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PC Makers Try To Pinch Seconds From Their Boot Times
Some computers are never turned off, or at least rarely see any state less active than "standby," but others (for power savings or other reasons) need rebooting — daily, or even more often. The New York Times is running a short article which says that it's not just a few makers like Asus who are trying to take away some of the pain of waiting for computers, especially laptops, to boot up. While it's always been a minor annoyance to wait while a computer slowly grinds itself to readiness, "the agitation seems more intense than in the pre-Internet days," and manufacturers are actively trying to cut that wait down to a more bearable length. How bearable? A "very good system is one that boots in under 15 seconds," according to a Microsoft blog cited, and an HP source names an 18-month goal of 20-30 seconds.
>>>For example, my Mac will go from startup to login in half the time of either Vista
Macintosh has the advantage of being a sole-source system, where the design is strictly regulated by Apple. IBM PCs have the disadvantage of being a mishmash of thousands of different hardware suppliers, many of which don't cooperate, and the Windows OS has to be the "mediator" between all these noncompatible devices.
So Windows has to operate more slowly, just trying to handle the negotiation, and getting all these random hardware pieces talking to one another.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
Me, personally, I don't know why I still have a mouse.
Apple got it right with the iPhone interface. They got it wrong with the touch pad for the Macbooks, IMO. If you hold your nose and watch an episode of the new Knight Rider series, check out the (fictional) interface they are using to the computer in the cave that they keep the car in. There is nothing holding us back from having something like that now, except for the software. If you look, it's basically an iPhone multitouch interface on a big honking LCD screen. If they need a keyboard, one is displayed on the desktop display (perhaps not optimal but a nice option).
My desktop experience hasn't changed substantially from what I had 10 or 15 years ago. I'm still using the same pointer device from nearly 25 years ago, with the addition of a scroll wheel. My keyboard is literally the same keyboard I've had since the mid 1980's (IBM model M) because the market hasn't come up with anything better since then (that's more of a hardware shortcoming, obviously).
Right now I think the best thing that can happen is for the Xorg team or someone else somewhere in the GUI stack to come up with something analogous to multitouch for the desktop interface. Then of course we also need display manufacturers to get on board.
I'm sure Apple is already doing this. I predict the next iMac generation will have a multitouch screen, and OS X Snow Leopard will support it (or the next release after Snow Leopard).
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....provider for both OS and hardware...
But it is precisely for that reason that Apple computers are superior. Apple is not interested in building rock bottom computer hardware or rock bottom anything else. There are cheaper phones and music players also than the ones you can buy from Apple.
Apple is not a charity, but a for profit corporation. It will always be possible for them to build a complete computer that works better than all the other companies who only build a partial computer. The heart of the computer is not the hardware, but the software. It is possible to load Windows onto a Apple Computer. Once that is done however, that Apple Computer is just as susceptible to all the viruses worms and other computer varmints and will function just fine in any bot-net, spewing forth spam as expeditiously any Dell system would. It might also occasionally entertain the user with a BSOD. In fact, some organizations have tested Apple laptops with Windows and found them to be as good or in some cases better than other name=brand systems of about the same price.
All theory is gray
....Macintosh has the advantage of being a sole-source system, where the design is strictly regulated by Apple....
Which is the main reason why Apple computers will always be better. The more freedom and control a designer has, of a computer an automobile, the better the end product can be. Is that so hard to understand?
All theory is gray