Windows Drains MacBook's Battery; Who's To Blame?

ericatcw writes "Users hoping that Windows 7's arrival will mean less power drain on their MacBook laptops may be disappointed, writes Computerworld's Eric Lai. Running Windows 7 in Boot Camp caused one CNET reviewer's battery life to fall by more than two-thirds. But virtualization software such as VMware Fusion suffer from the same complaints. Some blame Apple's Boot Camp drivers (the last ones were released in April 2008); others lay the blame at Windows' bloated codebase. With Apple and Microsoft both trying to avoid responsibility for improving the experience, Windows 7's reported improvements in power management will be moot for MacBook users for a while."

Comments

Nice title.

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Drains MacBook's Battery; Who's to blame?

I blame Microsoft. Much like the title, I was expecting Windows 7 to actually recharge my laptop battery, not drain it.

Re:Nice title.

[buchner.johannes]

Windows Drains MacBook's Battery; Who's to blame?

This and many other questions can be settled with a simple googlefight.

PS: That's also how I resolve all my spelling issues.

Re:Nice title.

[RedHelix]

My MBP has a miserable battery life running Ubuntu.

Re:Nice title.

[Paaskonijn]

That doesn't answer the question though. Try this instead.

Re:Nice title.

[CharlyFoxtrot]

I don't blame the MacBook. Having to use Windows drains my battery too.

Re:Nice title.

[aztracker1]

I think it's probably the drivers from Apple. Win7 on my Eee got about the same battery life as XP with Asus' optimised drivers.. though switching to a faster/bigger HD caused a bit of a drop in life.

Re:Nice title.

[Tubal-Cain]

I doubt Apple supplies any drivers for Ubuntu.

Re:Nice title.

[euxneks]

I blame Microsoft.

I wish I didn't have to say that sentence so often.

Re:Nice title.

[The_mad_linguist]

No, no, if you actually read the article, the point is that Windows 7 drains batteries on MacBooks that it ISN'T INSTALLED ON. Just take your Windows 7 laptop to your nearest Starbucks, and watch your battery percentage climb as the hipsters around you lose theirs.

Re:Nice title.

[aztracker1]

true, but then again, who's to say that Apple's interfaces for the battery are standard... also, ubuntu isn't very good with battery life on any laptop I've tested it with. It doesn't do as well with cpu scaling, or memory caching, so the hdd can spin down etc.

Re:Nice title.

[PopeRatzo]

and watch your battery percentage climb as the hipsters around you lose theirs.

But they get to feel superior while it's happening...which is nice.

Re:Nice title.

[vuffi_raa]

wow, what does that mean for places like best buy that have both win and mac in the store- will it need to be installed on a windows pc or will it be able to drain batteries from the install disc?

Re:Nice title.

[metaforest]

drivers or no. The OS is running the show.

There is no clear root cause yet. Someone is going to figure out who's causing it. Then the fun begins :D

Re:Nice title.

[aztracker1]

Well, considering it's bootcamp that provides BIOS level access to the non-mac OS... Probably not providing the proper device channels for CPU throttling, etc.

Re:Nice title.

[metaforest]

since the main CPU on the mac doesn't run the power management show at all. I can see how that might be a problem for Windows, and Apple supplied drivers.

Re:Nice title.

[gig]

The difference between Mac and Windows is not a feeling of superiority, it's actual superiority. Same as the difference between anything else and Windows.

Now this is special.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a whole new and special kind of whining.
/. has reached a new level.

Waaaaahhhh!!!

Re:Now this is special.

[wampus]

Offtopic my fat ass. On a side note, when did Slashdot turn into all Microsoft all the time?

Re:Now this is special.

[Anonymous Coward]

Offtopic my fat ass. On a side note, when did Slashdot turn into all Microsoft all the time?

My pet theory is that the prospects of an actual sane and well received OS release from Microsoft with Win7 is something we have trouble relating to and handling, Vista has made us lazy ;), creating a panick in coming up with ever more esoteric MS-bashing stories. Just look at this one, and how it is written, calling it "troll" and FUD are major understatements, if this is all we have to come up with Microsoft have us on the defensive..

Re:Now this is special.

[denmarkw00t]

Exactly: OH NO - the software I bought for the hardware it isn't supposed to run on doesn't work!

Re:Now this is special.

[PopeRatzo]

Oh, it works, but (gasp!) it uses up battery power!!

Damn that microsoft to hell. Say, has anybody actually seen Bill Gates' birth certificate? Not the one that's on paper, with the official stamp that says "Certificate of Birth", but the super-secret real one that is only kept in vaults that every true-blood American is granted at Conception by our deity, President Ronald Wilson Reagan (may peace and everlasting glory be upon his Name).

Re:Now this is special.

[gig]

> My pet theory is that the prospects of an actual sane and well received OS
> release from Microsoft with Win7

Windows 7 is neither sane, nor well-received. There was some pretty good hype for a while, but that bubble burst when it came out that there is no upgrade in-place from XP, which cannot be described as anything other than insane, when 80% of the Windows user base is running XP. Please identify for me even one feature of Windows 7 (6.1) that is so dramatically different from Vista (6.0) that it will cause adoption of Windows 7 to be different from Vista. People are buying XP machines right this minute, in spite of Vista being 2 years old and Windows 7 being on the horizon. There is no upgrade for those machines, they have to be wiped. You have to kill off your old system just to consider upgrading to Windows 7.

Microsoft even explained that "pent-up demand" will cause Windows 7 to be a hit and have huge adoption. That is the exact same thing they said about Vista. Pent-up demand, if it even exists at all for Windows, is what causes excitement on launch day. It does not sell all-new operating systems or cause people to bite off a day of I-T work to destroy an XP computer and hopefully come out the other end with a Windows 7 system that is better.

If XP Mode was seamless (it has many seams), and if it were in all Windows 7 (instead of just Ultimate), and if the Windows 7 installer could lift up your current XP and run it in XP Mode after the install is complete, then maybe you would have something here in Windows 7. If people could run the Windows 7 installer in XP and afterwards essentially have both XP and Windows 7, that would be a way forward for Windows. As it is, Windows 7 is just an upgrade for Vista. It will kill off Vista but not XP.

What Microsoft is doing is very much like what Apple tried in 1997. They announced that Mac OS would soon be retired, and that Mac OS X would take its place. But the Mac OS X they were talking about did not have classic Mac compatibility and the user base and developers took a fit. Had Apple released that Mac OS X, Mac OS 9 would have competed with it endlessly, the same way Vista competed with XP (and lost), and the same way Windows 7 will compete with XP and lose. Instead, Apple created a different Mac OS X that could run Mac OS 9 simultaneously, enabling the entire platform to treat Mac OS X as if it were Mac OS 9 (you could sell one Mac OS 9 app to both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X users) and that acted as a bridge from old to new. Microsoft may be ready to do this for XP in a couple of years (2011) going by the current state of XP Mode, and XP will be 10 years old by then and still the majority of Windows installations.

Windows 7 is going nowhere. It's surprising you are buying into the idea that this Windows is finally the one people were asking for. They've never, ever come close to building that. Windows 7 is certainly not it. The primary feature people want is XP -upgradability and -compatibility, and it is not in there.

Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[Em Emalb]

I have a new MBP and use Fusion. I have an XP image and a Vista image loaded up. I have not noticed any unusual power drain, but that's kind of to be expected, IMO. Also, I have to question the wisdom of using a VM session for more than an hour or so on just the battery.

I can see some instances where this would be an issue for some, but this seems like senseless "hating" to me. No, I'm not trying to troll or anything else, I'm just having a hard time figuring out why someone would spend a long-ish amount of time in Fusion running a guest OS on battery power. It seems obvious to me that there are issues running a non-native OS on a laptop designed for a specific OS...

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[dr.newton]

I agree that there would be issues, but going from 4.5 hours of battery life on OS X on a MBP to 2 hours on any other OS is a little extreme!

I would love to be able to use Linux on my MBP as the primary operating system, but often it is impractical because of the limited battery life.

That being said, 2 hours is about standard for any other laptop I've owned, so maybe I should think of it as OS X being uncannily power-efficient. ;)

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[ByOhTek]

?? My last notebook got 3.5 hours on the 6 cell battery (could have gotten a 9 cell, but didn't want too) with Windows XP or FreeBSD.

Dunno what my new notebook will do yet, it came pre-raped with Windows Vista, and I have to clean to goo off the drive and install XP (slipstream the ICH9 drivers anyone?) and FreeBSD (7.2 doesn't have a functional NIC driver, 8.0Beta driver fails at something, not sure what), or KUbuntu (faster than Vista off of the CD, WTF, but also lacking a NIC driver) to test.

after two days of vista, my butt hurts.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[Anonymous Coward]

OS X probably is able to adjust the power usage of specific pieces of hardware whereas Linux and Windows are not privy to the information on how to do so.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[1stvamp]

By the looks of it most of the "hate" is coming from Bootcamp users, who aren't running Win7 in a VM at all, but are dualbooting, and so they might (rightly so) expect more battery life from the primary OS (not a guest).

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[SleeknStealthy]

I am going to have to disagree with you, Apple OSX isn't: "uncannily power-efficient" but rather uncannily degrading the user experience in another OS. Apple is afraid that if their users never have to adjust to OSX they will just become another PC vendor and will lose on their profit margin. The new MacBooks driver support for the flawed mouse design is bad enough in OSX, but if you try to run it on Windows natively, just forget it, I found it nearly impossible (as with Linux). Apple is the most anti-consumer computer company in existence, this can only be expected.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[v1]

There are some people that run windows on their mbp (boot camp) more than the mac environment. Just as there will be some that go boot camp because they want/need to use windows a little bit, there will also be the other few that want/need to use mac a little bit, and for them, Mac OS X is the "guest OS". Same can be said of other OSs on the machine such as linux. I know one person that uses his mbp almost exclusively in linux. He's got the thing triple booting and can drop into mac os or windows when needed.

For those that need most of one and a little of another, It's arguably easier to osx/win on a macbook than on a pc(dell etc) laptop, so regardless of which is your 80 of the 80/20, the macbook is the path of least resistance. (tho certainly the more expensive option, possibly the higher quality, and maybe that's the issue here with seeing lower battery life?)

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[fullgandoo]

I agree with you. For instance on my previous generation Macbook Pro, there is no way to tap the touch pad for a mouse click under Windows. You are forced to use the touchpad button.

On the face of it, it looks like an innocent little accidental omission by Apple, which they steadfastly refuse to fix. Since all the Windows drivers are provided by Apple, I believe it is deliberate on their part to degrade the user experience on anything but OSX. That is just typical mean-spirited behavior by Apple.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[sgbett]

Sounds like a good test.

Except for the part where you change two variables at the same time.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[gad_zuki!]

Its typical slashdot two minutes of hate. I remember this issue being big news here and no where else with XP on boot camp. Apple updated some driver in boot camp the the issue went away. Considering 7 isnt even officially out yet, perhaps the haters should wait for some updates.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[oenone.ablaze]

I'm going to go ahead and make a claim with just as much evidence as you just provided--none--namely, that Microsoft has some hidden code that runs down the battery when it detects Apple hardware. Which is easier, designing hardware to make an operating system run inefficiently, or designing software to make hardware run efficiently? Microsoft is cleearrrly just trying to make Mac hardware look bad so people go back to PC hardware, bringing some market share back to Windows.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[fooslacker]

Your post doesn't really have any rationale behind it but rather states your opinions such as "I have to question the wisdom of using a VM session for more than an hour or so on just the battery" and "that's kind of to be expected, IMO". My response would be why? I'm willing to listen by not just take your word for it. Explain.

As for your comments on usage patterns and there not being a need for this sort of usage, I sometimes do .NET development in Fusion on my MacBook Pro (especially while traveling). Normally I'm plugged in when doing this but I do sometimes go on battery and I haven't had any issues. I know that not everyone does multi-platform development but if you do you and you find yourself traveling then you try to limit the amount of hardware you have to lug around. The easiest way to do this if you're doing OS X, Java, and .NET work is to use a Mac then run a VM for the .NET stuff, IMO.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[commodore64_love]

>>>going from 4.5 hours of battery life on OS X on a MBP to 2 hours on any other OS is a little extreme!

Agreed. I've been using Microsoft products off-and-on for the last 25 years... ...and they haven't made a superior product since BASIC 7.0 on my C=128. The Windows 1-to-3 releases were jokes, Win95 was decent but still inferior to the Amiga or Mac OSes, and the new Vista 6.1 (Win7) is a giant blob of amorphous code that refuses to run properly even with 1.5 gigs of RAM in my brother's computer. Even though my XP machine only has 1/3rd as much memory, it still runs faster.

Windows Vista 6.1 still needs some major rewriting for efficiency. Maybe by the time we get to NT 7.0 these issues will finally be resolved.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[Starayo]

That's because QuickTime AND WMV suck.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[wampus]

Quicktime DOES suck in Windows. Have you ever tried to add codec support to it?

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[bami]

Ghostbusters?

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[jac89]

I use the windows 7 RC on my macbook via bootcamp and have found the battery life almost the same as osx. Especially if you actually use the power saving menu and switch to low performance.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[smartr]

You should try running Microsoft Office on OS X... I'm sure Microsoft innocently couldn't figure out the native keyboard behavior for text editing, and was forced to make all the programs use Windows style functions (home, end, command left/right). They left tons of features out of entourage compared to outlook, and if you paste images into a word documents, they won't appear when you actually send the documents out. I can't for the life of me figure out why my employer bought me a copy. Microsoft left a giant piece of crap on my lawn. The question is, did they fling it or do they just not care to clean up their mess?

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[Pulse_Instance]

I'd probably call the guy who forgot to bring the DC to AC converter.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[dr.newton]

I agree. That comment was meant to be a little tongue-in-cheek.

It is obvious from my experience that the MBP is not a level playing field for all OSes.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[Rynor]

Except that Microsoft is not a PC vendor, and since you're running Windows on a Macbook you already have bought a license from then so why should they want to sabotage their own business ?

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[oenone.ablaze]

Okay, I think I should post a clarification before someone misunderstands and moderates me down. I don't think anyone is trying to sabotage anyone--I think it would be ludicrous for Microsoft to sabotage its software, just as I think it would be ludicrous for Apple to sabotage boot camp when it is a major selling point of Macs to switchers.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[dr.newton]

Interesting! Does your MBP have both discrete and on-board GPUs?

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[wampus]

First, why would I attempt to use UNIX commands on my Windows box? Second, Windows doesn't use the UNIX filesystem model, so /Library doesn't mean anything on a Windows box. QuickTime lives at C:\Program Files\QuickTime\ here. As for jumping through hoops, I had to enter an admininstrator password to do the copy in the first place, but that's just kind of what I expect when my user account doesn't have write permission somewhere. So after I did copy the files to wherever they were supposed to go - it's been awhile, my memory isn't so great - I tried to open a file that works in DirectShow and VLC. Quicktime opened up an error dialog suggesting that I go fuck myself, and another recommending that I go pro.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[cayenne8]

"I agree with you. For instance on my previous generation Macbook Pro, there is no way to tap the touch pad for a mouse click under Windows. You are forced to use the touchpad button."

Interesting, I hit this from the complete opposite direction. I'd only really messed with my iBook as far as laptops go (mostly used desktops with linux and windows). I got on a friends windows laptop, first time we were in a car on a road trip, so slightly bumpy and for the life of me I could NOT figure out why things kept activating, or responding to 'clicks' when I had not clicked any of the mouse buttons on the laptop.

He finally showed me that it would click by 'tapping' the touch pad.

Even after I found out about it...to use his laptop, I had to turn the tap pad thing the fuck off. I'm used to keeping my finger on the mouse pad most all the time, and it constantly was registering clicks when I'd not wanted to click anything.

So, depends on what you're used to. I often prefer to hook a mouse up to my laptops when I can...especially when using linux, so I can have the center button for quick pasting after highlighting for a copy.

But yes...that tapping thing was a surprise to me. I'm much more comfy with clicking a real button.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[Desler]

Quicktime does suck. It's a bloated piece of shit player that has some of the worst performance around.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[CodingHero]

Actually if they were just another PC vendor it probably wouldn't be so bad for them. From what I've heard, they make most of their profit on their hardware. And with a new Mac costing several hundered dollars more than a new PC combined with how inexpensive OS X upgrades tend to be, it makes sense.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[Anonymous Coward]

Honest Question here. Is the same behavior observed for Vista, or are we only talking about Windows 7? If we are only talking about windows 7, why does everyone expect Apple to have properly working drivers for a BETA version of Windows that hasn't been released yet.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[ground.zero.612]

Maybe, at least for the VM, it's neither Microsoft nor Apple, but rather VMWare. I wouldn't question the wisdom of using a VM session at all on battery or not. I do all of my browsing, email, IM, etc through different VMs, (eg. 1 VM for Firefox, 1 VM for Outlook, 1 VM for ICQ/MSN), I can't say that I've ever noticed it draining my HP Pavillion's battery any more than anything else really...

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[jac89]

Nope this is just the 13inch Macbook. Remember that battery benchmarks are flawed.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[tcc3]

People seem to think you are being reactionary, or a troll. But the truth is the touch pad worked fine in the Bootcamp beta, then at some point it got crippled.

Its a little too convenient. It wouldn't surprise me if there are other drivers poorly written to punish you for using WIndows.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[GlassHeart]

Since all the Windows drivers are provided by Apple, I believe it is deliberate on their part to degrade the user experience on anything but OSX.

You have a curiously low threshold for reaching the conclusion that somebody is deliberately mean-spirited. Would a Windows bug also lead you to conclude that Microsoft hates users?

How important do you suppose getting the best Windows experience is at Apple? How many of their best and brightest do you suppose this task attracts?

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[Alystair]

I recently bought and a 15" Macbook Pro. I then sold it 3 months later because because I didn't enjoy OSX and it seemed like there were many things done by Apple to prevent Windows from being a proper alternative on the otherwise nice piece of hardware: - iSight is limited to 160x120 pixels. Yes, the size of a postage stamp. This can't be changed anywhere. - Cannot switch between the two video cards available in the system (nvidia 9400M and 9600M GT), so you're stuck with the higher end graphics and loose another hour of battery life - Cannot turn keyboard backlight off, only to lowest brightness setting, unlike in OSX. That's more battery life gone. - Bootcamp application/drivers consumes 2-4% of processor when idle. What the hell. It's necessary to keep it running if you want to utilize the function keys on the keyboard amongst other things. - Optical output couldn't upmix stereo input to 5.1 surround no matter what drivers were used. This was also a "feature" when in OSX. I couldn't stand having

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[JasonBee]

and what is the alternative you propose?

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[JasonBee]

Perhaps...but in MacOS X, the bastion of QuickTime, I have Perian and Flip4Mac WMV codecs installed that , voila, make QuickTime play everything under the sun. I too thought there were perhaps shortcomings but the whole setup merely adds the plugins to Quicktime that are required. Who knew you only needed a plugin? So hard!

It's there, so it must be possible. I suspect noone has bothered to do the same on windows, ergo it's not "possible" to do now, but not impossible to implement.

What I was referring to with regards to the player has to do with video manipulation of existing and readable files. regardless of the codec support, Quicktime *handles* video playback better than many other options out there.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[JasonBee]

What, no third option? There is no third option!

With apologies to the iMac setup adverts.

Funny you say that...I just ponied up for the pro options. For 19 bucks more I have MPEG 2 support and everything is pretty grand.

I agree nagware is pretty silly in this day and age...perhaps Apple will douse it.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[Achromatic1978]

Wow. What a troll. Instead of following Occam's Razor, and assuming that the Apple-written driver for the touchpad doesn't pass the click through, as this Dell Latitude does, or my Sony Vaio, etc does, you presume that there's some magical code in the kernel that ignores touchpad click events "if deviceId == APPLE_MACBOOK_TOUCHPAD" or similar.

Get back under your bridge.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[fullgandoo]

I'm not asking for the best Windows experience from Apple. Apple officially supports Windows on Mac, provides you with the drivers for Windows even advertises the fact that now you can run Windows natively.

And then they omit a simple feature that probably every laptop in the world supports. And the said feature is something that the overwhelming majority of laptop users on all operating systems are used to. And then to top it all, Apple doesn't fix the "bug" for years and even refuses to acknowledge that such an issue exists. What other conclusion should one draw than that they are deliberately degrading the user experience for anyone attempting to use another O/S on Mac.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[ghmh]

Actually FYI, 7 is officially out. I'm downloading it from MSDN right now.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[arclyte]

As if using Windows wasn't punishment enough!

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[PopeRatzo]

I have unusual power drain on my Macbook Pro, but according to the specifications, that's to be expected.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[RockWolf]

Considering 7 isnt even officially out yet, perhaps the haters should wait for some updates.

But then they'd miss out on a prime opportunity to rant senselessly without any facts at all.

Knowing this place, they'd even get modded up.

/~Rockwolf

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[wampus]

Yes, that is exactly it. I'm glad someone finally understands.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[sokkalf]

Tap-to-click now works for older MacBooks in the 3.0 BootCamp drivers that come with Snow Leopard beta.. and probably will work at release too.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[chihowa]

Interestingly, I've found that the Boot Camp sound card drivers for Windows actually support mic boost for the "Line-in" jack on the Macbook, making it a kazillion times more useful. Under OSX, you can't use mic boost on that audio port, so if you want to attach a standard headset-mic, you need a USB soundcard with a mic-in port.

Apparently, the hardware supports it, and the Windows driver supports it, but OSX degrades the function of that port for some bizarre reason.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[metaforest]

The drivers don't do the gesture stuff. That happens at the OS level. Winblows doesn't support gestures.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[fullgandoo]

The drivers don't do the gesture stuff. That happens at the OS level. Winblows doesn't support gestures.

Thank you for the insightful comment. This isn't a fucking "gesture" we're talking about. It is a mouse click that every other touch pad in the world supports.

Did you even read my fucking comment? Or perhaps you haven't had the privilege of using a laptop yet.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[metaforest]

You are fucking wrong.

The taps are processed as "gestures" under MacOS, because you can tap with one or more fingers to get different behaviors. Windows cannot deal with that. So the driver just passes the button presses. Apple could be a bit more sophisticated in the driver, and support taps, but I think the driver might get a little too complicated for that.

Thank you for being an unmitigated, fucking, tool about it.

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[fullgandoo]

Right! And the said "gestures" were available to Windows in Bootcamp beta on the old Macbook Pro (not in Bootcamp final version) and are available to Windows in the new Macbook Pro.

I suppose you're right that Windows just can not deal with that!

So who's the fucking tool here?

Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion

[metaforest]

The old macbook pro had a very different touchpad. It did process taps internally. The new one passes information about the touched regions to MacOS so that more complex gesture detection is supported. This is a case where the more complex gesture processing could not be handled in the touch pad, so the raw touches are passed to the main CPU for processing.

Maybe you should read up on how MacOS processes multi-point touches, before getting snarky with me about it.

Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Sockatume]

Macbooks are essentially the same hardware as Windows machines, down to battery capacity. It is unlikely that a "bloated codebase" would chew through the battery like nobody's business on one x86 machine and suddenly become perfectly benign on a practically identical x86 machine. Bloat doesn't magically appear when you put an Apple logo on something.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[fatalwall]

[...] Bloat doesn't magically appear when you put an Apple logo on something.

Unless your talking about price!!!

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[gintoki]

This is slashdot, any issue involving microsoft is automatically their fault. Why RTFA when microsoft is to blame for everything that is wrong with the world.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[commodore64_love]

You don't understand. Buying an Apple is like buying a Lexus or Acura. It gives you the opportunity to brag about your awesome machine, even though there's no real difference between a Lexus v. Toyota, or Acura v. Honda, except the inflated +33% higher pricetag.

I still remember my friends' reaction when I pointed to his shiny-new Acura and said, "The logo on the glass says Honda. And here inside the glovebox is another Honda logo. And... yep there's a Honda logo on the wheel cover." You would have thought I just insulted his best girl. "No, no that can't be. This is Acura not Honda. That logo's wrong. I only buy the best; the best I tell you."

I stepped back several feet.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[MightyYar]

LOL... They do have that reputation. However, last time I went shopping for a notebook it was about the same price as a similarly-equipped Dell and so I went with the MacBook Pro. To be fair, some of the features are hard to price-compare - but the pricing was within 5%.

I haven't tried to run Windows on it - so far everything from Windows-land that I need to run works in Crossover.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[jellomizer]

A computer is more then just the CPU. The case of how does Windows 7 handle the hardware or the Drivers handle the hardware or a combination of both. Can really effect a system. Apple Hardware isn't more expensive then normal PC's because Apple is making so much more per copy. It is more expensive because there is a lot of little things built in that add up. Go to Dell or Lenovo and try to build yourself a Laptop that matches all of Apples features. When I say All I mean ALL, no excuses like I don't need that anyways. You will find that the prices are about the same... +/- $100.00 or so. But all those little features OS X knows about and uses properly. Boot Camp Drivers Cover most of them, Windows handles other ones. I know for an instance Windows Vista with boot camp keeps the lights on the keyboard while OS X is a bit smarter then that.

Now comes to the question. Is the Mac made Drivers for Vista keeping those lights on. Or Vista is telling the driver to keep it on. I am betting it is both.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Sockatume]

I've no doubt at all that it's a driver issue.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[jellomizer]

But say windows tells the driver when it is initialize to turn on default vs. Turn off by default. Or windows pulls to get its status every second vs. every 2 seconds.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Shadow of Eternity]

that's the same thing i thought which to me says the issue might not be win7 itself but rather whatever is wrapped around it by OSX. I had a teacher in highschool that insisted we use Qbasic even though the sonofabitch literally maxed out every machine it was run on (it was like running prime95 ALL the TIME), I think the same basic effect might be occuring here. It's not that hard to just have one bad piece of code blossom up to massive cpu usage and cause a ton of power to be used.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Em Emalb]

I'm guessing that "friend" doesn't hang out with you much any more? :P

That's like a buddy getting a new girlfriend and pointing out all the flaws in her rather than the positives. Could you? Sure. Should you? Depends on the friend.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Sockatume]

Or more likely, there just isn't a Windows driver for the keyboard light. It's a pretty exotic feature.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Dwedit]

That's a problem in how the NTVDM (Windows NT/2000/XP's DOS subsystem) works. It always gives 100% CPU usage to the program, regardless of what it actually needs. Qbasic runs smooth and snappy on a 286, it just might not be using HALT instructions to indicate that it's done with what it's doing.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[ByOhTek]

Bloat doesn't magically appear when you put an Apple logo on something.

Have you ever used Apple produced software (iTunes, Quicktime, etc.) on Windows? Or noticed their memory requirements on their own OS?

Not that MS is necessarily any better, but, yeah, Apple is one of the Triumvirate of Bloat for consumer software, in my not-so-humble opinion. The sit in their little triangular table with MS and Adobe.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[BadAnalogyGuy]

The friend is clearly motivated by name value alone and doesn't see the respectability of the Acura brand as coming from the car quality but rather from some undefinable je ne sais quoi that somehow Honda doesn't have.

Clearly, Honda is the Toyota of automobiles. There's nothing wrong with them and a lot right with them. I'd buy one in a heartbeat if they weren't a foreign maker.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Lorkki]

It's possible that the drivers handling power management on one set of peripherals are better at their jobs than other ones, or play more nicely with some managerial component. With exceptionally crufty codebases there's lots of opportunities for unexpected effects; whether that has anything to do with this accusation of "bloat" depends on what is actually meant.

Somehow I doubt most people making it know either, nor have enough acquaintance with Windows's innards to make an expert judgment.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Nikademus]

Multiple driver issues then, as running some OS in fusion isn't the same as in bare hardware, it's a whole new machine from the guest OS point of view.
If you run windows on the bare hardware, it will use nvidia and all other real hardware drivers.
If you run windows in fusion, it will use some "generic" hardware drivers.
So I somehow doubt it's a specific driver problem if it happens both in fusion and on bare hardware.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[bruce_the_loon]

Does that mean that the Volkswagen Golf I have is an Audi because half the components have the four rings logo somewhere on them. Yippee, I'm upper-class :) ;)

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly, Honda is the Toyota of automobiles.

Once again you've demonstrated why you chose the user name you did.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[bickerdyke]

Clearly, Honda is the Toyota of automobiles. There's nothing wrong with them and a lot right with them. I'd buy one in a heartbeat if they weren't a foreign maker.

You enjoy living up to your name, aren't you?

What's next? Pepsi is the Coca Cola of softdrinks?

+1 Funny

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[weicco]

A program that doesn't use 100% of the CPU isn't really efficient one. I mean, it doesn't make software any better no matter how many NOPs you add.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[JustASlashDotGuy]

Yes and No. Acura and Honda are made by the same company, but are not the same exact car. Acura is the upper end line, while Honda is not. If you drive a TL and then drive an Accord, there is no way you will confuse the handling, finish, or features of the too. The closest you will come is if you compare the low end Acuras (IE: TSX to the Honda line). Honda makes Acura, Toyota makes Lexus, Nissan makes Infinity, etc. It's nothing new.

I myself drive a Acura TL and refer to it as a Honda all the time. If there was a comparable car in the Honda line when I got this car, I would have gladly purchased it.

As for thinking people just Apples because they want to brag, I don't understand that logic. Apples use a completely different OS and way of doing things; there's now cheaper priced Mac OS they can get. In some cases, Apples are better suited for a given task than MS is. Saying Apple users pay more so they can brag to Windows users, is like saying Windows user pay more so they can brag to Linux users. Each OS has their niche. Personally, I wouldn't say any single OS is better than another in every way. To each their own.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[jimmyfrank]

I bought a macbook because I wanted to run Leopard and XP. Consumer reports also rated Apple laptops #1 in all screen size categories. I'm also not poor so I spent a few xtra bucks.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[krzy123]

Acura was a brand that was created purely for the NA market (because americans like shiny things/luxury brands). There cars used to be sold as Hondas in Japan. One example has always been the Acura TSX, which is a Honda Accord in Europe.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[MightyYar]

Standard "I did no research" response. Yawn. Get back to me with some numbers.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Ilgaz]

They are NOT the same hardware, they require Apple drivers and they are also EFI based. Other than that, you must be really optimistic about Windows developers if you compare Windows CPU/resource usage to a system built on 40 year old principles which were designed on a PDP-10 machine.

If I compare a BSD 4.4 Lite/Mach/NeXT/FreeBSD mix to Windows 7 which defaults to Ultimate version as of today, I will see bloat. I can barely stand to Spotlight on OS X and I decided to like it when I saw Windows Search which is on by default.

Other than that, check my message about the missing drivers on Windows 7. It is not MS, Apple or even NVidia or Intel's fault. What is supported under boot camp method? Vista? They should have installed Vista. As of 2009, it is not bad anyway.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Colonel Korn]

Macbooks are essentially the same hardware as Windows machines, down to battery capacity. It is unlikely that a "bloated codebase" would chew through the battery like nobody's business on one x86 machine and suddenly become perfectly benign on a practically identical x86 machine. Bloat doesn't magically appear when you put an Apple logo on something.

It's (probably) not perfectly benign on an identical x86 machine. Anandtech broke this story in October 2008 (http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3435&p=13), so Slashdot is picking things like this up about as quickly as usual. Have you ever wondered why Macbooks often have 50-100% more battery life than a similar non-Mac with very similar specs, including a battery of the same capacity? It's the OS. This is the one area where OSX is the unequivocal champion. Somehow its power savings are vastly better than those in Windows.

Anand has also made some mistakes, I think, like talking about the 6 hour battery life on new Macbooks and claiming that there are no PCs that can match that time, which is absolutely false. What he needs to do to finish investigating this power difference is install OSX on, say, a Lenovo laptop and see whether battery life improves dramatically. Of course, I think that he won't publish about something that breaks a license agreement, so we'll have to wait for another site with fewer legal worries does it.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[elrous0]

Apple can aggressively block any and all applications that they don't approve from and iPhone, aggressively tie the iTunes store with the iPod, and sue anyone who so much as speculates about their upcoming products--and that's just them "acting within their rights." But if MS so much as installs IE as the default browser on a Windows install, slashdotters are breaking out their pitchforks (never mind that Apple and Linux do the EXACT SAME THING on their OS's).

This "MS is evil. But Apple and Google can do no wrong" meme got tired a LONG time ago. I suggest a new graphic with Steve Jobs as a borg too.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[commodore64_love]

>>>That's like a buddy getting a new girlfriend and pointing out all the flaws in her rather than the positives.

Yeah you're right, but I didn't know that at the time. I thought he'd be happy to have another quality Honda product, since his previous car was Honda, but apparently not.

To me, a Honda car is just as good as an Acura. Ditto Toyota v. Lexus or Dodge v. Chrysler. In fact my Dodge Avenger is virtually identical to the Chrysler variant. It's all the same engineering, typically with identical engines and chassis, but ~$10,000 cheaper.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[MartinSchou]

As for thinking people just Apples because they want to brag

I think you a word.

And comparing Mac OS X to Windows (price) by the same standard as Windows to Linux, you're forgetting a rather crucial detail - where as you can buy/download a copy of Windows/Linux and install it on any computer you want and not be in some kind of bind (according to various EULAs etc), that doesn't hold true for Mac OS X. Which is quite a shame, but besides the point.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[PeterChenoweth]

Nope. There is. Keyboard backlighting works just fine on my MBP when bootcamped to XP. It does not, however, automatically adjust the keyboard backlight intensity with ambient lighting conditions as OSX does. One can still manually adjust the intensity with the keyboard buttons, if desired.

Come to think of it, I'm not actually sure the screen brightness adjusts dynamically in bootcamped XP either. It might be the same deal as the keyboard. I can't recall.

It could be little things like that adding up. Screen brightness is a major drain on battery power. It could be that since OSX can and does (by default anyway) aggressively ramp down the brightness whenever it can when on battery power, it's able to save more watts. Where if XP can't/doesn't do that (on an Apple), you'd get more of a battery drain. Just a thought.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[DikSeaCup]

You forget Real Networks. The worst, in my opinion (you can decide the humbleness of it).

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[MightyYar]

HDMI via an adapter. No on the Blu-Ray, I think.

Why do you ask?

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[commodore64_love]

>>>As for thinking people just Apples because they want to brag, I don't understand that logic.

Apples used to be distinctive when they used 68000 or PowerPC central processors, but now that they use Intel CPUs and other generic video/sound cards, they are really no different from a Dell or Gateway machine except that they have an Apple logo attached. The hardware is so identical that now Apple machines can run Intel Windows, or vice-versa Intel PCs run Apple OS X.

It's similar to how a Chrysler Sebring is simply a rebadged Dodge Avenger.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[CastrTroy]

Well, to be fair, when you're running fusion, you're running 0SX and windows, so it would make sense that it would eat up more battery power. Each emulated CPU cycle is going to take more than 1 hardware CPU cycle to emulate it. Also, because you are using generic driver's, you aren't directly using the 3D hardware, and are probably wasting a lot of power doing things on the CPU that should be done on the video card.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[ByOhTek]

You are right, I did. But now it's not a triumvirate anymore.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[ElSupreme]

Yes your VW Golf is an Audi A3. Pretty much identical. But they get nicer shocks, engine, and transmission. Now my GTI the only real difference is under hood configuration, and ride height. Plus mine came with the Audi 'premium package' stock, and cost 5000$ less.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Anonymous Coward]

... If you drive a TL and then drive an Accord, there is no way you will confuse the handling, finish, or features ...

Really? Have you done a double-blind test? Please drive each one while blind-folded and get back to us with your results.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[JasonBee]

Apples, Oranges.

I can run any internet app or network protocol handler on a mac (from OS 9 to 10!) and that app will "own" the protocol just as I want. That's why MS was sued...they prevented you from using any other protocol helper by tying you to theirs. That's monopolistically anti competitive. It was wrong, and will always be wrong.

Apple has a revenue model tied to a device that could not go to market unless the INDUSTRY providing the content was provided a pound of flesh - as in DRM. Steve Jobs stands alone in the wilderness having PUBLICLY espoused dropping ALL DRM in favour of open formats (pick your poison) that were not locked. What you are complaining about sir, is that we could have had a world where Apple was forced to use *your* choice of format (say, DRM'd wmv?) and pay a royalty to MS, or to Real, or to whomever, Borg Inc? They chose to usurp the world order in favour of a dominant model that was won fair and square, and now they want to kill all DRM forever, which means that you can buy music from whomever, and play it on whatever. All Apple requires is that you use iTunes to manage your Apple devices. boo hoo...now that you can buy MP3s on iTunes you can move that music to whatever other program you like and then play it on the device you like. Inconvenience? Yes, but it's Apple's playground. They helped tear down the fence that kept you locked in. They are under no obligation to makes iTunes sync with any other device. Although it'd be rally nice.

You have your wires crossed. You just argued in favour of the BORG instead of against it.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[samriel]

Bloat doesn't magically appear when you put an Apple logo on something.

Have you ever used Apple produced software (iTunes, Quicktime, etc.) on Windows? Or noticed their memory requirements on their own OS?

Not that MS is necessarily any better, but, yeah, Apple is one of the Triumvirate of Bloat for consumer software, in my not-so-humble opinion. The sit in their little triangular table with MS and Adobe.

Maybe it's just a windows thing, but on my MacMini(2,1) running 10.5.8, they total about 190 MB of memory - this is with Finder, Safari, iTunes, QuickTime, and Activity Monitor running. Either the applications quickly got more lightweight, or Windows is just retarded with how it handles memory.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[commodore64_love]

True, false, false.

Yes the Audi shocks are "better" than the VW, but it's easy to upgrade them at your dealer for about $400. You don't need to spend an extra ten thousand. And there's no difference between the VW and Audi engines or transmissions, which all come off the same line and with identical specs.

It's also worth nothing that a Jetta, Golf, and Beetle are all virtually identical, except the body style. They use identical chassis and engines and transmissions.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Runaway1956]

You don't think that MS might have coded this "feature" into Windows, do you? Nahhh. Windows would never do anything so unscrupulous. Wait - what's that in my sig? Hmmm - gotta think about this...

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[UnknowingFool]

Macbooks are essentially the same hardware as Windows machines.

That's kinda like saying a Dell Latitude is essentially the same as a Lenovo Thinkpad. Yes they use some of the same type of components, but they don't use exactly the same components; every laptop essentially uses customized parts. You can't swap out parts as you see fit even for different models from the same manufacturer. There is a lot of customization that happens for each laptop model. Saying they are the same is ignoring the details and details matter.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Em Emalb]

We've all been there, I think. Funny how people take stuff so seriously. But hey, for him I think that car was his baby and his baby got a black eye. Of course, the funny thing in all this is that if he'd spent all of 1 minute on the internet, he'd have known what his car was made of. Oh well.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[joeyblades]

My MacBook battery running Mac OS X typically last twice as long as my HP battery running XP. If the hardware is "essentially the same", then I would say that it's not inconceivable that the OS is a factor.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[santiagodraco]

Interesting. So how long did it take you to research which parts on the more upscale, classy, refined and feature rich car had logos you could point out? Sounds more like a bit of a jealous obsession to me :)

I bought an infiniti G37, do you think I would have been as happy or that a Nissan is "just as good", hardly. That's not to say Nissan's aren't good cars, but they don't have the extra refinement and features AND better components found on the Infiniti brand, regardless if some are Nissan parts.

As for the Mac Book vs. Regular Notebook, well, if you are buying a MacBook to run Windows in Bootcamp then you deserve to have your head smacked. You'd be better off and buying another brand with Windows because ultimately the OS is pretty much where everything lives, and it should run on the machine directly, not through BootCamp. This isn't a case of virtualization for server farm use.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Anonymous Coward]

... If you drive a TL and then drive an Accord, there is no way you will confuse the handling, finish, or features ...

Really? Have you done a double-blind test? Please drive each one while blind-folded and get back to us with your results.

When you get back, file the results under 'whatcouldpossiblygowrong'

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[brusk]

Actually a triumvirate of bloat with four members would be quite apt.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[angelbunny]

Actually MS does do this. Look at the xbox.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[angelbunny]

True but I doubt this is the issue with windows 7. It is most likely nvidia's fault. The graphic card is what is consuming battery life. Even OSX hits this issue from time to time on my mbp. Nvidia's hardware locks up and the gpu consumes to much power from time to time.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[ElSupreme]

You are correct, I was thinking of the Quattro A3s, as they are very different under the hood.

And yes I do know that the Jetta, Golf/Rabbit, and Beetle are all based on the same platform, with the TT (not sure about the new TT), A3, and A4. As I have owned a Jetta.

And yes my GTI has EVERYTHING (except leather) that came with the A3 'premium package and cost $5000 less when I bought it.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[angelbunny]

At least apple is doing something about it with 10.6. Currently on 10.5.8 after bootup OSX uses up around 220MB or ram. Bloated? Yes, but in comparison to MS no.

My opinion might be a bit biased though. I consider ubuntu bloated.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[mehemiah]

Macbooks are essentially the same hardware as Windows machines BUT THEIR NOT!!! the adaptive charge chipset on the macbooks is't burning the battery by stupidly charging untill full all the time, its like striped raid instead of just filling up the disks,

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Mattsson]

Exactly.
Compare the same OS on two laptops with the same chipset, CPU, GPU and similar screens and battery-capacity but that uses different drivers.
If one of them runs out of battery significantly faster than the other, it's clearly a driver problem. (Might also be a hardware problem, but then it would affect any OS.)

One wonders if the people having this problem uses mostly Apple-supplied drivers or if they use the drivers available from ATI, Intel, Realtek, etc, for the hardware where there are alternatives to the Apple-supplied ones.
Would be interesting to see if there's a difference in power-drain with different drivers...

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[mehemiah]

grammer correction ... they're not

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Fujisawa Sensei]

LOL... You gave the standard answer, even briefly mentioning Dell. Macs are still way more expensive though.

That's because Macs don't use the POS Intel graphics chips.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[onkelonkel]

"Clearly, Honda is the Toyota of automobiles."

I salute you Sir! You have outdone yourself.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[RedK]

Foreign car maker ? Honda builds more models in the USA and any of the big 3. It uses more parts from local providers than any of the big 3. Honda gives back to the USA more than the american car makers. I'd say if you're American, you should definitely buy a Honda if you're into protectionism.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[RedK]

Yes and No. Acura and Honda are made by the same company, but are not the same exact car.

Yes and No. Acura is only a North American brand. Everywhere else, Acuras are called Hondas. In fact, the Acura CSX is just a Honda Civic with it's JDM front-end (the NA Civic got a different front-end). The Acura TSX is actually the Honda Accord (the NA Honda Accord being an Honda Inspire), etc.. etc..

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[caseih]

Eh? You're the one bringing up the tired meme. Do you even read slashdot comments on anything Apple-related? If so you'd know that most people come down pretty hard on Apple. It's an equal-opportunity hating I think. And of course without fail on any google, apple, or microsoft post, we have someone repeating what you just said, which gets really tiring. As for understanding slashot posters' often hypocritical and contradictory statements, just realize we are all driven by the maxim, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[commodore64_love]

>>>So how long did it take you to research which parts on the more upscale, classy, refined and feature rich car had logos you could point out?
>>>

About 5 minutes. The Honda logos are pretty obvious on the Acura if you have good eyesight, and your friend has invited you to "check out" his new car. After examining it and riding in it, I still prefer my Insight even though it's "only" a Honda and "only" cost me $14,000 to buy.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[commodore64_love]

>>>apple was a lot cheaper than every competitor on the 13" laptop market. almost 600$ less than a equivalent vaio, and a lot more powerful than the 600$ toshiba satellite pc
>>>

Yeah but maybe I don't want an "equivalent" laptop. Maybe I'm happy just having half the power or features, and thereby saving money. Apple ignores us budget-conscious persons, which is a flaw.

Also Apple has the annoyance of the "apple tax" where you have to spend ~$100 every year to upgrade from 10.4 to 10.5 to 10.6 and so on. This is why my G4 Mac hasn't been updated with the latest sotware - I can't afford it.

In contrast I bought Windows XP in 2002 and haven't need to spend a dime on OS upgrades since then. Simply put - it's cheaper.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[ezelkow1]

That may be true under normal circumstances but that leaves out the ability to wait and price shop for a deal. When I got my Dell I waited for a big sale and managed to get 600$ off my laptop and in the end my laptop, whose processor and basic specs were the exact same as the current MBP at the time cost HALF the price. Thats also not including the actual upgrade that I got with the dell which included a better dedicated graphics card and a larger hdd than the mbp. Thats half the price with better specs than the equivalent mbp. Maybe if apple started offering any discounts this could hold true but they barely have sales or what anyone would call sales in comparison to every other manufacturer.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Wizlish]

You mean like "Up in Harlem at a table for two / There were four of us -- me, your great big feets, and you"?

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[ByOhTek]

I'm talking about *JUST* the memory used by those applications, not the entire OS. That has nothing to do with Microsoft's programming.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[geekoid]

Assembled in America, not built.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[cayenne8]

"You don't understand. Buying an Apple is like buying a Lexus or Acura. It gives you the opportunity to brag about your awesome machine, even though there's no real difference between a Lexus v. Toyota, or Acura v. Honda, except the inflated +33% higher pricetag."

I love car analogies, but, I think you missed something here. You are talking ONLY from a pure functionality standpoint. If you go with the assumption that the Lexus has the exact same mechanical parts/performance of the analgous model of the Toyota (I don't know if this is 100% true or not), you still have to consider that one IS more luxurious than the other. The Lexus usually has more fancy body styling, and the interiors are done much better with better styling and nice materials. It likely has options for a better sound system than the Toyota, etc. Maybe even a quieter ride.

People are willing to pay more for that. Heck, they do that even within a model line. Aren't there different levels of the same Camry you can choose from?

Same goes with you mac to normal windows pc type box. The mac is often visually more appealing...if you use OSX, well, in some people's opinion, it gives a nice user experience, etc. People are willing to pay a bit more for those things even though they have the same Intel chips and other hardware on the inside.

Most computer users out there, aren't cracking their computers open to have a look at what is "under the hood".

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[drinkypoo]

Yes and No. Acura and Honda are made by the same company, but are not the same exact car. Acura is the upper end line, while Honda is not. If you drive a TL and then drive an Accord, there is no way you will confuse the handling, finish, or features of the too.

You will, too! But not if you drive them, but if you work on them. I will never forget the woman bringing her Lexus into the college auto body shop for a clunk in the suspension. It turned out that you can't buy an upper ball joint for whatever it was (a higher-end model, too) but must purchase the entire A-arm. This is something you do on economy cars, not luxury ones! Which brings us to our next point; the difference between a Honda and an Acura (or a Nissan and an Infiniti, or a Lexus and a Toyota) is asphalt, upholstery, shocks, wheels, and tires. Anything else is a minor cosmetic difference. Some more powerful engines are offerered on the higher-end cars, but as always you can get superior performance and mileage from a smaller engine with a turbo kit. The added asphalt in the car reduces road noise and vibration, but it adds weight which harms efficiency and handling. You think that the cars handle better, but if you put their shocks, wheels, and tires on the cheaper car they're based on, they get taken to school.

Nothing is stopping you, therefore, from turning your honda into a Lexus. This is where the simile breaks down, and becomes non-similar. OSX has artificial, arguably anticompetitive restrictions on what hardware it will run on, which is why it takes more than just coming up with equivalent hardware to run it on a non-Apple computer. The only thing stopping you from upgrading your car is effort; you'd have to strip it down pretty far to add all the sound-deadening material, and you'd have to upgrade the suspension all the way around, and also probably increase your engine's power output. Where the whole comparison still works of course is that an Apple laptop is to an Asus as a Lexus is to a Toyota. The guts are made in the same factories, they are dressed up differently, and sold at a [sometimes wildly] different price. In reality, you're getting essentially the same hardware, but you're paying a very different price based on the marque. So what you're really paying for is your share of the marque's cachet. A Lexus is the same piece of shit as a Toyota (note that all mass market cars made today are junk possessed of planned obsolescence) it will develop the same problems in about the same time. It will be more pleasant to run into the ground, but it's still going into the same-sized hole.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Lorkki]

Technically true, if your program only processes a large chunk of stuff once and never has to wait for network activity, disk access, user input or some other kind of external event. NOPs aren't what the parent spoke of, however. These days, a program typically uses a blocking call or voluntarily yields execution when there's nothing for it to react to, so in the absence of active processes the OS can tell the processor to halt (possibly slowing down or turning off parts of itself until an interrupt comes by and wakes it up).

QBasic was written to be run as the sole program on an architecture which didn't have the benefit of such features, so it uses a different mechanism, which is a bad fit to modern power saving schemes.

Hope that helps.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[drinkypoo]

Each emulated CPU cycle is going to take more than 1 hardware CPU cycle to emulate it.

Good thing VMware fusion uses virtualization, and executes the instructions directly on the host CPU then, huh? It's not emulating those instructions, it's virtualizing them. Some address translation is done... by the CPU.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[PJ1216]

There are Windows laptops with both those features you mentioned (auto-adjusting screen/keyboard lighting). XP is more than capable of it (i know, I own one). From what I'm hearing, Apple provides the drivers and has been known to leave out various features (someone mentioned that you can't click the trackpad to perform a mouse click in XP), so its quite possibly Apple's fault and they may use this as a talking point.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[drinkypoo]

But all those little features OS X knows about and uses properly. Boot Camp Drivers Cover most of them, Windows handles other ones.

Usually power is handled by ACPI. Apple has two opportunities to fuck up ACPI, in the implementation and in the driver. Most manufacturers do it by using Microsoft's tool to configure it, which creates a sort-of-compliant situation that has really complicated linux ACPI and ruined a lot of people's suspend/hibernate support. Windows can also handle properly compliant ACPI though, of course. Apple could have created a similar situation, or they could have created an ACPI driver included with boot camp which would also break everything. I don't know, since I don't have a mac, but I have been burned by ACPI problems in Linux over and over again.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[dissy]

It is unlikely that a "bloated codebase" would chew through the battery like nobody's business on one x86 machine and suddenly become perfectly benign on a practically identical x86 machine.

Well, you are technically right.

If you format your Dell or HP (that came with Windows) and put a fresh clean install, and then just simply don't load any power management drivers. You will see your HP and Dell get equally crappy battery performance as the macbook with a windows install.

The problem is clearly in lack of driver support.

HP and Dell and all the likes provide power management drivers without any help from Microsoft outside of what Apple could also get. They are all developed 'in-house' (IE not at Microsoft)

As much as I love my macbook and as much as I used to like Apple, this is clearly a function lacking in the drivers for the hardware, which in this case were made by Apple.

In my example above, if you load the HP driver on your HP windows install (or dell for a dell) then suddenly battery performance goes way up. If there was a functional driver for macbook hardware, it would use the same APIs and work as well. This is clearly where the breakdown is.

On one hand, I can see why Apple isn't interested in providing good Windows drivers for their hardware. On the other hand, that is still crappy of them to do :{

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[sunderland56]

To make it even more silly: Acura exists only in the USA (and Canada). Everywhere else in the world, those "Acura" cars and trucks are sold as Hondas, with Honda badges and nameplates. Same cars, same components, different stick-on logos.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[FrankieBaby1986]

Why would it need to use HALT? It's the only program you can run! :P

Interesting though, as it appears the 286 did support HALT. Guess power usage wasn't a concern then.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Locke2005]

It turned out that you can't buy an upper ball joint for whatever it was (a higher-end model, too) but must purchase the entire A-arm. This is something you do on economy cars, not luxury ones! Uh, no. "Kitting" is something Honda does an ALL it's cars. I backed a Civic CRX into something and bent the tip of the tailpipe. Honda insisted on replacing the entire exhaust system, right up to the header, at a cost of over $1000. Midas graciously welded a new tip on the tailpipe for about $40. In fact, todays Accords are indistinguishable to me from older Acuras. And yes, I've owned serveral Hondas and Acuras. The only difference I've seen is that the Acuras tend to last a bit longer.

This is where the simile breaks down... Please look up the words "simile" and "analogy" in the dictionary.

note that all mass market cars made today are junk possessed of planned obsolescence I agree with you on this one; apparently all cars are now designed to fall apart at 100,000 miles. It is amazing how they all invariably start requiring expensive maintenance within 10% of that mark. The last car that was designed built to last was the Checker; they went out of business because they got lousy gas mileage, and they never got any repeat business because the few people that bought them never bought new ones. (Yes, they were available for private purchase, not just taxi fleets.) I'm not sure if even Rolls-Royce vehicles are designed to last anymore.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[drinkypoo]

Macbooks are essentially the same hardware as Windows machines.

That's kinda like saying a Dell Latitude is essentially the same as a Lenovo Thinkpad. Yes they use some of the same type of components, but they don't use exactly the same components; every laptop essentially uses customized parts.

Uh, what? That is patently false. Most laptops are constructed entirely off of commodity parts, save for the motherboard (made of a custom PCB and usually 100% commodity parts) and the case, and maybe the keycaps if they feel like differentiating themselves.

In fact, you can run OSX fairly trivially on some basic PC computers, because they have almost or even literally precisely the same components as their Apple cousins. Apple has PCBs made by Foxconn just like everyone else, notably including Asus, which (among many others) has been known to make laptops with the same processor, chipset, et cetera as Apple.

Most electronic devices have zero custom silicon in them. Laptops are no exception. Apple no longer needs any custom chips. Even for sensors and whatnot you just slap a common I2C chip in there (or similar) and you're off and running.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Luthair]

Real networks is a little different, no one actually uses their software.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Luthair]

They wouldn't want to get caught doing it intentionally, though that isn't to say that they wouldn't be aware of a problem and not bother fixing it.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[dissy]

Also Apple has the annoyance of the "apple tax" where you have to spend ~$100 every year to upgrade from 10.4 to 10.5 to 10.6 and so on. This is why my G4 Mac hasn't been updated with the latest sotware - I can't afford it.

In contrast I bought Windows XP in 2002 and haven't need to spend a dime on OS upgrades since then. Simply put - it's cheaper.

I don't get that line of reasoning. How do you not see how the two things you describe are the same?

First, you are wrong on the cost of osx updates, but lets leave that aside as a detail that isn't important. The meat of your point is that apple charges for updates and its bad, and microsoft charges for updates but its good because you choose not to upgrade.

You don't have to pay for 10.4 or 10.5 or 10.6 as upgrades to your 10.3 any more than you need to pay for 2003, vista, and windows 7 as upgrades to XP.

You admit to making the choice not to upgrade XP though all the expensive upgrade options (More than $100 for win2003, more than $200 for vista, and while the price is unstable still, more than $100 for windows 2007)
Yet you are making the same choice not to upgrade your old macos.

Considering you are happy not paying MS for newer versions of windows, but not happy you need to pay to upgrade macos, it really does sound like you value macos way more than windows, so osx updates should be worth more to you.
(Now being able to, or wanting to, pay for that value is another issue all together)
Don't get me wrong, the choice to spend money on a new OS to upgrade with is yours to make. I'm not saying you are right or wrong. Only you can know if it is right or wrong for you.

Now, comparing apples to apples (excuse the pun), you don't pay for minor version upgrades with either OS.
You can go from XP to XP sp1 to sp2 and sp3 for free.
Just like you can go from 10.4 to 10.4.1 to 10.4.2 to 10.4.whatever for free.

Any commercial OS will have a 'tax' for upgrades, as long as you consider separate products to be upgrades.
So simply put, you are wrong, it is not cheaper. $0 is not less or greater than $0 (When you choose to not upgrade, equally) and $300 (3x $100 upgrades) is definately less than $600 (3x $200 upgrades, which is actually a low price, as vista and win7 are more than $200 each for retail. That number is harder to factor since you actually can buy it more than one place with different pricing. Still, it took XP years to pass 'out of life' before you could buy an XP license for under $100, so my point still stands)

To use the same flawed car analogy, you are saying Ford sucks because you have to buy gas to keep using it, but Chevy does not suck because you choose not to refill its gas tank much and just stay at home more, thus Chevy is cheaper.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[CastrTroy]

It still takes a bunch of CPU cycles to control which instructions get run on the cpu. There is a non-zero cost involved in running your OS and apps in a VM. Otherwise, running it in the VM would be equally as fast as running it outside the VM. Which is obviously false to anybody who has tried to run any large app under a VM.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[binary paladin]

The problem is, the current crap about the screens is all a matter of taste. It's almost as annoying as audiophiles.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[drinkypoo]

The biggest cost in virtualization has nothing to do with computation, the whole point of VT and similar is to reduce that to next to nothing, and it is highly successful. It comes in virtual drivers, when you're hitting the disk or drawing to the "screen" (more the former than the latter, which can often just be neglected; if you're behind, and a new graphics operation occurs which draws the whole screen, you can throw away a whole lot of never-performed graphics updates. There are less opportunities to do this with storage I/O, although they exist also.)

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[santiagodraco]

So you saw the logo inside the glove box without having to open it? You must have REALLY good eyesight.

But hey, if you are happy with your insight, more power to you. But it's no Accura :)

Now compare a macbook pro to a pc running vista, same applies. Apple has put a LOT more thought into the overall package. Will Windows 7 change that, and will PC OEM's improve the hardware features and design to match? Only time will tell.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[UnknowingFool]

Each individual component is commodity. The assembly is not commodity. The CPU is an Intel CPU. The MB is customized. Each keyboard button is commodity. The entire keyboard is not. That's the difference I'm trying to make. They may have some common parts, but laptops are not interchangeable across different models. Equating one laptop to be the same as another model is ignoring the details. You would never say that a Dell Latitude is the same as a Dell Inspiron but the top of the line Latitude will cost you twice as much as an Inspiron. Dell is ripping you off after all, they are essentially the same hardware-wise. You should not buy from Dell; you should buy from Dell.

The one thing that sets Apple apart is that they recognized long ago that their target markets are mid-range to premium for laptops. They don't want to compete with Dell on the low-end. The fit and polish that they put into their laptops could not be done cost-effectively on the low-end.

Take for instance the Apple laptop body. Except for one model of MacBook, they are all aluminum uni-body construction now. That will cost more to manufacture that using plastic. You will pay more for it. For some people, they want that difference. It looks nicer. It is sturdier, etc. For me I really don't care; but I recognize it's a difference some people will pay for.

That's just the exterior. Component-wise Apple probably pays more per component than Dell. Dell can probably get better pricing and Dell tends to use the lowest cost parts in their low-end models. For example when you order a Dell laptop, you have options on your NIC card. You can go with the cheaper option a RealTek or upgrade to an Intel brand. What's the difference? A NIC card is a NIC card right? While both of them probably function about the same, I would bet the Intel would be of higher quality, reliability, etc. Thus you will pay more. Take that and scale it across the entire laptop.

While you can run OS X on a PC, those who have it running stress constantly OS X cannot run on any PC. The PC components must match or be very similar to what Apple has. That means you can't use any NIC card, any video card, etc. That changes the cost equation. And while Foxconn does the manufacturing for both Apple and Asus, their products are not identical.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[RedK]

BZZZT. Thanks for playing. Most parts for the Honda Accord are manufactured in Ohio from 3rd parties. Not just imported and assembled, actually designed and built here. The Accord for a while was even exported back from the states to Japan.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[drinkypoo]

Equating one laptop to be the same as another model is ignoring the details. You would never say that a Dell Latitude is the same as a Dell Inspiron but the top of the line Latitude will cost you twice as much as an Inspiron. Dell is ripping you off after all, they are essentially the same hardware-wise. You should not buy from Dell; you should buy from Dell.

It's not ignoring the details; it's not thinking the details are worth doubling the price. Moving the components around on the mainboard doesn't make it significantly different, except in what cases it will fit into.

While you can run OS X on a PC, those who have it running stress constantly OS X cannot run on any PC. The PC components must match or be very similar to what Apple has. That means you can't use any NIC card, any video card, etc. That changes the cost equation. And while Foxconn does the manufacturing for both Apple and Asus, their products are not identical.

The quality of the PCB and the chips that go on it are in fact more or less all the same; they may have different grades of PCB available, but everyone getting them is getting their components soldered the same way.

Your point about the case is well-taken, but they're not the only ones with a metal chassis. They're not the only ones getting a premium price for it either; there's also Lenovo. But then again, the Thinkpad brand cachet is all out of proportion with actual quality as well.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[master811]

Neither do the XPS line of notebooks Dell has and they are still cheaper than MacBooks.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Darinbob]

There is a lot more to the macbook than other laptops I've used. It's lighter even with a bigger screen, the mouse pad is very easy to use, easy to type on, and it's qiuiet. It's one of the only laptops I've had that I don't mind taking mobile; the others I just used as a smaller desktop or as an annoying cinderblock to lug around on a couple of business trips.

It's not perfect. I liked the old Thinkpad because of all the useful connectors (parallel and serial port), and the Mac connectors are on the side. And I really wish new laptops still had real docking stations, or at least one plug for everything (power, usb, video, and ethernet). But it's still a lot closer to what I'd want a laptop to be than anything else.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[moredots]

Any bad driver could be the culprit though. I know my Gateway laptop has some driver issues with Windows 7 and they're causing problems both making the system unable to shutdown and causing the battery to drain twice as quickly as it did under Vista.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[bwalling]

Drive a Toyota and then drive the corresponding Lexus. While there are a number of identical parts, the feel and performance simply are not the same. Whether that comes down to the tuning in the suspension or in some other aspect of the car, they don't drive the same. When you get over the comfort/trim of the interior, Lexus destroys Toyota. The interior of a Lexus is comfortable and well designed. The interior of a Toyota is functional. You may well find these differences to be cosmetic, but to some, the handling and comfort are worth the price difference.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[legirons]

Bloat doesn't magically appear when you put an Apple logo on something.

Have you ever used Apple produced software (iTunes, Quicktime, etc.) on Windows? Or noticed their memory requirements on their own OS?

Not that MS is necessarily any better, but, yeah, Apple is one of the Triumvirate of Bloat for consumer software, in my not-so-humble opinion. The sit in their little triangular table with MS and Adobe.

Like 90MB of updates each month for an MP3 player? (itunes) I'm pretty sure that zinf is less than 1/20 that size total, and "just works" (TM)

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Christophotron]

you mean that fancy multi-touch trackpad doesn't even work properly in windows? that's about 50% of the reason I even considered buying a macbook. and now I hear the battery life sucks if you don't run OSX. that was the other 50%. i did not intend to run OSX even if I did buy a macbook, but I thought it might be worth the money for the nicer hardware. it doesn't matter if it's apple's apathy or malice that is causing the windows drivers to suck, it just means the laptop does not function as advertised. i guess it's time for me to forget about apple and buy a thinkpad.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[toddestan]

Not quite - for some reason Honda decided to use the Acura name in Hong Kong too. Not sure why it's North America plus one other city, but that's the way they did it.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[toddestan]

Instead they use POS nVidia graphics chips?

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[mjwx]

You don't understand. Buying an Apple is like buying a Lexus or Acura.

No, no, no, you have that wrong.

Buying a Mac is like paying for a Lexus, except the dealer brings out last years Toyota Corolla with a Lexus sticker on it. Being a fanboy means that you convince yourself that the corolla really is a Lexus.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[commodore64_love]

>>>Most parts for the Honda Accord are manufactured in Ohio from 3rd parties. Not just imported and assembled, actually designed and built here.
>>>

Ahhh that explains all the recent negative complaints about the Accord's poor quality.

(ducks spitball)

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[commodore64_love]

>>>OSX has artificial, arguably anticompetitive restrictions on what hardware it will run on, which is why it takes more than just coming up with equivalent hardware to run it on a non-Apple computer.
>>>

False.

You can run OS X on other, cheaper Intel machines from Dell or Gateway or whoever. All you need it the necessary hacking program which I believe is called "LeonardAssist" to turn your $500 PC clone into something as powerful as the overpriced $1000 Mac variant. So yes the Honda v. Acura was an appropriate analogy.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[commodore64_love]

>>>So you saw the logo inside the glove box without having to open it?

Wow you have more air in your head that a typical highschool cheerleader. I stated my friend allowed me to "check out" his new car, which would include opening the glovebox and other compartments. Duh. What a maroon.

>>>Now compare a macbook pro to a pc running vista, same applies. Apple has put a LOT more thought into the overall package
>>>

Yes true. Until I have to shell-out $100 to upgrade from 10.5 to 10.6, whereas with the Intel PC I'm still running the exact-same XP install I had in 2002, and the --- to SP1 to SP2 to SP3 upgrades were free of charge. Simply put: I don't feel like paying that annual tribute to Apple for upgrades. I'm not that wealthy. It's why I drive a tiny Honda that gets 70mpg rather than an expensive Acura that guzzles gasoline.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[commodore64_love]

>>>The meat of your point is that apple charges for updates and its bad, and microsoft charges for updates but its good because you choose not to upgrade.
>>>

This comment displays your own ignorance, because Apple charges me around $100 each year to upgrade my G4 Mac from 10.3 to 10.4 to 10.5, whereas Microsoft charged me *nothing* to upgrade from XP to XP-SP1 to SP2 to SP3. Which is why I said: "I bought Windows XP in 2002 and haven't need to spend a dime on OS upgrades since then." Please learn to read, and more importantly comprehend what you read, before you comment.

>>>You don't have to pay for 10.4 or 10.5 or 10.6 as upgrades to your 10.3

Yes you do. I already inquired and Apple expects me to give them money in order to get these upgrades, and since I don't have that money I kept my G3 Mac at 10.3. (And unfortunately 10.3 won't run the latest Safari or Firefox software.)

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[commodore64_love]

>>>any issue involving [government] is automatically the [politicians] fault. Why RTFA when [government] is to blame for [almost] everything that is wrong with the world.
>>>

Now your statement is accurate.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[dissy]

You totally misread my post (And I am wondering if it is on purpose now.)

XP sp1 to XP sp2 is comparable to 10.4.1 to 10.4.2
Both are free upgrades.

OS X only uses one major and minor number, no point releases at all.
The '10' in the version does not refer to the version. It is the product. The version in this case is 4.1 or 4.2 to 5.0 and such.
3 to 4 to 5 are MAJOR OS upgrades, just like XP to Vista to Win7. Both of which you have to pay for.

You compare major upgrades like 10.4 to 10.5 yet refused to make the exact same comparison in windows which would be XP to Vista.
You then to continue and say you didn't have to pay to upgrade XP. That is false. If you want a newer MS OS, you must PAY for Vista, it is not free. (or pirate it obvs)

I never said you didn't have to pay to upgrade from 10.3 to 10.4 to 10.5 (i did say every other release is free, and that was a detail worth skipping)

You DO have to pay to upgrade XP to something current, just like you have to pay to upgrade 10.3 to something current.

The fact you are willing to stay on a version of windows 4 releases old, but not willing to stay on an OS X version 3 releases old, is proof you don't have to upgrade since you have not upgraded XP. (pay was never mentioned)
You only claim you updated XP for free, which is the same on OS X. You can upgrade 10.4 to any 10.4.blah release for free.

I was going to say there is no ignorance here other than your own, but as your ignorance was corrected (by more than just me) and you still refuse to believe it means it is not ignorance but either stupidity or trolling.

I've had you on my friends list for some time, and while you do troll from time to time, I actually read your parent post as not a troll just incorrect, thus trying to inform you of the facts of the matter.
If you want to just go around insulting me and making personal attacks for that, then I won't bother in the future.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[PeterChenoweth]

The multi-touch trackpad works great in Windows, whether bootcamped or via VM. Right-click works, as does two-finger scrolling. However, I can't remember if pinch works for zooming in Windows.

Don't base your decision to buy, or not to buy a product based on what someone else thought they heard about a product.

Seriously, I have used Microsoft OS's since I was a kid, 20+ years ago. Up until about 2 years ago, I was a died-in-the-wool "Apple is crap" zealot. M$ fanboy all the way. Then Vista came along. And once I got a good look at W7 RC, I decided enough was enough. I have never been as pleased with my overall computing experience as I have been these past 6 months living with a Macbook Pro. Liberating, is about the best word for it. I still live in a Windows world at work, as that's what we do our .Net development in and what we have to support. But at home, it's a Mac, all the way.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[metaforest]

While your experience with cars is interesting, it's not very informed.

Honda clearly does build Acura with Honda parts, but some of the parts are unique to the Acura line. There are features on the car that are not supported on Honda's other products.

Apple is using Intel chip sets, and you will find that there are a lot of common parts between a std Wintel set up and the Macintel setup.

Two big Differences:
* Custom multi-touch trackpad. Windows is not going to know what to do with the advanced output from the trackpad. The apple driver just makes sure that Windows sees what it needs to see from the device, for basic compatibility.

* Battery/power management. On Wintel machines the CPU manages the battery through a set of standardized devices. MBPs don't have these devices because the power management is handled by a custom microcontroller, that the main CPU does not have control over. Apple's drivers try to bridge the gap by mimicking the non-existent Wintel power management hardware. This will be a total fail if the OS in the driver's seat tries to bypass the driver, or use tricks that would only work on real hardware.

If Microsoft wants Apple owners to buy Windows, they might actually want to spend a little effort making sure it runs properly. Apple did a lot of work to make Bootcamp work, but supporting Windows is not Apple's job. That's Microsoft's job.

Microsoft needs to step up and support the configuration. That may mean helping apple with their drivers. It may be that there are bugs in Vista and Win7 that only appear on this config...

Microsoft needs to take responsibility for thier customers, or say flat out that they do not support BootCamp. Apple has handed Microsoft these sales on a silver platter.

This is less of an issue with the VM solutions, but Microsoft needs to treat these customers with the same lack of respect as the rest of their customers. Right now they get treated like 'pirates' for not running on well established commodity hardware.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[metaforest]

Your G4 wouldn't run 10.6 anyway, and unless it is one of the high-end mirror-door models, it won't have the stones to run 10.5.

Your G4 is probably a doorstop at this point.

As for the "Apple Tax"
While Microsoft has been beating itself to death trying to get it's user's to dump XP, Apple has rewritten large chunks of OS X in both 10.5 and 10.6 these are not service packs, they are rewrites of the OS. The list of changes between 10.4 and 10.5 is comparable to the feature lists differences between XP and Vista.
Apple stated quite clearly that 1.6 was not going to have much new stuff, so guess what? They are selling it for $49.

Now how much is an 'Upgrade License' from XP to Vista? How much is Win7?

I'll pay my "Apple Tax" thank you, since it encourages Apple to keep innovating the OS, and the platform as a whole.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[MightyYar]

The 13" XPS only includes a 2.0GHz processor and does not have the LED monitor in it's $999 configuration. Upgrade those and you are comparable in price to the MacBook Pro. The XPS is also about 8% heavier, even with the (slightly smaller than the MacBook Pro's) standard battery. The XPS is about 20% larger by volume. On the other hand, it comes with more memory and storage standard. It's pretty clear that these two notebooks are priced about the same when configured closely, despite the weight and size difference.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Christophotron]

Thanks. Part of the reason I posted was to see if someone could confirm that problem with the trackpad. I may give the Macbook Pro 13 another look when they go on sale again, but I still think I could get more hardware for the money buying something else. Maybe not a Thinkpad because their screens seem to suck. If I went with a 15", it would be a damn shame to buy a MBP when I could have this beast from ASUS for the same price. And people try to claim Macs are not overpriced...

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[gig]

> Macbooks are essentially the same hardware as Windows machines, down to battery capacity.

That is so stupid it hurts my head. MacBooks have built-in, Apple-designed, 8 hour batteries while other PC's have removable batteries that are much smaller and I can say for sure they're not Apple-designed. MacBooks have EFI firmware, not BIOS as in all other PC's, which is particularly relevant when you're talking power management. MacBooks all have Intel Core 2 Duo 45nm, there are no other processors used at all, and they all have modern NVIDIA GPU's, no other GPU's at all. The motherboard in an Apple system is always, always, always designed and built by Apple, while in other PC's they are often Intel or 3rd party boards.

You want to keep telling yourself that a Mac is the same as a PC to make your PC purchase feel better. Stop it. This information is available on the Internet or you can ask an Apple Genius or any graphic designer. Sheesh.

> It is unlikely that a "bloated codebase" would chew through the battery like nobody's
> business on one x86 machine and suddenly become perfectly benign on a practically
> identical x86 machine.

That is ridiculous. Battery life is not just bigger, badder batteries, there are hundreds of thousands of variables. It's also things like when you're not using audio on a Mac, the entire audio hardware is put to sleep by the firmware. Same with practically every other sub-system. I know for a fact that some of these optimizations do not carry over when you run Windows on the same machine because Windows can't handle it due to its age and lack of EFI compatibility. But the point is that beneath the OS layer, the firmware on a Mac is doing things to make the battery life for that machine better. The idea that you can make any comparison to another machine is just crazy. How fast you can run down an HP battery with Windows means absolutely nothing to how fast you can run down an Apple battery with Windows. You can't tell a thing from the comparison. The machines are dramatically different in battery and firmware.

> Bloat doesn't magically appear when you put an Apple logo on something.

It's only bloat compared to Mac OS. The comparison here is between battery life in Mac OS and battery life in Windows on the exact same machine, with the same exact battery. Yes, Windows is bloated compared to Mac OS. The OS X kernel, which is called xnu, has been optimized for portability and battery life for the past 10 years. It's been instantly sleeping and waking with very, very high reliability for a decade on the Mac, and for 2-3 years on iPhone and iPod touch (it is the exact same xnu kernel on all 3 devices, and the exact same core OS X system, below the top layer all 3 devices have the same OS X on there.

Knowing that Apple has made thousands and thousands of energy-saving optimizations to all of their hardware and software for the past 10 years while Microsoft shipped XP, failed to ship 2004, shipped Vista but only to 20% of Windows users, and talked about Windows 7, it does not surprise me at all that you get better battery life on the same hardware when running OS X instead of Windows. Knowing that when Windows is running on the Mac it is running on EFI firmware, and everywhere else it is running on BIOS, it doesn't surprise me one bit that Windows 7 performs differently vis a vis battery life on a Mac than on other PC. These things are obvious. The surprising thing would be if the battery life were the same. That would be an incredible coincidence.

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[gig]

> Apples used to be distinctive when they used 68000 or PowerPC

> but now that they use Intel CPUs

> they are really no different from a Dell or Gateway machine except that they
> have an Apple logo attached. The hardware is so identical that now Apple
> machines can run Intel Windows, or vice-versa Intel PCs run Apple OS X.

Outrageous bullshit. I saw Windows NT 3.1 running on a Mac in 1996, and it told me exactly nothing about how alike the Mac of 1996 was to the PC of 1996. Please attempt to install Windows on a Mac without using Apple BootCamp and get back to me about how well it doesn't go. I mean, think about it: why does BootCamp even exist? Where is HP's BootCamp if these systems are so alike?

There are many, many differences between Mac and PC hardware. Here are some:

* The EFI firmware alone makes a Mac a radically different system from other PC's, which use BIOS. When you boot into Mac firmware, not only is it modern and easy to use, it's also graphical and your wireless keyboard and mouse continue to work because they're paired with the machine, not the OS. You have much better power management, security, and many other modern features that are not part of any other PC you can buy today, because all the others use almost 30 year-old BIOS.

* The batteries are all Apple-designed, built-in, and give you 8 hours where you would get 4 from a PC. The firmware manages the batteries and puts unused hardware to sleep in the same way the Core CPU essentially sleeps all the time except for the individual transistors that are needed. The whole system is energy saver friendly.

* The displays are always all-digital connections (not true on many PC's which is outrageous) and all-LED backlighting.

* The motherboards are always made by Apple, not Intel or 3rd party like other PC's. The MacBook Air mobo is smaller than an iPod.

* Always Gigabit Ethernet, never the slow one (except on MacBook Air which does not have Ethernet) and always Wi-Fi n, never the slow one, and always the fast Bluetooth, never the slow one.

* Always a built-in, high-quality webcam and microphone and speaker.

* If there's an optical, it is always DVD-RW/CD-RW, you can't go wrong.

> they use
> generic
> sound cards

* No they do not use generic sound cards. There is literally no concept of "sound card" on the Mac. Mac users have no idea why you're calling it a card. For 25 years the Mac has had audio built-in. For the past 5 years or so it has been high-end audio hardware. The audio in and audio out on every Mac (except MacBook Air) is completely different from other PC's: both audio in and out are combination analog/digital-optical jacks (other PC's it's just analog) so you can record and play audio no matter what external audio connections you encounter, and the bit depth of the audio hardware in Macs is the full 32-bits that is used in pro audio and other media creation, not the 16-bit that is on other PC's and consumer gear. And, there is no buzzing and other artifacts in internal Mac audio, the components are properly shielded to prevent that, which is certainly not true of many PC's I have encountered. And the power supplies in all Macs are what you could call "analog audio safe" which means they do not introduce DC Offset into your audio recordings, which is a famous problem with generic PC's that you have to remove from all of your recordings with audio software. Next time you see a Mac other than MacBook Air, look inside the audio in or audio out jack, you will see a light in there. That's the optical digital connection you won't find on any other PC.

* The external display out on a Mac is always DisplayPort, which is not available yet on any other PC (as far as I know) and which has the advantage of being both very tiny and also hot-pluggable like USB and FireWire, so you can take your notebook up to a desk and plug on a display without rebooting and without risking frying your DVI port. You can easily turn DisplayPort into VG

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Iargue]

If only you did a little research. Apple uses intel hardware, AKA, the same thing Dell does. The same thing HP does. Lenovo. Toshbia, Acer. Its all the same fucking shit, you just pay a thousand dollars more. Consumer reports on electrions are way off. Try learning just a little bit yourself and save alot of money. I mean, you could run Leopard on your windows machine to (After all. ITS THE SAME HARDWARE)

Re:Doubt it's the "bloated codebase"

[Iargue]

That was retarded of you. I whent online to Dell.com and built a BETTER computer for 875, that matched the Macbook Pro. When that was 2.7k. Dont fucking post when your retarded. www.newegg.com If you have a mac, run a system info scan and then find an identical part. Fucking Apple doesnt even give your 7200 rpm drives like dell does. Your getting fucked over with shitter stuff

Not just Windows

[dr.newton]

I have a MBP 5.1, one with both the on-board and discrete Nvidia cards. OS X switches between them depending on whether it is going for power savings or performance.

The drivers for Windows XP and Linux do not seem to have this ability. When I'm doing nothing but surfing, I get about 4.5 hours of battery life in OS X, but only about 2.1 hours in Linux (Ubuntu Jaunty) and Windows XP.

I always assumed it was the inability of XP and Linux to switch to the on-board graphics card.

Re:Not just Windows

[lukas84]

I have a ThinkPad W500, which has onboard Intel graphics or a Ati Radeon 3650. They too can be switched automatically or at will.

The reason you can't do it on XP is because Apple hasn't bothered to release drivers for it.

Re:Not just Windows

[buchner.johannes]

The drivers for Windows XP and Linux do not seem to have this ability.

Is this a Mac-extended version of http://xkcd.com/619/

Everyone who posts xkcd links is modded up, right?
Also

while sleep 1; do
grep -q "powersave" /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor &&
{
  rmmod onboard-sound-driver
  modprobe external-sound-driver
} ||
{
  rmmod external-sound-driver
  modprobe onboard-sound-driver
}
done

Oh you said the drivers don't have this ability.

Re:Not just Windows

[Talchas]

Now try to do that while running X. Oops.

Re:Not just Windows

[dr.newton]

Actually, I said that the drivers for Windows XP and Linux cannot switch from the discrete graphics card to the on-board one.

Thank you for the interesting snippet of shell script, however.

Re:Not just Windows

[angelbunny]

It is more than that. In general nvidia gpus consume to much power even on the older models of the macbook pros. Since windows 7 uses a lot more gpu power it completely explains why there is a power drain.

Re:Not just Windows

[Ma8thew]

OS X does no switching. Check the 'Energy Saver' System Preferences panel, and you'll see the toggle between the two graphics cards. If you haven't touched it, it'll be in 'Better Battery Life'. Changing between discrete and integrated graphics requires logging out. Windows and Linux cannot switch to the integrated graphics card, explaining some reduced battery life.

Re:Not just Windows

[Midnight Thunder]

The reason you can't do it on XP is because Apple hasn't bothered to release drivers for it.

This may be true, but remember their priority is MacOS X. Windows is more of an after thought. Likewise I don't see companies like Dell rushing out and adding good driver support for Linux on their machines.

Re:Not just Windows

[Ma8thew]

You've posted a link to an article speculating about Apple switching to the nvidia platform. I, on the other hand, actually own a MacBook pro, and can tell you that I have to logout to switch modes. And there's this article too.

Re:Not just Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

>Windows and Linux cannot switch to the integrated graphics card, explaining some reduced battery life.

Clearly an Apple issue, though. Vista/7 have the capabilities to switch between integrated GPUs on other machines without even logging out. You click a button, the screen flickers once or twice, and voila: new GPU.

Re:Not just Windows

[Ma8thew]

Well it's an Apple issue insomuch as there are not adequate drivers for Apple hardware for Windows and Linux. And I'm not sure that Windows and Linux drivers are high on Apple's priority list. I personally don't care, as I only boot into Windows for games, which require discrete graphics.

Re:Not just Windows

[binary paladin]

Which would be a cool feature if it didn't require logging out every time the switch was made. As a result, I almost never use the feature since I almost never shut my Mac down.

Re:Not just Windows

[binary paladin]

Which sucks, because if you have a Mac Laptop you almost never shut it down or reboot. I use this feature ONLY when I know I'm going to have to be on battery for an extended period of time. It'd be nice to ONLY turn on the discrete graphics when I need them (which isn't all that often) but I don't want to log out every time I just want to fire up a game or something.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

No matter how bloated Windows is, battery life is only a function of ACPI drivers --- bootcamp's fault

Re:Anonymous Coward

[RiotingPacifist]

On the otherhand if windows7 uses lots of wakeup calls then the CPU can never sit in C3 for very long, that would however not be a mac specific problem so my money is on bootcamps fault too!

Re:Anonymous Coward

[Fahrvergnuugen]

Or maybe Windows could be asking more of the CPU, GPU & hard drive than OSX does?

Re:Anonymous Coward

[skyride]

Well if thats the case, Why is every other laptop I have ever heard of getting better battery life with Win7 RC than Vista; EXCEPT for Macbooks?

Re:Anonymous Coward

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Yeah, why the hell would Microsoft want to include proper drivers for the vendor that has 91% of the >$1000 PC market ? It's almost like they want only the vendors they can bully, like Dell, to succeed. Nah, surely not.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[angelbunny]

It is nvidia's fault. The power drain comes from the gpu (the extra visual features in 7) and nvidia releases drivers outside of bootcamp that run on all macs with nvidia gpus not bootcamp which provides drivers to other hardware.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[geekoid]

"No matter how bloated Windows is, battery life is only a function of ACPI drivers --"

um, no. You are basically saying it's impossible for the OS to ahve an effect on battery life, which isn't just wrong, it's stupid.

Can we question the author's qualifications?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

FTFA: Other than that, Windows 7 has been working great on my MacBook Pro... It looks good, too, even prettier than when it is installed on PC hardware.

This reminds me of the iPod Nano review here at Slashdot that claimed that the Nano sounded great, even in a moving convertible with the top down. (http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/08/1439244)

Yes, it's the Apple magic that makes the software look better.

How can we know that the battery isn't simply returning strange battery level information to the OS that OSX knows how to parse but Windows doesn't? What a strange review.

Re:Can we question the author's qualifications?

[WiiVault]

I think he was referring to the HW/SW combo. Debatable sure, but I think a Mac running Windows is one of the sexiest x86 machines on the market.

Re:Can we question the author's qualifications?

[KnownIssues]

Yes, it's the Apple magic that makes the software look better.

Windows does look better on a MacBook Pro. This is because Apple squirts a thin layer of vaseline between the panes of the laptop screen. It's like a permanent glamour shot.

Re:Can we question the author's qualifications?

[mgblst]

It might look better on the macbook because it has a glossy screen, compared with his PC setup. As much as we all hate glossy screens, it does bring out some colours better.

Boot Camp != Virtualization

[guruevi]

Boot Camp just resizes the hard drive so it can accomodate a Windows install and then you are able to dual-boot your system. It's also possible to install Linux on the other side for example. So it seems like Windows has an issue with the Intel or NVidia chipset, the processor or just plainly consumes more resources than Mac OS.

A good comparison would be to install Linux on the other side and see what it's battery life is then. Mac OS X offloads a lot (all) of the desktop rendering to the GPU while the Windows XP desktop doesn't and although Vista's top-end version does, it is offset by the amount of graphics that need to be rendered and the low-end version still doesn't.

There is a reason that the battery dies quicker and since there is no layer of Mac OS X between Windows and the hardware I doubt it's because Apple did something wrong. It's either Windows or the Intel or NVidia drivers. You can't really compare VMWare or Parallels performance because it's running Windows on top of Mac OS X, it is of course going to consume more resources.

Re:Boot Camp != Virtualization

[fatalwall]

You can compare them however if the end user want to know if its better to run XP in a vm or if they should use boot camp. Seems to me they are just pointing out that the battery life is about the same so it doesnt matter power wise what you choice to do.

Re:Boot Camp != Virtualization

[Piranhaa]

Although I agree another OS would be good to compare with, it wouldn't be using the same Bootcamp driver that Apple provides for Windows. And Apple hasn't released an OSS driver. This would simply show that it's a software issue and not that it's a Windows code issue or a Windows driver issue...

Re:Boot Camp != Virtualization

[Lt.Hawkins]

"Boot Camp just resizes the hard drive so it can accomodate a Windows install and then you are able to dual-boot your system. It's also possible to install Linux on the other side for example. So it seems like Windows has an issue with the Intel or NVidia chipset, the processor or just plainly consumes more resources than Mac OS."

Not entirely accurate. Bootcamp also provides BIOS emulation, since current gen macs (not sure for how long though) use EFI.

I haven't read the article yet (of course.) but I wonder how battery life is when Win7 (which supports EFI) is installed "Natively", i.e. without BIOS emulation.

Re:Boot Camp != Virtualization

[Ma8thew]

Intel Macs have always used EFI, whereas PowerPC Macs used OpenFirmware. I don't think any Macintosh has ever used BIOS.

Re:Boot Camp != Virtualization

[guruevi]

Apple doesn't have to release drivers for it. They are standard Intel or NVidia chipsets (depending on the model of hardware). Apple does provide all necessary 'stable' drivers through a single/simple installation procedure though but if you go look in the directories of the Mac OS X Installation DVD's you'll find that they're just stock or branded Intel, Broadcom, NVidia,... driver packages.

EFI just emulates the BIOS (no driver needed) for Windows XP but doesn't necessarily have to emulate for Windows 7 or Linux. That's why you can install Windows XP or even MS-DOS without needing a special driver slipstreamed into the installer. Calls to the BIOS are hardly made by modern operating systems except for some (not all) hardware detection, the BIOS gets circumvented very early on while bootstrapping so processing power for translating BIOS calls would be hard to believe.

Re:Boot Camp != Virtualization

[CatOne]

Boot Camp doesn't provide BIOS emulation; EFI provides BIOS compatibility mode. All Macs newer than the very first Intel Macs include this when they ship, Boot Camp or no Boot Camp. The very first (beta) version of Boot Camp installed BCM into EFI; but since then, it's in there when they ship.

So Boot Camp is really 2 things:

1) A utility to resize the hard drive on the fly
2) A CD that you burn that lets you install Apple's drivers on the Windows side so that sound, mouse, etc. work.

Re:Boot Camp != Virtualization

[CatOne]

Intel Macs use EFI, but 32-bit Windows, and all versions of Windows pre-Visa, require BIOS. As such, they leverage EFI's BIOS compatiblity mode (which is part of the spec) to bootstrap and access the hardware.

Mac OS X is blissfully ignorant of BIOS Compatibility Mode, as it has legacy written all over it. EFI is vastly superior.

Re:Boot Camp != Virtualization

[jeremyp]

Bootcamp also provides Windows drivers for the Apple hardware. It is not just a partitioning tool.

Windows 7 vs. XP

[debilo]

I have a slightly dated Macbook with an integrated Intel graphics chips. Has anyone with similar specs tried to run Windows 7 on it? If so, how does it stack up against XP in terms of performance and responsiveness, and how does Windows 7 fare in a VMware session?

Re:Windows 7 vs. XP

[m.ducharme]

I have the 15" Macbook, and run both Win7 and XP in VMware. Win7's performance is comparable to XP's, maybe a bit better, in terms of speed, and it's not too memory-needy. Whatever build I have though (Release Candidate) is still unstable. It doesn't always boot completely, and often is prone to crashes that look to me to be video-card related. Although I have hopes, it's not quite ready for prime time.

HOW

[FranTaylor]

Can you expect "power savings" when VMware is running? You are basically running two computers at once.

Re:HOW

[johncadengo]

Can you expect "power savings" when VMware is running? You are basically running two computers at once.

Well, I use VMware to run a barebones linux machine on my Macbook and do everything from the terminal to save energy! ;).

Reminds me of the days when I used to doublespace my ram drive for increased performance AND space!

Re:So What?

[compro01]

One word : games. Unless you have a very high spec machine, VMs are next to useless for any modern games.

Yeah, Windows XP did this too

[Octorian]

Running Windows XP dual-boot on a MacBook Pro (what you people call "boot camp") also drains the battery a lot faster than OSX. I'm pretty sure Apple didn't put much effort into making sure all the hardware drivers worked anywhere near as well under Windows as they do in OSX. (additionally, I've seen display driver quirks and more iffy trackpad operation)

Re:Yeah, Windows XP did this too

[Psyborgue]

Most of the drivers are standard fare straight from Nvidia, intel, and RealTek. When I installed XP on my MBP I simply installed my own drivers. Works fine but battery life is decreased. I think that probably has to do something with the amount of processing offloaded by OSX onto the GPU.

Re:Yeah, Windows XP did this too

[RedK]

(what you people call "boot camp")

It's what Apple calls it, it's not some kind of weird Internet forum thing. Did you ever wonder why the icon you click on to perform the initial install had that "weird Internet meme" name to it ?

Re:Yeah, Windows XP did this too

[Octorian]

I know its what Apple calls it. Its just that most people often refer to "Boot Camp" as if it were some special technology or software you can run Windows in/under, and never just refer to running Windows on a Mac as "dual-booting".

Re:Yeah, Windows XP did this too

[RedK]

It's because it is special technology. There's no BIOS on a Mac, Bootcamp is there to emulate some functions needed to boot under x86 OSes. It's not just plain old dual-booting, like "you people" call it.

Re:Yeah, Windows XP did this too

[gig]

> I'm pretty sure Apple didn't put much effort into making sure all the hardware drivers
> worked anywhere near as well under Windows as they do in OSX.

It's XP that is not battery friendly. It's Windows that is not. Apple spent the past 10 years making OS X very, very battery friendly, and Microsoft spent the last 10 years selling people XP again and again. On the same hardware, you should EXPECT Windows to get much less battery life. Just running one extra daemon can kill your battery life. The whole operating system has to be battery-oriented in the same way that the Intel Core CPU is battery-oriented, it's natural state is totally asleep, and it wakes up only the transistors that are needed. When Windows XP shipped, we were in another era of Pentium4 and white boxes under your desk.

Microsoft has such a scam going. When you can't even talk about Windows being run on a Mac via BootCamp without all kinds of spurious blame being laid on Apple, I can see clearly why the number of generic PC vendors keeps going down and down and down. They are just whipping boys for Microsoft's complete lack of software quality.

Re:Battery will drain while on A/C

[Anonymous Coward]

That's actually a designed feature. Maximum CPU usage is a terrible drain on environmental resources, and the extra heat generated by the CPU contributes to global climate change. So to encourage users to use less CPU power (or to focus on using it in bursts rather than constantly keeping the CPU pegged, Apple used a slightly underpowered power supply.

I thought it was a joke too when I first heard it from my friend at Foxconn (who worked on the HW design with Apple). He told them they would have this problem (and could solve it with a very simply HW change), and they explained that this was a deliberate design decision. So sometimes what looks like a bug really isn't, especially when it comes to Apple.

Apple tactics

[abigsmurf]

1: have your OSX drivers switch between on board and dedicated GPU as needed.
2: Make the drivers for every other OS use the dedicated GPU constantly even if there's no real need.
3: Claim the sucky battery life is MS' fault and that their OS is poorly programmed

Re:Apple tactics

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

What? Apple hired the ex Microsoftee who strategized to kill DR-DOS? The modus operandi is unmistakable!

Re:Apple tactics

[jeffasselin]

You're assuming Windows CAN switch GPUs. Those that kind of feature exist on Windows-based laptops?

Re:Apple tactics

[macshome]

Sure they do. Toshiba even ships triple GPU laptops with Windows.

Re:Apple tactics

[JasterBobaMereel]

This assumes that the video drivers for Windows in bootcamp for the GPU are written by Apple.

    this is unlikely, they are probably written by NVidia ...?

Re:Apple tactics

[WiiVault]

If they are too lazy to give the option, I'm frankly glad they left the dedicated GPU "on" instead of the integrated.

Re:Apple tactics

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

In fact, Windows handles the switch better than OSX.

OSX requires you to log out to change GPUs. One or two early Windows machines running Intel GPUs required a reboot, but current generation laptops with multiple GPUs don't even require you to log out so long as you're running Vista or better. You click a button, your screen flickers, and you're in the new GPU.

Re:Apple tactics

[dbet]

Your conspiracy theory doesn't make much sense. It's in Apple's best interest to make sure Windows runs smoothly. Or why include Boot Camp at all?

It's Apple's job to find out.

[mxh83]

Apple and it's customers are the only losers if something doesn't work on the Macbook. Microsoft never claimed it would. This situation is very similar to the Palm Pre / Itunes fiasco. If you're a Palm Pre owner, just STFU if Itunes doesn't behave the way it should.

Re:It's Apple's job to find out.

[filesiteguy]

I tend to agree.

I use Windows 7 regularly on my Ubuntu-powered laptop. The power management of my laptop handles the Windows 7 guest OS (running inside Virtual Box - http://www.perfectreign.com/stuff/2009/20090527_vbox_win7_70.jpg ) and have no issues with "draining battery."

Re:It's Apple's job to find out.

[mdwh2]

Except it was Apple who changed Itunes to lock out the Palm Pre, so for your analogy to work, I'd say it's still Apple that the issue is with, not Palm.

(I mean, by default it's obviously Apple's job with this battery issue - but if hypothetically it turned out that MS had intentionally modified Windows to drain the battery on Macs, there'd be an uproar about their action!)

Re:It's Apple's job to find out.

[mxh83]

The uproar is not what Microsoft would be worried about. It would be very trivial for them to block all Apple machines, if they wanted to. And there would be nothing Apple could do legally to them, that could force them to make it work. But Microsoft stands to gain from this. They make Apple users eat humble pie, AND get them to purchase a licensed copy of Windows OS. It is an awesome deal all around for Microsoft.

Re:It's Apple's job to find out.

[RedK]

And there would be nothing Apple could do legally to them

Sure there is. Anti-competitive tactics are covered by Anti-trust laws. With Microsoft already proven to have a Monopoly with Windows, it would be smooth sailing in court if they were to forceably make Windows not work on one competitors machine (where it worked fine before).

Re:It's Apple's job to find out.

[gig]

> Except it was Apple who changed Itunes to lock out the Palm Pre,
> so for your analogy to work, I'd say it's still Apple that the issue is with, not Palm.

This is off-topic, but you have it backwards. The Pre identified itself over USB as vendor "Palm" and model "iPod" and iTunes saw "iPod" and assumed "Apple iPod". That assumption is a legitimate software bug. Why assume "Apple" when the vendor ID is right there in the same USB data you are reading. Because everybody at Apple assumed all iPods are Apple iPods. iTunes 8.1.1 saw "iPod" and treated it as an Apple iPod, but iTunes 8.1.2 saw "Palm iPod" and did not treat the Pre as an iPod. Bug fixed. The newer iTunes now identifies the Palm Pre correctly, the previous iTunes did not. Get a CS guy to explain this to you if you don't understand. If earlier iTunes misidentifies Pre and later iTunes correctly identifies Pre, then that is a bug fixed. The fact that this does not fit in with Palm's desires is completely irrelevant.

There is no legitimate defense for Palm on this issue. You can't build devices that go around identifying themselves as other devices because that can only end in screwing over the user through an unexpected and spectacular disaster. If Apple were really going after the Pre, all they have to do is write firmware onto it as if it really were an iPod and they would probably brick all the Pre's that were attached to iTunes. What is the user going to do? Sue Apple? Should Apple take a PR hit for for applying iPod firmware to something that says it is an iPod? Should Apple have to rewrite iTunes with a bunch of Pre-detection routines so they can prevent themselves from writing firmware to it and bricking it? The thing says it's an iPod. Writing iPod/iPhone firmware is a major feature of iTunes.

The way 3rd party device sync with iTunes is clear, and Nokia and Blackberry already do this. You build simple Mac or PC software that reads the iTunes library off disk (it is stored as XML and ISO MPEG-4, both completely open, standardized, and well-documented formats) and the Nokia Mac/PC software then talks to the Nokia device, or the Blackberry Mac/PC software then talks to the Blackberry device. A key feature is that the desktop software knows what the device can support, so everything that gets copied over will work. Apple doesn't know what the Pre can play and doesn't want to know. This system is a much better system than Apple acting as a kind of caretaker of all media syncing for all devices in perpetuity. It's better than iTunes plug-ins because iTunes can be updated regularly and it doesn't affect your Blackberry media sync. The library belongs to the user, but iTunes belongs to the iPod/iPhone. Why hasn't Palm been building its own desktop software for all these years? Why are Palm alone so surprised by what time it is?

Keep in mind also that if you are tiny Palm, who has sold something like 400,000 Pre's in the US total, anything you can do to put the word "Palm" in the same sentence or headline as the word "iPhone", which is selling over 1,000,000 per week, is considered good PR. But even on that point, there are a lot of PR people scratching their heads over what Palm is doing here. Even if Apple were to announce that they were going to co-operate with Palm in every conceivable way, do whatever Palm wishes, the basic problem is still that Pre impersonates other devices. That can only lead to unexpected problems. The better way for Palm to serve their customers would be to follow RIM and Nokia's example. It is just bad practices to do otherwise.

Palm complaining to the USB forum is also important, because it shows that they are completely disingenuous. Of all the USB devices ever made, only 1 deliberately misidentifies itself: Palm Pre. If I made any kind of USB device, I would build in a feature to ignore every device from Palm because they can't be trusted. I wouldn't want my users to have something fail on them because a Palm device is pretending to be something more popular. And who are Palm anyway? Over t

Re:So What?

[MightyYar]

First, a quibble with your argument. You do not pay a "massive premium". Depending on what product you bought, you paid a slight premium or slight discount vs. a similarly-spec'd Dell.

Second, it should be pretty clear why one would occasionally need to run Windows in native mode. Aside from saving the additional cost of virtualization software, Boot Camp simply runs some programs faster. Also, if I hand my IT department my notebook to configure and it is in Mac mode, they'd have absolutely no ability whatsoever to load it up with the VPN software since they don't do Mac. Put it in Windows mode, and they give no complaints.

Not specifically MacBook/Windows/BootCamp problem

[amn108]

The problem is not specific to Windows or MacBooks. Many developers code as if the only machines that will run their software are permanently el-grid-connected servers or workstations. Polling loops with insane timers (like 1000hz), and they also take the advice "don't optimize prematurely" to mean "don't optimize unless you are payed for it". Re-drawing the display even if it is not needed at all, copying data structures all over, etc. No wonder batteries drain.

In this case I believe all three are to blame - neither alone is the culprit - I mean Windows usually is compatible with real hardware enough to last couple-three hours on an average laptop battery doing average desktop stuff, MacBook is about the same. Probably BootCamp taking battery awareness too lightheartedly and/or unable to optimize for specific cases like virtualized Windows code running.

Re:fp

[Merls the Sneaky]

This is /. ain't no ladies round here.

Re:Why Bootcamp with Win 7

[macshome]

All the BootCamp tool really does is partition the drive. You can just live partition the disk in Disk Utility and then install Windows, Linux, Whatever. The BIOS fakeout is something that is part of the EFI to begin with, not part of BootCamp.

Ding ding ding!

[Sockatume]

We have an explaination!

idea

[shentino]

Seeing as both Windows 7 and VMWare are affecting things, maybe virtualization and power saving just aren't all that compatible.

I blame intel for this one.

Re:A true scandal

[prionic6]

Almost correct. They buy it, then complain when power-saving features won't work in an unreleased OS with driver support in beta (if any).

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I think I know the reason, disk

[Ilgaz]

On latest gen (nv9300 based) Mac Mini, I have installed Win7 64bit. It installed all the drivers and even clever to figure mainboard driver giving direct link to nvidia driver exe which is absolutely a very serious risk but anyway...

The ATA chipset driver is missing from Win7 since Apple didn't really put nv9300 chipset in exact way. So, it falls down to non DMA generic MS driver. Every single byte transferred to/from disk is guaranteed to use massive CPU along with horrible (down to 15MB/sec from 70MB/sec under OS X) slowness.

So, if Macbooks have similar issue with Windows 7, it could be same issue. As they are battery powered, it would be visible in battery life too.

BTW, there is no point testing Windows 7 until Apple releases boot camp for Windows 7. Apple computers aren't really PCs. If MS was really clever and wanted Windows 7 to be _really_ tested, they should have printed a very clear privacy policy on screen and actually make machine report all kinds of anonymous stats. That way, they could really figure what is going on. For example, a core duo powered 2009 machine shouldn't really max to 15mb/sec with a SATA 2 drive.

I couldn't even find something similar to bugreporter.apple.com when I wanted to report issues. All I saw is a stupid forum which beginner level MS engineers are monkeying with templates. They even made their own wrong answer as 'answer to the issue' while it would create massive compatibility problems in one occasion.

Re:I think I know the reason, disk

[wasmoke]

There's a command you have to run from the command line when you want to file a bug report. Annoying, yes, hard to find, yes, but the functionality is there. If you can actually find the command (I couldn't in a 5 minute googling) it actually is a pretty easy system they have set up.

One difference I've noticed

[GrahamCox]

My wife uses a MacBook Pro and switches between Vista and OS X with Boot Camp (mostly using Vista). When the computer is idle in Vista, I've noticed it quite often thrashing the hard disk for many, many minutes and repeats this at intervals, like every half hour or so. On OS X, it never does this - sleep is sleep and the thing is always quiet. I wonder is this behaviour (whatever it's for) is the cause of the power drain?

Re:Not specifically MacBook/Windows/BootCamp probl

[zysus]

I write driver level embedded code for a living. Everything from bootstrapping embedded linux to SoC level power management.

Power management is usually the last thing to get done (if at all)... why? Because management usually sees it as icing on the cake. Attitudes are typically just make it work and we'll ship a bigger battery to make it last. Or we'll ship an upgrade in 6 months, if the product starts to take off and we decide to fund further development.

Time to market is everything.

Power management is also really hard to get right 100% of the time. It's really hard to debug code/hardware where stuff is shutting itself off, or worse, a controller uP is shutting you off unexpectedly.

It has NOTHING to do with 'bad code' or 'shitty programmers'. It's just management grinding down on the engineers to do it: better, faster, cheaper, pick two. Usually faster and cheaper win.

Nvidia has the Answer Right here.

[krzy123]

http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/nvidia.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2243 Pretty straight forward. Regular PC laptops with the dual/triple gpu's can use Nvidia's Hybrid SLI.

CNET

[Ilgaz]

Even funnier, did the author install Vista/7 to a 1.42 Ghz machine with 133Mhz system bus and 32MB ATI card and gained massive performance compared to XP?

That is what Mac Mini G4 users experienced when they upgraded to Leopard...

CBS should arrange a meeting with all the editors, authors of CNET and simply remind them they aren't the failed TV channel who is alive with MS money anymore, they don't have to be MS fans in absurd degree. If they don't fix this attitude soon, very soon, their cool domains will be sold to some porn site and they will be laid off. This is really getting beyond funny.

Re:CNET

[WiiVault]

Totally off topic, but frankly as an old mac user (1.2 gh G4 iBook) I actually noticed a ton of slowdown going from Tiger to Leopard. Once I upgraded from 768 to 1.5gb that changed. Still I keep wondering where this concept came from. Perhaps the speed improvements were only found on G5's?

Re:CNET

[Ilgaz]

Leopard is less conservative on RAM matter, if it finds good RAM , it will absolutely use it.

This Mac Mini G4 (which I mention) has 1GB RAM max so the previous owner who seems to know Apple has upgraded it to 1Gig. Of course, G4 has a serious issue with FSB speed.

They could be using Altivec etc. more agressively too. Also, Leopard threads everything possible. Even mds (metadata housekeeping) is multiple CPU/threading, way more than Tiger.

Apple or even 90% of Developers won't tell it but the best way to have performance boost is having the max memory supported. It is same deal from start, Apple 1 had amazing memory upgrade specs compared to others.

Of course, I am not saying Mac Pro or quad g5 owners to go up to 16GB or more, it would be insane for the moment :) I mean, for 99% of users.

Windows 7 is not supported

[Ilgaz]

You would be absolutely correct if Windows 7 was SUPPORTED with Boot Camp. Damn thing can't even get rid of "boot menu" as MS is fixated to partition 1 for booting.

What suggests you that Apple is a generic PC anyway?

Re:This is Apple afterall...

[Savage-Rabbit]

Keep in mind this is Apple we're dealing with and we know how vicious they can get when someone tries to step in and actually compete on one of their platforms. My bets on a line of code in the bios that says something like (in pseudocode of course):

I won't necessarily argue with the fact that Apple can get vicious, when dealing with iPhone/iPod developers via the AppStore they can often take that extra step to being downright stupid as well. Even some of the developers who are assigned bug reports form their bug tracking software could do with some lessons in manners when dealing with customers who go out of their way to report bugs in Apple software. But BootCamp and the associated drivers were made by Apple. If the fact that Windows runs on OS X really bothered Apple that much they would have killed BootCamp long ago. Not that it would do them much good. If they killed BootCamp you would probably have half a dozen software companies and FOSS projects stepping in to provide replacements in a matter of months necessitating a followup campaign of strongly worded nastygrams from Apples legal weasels. Personally I rather doubt this will ever happen. The most likely explanation for these BootCamp performance problems is not a grand conspiracy but rather the simple fact that the Windows BootCamp drivers get a lot less attention development effort from Apple's developers than their OS X equivalents do. I doubt that if the situation was reversed, that Microsoft would be in any hurry to make sure their OS X drivers were as good and highly optimized as their Windows drivers.

Godwinning!

[Anonymous Coward]

To each their own.

That's what he said.

Re:Godwinning!

[Lars T.]

Quoting Cicero

who is to blame?

[DragonTHC]

the battery manufacturer and apple.

their battery doesn't last long enough under load.
Apple's mac book doesn't keep the battery cool enough under load.

Re:who is to blame?

[WiiVault]

The point you missed, and what makes this bizarre, is that Macs have notoriously good battery life running OS X.

Who's to blame?

[Anonymous Coward]

of course the users who buy a MacBook, get a great OS shipped on it and want to install - agh - windows.

Re:Who's to blame?

[bdenton42]

Maybe it's because you've used Windows since release 1.0, have a ton of applications for it, and just want to run them on a really sharp looking laptop?

IMO Apple would do well to open up their market a bit and offer MacBooks preloaded with Windows. They would destroy Dell & HP in the high end market.

Re:Who's to blame?

[uvsc_wolverine]

I don't think Apple wants to open that can of worms. If they become a Windows OEM then they're going to have to take all the support calls too.

Re:Who's to blame?

[xenolion]

And not to mention removes 90% of their ads on TV bashing Microsoft products.

Re:Who's to blame?

[Karlt1]

of course the users who buy a MacBook, get a great OS shipped on it

*nix?

Yep.....

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2007/08/mac-os-x-leopard-receives-unix-03-certification.ars

Re:Who's to blame?

[gig]

> IMO Apple would do well to open up their market a bit and offer MacBooks
> preloaded with Windows. They would destroy Dell & HP in the high end market.

Apple already destroyed Dell and HP and everyone else in the high-end market. In US retail over $1000, the Mac has 90% market share. There is no need for a Windows pre-install on the Mac, and even if there was, which Windows would you preinstall? XP? Vista? Windows 7?

Also, Windows pre-installs are an advantage for Microsoft, but a disadvantage for the user, because they tie the Windows to one box and force the user to re-buy the same Windows every time they get a new PC. How many people bought XP 5 times over the past 8 years? Me, I'm still using the same Windows 98 I bought in 1998. I ran it in VirtualPC for Mac OS 9 in 1998, and now I run it in VirtualBox for Mac OS X and there are no features I need in XP or Vista or Vista 1.1. When I buy my next Mac, even though I may run Windows on there, I don't need a new Windows.

So, Mac fans want to use Windows MORE?!?

[d23tek]

For all the Windows hating that Apple fanboys do, I can't believe they are really angry that they can't run Windows for long periods of time. In a VM. On battery. As a BlackBook owner running XP and 7 in Fusion on the occasions I need it, I understand the need to run Windows occasionally. But if you really must use Windows for so long that you notice battery depletion, you should just go buy a Dell.

Apple does power management differently

[BroncoInCalifornia]

Apple does not do power management in the main processor. They use a separate little processor to do this. This little processor will tell the CPU to slow down. If the CPU does not slow down -- say because it is not running an OS that understands the commands, the little processor may halt the clock of the CPU for a while.

It makes sense that running Windows under VMware could give better results.

Re:So What?

[OldeTimeGeek]

Why use BootCamp? Because sometimes you need to have Windows.

I have a Buffalo NAS - yeah, I know, it seemed like a good idea at the time - which crashed after a power outage. To get it into a state that would permit me to remove everything from its drives I needed to reinstall the OS. The installer only works from within Windows. Not Leopard. Not Linux. Windows. Without BootCamp, it would have taken me a whole lot longer to it working.

I also have other equipment that has installers that work only from Windows. It sucks, yes, but that's the way it is...

Re:Not specifically MacBook/Windows/BootCamp probl

[amn108]

Hate to disagree with an expert but I have seen several cases where badly designed code directly affected battery. I am on Linux, and have got a habit of peeking into its source code, after checking with Intels "powertop" utility. Recently, I found out for example that ffmpeg uses a 1000hz timer to play a HTTP-delivered MP3 stream with bitrate of 56Kbps. Stuff like that. Of course not always it is due to bad code, but often it actually is.

Also, I do application software developing for a living, and in my case there has been minimal occurences where said manager actually came back and revised the software to include better powermanagement. Granted, they do exactly as you described - "let us first make it work". But after it is shipped, nobody cares for the code. Of course, many may say that I have been employed by really shitty managers/employers, and it would partially be true.

So, it is NOT JUST management. It is a multitude of factors, involving management AND coders. Both affect each other as well.

Faster and cheaper is the curse of our times. I hate that shit :-) I acknowledge its necessity in practical living, but it should be a temporary step on the way to "faster, cheaper, better" but it usually stops after the first two qualities are achieved.

Memory management?

[anerki]

I've used both Macs and Windows machines for quite a while now, though I always used a Mac in my private life. I'm in IT, so not using a Windows machine is simply not an option in many cases.

However, at home, ever since I started using iTunes and Mac OS X I noticed that when no sound is playing from my laptop (first a Powerbook, then a Macbook) it started zooming. This was probably because my stereo wasn't properly grounded at the time. As soon as the computer made noise however, it stopped. If I turned on iTunes it stopped! When the album I was playing was finished, it started up again.

I've always guessed that this is because of the way Mac OS X will manage memory. If something isn't used, why bother supplying power to it? Since, interestingly, this phenomenon doesn't occur when I boot up Windows XP or Vista, meaning power is always supplied to a jack not used.

If they turn off many other things 'not used' atm and switch them on as soon as a cable is detected or something similar, imagine how much power you could save ...

Just a thought.

Drivers, drivers, drivers...

[ArcCoyote]

In all likelihood, there are some power-management features of the hardware that are better controlled in OS X than in Windows. The ACPI and CPU-based power management should be pretty standard, but how good are the Windows drivers for the 9400M? There might be updated ones on Windows Update or nVidia's site.

The MBP has a big battery (60 Wh), but still, I see similar things in Linux vs. Windows. Even my cheapo Dell Inspiron with a 48Wh battery will last 4 hrs in Windows 7, but only about 2.5 in Ubuntu.

Gnomes are to blame...

[M-RES]

1. Write Windows 7
2. Drain MacBook battery
3. Profit!

Re:Not specifically MacBook/Windows/BootCamp probl

[zysus]

Perhaps NOTHING was the wrong choice of words.

if its not open source...

[FunkyELF]

If its not open source, blame everyone.
If that doesn't work blame the user (for not using open source).

OMG... proprietary hardware, a proprietary OS, and a proprietary BIOS from 3 different vendors don't play nice together? Who would have thought?

Win7 vs XP Performance Tests

[Crashspeeder]

I read an article recently that benchmarked a netbook with both Windows 7 and XP. The differences were minimal, nearly identical in all aspects. XP came out slightly ahead on every test though, by 1 or 2 points. Windows 7 has more features than XP and managed to give the user the same experience in responsiveness and battery life. I'd say that's an achievement but they could really further improve battery life further.

My Acer Centrino-based laptop running Vista used to get 1:45 max at any given time under normal operation (wi-fi on, screen dimmed) while my Macbook Pro would get nearly 5 hours under the same conditions. I did, however notice a significant drop if watching video. This leads me to believe the languages used to write these particular applications on the OS's are more efficient with their use of resources such as redrawing. Video obviously needs to reraw a lot more than my browser window so that drop was expected but I should see that parallel in Windows as well. This was not the case.

Re:So What?

[ben0207]

Your IT dept. is incompetent.

Re:Not just batterly life

[EricFr]

yeah I'm with you there, the touch pad is so much better in OSX (you can actually tap to click, but in windows you have to use the button....)

Re:So What?

[MightyYar]

No they aren't, really. They just made a business decision to support Windows only. They do a reasonable job with the Windows machines.

Boot camp vs graphic cards

[SmileR.se]

At least on the Mac Book Pro, Windows is stuck using the more powerful and power consuming Geforce 9600 card. The boot camp drivers doesn't contain the option to change to the 9400. In OS X, using the 9600 all the time also gives quite poor battery life.

Not down to discrete graphics

[Ma8thew]

A lot of commenters are saying that the difference in battery life is down to OS X using the integrated graphics, and Windows using the discrete graphics. I disagree. My MacBook pro is in discrete graphics mode in OS X, but I still see much better battery life than running Windows.

I blame antivirus, it's a power suck

[David Gerard]

My old work laptop dual-booted Windows XP and Ubuntu. Doing the same stuff in both (browsing in Firefox 3.5, playing music in VLC), on the precise same piece of hardware, I'd get 3.5 hours battery on Ubuntu and 2 hours on XP. I blame the corporate antivirus - McAfee to be precise. It's a goddamn power suck.

Windows can get out the way and let you run stuff as well as Linux ... until you put that damn AV on. Which you'd better do. (I'm sure many people will comment they do OK without an AV, but anyone who isn't a sufficiently advanced geek better be running an AV on Windows.)

Windows as a MalOS?

[Franklin Brauner]

Considering the latest story on Bing's biased search results, I wonder if it's possible that M$ would hardwire Windows to drain Mac batteries faster. The ultimate Malware -- a MalOS?

Does this make sense to you?

[westlake]

Maximum CPU usage is a terrible drain on environmental resources, and the extra heat generated by the CPU contributes to global climate change. So to encourage users to use less CPU power...Apple used a slightly underpowered power supply.

Tell me how - in the long run - spending more time on CPU-intensive tasks saves energy and reduces heat.

Mind you, the most logical reason for the user to be running a CPU intensive application is because he needs an answer quickly.

That also has implications for the environment: "The numbers look good. We can shut down the run."

Re:Battery will drain while on A/C

[PitaBred]

Yet another reason to dislike Apple. I have no idea why people buy things from them. They don't care about their users, only their image.

Not Exactly Designed For...

[Nom du Keyboard]

I guess MacBooks have to fall into the camp of Not Exactly Designed for Windows 7.

Ask Bing

[anyaristow]

This was supposed to be a funny suggestion, but then I thought it might be even funnier if I binged it and it really did turn up curious results, so I tried it, and...

Microsoft, you so disappoint me. Boring results. Nothing funny at all. You suck.

Sigh.

Folding

[mister_playboy]

That would make a MacBook utterly useless for Folding@Home... seems ridiculous.

Re:Not specifically MacBook/Windows/BootCamp probl

[Ma8thew]

Bootcamp is not a virtual machine. It is a set of tools and drivers that allow you to run Windows on an Apple computer.

That is correct

[Sycraft-fu]

To do something like that, it must be supported by the drivers. As an example a coworker got a new Thinkpad with that feature, may have been the same one you got not sure. The switching works fine in XP. However he wanted to run the Windows 7 RC on it. There, we couldn't get it to work, I had to go in to the BIOS and shut down the Intel card. Why? No Windows 7 drivers for it. In fact at the time, Lenovo had no 7 drivers at all. All drivers had to be obtained from manufacturers of the various parts.

Any feature like this that deals with hardware must be supported in drivers. That is the responsibility of the OEM that puts the computer together. They don't necessarily write the drivers, but they work with the companies that make the hardware to get drivers for the OSes they wish to support. If Apple elects not to release drivers for Windows that support that, well then it won't work.

Re:[citation needed]

[krakelohm]

Sure you used google and not bing? ;) http://search.slashdot.org/story/09/08/06/1334225/Bing-Search-Tainted-By-Pro-Microsoft-Results?art_pos=3&art_pos=6

Windows 7 isn't even out yet

[bonch]

This submission is silly. Why would Apple have updated Boot Camp drivers available for something that isn't even out yet? How about waiting until Windows 7 is actually available for sale in October before looking for people to blame?

Re:Windows 7 isn't even out yet

[bonch]

Please think before you post. Someone subscribed to TechNet or MSDN is not going to be running Windows 7 on a Mac. Like I said, Windows 7 isn't out yet for the general public.

Re:Windows 7 isn't even out yet

[xenolion]

Um I run windows on a mac. I have to due to where I work we have mac and also need windows for our moble teams. So I have an account and yes its very rare for this type of work, but you do find it.

Re:Windows 7 isn't even out yet

[smash]

Someone subscribed to TechNet or MSDN is not going to be running Windows 7 on a Mac.

Why not?

I, for one, have a Mac and a technet subscription - the only reason I don't have the RTM downloading right now is because I've only just signed up and am waiting for my account to be processed.

ANYONE is free to get a technet subscription and get access to any and all microsoft products (for time-unlimited "evaluation" on unlimited machines for personal use) for about the same price as a copy of Windows ultimate.

If you're a geek (i.e., the type of person to run bootcamp) and want a copy of Windows RTM now, its "generally available" so long as you have broadband and about 300-400 bucks.

Re:Windows 7 isn't even out yet

[gig]

> Someone subscribed to TechNet or MSDN is not going to be running Windows 7 on a Mac.

Actually, I think you're 180 degrees wrong. If you're switching to the Mac for the hardware only, you're specifically running Windows, it's quite likely you're a Windows developer. There is MS Office Mac for business users, and creative people discover the Mac tools and never go back, and Web-oriented people get the real HTML 5 Web out-of-the-box on Mac OS, but if you program in C Sharp and .NET then you have to run Windows and Microsoft's tools. You can switch to Mac but you're keeping Windows.

I've heard from a few different developer types that they were at conferences and they'd be at a table with 10 developer nerds and 10 MacBook Pros, but if you go around and look it was actually like 4 Mac OS, 2 Linux, and 4 XP. I heard from at least one Windows developer that he switched to Mac hardware so he could reboot in Mac OS X and make iPhone/iPod apps in addition to booting into Windows to make Win32 apps as before. He can't be the only guy who had that idea, it is a great one. And there is a blog called .NET Addict that has a Mac Pro grille in the masthead, the guy is using MacBook Pro and Mac Pro to do his MSDN programming and not only loving it, but sharing that far and wide.

A key thing is that Apple has 90% market share in $1000+ PC's, they have taken the high-end PC market in the same way they took the music player market with iPod. Developers typically want high-end hardware because they're going to use it everyday and they want compiles to be fast and because they want to focus while they're working on the code they're writing, not troubleshooting their workstation (even if they have those skills.) And installing Windows from scratch is actually a feature for developers, they can install it all exactly how they want.

Apple driver keep CPU in performance mode?

[SineNomen]

... But all those little features OS X knows about and uses properly. Boot Camp Drivers Cover most of them, Windows handles other ones. I know for an instance Windows Vista with boot camp keeps the lights on the keyboard while OS X is a bit smarter then that ... Now comes to the question. Is the Mac made Drivers for Vista keeping those lights on. Or Vista is telling the driver to keep it on. I am betting it is both.

I am also suspicious about Apple supplied drivers degrading battery life, bugs seem too obvious and fortuitous for Apple to pass them off as chance. I've noticed that when my MacBook is on battery Vista is in performance mode by default rather than battery life mode. Updating the configuration for a should-have-been-the-default setting of performance on AC and battery life on battery greatly improved the battery. Remembering to adjust the screen backlighting also makes a dramatic improve, both under Vista and Mac OS X.

Apple provides various Windows drivers

[SineNomen]

There is a reason that the battery dies quicker and since there is no layer of Mac OS X between Windows and the hardware I doubt it's because Apple did something wrong. It's either Windows or the Intel or NVidia drivers.

One of the big factors that makes Boot Camp such a successful Windows on a Mac story is that *Apple* provides various Windows drivers for XP and Vista. So you are a little premature to claim that Apple can not be at fault. Apple drivers *may* be failing to put the CPU into battery life mode when on a battery, fail to dim the screen backlighting, fail to turn off keyboard lighting, etc.

What is the purpose of RC really?

[Ilgaz]

If they are releasing a test dvd paying millions of dollars to Akamai and taking the risk of millions of "non upgrading" beta testers, they should have put that prompt as first thing after the install, right in "check for updates automatically". Defaulting to off of course.

Also communication doesn't need to be re-invented, Apple's method of "use documented compression format(bz2), use http put under https protocol" is more than enough. It will satisfy the paranoid. Apple does it in "System Profiler" application, a complete opt-in which has no inviting prompts. I use it every time when I buy some weird USB thing. Let them know how their OS is used.

Nobody here with a hackintosh-book?

[Lars T.]

What are the battery times for you?

Re:Not specifically MacBook/Windows/BootCamp probl

[Arker]

After getting used to Apple laptops and buying an Acer instead recently, this is the one thing that most aggravates me. Apple does power management very well - both windows and linux fall very flat by comparison. I wouldnt be surprised if windows kills batteries faster than OSX on the same hardware - in fact I'd say something was very very wrong if it did not.

That is not entirely correct

[gr8dude]

Any piece of code running on the system can be written in such a way that it forces the CPU to enter a high power consumption mode too often.

Check out the research related to the development of powertop - it has clearly demonstrated that many user-mode programs have a negative impact on power consumption; the use of powertop allowed them to find the "offenders".

The more processes you have, the more code there is - the greater is the probability that a part of it is not written with power efficiency in mind.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Not specifically MacBook/Windows/BootCamp probl

[amn108]

Thanks for correction. I never used Bootcamp, but I did assume (and obviously it does) it presents some sort of incompatibility for Windows running on a Mac. Probably it is Windows not having a good driver to interface Mac internals.

Re:Not specifically MacBook/Windows/BootCamp probl

[amn108]

True. The few times I used a MacBook I was pleasantly suprised how well OSX idles.

it's probably the drivers

[OrangeTide]

The OS uses the drivers for the laptop's logic board to do the power savings. If the drivers do not provide the OS with the right information, or the drivers are missing features necessary for ideal power savings. Then the OS is not going to be able to do much. Apple is the vendor for the Windows drivers for their laptops, and therefor it is probably Apple's fault.

Re:it's probably the drivers

[joeyblades]

It's Apple's fault that the battery life on my HP laptop running XP is less than half the battery life of my MacBook running OS X???

Re:it's probably the drivers

[OrangeTide]

Well XP's power management sucks. so that's your fault for running an old OS. It's Apple's fault that Vista and Windows 7 has poor battery life on a macbook compared to other laptops.

Re:it's probably the drivers

[joeyblades]

Interesting that you should say this. Poorer battery life for laptops is one of the reasons our IT department listed for rejecting Vista. I work for a major tech company and technically, it's their laptop.