat the purpose of File Vault wouldn't? There must be an option somewhere to back them up anyway if you really trust your backup destination, or organizational policies allow. When you log out, your home directory is unmounted and the encrypted disk image is backed up.. sounds like a good compromise of security/convenience.

It's never safe to assume encrypted files can be copied unprotected.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[fbartho]

Aperture has it's own backup system: Vaults

You can set it to use that.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[Anonymous Coward]

you can shift cmd click for the same effect.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[Hatta]

Terminal.app is much improved. Bye bye iTerm.

Does pgup/pgdown work with irssi now?

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[Anonymous Coward]

I misread your subject as: "My name is Raven, and I'm an alcoholic"

It's funny how when reading the rest of your post I wasn't confused at all... :P

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[TheRaven64]

Sorry, that was a typo and should have read 'my AppleScript hack.' I have had a hack in my LaTeX Makefile to do it for ages (PDFVIEWER is defined as 'osascript ... ; open'), and can now get rid of it.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[TheRaven64]

Why would they have to be copied unencrypted? The correct way of implementing it would be to:

1. Create a Time Machine folder inside the disk image.
2. Initially duplicate the disk image on the backup disk.
3. Store versioning information for files in the disk image.
4. Sync that with the contents of the disk image on the backup disk whenever it was connected, requiring the user to be logged in and have their keychain unlocked (or to provide their password) or provide the File Vault master password.

The File Vault disk image uses an HFS+ filesystem and so can use the same trick the File Vault does on the main disk for differential backups. You get the full versioning features of Time Machine and the security of File Vault. Requiring the user to be logged in to perform a backup is a lot more likely to conform to normal usage patterns than requiring them to be logged out.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[Anonymous Coward]

Terminal.app is much improved. Bye bye iTerm.

Unless of course you use tabs a lot, and like to be able to switch to a particular tab out of several in the front window. Apple's choice of keyboard shortcut (cmd { and cmd }) is awkward for me (a touch-typist whose Apple-made keyboard puts { and } a good pinkie stretch away from the ; key, and requires a full hand movement off the home row (or at the very least moving the index finger away from the raised-bump F key) to accomplish a command+shift chord). Command-1, command-2, command-... in Terminal takes me to a different Terminal window.

iTerm by comparison lets me use command 1, command 2, ... for the open tabs. Thumbing the right command key makes finding the home row again pretty easy. I hope Terminal eventually lets me bind particular tabs in the front window (or any tab in any window) to a key combination, but there are no shortcuts for this right now. :-(

So iTerm will stick around for me.

Instruments.app in XCode 3 is a very very neat new toy, and I bet if you use that to examine your apps on your small-memory machine you'll notice a lot of garbage collection in the cocoa system frameworks. This leads to occasional CPU spikes (Finder and Mail seem prone to doing this) but Safari 3 doesn't go away for nearly as long as it did in 10.4 when you open a bunch of slashdot tabs, for example. It also doesn't crash horribly when RPRVT hits 2Gbytes, even on 32-bit platforms... (also /System/Library/Frameworks/WebKit.framework/Versions/Current/Webkit is a 4-architecture universal binary (ppc,ppc64,i386,x86_64 as are WebCore and other related libraries, although Safari.app is only ppc/i386).

To facilitate ObjC 2 GC, dirty page flushing (as you discovered with your mmap stress test) and zero-filled page reclaim (COW, MOE respectively) has been sped up enormously, in part thanks to cleaning up and using madvise(2)'s MADV_SEQUENTIAL, MADV_WILLNEED, MADV_DONTNEED and MADV_FREE.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[Altus]

Cool, I didn't know where Finder.app lived. Ill give that a try, thanks.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[Trillan]

It's worth noting that if you're having a lot of spinning wait cursors, you may be experiencing early signs of drive failure. Not a big deal, just watch for other signs (like not waking from sleep, sometimes not starting up properly, etc).

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[vocaro]

Actually, it looks like the Preview app in OS X 10.5 will now auto-reload PDFs when they change on disk.

Re:My name is Raven, and I'm an early adopter

[TheRaven64]

Yes, that's why I can now get rid of the AppleScript hack that reloaded manually...

Re:Java complainers

[Anonymous Coward]

There are PLENTY of Java 6 applications, but they are still initializing. Check back in a couple months and they might actually be running.

Vista Sucks?

[Zebra_X]

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20071030122926454

This list of problems is almost as staggering as Vistas issues. What's most interesting is that a number *Applications* don't work with Leopard.

At least Microsoft values backward compatibilty. Arguably Vista's internals changed significantly more than Leopard yet MS managed to maintain almost complete backward compatibility with old programs.

I mean, Photoshop 7 doesn't work with Leopard!?

Of course, what little hardware Mac has available is also having issues according to that list.

Better hope your hardware partners update their drivers!

Re:Vista Sucks?

[linuxgurugamer]

Backwards compatibility? Vista? Those two don't belong in the same sentence. Almost every publisher had to modify their apps in order to make it work properly with Vista. Hardware manufacturers had to modify their drivers, and now, over a year after the Vista release, there are still enough problems with Vista that many people are still choosing XP instead of Vista.

I run Vista, XP, and now OS X. I'm waiting for my upgrade to arrive, and don't expect too many problems. I only have Vista because some of my customers have it (against my advice), and those customers tend to have more service calls than the others.

Re:Vista Sucks?

[malevolentjelly]

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/99a95df6-04e6-46eb-bb65-6404cd215e641033.mspx

Well, friendly "professional"- you should use Program Compatibility Wizard! ;)

I find it hilarious that people respond to apparent incompatibility by switching to Mac- a platform that suffers from such serious compatibility issues that you need to refresh your software library on almost a yearly basis. Why don't you equate your mac use with using Vista on newer compatible PC hardware with all brand new applications that are Vista-compatible. It's like your PC IS A MAC NOW.

People just demand so much more from PC's while lauding so much less from Apple- it's just... weird.

Re:Vista Sucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Beta releases count as release date? It was released what late November 2006? And this is November 2 2007. So how is that over a year?

Re:Vista Sucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

At least Microsoft values backward compatibilty. Arguably Vista's internals changed significantly more than Leopard yet MS managed to maintain almost complete backward compatibility with old programs. Some people might argue against this assertion.

Re:Vista Sucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like server administration tools that don't work with vista? A first party product even.

Re:Vista Sucks?

[Zebra_X]

Comapre the list... it's almost as long as leopard's and yet the application base is far larger on windows - it's probably 10% of the total applications listed on those pages. In addition why would anyone expect that a none updated Firewall/IDS program or AV program would work with vista? Some of the apps listed there are from 2000 - 2001 how many mac apps still work from OS 9?

Re:Vista Sucks?

[mdwh2]

Almost every publisher had to modify their apps in order to make it work properly with Vista.

Really? Examples?

Re:Vista Sucks?

[BZ]

Firefox had to make a number of changes, for example. You can search bugzilla.mozilla.org for resolved bugs with "vista" in the summary if you care.

Re:Vista Sucks?

[linuxgurugamer]

I base my comments on 30 years of experience. What do you base yours on? I am not an OS zealot. I use what works, which is why I am using XP for my main desktop. I use Linux for my servers, and the Mac is only a learning experience. You state that you "need to refresh your software library on almost a yearly basis"? On what do you base that on? It's been over two years since the Tiger (OS X 10.4) was released. On my brand new Mac, I'm still using my XP applications that are years old. For example, I'm using Office 2003. Why should I upgrade to 2007 since it introduces incompatibilities with older versions of Office. I upgrade what I need, and will not upgrade simply because a big company says that I have to. While I'm still learning the Mac OS, time and again I hear from people that once the small learning curve is over that the Mac is much easier to use. Also, it doesn't crash. XP doesn't crash that much these days, but it still isn't as stable as OS X.

Re:Vista Sucks?

[malevolentjelly]

Your handle is "linuxgurugamer". Everyone knows that games don't run in linux- unless you're using an embedded application. :(

Let me clarify as not to sound belligerent or stupid:

I'm talking about comparing a Mac to a Vista machine. If you put the compatibility constraints on a windows system that would be intrinsic in using a mac, i.e. stay close to first party, native OSS (no GTK) for anything else, and don't use your machine like a child- it'll be basically the same experience. The illusion of mac as being more stable, etc is simply that of using first party software and hardware across the board.

In the world of games- it's way easier to develop a 360 game than a PC game- because of hardware support. For Apple to fail on the QA end is simply pathetic, their target is so small you could fit their entire product line in a small room.

I have been using all three of the "ONLY OS's ON THE PLANET" plus Solaris for a while now, and I have found OS X to be about as stable as XP or Vista, all things considered. It may not blue screen, but it "pretty transparent restart screen"'s and occasionally just ejaculates console feed all over the screen. Don't be fooled!

Just because windows has an exception handler doesn't mean it's unstable.

Re:Vista Sucks?

[mdwh2]

Thanks for the info, but okay, so there exists one program which had bugs on a new OS release. That's not really support for the original claim, and we don't even know if this was a problem in Vista, as opposed to a Firefox bug that simply didn't show up in earlier Windows versions. Nor is there evidence that this is any more of a problem than happens with any other new release of an OS.

I'm waiting for more reports...

[Anonymous Coward]

Us Getto mac users that dare to use incredibly out of date Machines like the dual core G5 have to lurk until we hear from other shameful old hardware users report in.

Everyone has been reporting good things have been using the shiney new intel mac's. I have yet to read anyone using G5's reporting good bad or indifferent.

but then I probably wont upgrade for a while anyways. I like 10.4 and I even like FCS 1 and am not planning on upgrading to FCS2 yet.

I hide my mac shame... I dont run the latest shiney... I also use a 3rd Gen ipod. Shameful me.

Re:I'm waiting for more reports...

[e4g4]

I've seen it running just fine on several PPC machines - my iBook G4 (1.25 GB RAM, 1.07 GHz), a pbook G4, a flower pot imac, an out of spec ibook g4 (700MHz) and (amazingly) a g4 cube. I've had no problems with any of my apps (except KisMAC, which has been having some problems related to it being declared illegal in Germany, the place where it was "born"), and only noticed some minor annoyances with spaces and bringing the correct window to the foreground on a switch.

Re:Java complainers

[mattgreen]

Wait, given that Java is Sun's baby, why does Apple have to provide anything? Java 6's lack of inclusion in Leopard just means that Apple doesn't want to keep up with it anymore. I'm pretty sure they announced they weren't going to maintain the Java bindings any longer, so that is why they didn't include it.

Why should it be included with the base OS? Some customers may prefer not to have the bloated JVM automatically installed.

Re:Java complainers

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as we're using acronyms, let me be the first to say: GTFO, troll. I'm not sure why you think anybody cares about your opinion.

Re:Java complainers

[pshumate]

I'm not complaining, since I don't have any Java 6 apps that must be run. I'm asking why someone's so critical of people that ARE complaining. And why is "run Linux" the go-to answer, most of the time? Why should I have to run another OS? Those that absolutely have to run something with Java 6, then yeah, I suppose they would put forth the extra work. My question is, why should they?

X11 Server is totally broken

[GrumpyOldMan]

The X11 server shipped with Leopard is utterly broken for people who make heavy use of X (broken dual monitor support, no full screen mode, X11 Applications custom menu times do not work, X may not launch because it depends on launchd tricks, etc). If you upgrade to Leopard, do NOT install X11. If you've already upgraded, and X doesn't work correctly, there are instructions online to downgrade to Tiger's X11: http://lists.apple.com/archives/x11-users/2007/Nov/msg00005.html

Re:X11 Server is totally broken

[mzs]

It is going in the right direction though. The goal is to have X11.app open source and a part of the most recent X from X.org. In fact the git repository is available and Ben Byer from apple (also an X maintainer) has been adding patches to fix many of the bugs basically daily. In fact yesterday or this morning William Mortensen submitted a patch to fix yet another bug and Ben added it to git. This really is a refreshing change to how things were for X11 land on apple before.

The mailing list is providing links to binaries to download and use instead. The list of fixed items stands at this currently (from the mailing list emails):

* X11 windows do not come to the front
* Yellow / invisible cursor on Intel platform
* Unable to drag windows between screens
* X11 apps don't "honor" the menu bar (meaning you can drag them underneath)
* Badly-formatted .xinitrc warning message
* Customized Apps menu items with arguments did not work
* Modifier keys (shift, control, etc) would get stuck if you switch away from X11 while holding down the key. ?If you still see this problem with anything other than Spaces (which is an entirely more complicated problem), please let me know.
* "Fake mouse button" fix ?-- Option-click should now emulate the middle mouse button, while Command-click should emulate the right mouse button
* stability fixes (added -DROOTLESS_WORKAROUND and fixed overflow bug with QueryFontReply)

Basically with these patched X11.app is again usable in Leopard unless you use Spaces. He asked help from the community to see places where the offset bug may be because he will soon have a meeting with those devs. Rarely have we had such an amazing opportunity to have this connection with the engineers inside Apple. Also Ben wrote an email today saying basically that he had spent a month trying to get full screen X working and he needs help from the community.

Personally I am glad we finally we are in a position to determine when and how we will have a modern and useful X server on Mac OS X.

Hem ... I had a good experience

[Vicegrip]

I know one person who had the blue screen problem however. I've heard it's related to 3rd party software that is incompatible with Leopard.

That said, I have to say that Leopard is a LOT of fun and I"m personally very pleased with the upgrade.

I like the changes to the email client the most, followed by the new backup system which is intuitive and beyond easy to use and setup. There so much new stuff.. iChat is still inferior to Adium though in my books. SMB support is noticeably improved and easier to use. The new developer tools are significantly better than the old stuff in my opinion as well.

I'm not sure why Java users are complaining. I'm pretty sure the DVD had the JRE/JDK on it which I manually installed along with all the the XCode stuff. Apple's own pages continue to refer to java as an important language for the OS. http://developer.apple.com/java/

I did not have any problems with the upgrade, but I did take some precautions before doing it. I downloaded Superduper (proprietary software but it works and you can use it cost-free for this purpose) and made a full bootable backup of the system. It took hours, but gave me a way to back-out of the installation. In the end everything was fine.

went better than Gutsy Gibbon...

[SuperBanana]

Most of Leopard's problems are traced back to bad 3rd party software that uses undocumented hooks.

Every Ubuntu user I know (~6 people) has had issues with the Gutsy upgrade; more than half of them "resolved" the issue by wiping the machine. Given that Ubuntu's development process is far more "open" and there was no "third party" software involved (none were using third party binary drivers), what's the excuse?

I've seen CUPS break so badly that it constantly "stops" all the printers. Monitor resolutions and scan rates that were completely wrong and required hand-editing Xorg's config file, when the old config had worked just fine. One machine had an ethernet port completely disappear- and it was the one the ethernet cable was plugged into! Most were machines in use by programmer types, who didn't go mucking about save what was available via the GUI, because they don't know linux well enough. I can't blame the user in these cases.

Even with the previous release, when I upgraded a very simple server, there were problems with device-mapper pegging the machine until I spent half an hour screwing around with it, and finally found a post and bug in the ubuntu bugtracker. Of course, the bug had been known for months, and do you think anyone bothered to release a fix? Nope!

Re:went better than Gutsy Gibbon...

[Ash-Fox]

Every Ubuntu user I know (~6 people)

I upgraded several (k)Ubuntu(-server) machines (five of which are not owned by me), I experienced no issues at all.

My only real annoyance was Dolphin now being the default file manager in Kubuntu, but default applications can easily be switched.

Given that Ubuntu's development process is far more "open" and there was no "third party" software involved (none were using third party binary drivers), what's the excuse?

I don't know. I can only say I haven't had issues.

I've seen CUPS break so badly that it constantly "stops" all the printers.

I've seen this happen on Linux, BSD, OS X. But not in the latest (k)Ubuntu(-server).

Monitor resolutions and scan rates that were completely wrong and required hand-editing Xorg's config file, when the old config had worked just fine.

Seen this happen on BSD, Linux, Solaris. But not in the latest (k)Ubuntu(-server).

One machine had an ethernet port completely disappear- and it was the one the ethernet cable was plugged into!

I haven't seen that happen before on any OS.. The closest related thing I can think of was OS X 10.4.9 not working with a particular macbookpro's internal wireless (yes, the one it came with - known issue with some macbookpros) after upgrading to it - requiring me to use a older version of OS X.

Even with the previous release, when I upgraded a very simple server, there were problems with device-mapper pegging the machine until I spent half an hour screwing around with it, and finally found a post and bug in the ubuntu bugtracker. Of course, the bug had been known for months, and do you think anyone bothered to release a fix? Nope!

My server setups tend to be quite complex... But even then, I haven't had any issues yet with ubuntu-server.

Never be an early adopter

[noewun]

For anything. I will go out and get 10.5 this weekend and raise a glass to all those who had it installed six minutes after it released. Thank you, my unpaid beta testers, for making my weekend easier!

I upgraded to Leopard last night.

[Penguin Follower]

So far all of my applications work just fine. I backed up my home folder, applications that don't come with OS X, and a couple other things, then popped in the Leopard disk and did an upgrade. No boot problems, no app problems. Nothing but goodness so far. :D I guess I am the exception. I use mostly free or opensource apps. I don't have a lot of expensive commercial software on it other than Carrara 3D (and the free Daz Studio). Neo Office works just fine. Etc....

Your Mileage May Vary

[Thumper_SVX]

I waited over the weekend to upgrade my Macbook Pro (first gen 15") to Leopard. And you know what? I'm happy I did it.

I did the upgrade on Monday night after using Carbon Copy Cloner to take a snapshot of my machine. And yes, to Windows folks that was a bootable image; I could reboot to my external USB drive if I wanted and CCC my machine back again... but I didn't have to.

So how did the upgrade process itself go? I inserted the Leopard DVD, clicked the icon to upgrade, waited for the reboot, clicked once and walked away to watch Mythbusters with my kids. By the time I came back upstairs to my laptop, I had a Leopard logon screen.

So I logged on to "survey the damage". You know what? I was impressed. Here are my first impressions:

1. 3rd Party Applications: The Missing Sync is broken. I knew that and expected that since they are notorious for lacking behind Apple updates. No worries, I don't really NEED it... sure it's nice, but it's not a requirement. Parallels worked, but networking was broken. A quick reinstall fixed that. Yahoo Messenger was busted out of the box, but I had Version 3 Beta 1... upgraded to the latest and voila, we're chatting with friends. My ancient copy of Photoshop 7 gave it up for the team. Even a reinstall wouldn't fix it. No problem, I have Aperture as well and rarely use Photoshop any more. Uninstalled, no worries. So out of all my apps, I had one casualty and a few "non-life threatening injuries". That's much better than my Vista experience.

2. Apple Applications: My first launch of Mail resulted in a "database upgrade" follwed by an immediate failure and Mail disappeared without so much as an error message. I launched it again and it's been fine since. I might delete my account and re-sync it... I love IMAP. Address Book and iCal are both greatly improved (as is Mail) and are actually useful tools now instead of toys. I see huge improvements here. Finder is significantly better, and though I do find the "embossed icons" to be a step backward in readability, the general improvements vastly improve the experience. Besides, I have faith this will be fixed either with a patch or a third-party hack. Everything else I've not really played with much.

3. General Usability: Wow. That's all I can say. The improvements over even the latest Tiger release are impressive. Although synthetic benchmarks show a very slight speed decrease on this platform, the general "feel" of the OS is significantly improved. Application launch times, app switching and generally USING the operating system make it feel like the system's actually been significantly improved. It's noticeable, and I have not really noticed any speed decreases at all apart from still seeming slow when I have my XP VM running in Parallels (rarely). At the end of the day, I get the impression that Leopard is faster, even if that's not backed up by the benchmarks. If the operating itself feels better, who cares what the benchmarks say anyway?

4. Other Notes: Wake from sleep is significantly improved. It used to be that I would open the lid of my laptop and I'd end up waiting for up to 15 seconds for a logon prompt. Now, the prompt is there within moments of me opening the lid. This significantly improves usefulness for me. Also, I thought that the "Coverflow" browsing would be a toy I'd bore of quickly. Quite the opposite... I've found it incredibly useful for going through busy and full folders so I can locate documents incredibly quickly. A+ on that feature!

5. The Bad: So far as I said, the only things I'll take issue with are the icons (embossed instead of clear icons) and a few things that I think need a little more work. The Stacks function... yuck. I don't like Stacks... I thought I would find it useful but it's just ugly. Not impressed, but I removed the default Documents and Application stacks from my dock... I'll use Quicksilver TYVM. Also, I've had one "grey curtains" failure (Mac owners know what I'm talking about) just a day after installation, but nothing since. It could well ha

Re:Your Mileage May Vary

[harrisg]

3. General Usability: Wow. That's all I can say. The improvements over even the latest Tiger release are impressive. Although synthetic benchmarks show a very slight speed decrease on this platform, the general "feel" of the OS is significantly improved. Application launch times, app switching and generally USING the operating system make it feel like the system's actually been significantly improved. It's noticeable, and I have not really noticed any speed decreases at all apart from still seeming slow when I have my XP VM running in Parallels (rarely). At the end of the day, I get the impression that Leopard is faster, even if that's not backed up by the benchmarks. If the operating itself feels better, who cares what the benchmarks say anyway? I've had the exact same experience. I installed Leopard on my 4 year old 12" Powerbook 867MHz G4 (yes, probably THE absolute slowest machine supported by Leopard) and I admit that the system felt a lot snappier. However I did notice that a recording off of my MythTV box (MPEG-2 file from a PVR-150) would not play smoothly with the latest copy of VLC. I never had problems playing these same recordings with VLC under Tiger (same version), but I'm going to give VideoLan a chance to release a few updates, it could be some kind of optimization issue.

Also, I thought that the "Coverflow" browsing would be a toy I'd bore of quickly. Quite the opposite... I've found it incredibly useful for going through busy and full folders so I can locate documents incredibly quickly. A+ on that feature! Same here, I laughed off cover flow as eye candy when Apple started pushing it everywhere, but it really is very useful.

The Stacks function... yuck. I don't like Stacks... I thought I would find it useful but it's just ugly. I found stacks to be more just limited than ugly. It reminds me of the pop-up tab windows in OS 9, except if they made it more customizable like a window then I'd probably find it very useful in grid mode. Speaking of which, the ability to modify the grid spacing for icon views may be my favorite goody of Leopard. It makes icon view usable again, something I've missed since OS 9. The only downside is that now I'll end up with a desktop full of 400 icons instead of 60!

Also, I've had one "grey curtains" failure (Mac owners know what I'm talking about) just a day after installation, but nothing since. I haven't even had an application crash yet much less a kernel pan^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H "grey curtains" yet, but then again I did do a clean reformat and install.

As I said in my subject, your mileage may vary... but my experience so far has been that Leopard is more than worth the upgrade... even if only for the significantly improved Finder. I couldn't agree more.

Re:Your Mileage May Vary

[JasonAsbahr]

My Leopard upgrade on a MacBook Pro 2.16GHz was totally smooth. Now the whole system seems snappier. I'm using Spaces with an external monitor attached, it updates the laptop LCD screen and external monitor just fine.

MissingSync will have a Leopard-compatible update ready soon, I can wait on that too.

Parallels networking also stopped working for me after the Leopard upgrade, but simply setting the network adapter again in the Parallels "Devices" menu fixed it right up, no reinstall required.

Also not too keen on the transparent menu bar, but I'm learning to live with it.

The cute effects in video iChat are fun the play with, I'm looking forward to sharing app views and photos through it.

Next up: upgrading a Mac Mini and setting up "Back To My Mac".

Re:Java complainers

[Anonymous Coward]

Java is very important, but it takes development effort to do a good port, and Apple has been very busy lately. Good job, iApologist.

Microsoft screws Java: they're LAZY and EVIL and BOYCOTT BOYCOTT BOYCOTT.
Apple screws Java: they're very busy.

software compatibility

[_|()|\|]

I upgraded an iMac at work and, after ensuring that the VPN client is compatible, a MacBook at home. The iMac at home stays on 10.4 until I have a Leopard-compatible SuperDuper. Time Machine looks cool and all, but I really like having a bootable backup.

In my case, OSXPlanet, GeekTool, MenuShade, and Butler have various levels of breakage. In the case of Butler, I'm trying out Spotlight as an application launcher (much faster than in 10.4), and I'm looking into System Events with AppleScript for keyboard macros. SSHKeychain seems to work, but 10.5 has a similar built-in feature that I'm trying out. Think still works, but only within a single virtual desktop. I'm not sure if that's a bug or a feature.

Two very very stable early MacOS releases

[davidwr]

MacOS releases 1.1 in 1984 and 2.0 in 1985 were extremely stable, considering they had no memory management to speak of and only rudimentary multitasking.

Of course, there was a lot less going on in a typical Mac than most machines today.

If you want stable and secure, run a proven-stable-and-secure OS like OpenBSD and run it as an appliance rather than a general-purpose PC. The fewer things you have going on, the less chance two things will interact badly and cause problems. You can achieve similar stability with most OSes if they are not on a network and only run a small, well-tested set of applications.

Re:Vista Sucks? (core OS vs 3rd party...)

[david.emery]

The very first line in the MacFixIt article is:
Leopard: Incompatible third-party software and hardware

Both Leopard and Vista suffer from 3rd party problems. But I'd submit that there was a significant list of problems within Vista without adding any 3rd party software, particularly in some of the security-related stuff (including that annoying security prompter, which triggered so many times as to result in a 'social engineering failure' to be useful...)

        dave

I think it's backlash from the Mac-Zealots

[FatSean]

You know, the clowns who insist that the Mac 'just works' and take every chance to deride users of Windows. If someone has a windows problem, they bray "Get a Mac!" Now, all of a sudden, their sacred cow isn't working like they say it should. I think some windows users are experiencing Shaedenfreud(sp) and rubbing it in.

Re:I think it's backlash from the Mac-Zealots

[smcdow]

In case anyone hasn't been paying attention, Apple's primary concern is portability across Apple products , not portability across myriad OS platforms. Apple could care less whether your application runs on a non-Apple product.

I thought everyone would have gotten this by now.

Re:I think it's backlash from the Mac-Zealots

[arminw]

.....Now, all of a sudden, their sacred cow isn't working like they say it should......

So far NOBODY here at /. or elsewhere AFAIK, has come up with any major bugs in the new Mac OS that are not connected in some way with third party hardware or software incompatibilities. The firewall issue is a irrelevant for most users, since a router/NAT box with a built in firewall sits between most home computers and the Internet these days. The firewall in Tiger was also turned off by default. Just as with VISTA, many Mac users will get the new OS with their new computer for Christmas and not experience problems until they attempt to install programs that are supposed to "enhance" or in other ways mess with the system.

Re:I think it's backlash from the Mac-Zealots

[Anonymous Coward]

but what you fail to understand is the problems people are complaining about are not the same issues that windows has (installation issues aside). We are mac users, if a color changes on a folder and we don't like it, we let the world know.

Very smooth. Snappy.

[jpellino]

I keep my iBook 1.33 bog-standard and here's what I've found:
It lies about the install time - my quoted 1.5 hrs turned into actual 35 min (no languages, no printers no dev tools).
Zero install issues.
The unified UI is a standout feature.
Coverflow+Quicklook together are a standout feature.
Data detectors - wonderful. iCal is now a serious calendaring app. We're almost back to Newton functionality ;-)
Spaces is a standout feature. Almost makes Expose needless.
I get FrontRow and PhotoBooth.
Classique c'est mort, but we knew that.
Spotlight indexing is the same as any previous install, the app is far better.
The Dock and Menubar look great with the space-y "defaultdesktop" pic - light desktops not so much, I can see where there are issues.

Microsoft gets bashed too often

[Saranoya]

Indeed ... Microsoft is catching a lot of flak they don 't necessarily deserve. And that 's coming from a loyal Apple user.

Pay closer attention

[porcupine8]

The insanely long and detailed ArsTechnica review (slashdotted a few days ago) is based entirely on using Leopard on G5s.

does it make sence in a windows world

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Macbook Pro and found it difficult to maintain the same level of functionality in a corporate windows environment as other coworkers using windows laptops.

I have problems with email integration with Exchange 2000 (that we still use here). When i try to use Entourage i get no access to Active Directory and therefore my contacts are populated, i have no access to shared Calendars [please do not tell me about Ical].
I find the fact that i cannot tie my login and password change/expiry to my corporate Active Directory also a problem.

I have some of the best looking document/reports thanks to pages but exporting that beauty to word docs is impossible so i rely on PDF format [for some people it is not a big deal].

Things are even worse when you have intranet sites that require activeX and IE or VB scripts that fail to work in Office 2004 for Mac.

Sharing my desktop similar to netmeeting is a standard method that most people would operate with team members in remote offices/continents.

Even though i have all these issues i still love my Mac and plan to get rid of my home PC and get a Mac mini (since i have a PS3 for games , hell consoles are for gaming anyway not PCs).

My question is, for better or worse the corporate world is driven by the most common desktop environment and microsoft tries very hard to ensure that their applications keep you locked into there core product (windows X). Even though i tell people that i have less to fear from viruses and trojans (yes i saw the recent news of the new one), i cannot recommend that in a predominantly windows corporate environment they will not have issues and i do not have any power to wield over the IT group to force then to change the eMial server , etc.

-Anon

P.s. i like being different, so i have a Linux desktop and thanks to crossover office i actually have an easier time using my OpenSuse 10.2 work desktop than my Mac (guess i should test Cxoffice for Mac now)

It's catching Linux now...

[Anonymous Coward]

"(solution - reboot to single user mode"
"(solution - bring up a termina" ...

Apple is near there, it'll be as unfriendly as Linux is just one or more releases...

Non problems so far

[Cannelloni]

I've had no problems at all so far. Except that I think Tiger had a much cleaner and slicker interface. I DON'T like the new dock and definitely NOT the translucent menu bar or the stupid side bar in the Finder windows. Horrible! The panels and windows are a darker grey, too. Those are NOT improvements. Tiger was so perfect... why did they have to change the UI? But, apart from those cosmetic issues: no technical problems. Works like a Swiss watch, is quick, and beautifully integrated with the hardware (a MacBook Pro). It really seems the guys at Apple know what they are are doing. I did an "archive and install" (so, so easy!) and all my apps work beautifully (and for some there are already minor updates available). Everything works as advertised, and it is definitely a nice, but by no means mandatory, upgrade. Apple, you did a great job on the nuts and bolts department, but the paint job is, well, blah.

All the annoyances are minor.

[FellowConspirator]

I never saw the blue screen, but I know better than to use a hack like APE.

For me, upgrading went with only one hitch: for no apparent reason, Leopard changed the name of my printer from "HP Photosmart 8200 series" to "HP Photosmart 8250". From the standpoint of the system, it made no difference, but from the standpoint of other systems in the house that were printing through my machine, they got confused because the queue had been renamed. Easy to fix, but an annoyance all the same.

Aesthetics are too subjective to consider anything but a minor annoyance -- the visual changes are pretty minor (actually, the untextured background to menus is a big plus for me).

As far as new features go, everything appears to work precisely as one would hope.

Choppy Animations w/ 3D Dock

[DXMikey]

First, after having waited years I finally purchased by 1st Mac - Macbook, 2.16ghz, 2G Ram, 120G HD. GMA950 graphics (stock), Superdrive.

I bought Leopard on the day it came out and did an archive/install. My impression is very favorable except for one annoying problem that many of us are experiencing with GMA 950 or NVidia graphics: Choppy/sluggish animations (genie, cover flow) with the 3D dock enabled. Running the 2D dock hack improves things immensely but still does produce the silky smooth animations inherent to Tiger.

I must say that I don't experience the issue quite as bad on the laptop display itself, but with the 20" WS (HP w2007) with the Mac in sleep mode, lid closed.

There have been many guesses as to what is causing the issue and Core Animation and display drivers in the 10.5.0 release are likely candidates.

Otherwise, rock solid. The FFMepgX author is promising a fix to the Applescript errors (only affects the bit rate calculator) in the next few days; Handbrake's MKV files fail to produce files readable by the Perian plug-in for Quicktime but otherwise still play in VLC. No other software incompatibility to report.

Happy with 10.5.0 and happily awaiting 10.5.1.

See ya's!

Why so moderate?

[Britz]

Leopard has some huge issues. In addition to the mentioned problems the firewall is a gaping hole. Microsoft would have been torn apart. Even a Linux distro would have had to endure some flaming. But with Leopard they get praise, because they threw a half baked OS on the market? They obviously pulled to many resources away for the 0phone.

Re:Why so moderate?

[Firehed]

I've yet to hear someone defend the problematic firewall. The only thing that's close to a reasonable defense for such nonsense is that everyone who uses wireless (and pretty much everyone else too) already has a router that has a hardware firewall which will work better. It's the same reason that I never flamed XP about the same issues (though it would have been slightly more deserving for the sole reason that wireless adoption, and indeed - routers as a whole, was somewhat lower at the time).

Re:Why so moderate?

[Dragonfly]

I've yet to hear someone defend the problematic firewall.

OK, here you go! Start with this surprisingly level-headed thread over in the ArsTechnica forums. The c't article seems to have been written by people with a limited understanding of nmap and an axe to grind. The bottom line is the functionality Leopard firewall is no different from the one in Tiger, except that it adds a third setting which allows exceptions for ports to be added on-the-fly as applications request them. I do agree that the firewall should come enabled by default, but at least OS X has a very small number of open ports out-of-the-box, which mitigates the issue. But regardless, the hysteria over Leopard's firewall is unwarranted.

Re:Why so moderate?

[Britz]

I can assure you, that the people at c't know a whole lot more about firewalls, networks and Apple OSX than you, me or those moronic Apple fanboys.

In fact, c't in itself has a large Mac fanbase that has written so many articles about it, that as a general computer magazine (with the majority of its content about hardware, Windows and its software) it is also known as the best Apple Mac magazine in Germany.

What changed?

[MobyDisk]

What changed so fundamentally in Leopard that is causing these incompatibilities? I thought Leopard was mainly changes to Finder and bundled apps, nothing core to the kernel that would cause apps to be unable to print or interfere with video. Does anyone know if there is some common cause to these issues?

Re:What changed?

[yabos]

Well, you are wrong. There's significant kernel changes as well as API changes including deprecated API calls.

Re:What changed?

[Blakey Rat]

I thought Leopard was mainly changes to Finder and bundled apps, nothing core to the kernel that would cause apps to be unable to print or interfere with video. Does anyone know if there is some common cause to these issues?

It's inconceivable that you're wrong?

Seriously, though, Apple made a ton of internal changes, mostly future-proofing for things like resolution independence, compatibility with many-core and 64-bit CPUs, in fact 64-bitting everything (and announcing that the entire Carbon API is basically deprecated-- I'm sure Adobe loves that news.) Everything involving Classic is deprecated.

There were lots of internal changes that could break apps, in other words.

Re:What changed?

[MobyDisk]

Wow, I didn't realize all that had changed. The 64-bit thing is good to know. I'm amazed that everyone I know has a 64-bit PC with a 32-bit Windows on it. It's so silly.

Just curious, why were you so excited to tell me I'm wrong, and act like a doof about it "Is it inconceivable that you're wrong?" I was just asking a question. Sheesh.

Re:What changed?

[Blakey Rat]

Just curious, why were you so excited to tell me I'm wrong, and act like a doof about it "Is it inconceivable that you're wrong?" I was just asking a question. Sheesh.

Sorry I wasn't really trying to be a jerk.

Your question is kind of of the form, "I thought that the sky was neon yellow. How come so many people are asying the sky is blue?" The obvious answer is, "well, you thought wrong."

Biggest problem I have...

[HerculesMO]

Is that the desktop doesn't refresh at all. If I download a file via Firefox, it dumps it to the desktop. Nothing actually appears until I use spotlight to search for the file. It's really, really annoying.

redefine minor

[Anonymous Coward]

Here are a couple "minor" annoyances:

- Silicon Image 3132 SATA controllers appear to work at first, but HFS+ filesystems go into read-only mode after 2 or 3 operations. Translation: Your SATA hard drives that you used with 10.4.x don't work anymore. I guess some consider "unusable hard disks" as a minor annoyance. I don't.

- Shutdown is now on par with Windows! It takes between 2 and 10 minutes to shutdown your computer with Leopard.

All the QA in the world

[Mikey-San]

You can do all the QA in the world before releasing an operating system, and it's not going to compare to what happens when the unwashed masses get their hands on the product.

Wrong. Why do people write crap like this?

There are far, far, far more actual bugs found and resolved during development than during your .0 release. The exception to this is when you decide to do almost no testing at all and leave bugs in everywhere, at which point you've got other problems entirely.

Third party drivers.

[pavon]

Agreed. Unfortunately if that poor soul installed Logitech drivers, or other third party software they might have APE installed without even knowing it.

My name is Crow, and I hate my parents

[Anonymous Coward]

for naming me after a scavenger bird.

Works for me!

[Manuscript Replica]

I've been running it since it was available, and I can assure you I'm not suffering nor am I a masochist. Sheesh, could they be a little more melodramatic about it.

Wiped out home directory after about a day of use?

[iBod]

>>I got a kernel panic which wiped out my home directory after about a day of use.

Erm... "not without problems" would be putting it mildly.

Can you imagine the outcry here if Vista did that?

I would not call it suffering

[C. Alan]

I upgraded my Core 2 Imac about 3 days ago. The biggest worry I had was that it would disable my installation of Parrallels desktop (i use it to run Autocad LDD). I am running the older 2.5 version, build 3214. I check with the parrallels forums before I did the install, and most of the users were not having a problem. So I backed up a few things to my external HD, and my LAMP server, and popped in the dvd.

Installation went smoothly, and as expected, Parralels works fine.

In my opinion,
The good: New Safari with spell check, because in case you ahve not noticed, I can't spell worth beans. Spaces: I always loved that on my fedora machine, nice to see the Mac catching up. Finder: Much better!

The Bad: The changes to the GUI. The menu bar is the worst. At least give us the option of setting it back to a solid bar! The other thing that bugs me is the washed out 'lights' on the dock that appear when an applicaiton is loaded. Sometimes it is hard to tell when they are there. Once again, it makes me with for the old dock.

I did set up time machine. I was using Ibackup and moving files up to my LAMP machine (running fendora) every night. Time will tell if this was a smart move (no pun intended).

Re:I would not call it suffering

[Blakey Rat]

New Safari with spell check, because in case you ahve not noticed, I can't spell worth beans.

Safari has always had spell-check on OS X, even the 1.0 version. (I don't believe the Windows version of Safari has spell-check, and I'm too lazy to open it up and check...)

Mac early adopters suffer...

[ZeroZen]

Just like Jesus?

Re:Java complainers

[ColdWetDog]

Far too much stuff to compile, needs several GB of free space.

I sure the hell would get a job with a company that can afford computers built in the current century. Who worries about a few GB of free space these days.

Or are you guys doing java development on Palm's or somebody's watch?

I'll wait for the first service pack

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll wait for the first Leopard service pack. Oh wait... Leopard IS a service pack. Doh!

Trolltech Qt Open GL Bug

[macman2k]

I upgraded and then quickly found out that the software I am developing doesn't work because of a bug with Qt and Leopard. Oh, and X11 is broken. Fortunately, the new terminal is finally better than xterm for everything except scrolling in vi.

We always hurt those we love the most...

[John Pfeiffer]

Seems the people most affected by the upgrade are graphic artists. I've heard off and on reports about Adobe Creative Suite being all buggered under leopard, and definite reports of things like Celsys' ComicStudio software (And the localized English version, MangaStudio) being completely unable to run under leopard. Of course, ComicStudio doesn't run under Vista at the moment either...

I've never been so glad to have become completely inflexible and opposed to change in my old age...

where software comes from

[Erris]

Non-free software will always depend on free software? Explain DOS, Mac OS Classic, OS/2, Netware, etc. (Actually Netware probably does depend on some free software.)

Without GCC, X, and a host of other free tools, there would be no OSX. There's not much software that does not have free software roots and all software has free software alternatives that are just as old and often more reliable. Even MSDOS can be traced back to QDOS and CP/M and the concepts used by both were common and shared with Unix, which started it's life free and was followed quickly by BSD and GNU/Linux. Ideas, are not things that can be owned and they grow best in freedom.

Re:where software comes from

[Blakey Rat]

That's a pretty shaky foundation to say that "all OSes depend on..." equates to "all OSes borrow a couple ideas from..."

I really don't care, I just have to call out BS claims when I see them.

Re:where software comes from

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope.

OS X has nothing whatsoever to do with X Windows. It's a completely different model.

Um what? Your own hardware not working?

[tgd]

Apple's own hardware not working right (AirDisk on the AEBS) is not a "you can do as much QA as you want, but..." issue. Thats a rushed release. You can maybe cry "not my fault" when an OS doesn't work with 3rd party software or hardware, but when its your own current-revision (not even old legacy) hardware, there is no excuse.

saints or fools?

[Darth Cider]

The article references a list of incompatible software There are 19 apps in all, two of them system-backup products (made moot by Time Machine?) and two are antivirus products (to scan for what exactly?) Compared to Vista, which was incompatible with far more apps (and hardware, including the Zune!), the upgrade to Leopard is smooth sailing. Really, the article is FUD.

Re:saints or fools?

[dave420]

Well, there is more software available for Windows than OS X volume-wise, and the changes in the subsystem of Vista were much larger than the changes in Leopard, if we're going to compare the two :)

So?

[monkeychowder]

I installed Leopard on an old PPC iBook. I've had absolutely zero problems thus far, and I really love the improvements. I'm still finding people bitching about Vista, and a year later there's a great many people who are still using XP or are switching to OSX or Ubuntu. I'm usually not an "early adopter." I still do not have an iPhone. I waited until last year to get an iPod. I switched to OSX (at home - work machine is Linux) three years ago. I don't consider Leopard early adoption because it's really only an upgrade of a thoroughly tested, tried n' true operating system. I had a great deal more certainty that it would work flawlessly than anyone did of Vista. So please, drop the silly shock and just install the darn thing. Come on in, the water's fine!

Doesn't turn it off

[SuperKendall]

The firewall comes off by default, because no ports are open so you don't need one.

See, unlike Windows OS X ships with most things turned OFF so you don't have to go running around disabling half the things that are running and you don't want or need when your PC arrives.

The upgrade does not turn off the firewall.

Leopard's lazy, procrastinating & cheapsk8 ado

[digitaldc]

I'll wait out the price drop over time until it becomes out-of-date & functionally obsolete.

But hey, at least it is out-of-the-box stable & I save lots of money!

Directory Services

[duffbeer703]

Integration with Active Directory and some LDAP directories is completely broken. It's really disapointing that features that worked great in 10.4 are broken in 10.5.

Works for me

[SuperKendall]

I have one of the slower 1.8GHz G5s, my installation was fine. No issues with a third party FirmTek SATA card either.

Re:Why so moderate? (I'm definitely not being..)

[naetuir]

Where are the rest of these "some huge issues"? The firewall is one issue. I think we should look at the score of the recent OS launches...

Microsoft delivered perhaps 1/5th the promised functionality with Vista.
Apple delivered exactly what they promised with Leopard.

Microsoft has disabled many programs that worked in their previous operating systems.
Apple has not.

Microsoft is already releasing a major patch for Vista.
Apple still releases their patches incrementally. They don't have enough to roll into one big 'service pack' (what the heck is that anyways? like they're doing a service to you for making something work the way it should have to begin with..).

While I happily admit to being an Apple/*nix fan(boy), the score is definitely in Apple's favor as far as OS launches go.

The early bird gets the worm...

[R3d Jack]

but the second mouse gets the cheese.

We don't suffer, we enjoy.

[SuperKendall]

Why do we "suffer" through upgrades?

Because time has shown that each successive release of OS X has brought more benefit than harm. I ask, why would you delay getting a better Finder and features like Time Machine if you didn't have to for some reason?

Re:Wiped out home directory after about a day of u

[TheRaven64]

Like I said, it could have been a hardware issue. I use File Vault, so my entire home directory is an encrypted disk image that is mounted when I log in. This makes it pretty fragile. The kernel panic caused a lot of damage to my filesystem (it took about a dozen passes through Disk Utility's 'repair disk' function to before it started reporting no errors. Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of the damage that did happen was in the disk image, and Disk Utility was unable to repair this. I might be able to recover it later, but since I had a recent backup it's hard to be motivated to try hard; the only thing I lost was a few emails and IM logs.

My own issues w/ Leopard

[sorphin]

So I installed it this past Tuesday evening on my dual dual-core G5, w/ 8G mem, 250G hdd.. install went without consequence and it found 2 updates, one for RDC, and one for the keychain issue (neither of which caused me any issues), I did an archive+install.. My findings so far, other than the few applications that have broken...

The machine seems slower, and renders a little slower sometimes (even on an NVidia Quadro FX4500)... as well as there's a process called UserEventAgent that constantly and consistantly shows up as unresponsive in Activity Monitor.. If you kill it, it's fine for a few seconds, then back to unresponsive.. I'm hoping most of my response issues will be handled in .1 or .2.. but other than those annoyances, it's been a fairly smooth ride..

Old PowerBook G4 1 Ghz with 512 MB of RAM?

[antdude]

I wonder how it is on an old PowerBook (1 Ghz; 60 GB HDD) with 512 MB of RAM from 2002. Has anyone tried it on it? I still use Mac OS X 10.2.8 with Fink.

How Bad is it? Leopard-Tiger vs Vista-XP

[Wingsy]

I think a pretty accurate estimate of just how bad Leopard is for the early adopters is to see how many are trashing Leopard and going back to Tiger. You say you've not seen a single one do that? Must be worth keeping then. Quite a contrast to the Vista-to-XP scenario.

Re:How Bad is it? Leopard-Tiger vs Vista-XP

[Shados]

Well, actually, exactly ONE, no more, not less:

http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=348167&cid=21216827

Which happens to be for very similar reasons than Vista (except this person is smarter about Leopard than most people are about Vista, but still).

I know it doesn't change your point one bit :) But I couldn't resist.

Re:How Bad is it? Leopard-Tiger vs Vista-XP

[Wingsy]

Okay, one then. :)

At least he didn't switch back because he hated it.

Mac Pro 3.0 Ghz & a little liquor == no proble

[shelterpaw]

I did the following to achieve success:

1. Poured myself a dirty martini
2. Backed up my drive.
3. Poured myself another dirty martini (two jalapeno olives this time).
4. Performed a clean install.
5. Poured myself some 18 year Glenfiddich.
6. Loaded certain drivers for some unsupported third party hardware.
7. Used the migration assistant to migrate my applications, settings and files.
8. Poured myself some Bailey's Irish Cream.
9. Passed out.

Next day had to reenter Adobe CS serial number, but other than that all was good except for my head. I've had no problems and it's actually running much better than Tiger.

Re:Java complainers

[Dragonfly]

Apple has not "screwed" Java. Java5 works on Leopard, and for that matter, no one is holding a gun to Mac-using Java developers' heads forcing them to upgrade.

Historically, Java releases on OS X have not been aligned exactly with updates to the OS as this timeline shows. Yeah, it would be great if Apple would announce an estimated release date for Java6 on Leopard, but it would have been the wrong decision to delay Leopard in order to get Java6 finished for inclusion.

Because I'd shut up.

[SanityInAnarchy]

This is basically what I do.

If I feel strongly enough about an issue, I might write a Slashdot post. If I'm moderate, I probably don't have much to say, and thus, I won't bother to write a post.

I imagine the reason you see Slashdot (and many other sites) as a perpetual flamewar is that the majority, who aren't flaming, simply aren't interested enough to post -- maybe not even interested enough to click the article, so they move on to flame about something they do care about.

They say you spend the first couple years of your life learning how to talk, and the rest of it learning how to shut up.

Behold the wise Penguin...

[abb3w]

Behold the wise Penguin, who makes progress— after watching to see whether or not the first foolish penguin that jumps in makes its progress into a waiting Leopard Seal's stomach.

vi is for sissies

[Anonymous Coward]

Boys use sed - real men use cat, echo and dd with block devices

Re:vi is for sissies

[Albigg]

Boys use sed - real men use cat, echo and dd with block devices Me? I just wave a magnet back and forth over the hard drive.

Re:vi is for sissies

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah? I generate electromagnetic fields to manipulate data in my computer, from the next room... with my penis.

Something is wrong there

[SuperKendall]

My leopard shuts down in well under a minute, even on older systems. Perhaps the two problems you see are related?

Your beef seems to be with Silicon Image, not Leopard...

Re:Java complainers

[scheme]

Wait, given that Java is Sun's baby, why does Apple have to provide anything? Java 6's lack of inclusion in Leopard just means that Apple doesn't want to keep up with it anymore. I'm pretty sure they announced they weren't going to maintain the Java bindings any longer, so that is why they didn't include it.

Why should it be included with the base OS? Some customers may prefer not to have the bloated JVM automatically installed.

Sun doesn't provide Java because Apple told them that Apple would do it since they wanted to integrate it with the system. That and Apple wanting OS X to be the premier os for java development is why it's included in the base OS. Unfortunately, that means that people on the mac are dependent on the whims of Apple and still don't have java 6 almost a year after it was released.

NICE!

[yabos]

This is the first thing I've seen that actually works! Thanks! Now let's see how good it works over AFP...

Leopard won't play with non-Mac cups print servers

[caseih]

The first thing we noticed about leopard was that printing no longer worked for us. Somehow Apple had managed to break things when you tried to use a non-Apple CUPs print server. The solution, fortunately, is found at http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5705091&tstart=0 . However that's a real pain for a lot of Mac users, especially ones not used to the unix command line.

Another problem is that it's now a lot less obvious how to connect Leopard to an LDAP server other than OS X's OpenDirectory or ActiveDirectory, which are the only two options that appear in the Directory Utility app. Rather than doing things the obvious way, you have to use the services tab, click on LDAPv3, then edit, and then add your server and specify the server type. Definitely a step backwards, kind of like how Vista's wireless setup got a lot harder over XP.

No problems here...

[jkmiecik]

Am I the only one who universally likes Leopard as it shipped? I have no issues with it. I read complaint posts and just don't see the same issues!

Lameshit captcha: delirium

Re:Java complainers

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that I expect a response, but, why do you need Java 6?

Seriously, what did Java 6 actually add that you need over Java 5?

Java 5 was a huge improvement over Java 4 with the added generics and for-each loop. (Yes, both features are implemented in an absolutely retarded way, but it's still better than not having them.)

Java 6 seems to mostly contain improvements to Swing under Windows, something that Mac OS X users probably don't worry about.

But other than that, nothing. What's new in Java 6 that you actually need?

It's all about crappy QA!

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft's Windows Vista had years of developer releases, and was released to manufacturing several weeks before it went on sale to the general public. Still, compatibility problems cropped up because it's extremely difficult to anticipate what people are running, and in what combination.

On the contrary, thanks to windowsupdate, "Genuine Advantage" and other spying, Microsoft has an enormous list of what people are running, and in what combination.

It's easier for Apple because it tightly controls its hardware and software, and because there are fewer potential combinations in the wild, but it's still a Herculean task.

On the contrary, while Microsoft has to account for every crappy bios & motherboard chipset out there, Apple knows exactly what hardware they are running on, the exact source code, and the exact specs & documentation. Further, there just aren't that many mac variants to account for. Previous macos upgrades didn't have problems this bad. Why?

It's the mentality of "It compiles, so ship it".

Finder hang after install, and a solution

[Slur]

After I installed Leopard I logged in to my account and the Finder wouldn't load. In fact, no applications would launch. I searched the net and discovered I was not alone. Eventually I found the answer in one of Apple's Discussion Forums. The solution is to move or rename the folder /Library/Application Support/DivXNetworks and reboot. You can do this in single-user mode or boot from another system disk. In my case I booted from Jaguar on an external drive and moved the folder to /Users/Shared.

Since I got that out of the way the system has been running amazingly well.

Spotlight is so much faster, and I like the way it shows "All Results" as a Finder search. Much better.

The Translation widget is much better!

Spaces is nice, but I want more: Named spaces and per-space desktop backgrounds, to name two wishes.

The new Network prefpane is just about perfect.

The new Finder is much, much better. And QuickLook is already indispensable.

The new Safari is excellent - and so fast! Oddly the Next Window shortcut (Command-`) is gone. Doesn't seem to work properly in the Finder either, hmm...

Time Machine: Haven't tried it yet.

Tabs in Terminal!

Font rendering seems to be improved throughout the system. Much sharper. And automatic font activation... it's about time!

GrowlMail isn't working... *snif*

PubSub wants my keychain password again.

iChat screen sharing is great! I tried it over Bonjour at home. Very nice. However, it took two tries before my requests would pop up on the target machine.

Stacks aren't very pretty. I don't like the concatenated file names. I'm glad Apple added a ~/Downloads folder though.

Icon previews in the Finder aren't very useful. What good is a 16x16 PDF preview in column view? I'd rather see the application document icons most of the time so I know which app opens them.

Cover Flow is cool, but too touchy with my scroll wheel. Some kind of acceleration algorithm - like mouse motion - would help here. I'm not sure how much I'll be using Cover Flow view.

Where do I set the default View Options for columns, icons, list...? Finder views are still somewhat confusing, but then most of the time I just keep two column-view Finder windows open and work with those. Not often do I double-click a folder on the desktop or elsewhere to open it up to its own view.

Still no native support for AVI files. No QuickLook for AVIs.

Rounded corners on menus are pretty nice looking.

Overall I find the system faster and much improved. I look forward to playing with XCode 3 next!

Still 7 years of time went by

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but that is still ~7 years between XP and Vista. I don't care if they had to start over 5 times. Almost 7 years to get a new version out the door. Ridiculous.

Re:Still 7 years of time went by

[Wdomburg]

Closer to five years. Windows XP was first released 2001-10-25, Vista was first released 2006-11-08.

Leopard fixes things that were broken n Tiger

[WGR]

I bought a Macbook this month so that I would be eligible for Leopard upgrade, although I received my computer with Tiger installed.
The Tiger version of OS-X had Airport wireless support that was broken and would not connect to my SMC wireless modem. I uses Wireshark to trace the conversation and it was definitely the OS software not responding. The actual wireless modem was receiving all the packets.
I installed Leopard last Tuesday after receiving the update DVD. It fixed the wireless problem. So instead of hindering me, the update actually fixed a significant problem

Developer tools aren't for end users

[gilesjuk]

Nobody in their right mind would delay a consumer friendly OS just because a development tool (and it's Java we're talking about) wasn't available.

Most Mac developers will develop Mac applications in Obj C or C++. It is mostly those developing solutions for their studies, living or their workplace that will require Java.

Anyone upgrading a production system without doing a test install elsewhere needs their head examined.

Re:Developer tools aren't for end users

[markjhood2003]

It was my impression that at least a small portion of the momentum for sales of the MacBook Pro was from coders wanting a stable, elegant, Unix-based development environment that supports Windows, Mac, and Linux applications. That certainly was the motivation for my group at work to purchase MacBook Pros to replace older hardware and hand out to new engineers.

Until there's a point release of Leopard that fixes X11, LDAP, and the other regressions I really can't recommend new MacBook Pro purchases with 10.5.0 pre-installed to any of my colleagues. I'll tell them to wait.

Heh, heh

[archeopterix]

... a fair number of people with said ancient APE lying around on their drives without their ever realizing it.

I'm sure I would notice any ancient apes lying around my drives.

So far, so good... but the new dock stinks

[MacDork]

I'm happy with Leopard for the most part. I LOVE the built in screen sharing... no more Chicken of the VNC for me. But the new dock sucks. The fan thing is only useful for glancing in a folder. (How often does anyone do that?) In the meantime, the black triangles for running apps have been replaced by a light blue glow on a light grey background. It's impossible to see. Worse, the ability to drill down through the filesystem with one click is GONE! A System 7 Apple menu is more useful than the new dock. When you get tired of it too, please file a complaint with Apple. I already have.

Re:Java complainers

[itsdapead]

Microsoft screws Java: they're LAZY and EVIL and BOYCOTT BOYCOTT BOYCOTT.
Apple screws Java: they're very busy.

Oh ye gods and little fishes! How hard can this be:

Apple does not have a near-monopoly on desktop operating systems and web browsers - if they fail to support Java, Java users and developers have another excuse for not buying Macs. Boo hoo. You are free to use Linux instead. If they promote Mac-only APIs and extensions for Java at the expense of the cross-platform ones then the only takers will be developers who are happy to target a few % of the market.

Microsoft have a near-monopoly on desktop operating systems and web browsers - developers can't afford to ignore Windows, so if MS fail to support Java - or promotes windows-only extensions and APIs at the expense of the cross-platform APIs then that jeapordizes Java's future on all platforms.

The UK, USA, EU and (as far as I know) most other developed countries' legal systems recognise the fact that if a "free market" is to be maintained then companies with monopolies or near-monopolies must be subject to stricter standards than smaller players.

And yes, replacing the MS monopoly with an Apple monopoly would be a serious case of "out of the frying pan into the fire". However, that ain't gonna happen soon. Meanwhile a healthy, high-profile Mac market increases the pressure on "decision makers" to avoid Windows-only technologies, which often indirectly benefits Linux and other minority platforms.

Re:Java complainers

[Applekid]

Microsoft screws Java: they're LAZY and EVIL and BOYCOTT BOYCOTT BOYCOTT.
Apple screws Java: they're very busy. Oh ye gods and little fishes! How hard can this be:

Apple does not have a near-monopoly on desktop operating systems and web browsers - if they fail to support Java, Java users and developers have another excuse for not buying Macs. Boo hoo. You are free to use Linux instead. If they promote Mac-only APIs and extensions for Java at the expense of the cross-platform ones then the only takers will be developers who are happy to target a few % of the market. I don't think the point is who is or isn't a monopoly. The point is that if it were Microsoft releasing Vista and it didn't work out of the gate with Java there would be (even more) outcry and laughing and finger pointing. When Apple releases Leopart and it didn't work out of the gate with Java there's just shrugs and "oh, well, I guess they're busy."

Leopard was late. With the extra time, Apple could have gotten that right but chose not to. Historically this has happened many times with Java. "They're busy" isn't any more an excuse than "I'm busy" would be to my boss when the deadline creeps up. As their customers, WE are their collective bosses.

Personally, it's not even that big a deal. F Java. BUT, let's call a spade a spade and recognize that, you know, maybe Apple really should get its act together already.

Off-topic PC smack

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to veer off a bit, but "el cheapo" may be insensitive to some of us Spanish-speaking bunch, you know. Carry on, otherwise.

regardless of versions

[ca111a]

>however masochistic they may be
Windows users are far more masochistic. And what's even worse - they suffer for nothing/nobody. Well, technically, of course, there is that whole well being of M$ thing...

Re:Java complainers

[Anonymous Coward]

But it DOES work with Java. Just not the latest version of Java: it comes with Java 5 support, and not Java 6 support.

However, as I mentioned in another comment, I'm still waiting to hear why ANYONE needs Java 6 support. Really all it did was to improve Swing performance under Windows and Linux, which is nice because Mac OS X has always had the best Swing performance of all OSes Java runs on.

The fact that it doesn't include Java 6 isn't Apple screwing Java, it's completely irrelevant. Java 6 adds absolutely NOTHING to the language, and absolutely NOTHING that would be important on a Mac.

Really, I don't get it. Why do people care about Java 6 missing in favor of Java 5? They aren't missing anything, they still get Java support, it just doesn't have the latest build number.

Re:Wiped out home directory after about a day of u

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you imagine the outcry here if Vista did that?

Wait, what are you talking about? If somebody wiped out their home directory and then got a BSOD (the Windows equivalent of a kernel panic), the response here would be "Yeah, that happens sometimes."

Re:Java complainers

[Anonymous Coward]

• JTabbedPane
• JTable
• Unicode normalization
• Heap memory access
• Array reallocation
• Reflection
• More support for IEEE 754 Floating Point
• Dynamic compilation with access to the compiler from within code

MUCH MUCH MORE (tm)

Yes, many of these things can be worked around, but, let's face it, convenience is king and if you're ALREADY developing Java 6 for Windows and Linux where's the justification for gutting your code to remove that functionality for the Mac version? Shouldn't Leopard just work?

What happened to Xnest?

[faedle]

One of the things that "disappeared" in Leopard was Xnest.

I regularly use Xnest to log in to Linux machines running XDMCP.. and Leopard took it away.

What good is the X11 layer if it's not a complete implementation?

I've had NO issues

[voxel]

I haven't had a single issue that has affected me in any way.

Perhaps I don't browse Java sites, or what not people were complaining about.... But I do develop software with Ruby on Rails (TextMate), Adobe Flex 2, .NET 2005 (Under VMWare Fusion), XCode (Cocoa), and use Photoshop a lot.

The new spotlight is fantastic, spaces are a godsend to me with all the simultaneous development environments I am using.

Overall, I think Leopard is a huge upgrade from Tiger in many ways I'm not even listing here.

Spotlight actually searches faster but...

[ruckerz2k]

On my Powerbook G4 1.25 Ghz with 3/4 gig ram, I have a mandatory pause after every character I input into spotlight search (as the list is updated in real time). Annoying. I would have preferred searching after a complete search term is input. Seriously, who searches for foo when they know they're looking for foobar? If you want foo*, allow me to specify * ... then again this would be confusing for non unix people.

Re:Off-topic PC smack

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on, no reasonable person could possibly be that sensitive.

Re:Java complainers

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean these reasons?

Honestly, I don't know why people care that an environment supports Java at all. Or C++ for that matter. It's completely irrelevant. High level langauges add NOTHING to computing, and absolutely NOTHING that would be important on a computer.

Really, I don't get it. I mean, they should all be coding in machine language anyway. They aren't missing anything, just some dumb libraries.

My Vote: Pretty Good 1st Release

[BoRegardless]

Cloned 10.4.10 to an external and did the Leopard Upgrade just to see what happens on my MBPro. It seemed HotSpotVPN caused some things in the System to choke up on CPU use, with lots of errors in the Console. This was sort of expected given prior releases, and that is why I did the "Upgrade" as a test.

An hour after the 1st install, I wiped it and did a virgin install on an empty partition, and added necessary applications and utilities one by one. So far so good, and I'll eventually clone the install for an emergency boot volume with all applications.

An "Upgrade" to Leopard on a near virgin Mac Mini w/o 3rd party applications did work fine w/o any known glitch to date, which was expected.

I'm going to take a go slow attitude, expect to install 10.5.1 in a month, and get a good handle on getting clones done & verifying copies work before using Leopard full time.

How wonderfully subtle

[Tarlus]

there have been no major problems and (compared to other OS launches) No need to be snide about it, Slashdot. We all know the general consensus loves to take jabs at Vista, so just go ahead and say it.

Re:Java complainers

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize you linked to the Java 5 documentation there, right? JTable and JTabbedPane aren't exactly new, having always been part of Swing.

Unicode normalization is one of those things that's so rarely used that it really doesn't matter. I can't ever come up with a reason to use it unless you're dealing with specially designed text intended to screw up code.

Heap memory access doesn't mean a damned thing. You've always had access to heap memory, that's where objects are allocated from.

Array reallocation is still impossible in Java 6. They've just added methods to do the standard create-new-array-and-copy pattern used any time an array needs to be grown in Java. (In this case, I actually checked the source. There's no realloc magic happening in those methods.)

Reflection has been available in Java since Java 1.1, the only changes in Java 5 involve adding generics which are almost completely useless since they're erased at runtime anyway, so they don't offer any real protection when the reflection actually takes place.

The "more support for IEE 754 floating point" turns out to mean more library bloat.

Dynamic compilation is generally a horrible idea, assuming what you really mean is Java code that creates more Java code, compiles it, and then runs it. However I'll accept this as the single point where, if you need this feature, you might want to choose Java 6 over Java 5. (And this is easily worked around with 3rd party libraries anyway.)

But for almost everyone else, none of these features do anything useful. (Especially the "array reallocation" methods that don't actually reallocate the array.)

Leopard does just work, they just haven't bothered to implement the almost entirely worthless features added to the already-massive Java standard library. (Which is all those are, more library methods. Java's standard library is already excessively bloated, Java 6 doesn't help in the slightest.)

Re:Java complainers

[itsdapead]

When Apple releases Leopart and it didn't work out of the gate with Java

Didn't happen! What actually happened is that a few people were using a beta of Java 1.6 (instead of Apple's released 1.5) - and it turns out that this beta doesn't work with Leopard. This is only a big issue for a few people who require the relatively new Java 1.6 instead of 1.5 and had assumed that it would be part of Leopard. Describing this as "Leopard doesn't work with Java" is exaggerating somewhat.

This hardly compares with MS' past attempts at embrace/extend/extinguish, and vassilation over support in IE, with Java. (What version does IE come with these days?)

Once more for those in the back row

[Anonymous Coward]

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that you do not install a new Mac OS until at least 10.x.3

Waiting for SP1

[CmdrPorno]

I'm pretty loyal to Apple, but I will probably wait for the first update before upgrading.

Re:Terminal

[jshazen]

Yes, I really miss the command-double-click. The other thing that annoys me about Terminal is the tab titles are hardwired to process-name, instead of conforming to the preferences pane for window titles. For someone who spends most of the time working on remote machines, it's pretty useless to have a bunch of tabs that all say "ssh" instead of "servername: working-directory" (set by vt100 escape codes in PS1 in .bashrc).

Academic deal

[fishbowl]

A lot of early adopters got on an academic deal where, for the first weekend, it was $69 instead of $89.

Plenty of Mac users are students, faculty, or staff in schools or academic research institutions, and many of them went for this deal.

Re:Why so moderate? (I'm definitely not being..)

[bvimo]

Where there any issues with the recent Gutsy launch?

Should I be aware of any huge great holes in my OS?

Yours a tentative Kubuntu fanboi

So Apple doesn't care about Java?

[FatSean]

I don't think I understand your post. Java is not 'made by Apple' so Apple doesn't care if it runs on their system?

Re:So Apple doesn't care about Java?

[smcdow]

Java's main point to that enables applications to be easily portable across mutliple OS platforms.

Apple cares primarily about portability across Apple platforms. Apple wants your applications to be portable across Apple products. They have ways to accomplish this that don't involve Java. Look at the iPhone SDK. Java's nowhere to be found.

Apple doesn't really care whether or not your applications are portable to non-Apple platforms.

So, Java will always be a 2nd class citizen in the Apple world.

Re:So Apple doesn't care about Java?

[Anonymous Coward]

Java will always be a 2nd class citizen in the Apple world.

Kind of like it's a second class citizen on Windows as well (not to mention other operating systems)? Kind of like how Microsoft would, quite sensibly, rather push its own .Net than a competitor's product?

Not the OS...

[7Prime]

I bought Leopard, and then switched back to Tiger. But not because of any OS issues. The OS seems rock solid to me, the biggest problems I've seen, so far, is lack of support from 3rd parties. The audio side got hit pretty hard because CoreAudio was heavily redone (which isn't being talked about), so things like MOTU Digital Performer and Kontakt, among other things, are not able to function properly under Leopard. Since I rely on those things on a daily basis, I have to switch back to Tiger until they can patch up those issues.

report from the field

[johnrpenner]

report on: photoshop 7 and filemaker 7 under tiger:

i've used the very good filemaker pro 7.0v1
and photoshop 7 in panther and tiger for years.

after paying for the leopard upgrade -- you always end up
finding out about the extra hidden costs of the cascade of
further upgrades one must buy in order to get everything
working that was working working again... :-P

first: photoshop 7 is dead under leopard -- pay up or switch to colourIt (ugh).
i get a 'An unexected and unrecoverable problem has occured because of a
program error. Photoshop will now exit' message just after the splash screen
appears. deleting preference plists doesn't help either. reading several other
reports of dead photoshop 7 on leopard after googling -- it appears
that she's dead jim. although i do not want the additional features,
i've installed photoshop CS2 (i.e. v8.0) and it works now.

i know this is an inevitable consequence of them testing photoshop 7
on the then existing OSX 10.2 (!) -- they can't test on a system
that won't exist for a couple years yet (!).

but the fact remains that the cost of leopard is just the start
of the upgrade dominoes -- on top of the leopard, i must pay for
more features (that i don't want!!) -- just to buy compatibility
with this latest cat. what if i don't want CS3? the functionality
of ps7 is all i need (+leopard compatibility). but its time to
cough up to pay the programmers - who after all - make it go.

second -- filemaker 7: this opened up the ol database well enough,
but had a disturbing 'Unexpectedly Quit' every time i quit
the application -- making me fear if it had corrupted my
database by not properly closing (it opened again -- but now
there is uncertainty about its data integrity -- aaargh!).
i checked the versions -- it was brought into leopard as 7.0v1,
(and it crashed on exit) -- then i downloaded the 7.0v3 update,
and it no longer crashed on exit after i had applied the upgrade.

hope this helps someone else who needs
to get their filemaker 7 working on leopard.

third: Edirol UA-700 usb audio device support: i have an Edirol UA-700
usb audio device which worked fine in panther and tiger. version 2.0.1 of the
drivers died under leopard -- no audio out. upgrading to the 2.2.1 drivers fixed it.

four: Classic is Dead -- Leopard also marks the loss of classic.
this is almost bearable, except for the fact that adobe dropped FRAMEMAKER
development and never made an OSX version. i also have 3000 pages of carefully
formatted legacy documents in framemaker -- conversion to HTML or PDF loses
all the parametric structure of the multi-document books, the paragraph
numbering, and style sheets -- there's never been a product that does so well
what framemaker does -- it was far superior to MS word for long technical
documents -- apple's own documentation was written using it ('Get Info' on
some of their pdfs!) -- still no replacement, and never going to get one.
just the backwards leap of going down to the level of MS word when for
over a decade, framemaker was better then what MS word is now -- ugh.

losing classic also means the loss of all the data kept in hypercard.
and my dad has several documents still in Fullwrite (venerable processor),
and macWrite Pro (which can be converted with macLink Plus). the other
hold-out for classic was FONTOGRAPHER -- there was no equivalent
product anywhere on the market. but thank god, they finally converted
that -- thank god for FontLab who did the upgrade.

the alternative then for: Hundreds of FrameMaker (.fmk) documens,
HyperCard stacks, and hundreds of legacy MacWrite Pro documents
is then left in the hands of OS 8.6 and SHEEPSHAVER -- without that,
i doubt it would be possible to open these documents for anyone after tiger.

five: Address Book reversion problems. i find that under Leopard,
my addressbook reverts back to an old version (des

Perfect Product?

[Enrique1218]

I am confused here. Are there any prooducts released free of bugs? The need for warranties seem suggest that bugs in products are common place. Cars sometimes get recalled, toasters sometimes catch fire, and pharmacueticals sometimes kill people! Just be happy that Apple can released a patch that fixes the problem in the time it takes to download and install. That is one of the perks of selling software.

Re:I hope this will end to those obnoxious Mac ads

[arminw]

....Apple has proved that *anyone* can generate a crappy OS release.......

If you buy a new Mac with Leopard or erase and install on your old Mac, you will not have problems. The BSOD so many a nattering about is caused by incompatible system additions by third parties. There may also be incompatible drivers for user installed hardware. No manufacturer of anything can test every possible thing a user may do with their product. Anyone who upgrades to a new OS, takes the chance that it may not work with the older third party hardware or software.

Re:Java complainers

[damaki]

It was not a development machine, it was my old cyrix 233 machine. There are watches more powerful than this stuff...

Re:Leopard won't play with non-Mac cups print serv

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Definitely a step backwards, kind of like how Vista's wireless setup got a lot harder over XP.

Vista's wireless setup got a lot better, but only because XP's sucked so much. No more typing the WEP/WPA key twice for so some bizzare reason. No more "network connection OK" bubbles.

What got worse was the network connection UI. It takes three clicks "Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Center > Manage Network Connections" compared to one in XP. Not to mention that that's after you're in the control panel.

On ALL of my Vista systems, I put a shortcut to "Network Connections" in the Start Menu. It's stupid, and I shouldn't have to do it, but it works.

The network UI is one place where I think Microsoft really dropped the ball. There are some nice features, but on the whole I find it more annoying and harder to use than the UI in XP.

Re:I hope this will end to those obnoxious Mac ads

[flghtmstr1]

Don't the reasons you are using to defend Apple also apply to Vista?

I dunno, on our AIX and Linux servers Java is king

[FatSean]

Of course, these are used to run the business, not act as a workstation. Oh well, I guess I should have remembered that Java died on the desktop back in 1999.

minor issues (Skype, XCode)

[roesti]

I'm surprised at a couple of issues that don't seem to have been mentioned here.

Firstly, Skype isn't compatible with Leopard's firewall. This is a problem with the Skype software, but there's a workaround for now, until a new version comes out with that problem fixed.

Secondly, when I upgraded, it didn't upgrade XCode to 3.0. I still have 2.4.1, which crashes when I try to run it. Looks like I'll have to update that separately. (If anyone knows whether you can just install over the top or whether you have to remove the old one first, let me know - I haven't tried this yet.)

I like the interface, but I wish I were able to tweak more of it. Let me set the opacity of the menu bar. Let me set the contrast of the Dock, so I can see the application lights more clearly. Let me determine whether a Stack has an icon or not (using the contents of a Stack as the icon works for Downloads but not for Applications). Minor annoyances, really, and some of them can be fixed easily enough already.

Pretty much everything else (that I've tried) has "just worked". It's only been a day for me, and one not entirely without frustration, but I'm reasonably happy with it so far.

Bug in scrolling

[Anonymous Coward]

The ability to scroll through an inactive application is great, but it does not work with Microsoft Word 2004.

Me, personally?

[Swift2001]

I read some places that the upgrade procedure would be good, so I tried it, after backing up. It went like a charm. The only problem I've had is Toast not recognizing my DVD burner, under certain conditions which I haven't figured out. A conflict? The OS needs 10.5.1? Dunno, but I'm very happy so far, since it was a couple of weeks getting Tiger up.

No classic?

[anomaly]

Classique c'est mort

Really? Poo! I've got a few macs at home and one is the "kids computer" which I have set up to mount CD images and launch classic to load old games.

I love the idea of keeping all the boxes "the same" and the family pack lets me really do that. I was planning to get Leopard in a few weeks and upgrade all of my machines.

Now that you tell me that classic dies... I guess I'll be keeping a Tiger box around just for that. Wonder why they killed it? How expensive could it have been for them to keep it around? Wonder if we can talk them into considering open sourcing if for a maintainer...

Re:I hope this will end to those obnoxious Mac ads

[arminw]

.....Don't the reasons you are using to defend Apple also apply to Vista?....

They do indeed. However MS cannot possibly test even all the basic hardware from all the manufacturers of PC. Apple only has to test their own complete systems. The various makers of software and hardware add-ons have to ensure that their products work with only a much more limited number of Macs. The bottom line of all this is that Macs will always be more reliable than others. There are simply not as many variations and therefore chances for things to go wrong.

Re:more of the same...

[sqrt(2)]

Ubuntu 7.10 just got released last month, and it has plenty of bugs and issues too (along with all the usual Linux eccentricities). This is not a problem that's exclusive to closed source software.

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

This actually works! Hurray.

Me too

[Distortions]

I did the backup / format / install method as I've done for ages.

Yeah, the system is much more responsive now.
I had several programs installing, importing my music/photos and coping files from 3 backup drives, importing tons of email...

Still, the system was very responsive.
Launching apps like Safari is probably 3-4x faster for me.
The new UI theme is nice (won't need UNO theme anymore).
I like the blurred/frosted transparency (looks nice, without sacrificing readability).
The new terminal is great.

Lots of great changes in general.

But, I have gripes too:

Stacks look nice, but why isn't there an option for a NORMAL text menu?
Why can't this fancy high- tech dock traverse directories?
(It opens the folder in finder!)
Most apps are installed in a folder ya know...
This makes the dock useless for me.

Why is the menu bar semi-transparent?
Why is the triangle for open apps pretty but almost impossible to see?
Why can't I turn off the damn 'stacked' folder icons?
Why do the new folder icons have no visibility?

Lots of older gripes:
Why is there no easy way to install/uninstall software?
(Yes, well written software doesn't need it. Big woop, lots of stuff isn't)
Why can't I tell mail.app to stop bugging me about my mail server' SSL certificate?
Why do the scroll bar thubs look retarded?
Why isn't there an option to allow you to resize a window from somewhere other than the bottom right?
Why doesn't the zoom button work for a damn?
Why are all the useful audio controls hidden in some utility called 'Audio MIDI Setup'?

Why does apple think I want to have hundreds of apps all in one folder?
(Apple apps, and apps by many other big software compines won't update/break if you move them).
So my only option is to use aliases or some 3rd party hack or just live with the mess.
I like to categorize them: Internet, Multimedia, DTP, Communication, Utilities, etc...

Why does iTunes sit pretending to do something for ages when I try to backup my music onto DVDs?
It says its checking the songs or some such (not accessing hd / almost no cpu / no network access )
when it finally, gets to the end it crashes. Its had the problem for a LONG time now.
I've formatted/re-imported all my songs several times since this problem started.

Bullshit

[kaiwai]

Oh, come on, stop bullshitting. There is a HUGE difference. Microsoft has BILLIONS upon BILLIONS of dollar with THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of programmers. What you're doing is comparing a small company to a multinational company. In the grand sceme of things, Apple is small in terms of head count and money generation.

Yes, I am willing to cut them a little slack, just as I'm willing to cut my ISP, which is a small company (struggling against Telecom NZ) to cut them a little slack.

Oh, and for those experiencing problems - stop installing shit like 'enhancers' and 'tweakers' - this goes for Windows and Mac OS X - don't install crap, keep it clean, and voila, reliability.

keys transposed

[burgess]

I've noticed one wierd behaviour: sometimes when I've just switched to an app, the first two keystrokes are transposed on insertion. I've seen this in Mail.app (when searching), Aquamacs and Firefox.

"hte quick brown fox, etc."

Either this is a new typing disorder I've recently developed, or perhaps it's related to 10.5 (but what evil magick is this?)

Anyway ... anyone else noticed themselves making the same typo repeatedly, and wondered?

Re:more of the same...

[jgarra23]

This is not a problem that's exclusive to closed source software.

I just re-read what I wrote and your comment. I make no mention of bugs being exclusive to closed-source software so the point is moot.

at this point

[bryan1945]

no one will read this, but I installed Leopard the day after it came out. One problem with cutting off the right side of dialog boxes,but besides that I like it. Spaces is very nice, among other things.

OK one more thing.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

I think the graph is what is causing some of the confusion. The graph was designed by the author to show the number of personal computers in existence and not to directly compare one brand to another. This is why he used a stacked line graph where the actual datapoint is the top of the line graph, and each colored segment below represents the percentage of the top data point versus computer model (ie. The Apple segment is zero based, the TRS-80 is from the Apple total, the PET is from the TRS-80 total, and the Other is from the PET.

Therefore the top of the line graph represents the total sales which equals Apple + TRS-80 + PET + Other. The problems of using this chart for this discussion are:

1. The chart does not accurately represent what was presented in the text of the article (eg. Why does the text mention that the Apple II nearly equaled the sales of the TRS-80, yet still show Apple's portion smaller than TRS-80s in the chart?).

2. The ordering of the categories do create a disadvantage to the bottom category. Basically, this type of chart is not entirely useful to this thread topic (other than to show the increasing number of personal computers).

3. The chart may use cumulative totals, NONE of the brands show any decline despite the text stating otherwise (eg. Why would Tandy kill the TRS-80 Model 1 if the chart shows it as a success?).

4. If the statistics presented are cumulative, it assumes that once that brand is purchased it is always used. How many Model 1's were replaced by an Apple II?

5. Since the author was concentrating on the hardware manufacturers and not computing platforms, we have no idea about the makeup of the "other" category. Is it full of Apple II clones?

Re:OK one more thing.

[mfnickster]

As I stated earlier, The graph is flawed.

You have shown no such thing. All you've shown is that you can't read a graph.

"In 1981 the company sold 210,000 units, leaving the PET in the dust and nearly equaling the TRS-80's numbers." ... The chart does not accurately represent what was presented in the text of the article (eg. Why does the text mention that the Apple II nearly equaled the sales of the TRS-80, yet still show Apple's portion smaller than TRS-80s in the chart?).

If you look at the chart for 1981, you will see that the portions for Apple and Tandy are roughly equal. The dark gray area which is unlabeled in this graph is a continuation of the Tandy numbers from the previous graph. Apple almost held its own against Tandy in 1981, but it didn't beat Tandy - let alone Tandy plus the other manufacturers.

The chart doesn't reflect the number of Atari 800s sold with at least a disk drive. Many Ataris were sold as a cartridge based game system. Should this case be included in the desktop market? Does the fact that the Atari 800 has a keyboard automatically make it a desktop computer?

Absolutely. If you recall, the Apple game market was huge - at least as large as the Atari game market. Atari was no more a 'game machine' than the Apple II was.

You cherry pick small portions of my comments and don't even attempt to offer any rebuttal to the issues that I presented. Hell, you didn't even know about the Apple II clones. You conveniently ignore the "other" category.

I ignored the insiginificant portions of your comments. The issues you presented don't help your case. The Apple II clone market was not large enough to help your case - even if 100% of the 'others' were Apple II clones. That's my point. I didn't ignore the 'other' category, I just pointed out that it can't save your bogus claim.

Besides the obvious fact that the Atari was designed for games, why does the text describe a peak in 1982, yet the graph still shows exponential growth through 1984?

You really can't read graphs, can you? The graph clearly shows Atari's largest share in 1982, and a decrease through 1984.

The ordering of the categories do create a disadvantage to the bottom category. Basically, this type of chart is not entirely useful to this thread topic (other than to show the increasing number of personal computers).

No, unless you consider visually lower categories to be at a 'disadvantage' simply because they are lower - in other words, you don't know how to read a stacked graph.

The chart may use cumulative totals, NONE of the brands show any decline despite the text stating otherwise (eg. Why would Tandy kill the TRS-80 Model 1 if the chart shows it as a success?).

The chart clearly shows year-to-year sales totals, which is why the dark gray Tandy stripe disappears completely in 1984, when TRS-80 sales shrank to nothing. How can you not see this?

If the statistics presented are cumulative

They aren't. These are sales figures, not ownership figures.

it assumes that once that brand is purchased it is always used. How many Model 1's were replaced by an Apple II?

Irrelevant, because the total number of Apple II's sold between 1977-1982 (about 600,000) is half the total number of TRS-80 models sold in the same period (about 1.2 million). After that, Apple was outsold by Atari, Commodore and IBM, so Apple could not possibly have had a majority.

Since the author was concentrating on

Re:OK one more thing.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

OK. So in my zeal to prove you wrong, I have misread the graph. So dial down the insults a bit. I also suffered the "keep repeating it, and it will become apparent" syndrome. Now that my Slashdot insanity has died down, I figure we should probably end this thread with some sanity.

Good news is that I found the source notes from Jeremy Reimer that he used to write his article.

Here is a direct link: http://www.wowdailynews.com/pegasus/total_share.html

So here are the highlights:

First of all (I was surprised by this myself) while Atari had a huge upsurge in sales for a very short period, it was not even close to the dominate under $1000 computer. The Texas Instruments 99/4A dominated this category despite a historically bad introduction. Here's a quote about 1982:

At the moment, Dataquest estimates that Texas Instruments leads the low-price parade with a 35% share of the market in computers selling for less than $1,000. Next come Timex (26%), Commodore (15%) and Atari (13%). In the race among machines priced between $1,000 and $5,000, Apple still commands 26% followed by IBM (17% and Tandy/Radio Shack (10%). But IBM, which has dominated the mainframe computer market for decades, is coming on very strong. Apple, fighting back, will unveil its new Lisa model in January, putting great emphasis on user friendliness. The user will be able to carry out many functions simply by pointing to a picture of what he wants done rather than typing instructions. IBM is also reported to be planning to introduce new machines in 1983, as are Osborne and others.

Interesting enough, the Atari figures may resulted from being sold as a game console, since it was the cheaper Atari 400 that had the sales numbers not the more capable Atari 800.

Atari 400 and 800 ($299 and $899). With 256 colorss, four separate sound generators and built-in "missile qraphics," the Ataris are the machines of choice for game players and games writers. The 800 has a keyboard suitable to touch typing, but writers would do well to look elsewhere for a first-rate word processor. Nearly 200,000 Atari 8OOs were shipped in 1982 and some 400,000 model 400s.

Hey the Sinclair got a mention!:

Timex Sinclair 1000 ($99). This tiny toy is good for dipping one's toes into the micro revolution and not much more. It will play video games with boxy, black-and-white graphics and speaks only one language: BASIC, A buttonless 'membrane" keyboard is well designed for learning the fundamentals of computer programming, but for written work it is a step down from the old typewriter. With 600,000 sold in 1982 alone, there is sure to be more software on the shelves soon. A more powerful model that speaks child-oriented Logo is expected out this spring.

Anyway, it appears that the market was segmented into three major categories:

The under $1000 where the inexpensive price allowed anyone the opportunity to play with a computer, unfortunately only a small portion of this population were really using these machines. I guess we would be in that minority.

The $1000 to $2000 computer market. This is where most of the more serious hobbyist and small business user would be found (I hope so $1000 was a lot of money back then).

The over $3000 market. Not many home users in this area. I admit that I paid over $3000 for an AST Premium/286 with "paper white" monochrome display (hercules card) and a huge $40 megabyte hard drive.

Anyway, I found the following quotes interesting:

Apple II Plus ($1,330). The hardy bestseller of the late '70s is also the hardy bestseller of the early '80s: 700,000 have been sold: 270,000 in 1982 alone. With so many cheaper and more sophisticated machines available, why does the Apple II still hold the biggest slice of the $1,000-to-$2,000 pie? Software. More programs are available for this si

Re:OK one more thing.

[mfnickster]

OK. So in my zeal to prove you wrong, I have misread the graph. So dial down the insults a bit. I also suffered the "keep repeating it, and it will become apparent" syndrome. Now that my Slashdot insanity has died down, I figure we should probably end this thread with some sanity.

Yeah, I got swept up in zeal myself, mostly in reaction to what I saw as simple stubbornness on your part. I enjoy a vigorous Slashdot argument now and again, no matter how pointless, but that doesn't excuse rudeness. So I apologize to you for that. It's certainly not behavior I like to have on my 'permanent record' here. :)

...
Anyway, Apple did not enjoy a majority of the personal computer hardware market which is impossible with the number of manufacturers of small systems back then (shows how much things have changed). However Apple did have the plurality of the market (A substantial lead ahead of its soon to show its full potential IBM PC platform).

Look again at the numbers on Reimer's chart. You will see that there is no year in which the Apple II box or Mac box, or the sum of the two, holds the largest number of units on the row. Hardly a plurality!

I did find that Apple had a commanding lead in the software market, which created a demand for the Apple clones. It's the software arena that the Apple platform had no equal (as researched by IDC), thus the origin of my humorous comment that created this thread.

See, you're still trying to wiggle out of your original claim by pretending you were really talking about software. I already quoted back to you your exact words, but it looks like I'll have to do it again: "I remember when over 90% of the home/education was an Apple ][ or clone." You pulled out every rhetorical trick in the book to backpedal on that one. You're still trying to find a way to be right. -Sigh-

Now seeing as everybody else here has long since abandoned this thread, I think it's time to hang up my shoes. Thanks for the interesting links and challenging debate.

Re:OK one more thing.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Look again at the numbers on Reimer's chart. You will see that there is no year in which the Apple II box or Mac box, or the sum of the two, holds the largest number of units on the row. Hardly a plurality!

I noticed that too. That's why I went through the whole trouble of how the market research was segmented in 3 categories. I quoted Dataquest which the author referenced (They are a market research firm, so I have to give their results weight) and repeated THEIR findings. I can see how the categories make sense. The fact that the categories help my arguments doesn't hurt, but I can see how it would be unfair to lump Apple II, TRS-80, and IBM with the $99 Sinclair and the $299 Atari 400. I think the 200,000 Atari 800s sold should count against Apple, despite the disk drive system being a piece of crap until the 1050 disk drive was introduced.

On a personal note: I owned an Atari 800 (the original Tan model), and Atari ST (again the first release). I worked my way through college selling the Commodore 64, 128 and Amiga (Not to mention Kaypro, Compaq, Sanyo, and the boat anchor called Osborne). I always thought that the Atari 800 was the one well designed machine that could take Apple on. Unfortunately Jack Tramiel (and Warner Bros) couldn't get thier shit together and the rest they say is history. Incidently something from the Atari still lives on today. The Serial Periphial bus influenced the design of USB. I heard somewhere that the hardware guy from Atari, was on the team that designed the USB but I don't have a reference.

Anyway the reality was that despite being an rabid Atari holy warrior in my day, I was outnumbered by the legions of Apple II users. My Atari users group had 40 people at its peak (thanks to crappy marketing on Atari's part), while the local Apple users group (which I was also a member) had well over 200 members. I had friends that owned Franklins (which were actually better and CHEAPER than the original Apple II) and the VTech machines (which were smaller and prettier, but not as compatible). BTW, This is how I knew about the clones.

See, you're still trying to wiggle out of your original claim by pretending you were really talking about software. I already quoted back to you your exact words, but it looks like I'll have to do it again: "I remember when over 90% of the home/education was an Apple ][ or clone." You pulled out every rhetorical trick in the book to backpedal on that one. You're still trying to find a way to be right. -Sigh-

Whatever... Wait let's replay some of my comments in this thread:

From Tuesday November 06, @08:11AM (#21253771)

5. Since my original comment was based on Software, why look only at brand name hardware? Your stat doesn't include the many Apple II clones that came out prior to the upsurge of the IBM PC (are they also in the "other" category?). I'm sure they may have been running Applesoft too. So could this be another hint, that the single stat source may be inappropriate to this discussion?

From Wednesday November 07, @01:22PM (#21271021)

True if we were speaking hardware. However if we were talking about "Desktops" as in software (granted CLI instead of GUI). The number of different machines running the same type of OS, actually improves the percentages. The article you referenced placed Apple at approx 50% (if not a tad over), and these clones pushes it into the majority.

Looking at hardware wouldn't make much sense, due mostly to the fact that Microsoft (the origins of this thread) maintains a 0% share.

From Friday November 09, @11:38AM (#21297195):

...You conveniently ignore the "other" category, and on top of it all you keep referring to a questionable statistic on brand name hardware sales to refute my original humorous comment about desktops which lately is considered software. Especially since Microsoft has 0% of the

10.5 a downgrade from 10.4

[Computeradam]

Most of the features I used was Front Row and Sherlock. Front Row 1 in osx does much more then Front Row 2 in Leopard, such as resume movies (important!), keep on playing iTunes songs when you exit front row, and most important, Front Row 1 had a big font where you can actually see everything from 10 feet away. The look and feel of front row 1 is much smoother too. It feels like front row 2 is a huge step backwards for apple and I don't like it! WTF APPLE!!!??? Also Where is Sherlock?????!!!