'Back To the Mac' Media Event On October 20th

Kildjean writes "Engadget reports that Apple has issued invitations for a special media event to be held next Wednesday, October 20th at 10:00 AM Pacific Time. The invitation for the event, which is to be held at the company's campus in Cupertino, California, carries the tagline 'Back to the Mac.' The invitation also contains an image of what appears to be a lion peeking out from behind the Apple logo, hinting at discussion of Mac OS X 10.7. 'Lion' has been one of the most commonly-suggested 'big cat' names for the next-generation operating system. Much of Apple's notebook line with the exception of the entry-level MacBook is due for a refresh, and Apple has refreshed at least a portion of its notebook line each October or November for the last several years. Apple's desktop offerings have all been updated relatively recently, suggesting that the company's media event may focus on notebooks if new hardware is included on the agenda."

Comments

Re:And???

[zn0k]

Because the release of the next major version of the second most popular Desktop OS family is news.

Just like the release of Ubuntu 10.10 and Windows 7 were news.

This is news?

[kellyb9]

I'll admit, I'm not a huge fan of Apple. But this is the biggest non-news story ever posted to Slashdot. Basically, Apple is holding an event where they *may* introduce a new release of their operating system and their laptop and desktop lineup is due for a refresh which may or may not happen on Oct 20th. There's absolutely no information in there thats news.

Re:This is news?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we're supposed to start guessing the next OS X name or something, as if we are children.

Re:This is news?

[Sponge Bath]

There's absolutely no information in there thats news.

[Steve Jobs arches fingers and raises eyebrow] "Excellent"

Re:This is news?

[God'sDuck]

I think we're supposed to start guessing the next OS X name or something, as if we are children.

OS X Kitty! ( http://xkcd.com/231/ )

Re:This is news?

[UnknowingFool]

It's a matter of style. On slashdot, there are MS and Linux alpha releases, beta releases, pre-release candidate releases, candidate release, RTM releases, and final releases. Apple is fairly reticent about releases: Announcement, beta, then final. Since Apple does not announce every little thing it does, it's more newsworthy when they do.

Re:This is news?

[ihatejobs]

Slashdot must keep up with its One Apple Story per day minimum, otherwise it would collapse in on itself for having actual news on the front page.

Re:This is news?

[CannonballHead]

Not quite. Apple is: Pre-knowledge rumors, rumors, post-rumor rumors, faked Steve Jobs e-mail rumors, announcement, pre-beta rumors, beta, post-beta rumors, faked Steve Jobs e-mail rumors, final [, faked Steve Jobs e-mail rumors].

Re:This is news?

[UnknowingFool]

None of which Apple does. It's all speculation by third parties because Apple only has few official announcements.

Re:This is news?

[phantomfive]

I did a job interview with Apple recently, and one question I asked was, "is it true that at Apple you work really hard?" The interviewers both stiffened and said, "where did you hear that?" I was surprised that the question bothered them, so I said, "you know, everywhere.....my friends, slashdot........" They looked at me awkwardly and said, "we have a policy at Apple that we can't comment on rumors."

Then they relaxed, smiled, and said, "but you can ask us directly if we work hard." So I did. And there was no problem. They take secrets seriously there, I guess.

BTW, pro tip: if you're in a job interview, never ask if they work really hard. Doesn't help. Sigh.

Re:This is news?

[CannonballHead]

Granted, though it doesn't go out of its way to discount very many rumors, either.

Also, this story isn't mostly about an official announcement. It's rumors about the official announcement...

Re:This is news?

[Jugalator]

It's the first OS X / Mac event in a while, with strong hints it's about an upcoming version.

I wonder how the milky way is *maybe* more square-like is a better story here. :p

Honestly, it was quite a while since Apple had an event like this.

Re:This is news?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's how we keep the doctor away.

Re:This is news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds as if you were visiting North Korea.

Re:This is news?

[UnknowingFool]

Granted, though it doesn't go out of its way to discount very many rumors, either.

Because maybe they get tired of telling people: Unless you hear it from us, it's a rumor. Heck even Verizon has said that any announcement about a Verizon iPhone will come from Apple. And this is an official announcement next week with hints about what will come. There will always be speculation regardless. I think 10.7 will be announced. It's about time if history is any judge.

Re:This is news?

[pyite]

one question I asked was, "is it true that at Apple you work really hard?"

Why in the world would you possibly ask this? All it does is make you sound scared of hard work. Of course they work hard! Anyone at the top of their field always does. It's how you get there.

Re:This is news?

[jDeepbeep]

the biggest non-news story ever posted to Slashdot

You must be new here.

Re:This is news?

[jmac_the_man]

So do they?

Re:This is news?

[phantomfive]

Of course it's dumb. That's why I said don't do it. The reason I applied at Apple was because I wanted to know what sort of processes they have, because the work they do is really good, so in the interviews I asked questions to try to figure out what processes they have.

I also have the problem that I tend to be honest. They asked me if I had any questions, and I was really wondering if they worked their employees the way EA used to or not. Later I realized that was kind of dumb, but it's what I was thinking at the time. Lesson: be honest in a smart way, not a stupid way.

Re:This is news?

[phantomfive]

Ironically they didn't give me a direct answer. They said, "you CAN work hard if you want to; there's nothing stopping you from working 60 hours a week."

I do know that when you drive by the Apple campus there are always more cars than you would expect into the evening. As opposed to, for example, the IBM parking lot, which clears out around 5.

Re:This is news?

[tyrione]

Of course it's dumb. That's why I said don't do it. The reason I applied at Apple was because I wanted to know what sort of processes they have, because the work they do is really good, so in the interviews I asked questions to try to figure out what processes they have. I also have the problem that I tend to be honest. They asked me if I had any questions, and I was really wondering if they worked their employees the way EA used to or not. Later I realized that was kind of dumb, but it's what I was thinking at the time. Lesson: be honest in a smart way, not a stupid way.

To answer your question about EA and how Apple compares, the answer is no. You aren't in a sweat shop ala EA. You're in an environment you actually like working in and the time flies as you become engrossed in your job.

Re:This is news?

[dgatwood]

On the flip side, when you're talking about engineers, that's frequently because they didn't arrive until noon.... :-D

Re:This is news?

[jcr]

Yeah, Apple's pretty flexible about hours, as long as you get to whatever meetings you've agreed to attend and you hit your target dates for deliverables. I know people there who work noon to midnight, 6 AM to 3PM, and so on. People on the same development team tend to shoot for mostly overlapping hours.

-jcr

Re:This is news?

[Anonymous Coward]

The criticism was about Slashdot, not about Apple. The point remains.

Re:This is news?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's how we keep the doctor away.

The doctor? Doctor Who??

Re:This is news?

[Sir_Lewk]

There is a very big difference between "job expecting you to have excellent work ethic", and what rumour has Apple requires.

I think we've all heard our fair share of 80+ hour work-week stories about apple, there's no reason to be purposely dense.

Re:This is news?

[fyngyrz]

You're in an environment you actually like working in and the time flies as you become engrossed in your job.

Yes? ...maybe you should get engrossed in the Apple TV v2, then. Because it sucks. No DVi support, can't hook to more than one iTunes library, it produces wavy, distorted images on many HDTVs, the remote is a nightmare to select passwords on (and bless them, they've made the device so you constantly have to feed it IDs and passwords), the TOSlink audio locks it up, it has no rational buffering strategy (and this, for a streaming device), the provided support is inconsistent with the device (for instance, the Apple v2 support page says "press up plus menu to switch video modes"... there is no "up" key, just four identical dots, but I guess really that's no problem because pressing the dot the manual describes as "up" along with the menu key does NOTHING anyway.) The video sharing does nothing, the entry marked "computers" can only find one at a time (and it never *did* find my Mac Pro, and yes, I have the right version of iTunes on it), it's clueless about more than one AppleID/account in the same household...

I dunno, man. I think someone over there isn't all that "engrossed."

Re:This is news?

[Yvan256]

Slashdot is pro-Dalek?

MBP

[Jethro]

I hope they upgrade the MBP line (which they should, it's within their usual release cycle). My current Macbook (from before they had small MBPs) is getting old and slow and can't really handle having two people logged in and running Firefox at the same time anymore, and I didn't want to get a new one when they were this close to releasing new ones!

Re:MBP

[twistedcubic]

But didn't they just recently update the Macbook Pro in April? (6 months ago)

Re:MBP

[TheRaven64]

I hope so too. I have a 2006 model MBP. I was planning on upgrading it after three years, but the available replacements at the time were only slightly faster. The current ones are a bit better. The i5 / i7 are a step up from the Core 2, and the increase in battery life looks okay. I'd also like an SSD, but getting the 256GB SSD and the decent screen pushes the price up to well over double what I paid for this machine, so I'll probably hang on to it for a bit longer, until flash prices drop.

Hopefully a refresh will push the machine I want from being near the top of the line to being a bit closer to the entry-level model. That said, the cheapest 15" MBP is currently more than I paid for this one when it was new...

Re:MBP

[Jethro]

Not the 13.3" version.

Re:MBP

[DCstewieG]

Step 1: Ditch Firefox. It's become a cow. Unless you absolutely need some extensions you can't get elsewhere, try Chrome or Safari.

Re:MBP

[Jethro]

I've been upgrading the harddrive in my MB over the years - there's a 250GB drive in it now. I'm just going to move that over to the new laptop whenever that happens. SDDs seem cool but they push the price up an insane amount.

Re:MBP

[Bert64]

How is the april macbook pro? I have the previous version from mid 2009 and it seems to choke under heavy disk io, which earlier models didn't seem to do so badly..

Re:MBP

[Anonymous Coward]

Per dollar, an SSD upgrade (second hand) will be the single biggest improvement you have ever experienced since we got gobs of ram cheap. Give a tiny fast one a whack (64GB from Crucial) and you will be amazed.

Re:MBP

[Jethro]

Eh. I don't think that will make Firefox any faster on this machine (; and on a new one the 7200RPM drive will be fine.

Re:MBP

[Samus]

My friend bought the 17 inch model back then and ended up returning it because of that issue. I think it was resolved on those models but I'm not sure. He and I both bought the April model and are enjoying them. The two of us had previously had the original core duo (not core 2) version so the upgrade has been worth it. I recently put in 8 gigs of ram (much cheaper after market) and the thing flies even while running a couple vms. The only things I don't like is that I opted for the 7200 RPM drive which seems to eat the battery. The other thing is that the dumbest programs will kick the nvidia chipset on while on battery causing battery life to dwindle even faster. Why does Evernote need high end rendering?

Re:MBP

[RocketRabbit]

Aside from the *fact* that Firefox is a cow, it has some of the most awful, ugly font rendering in the world.

Why would you buy a Macintosh, which includes perhaps the best font rendering engine on the planet, and $1000 worth of professional fonts, in order to render them so terribly?

Safari has one of the fastest Javascript engines on the planet, its HTML5 capabilities blow FF out of the water, and it's just all around nicer.

Re:MBP

[ColdWetDog]

SDDs seem cool but they push the price up an insane amount.

They're pricey, but they make the machine fly. I have a 2007 17" (Version 3,1). Always seem to hang on program switching and heavy disk I/O. Changing out to a 7200 RPM drive made a bit of difference, but really didn't change my 'attitude' to the machine (basically I wanted a new one). Sticking in an SSD however, was a night and day experience. I think OS X really hits the hard drive for lots of little things that really could stay in RAM (the machine has 4 GB) and would noticeably pause starting and switching programs and often for no apparent reason.

Pretty much all gone now. I've basically given up my thoughts of upgrading the machine for a few more years. Perhaps once Nikon gets it 24 megapixel cameras out of the stratospheric price range they inhabit and I afford to buy one and upgrade the machine to handle it.

Re:MBP

[Jethro]

The thing is, we need the diskspace and I am not willing to spend however much a 250GB SDD is on this machine. Maybe in the future. This is a 2006 Macbook (not even a Pro) so I reaaalllyy don't think that'd help it a whole lot.

"Faster HDD" has always been part of my upgrade path, though, so when I get a new 2011 MBP and THAT starts getting slow (around 2013) I'll probably get an SDD for it.

Re:MBP

[Anonymous Coward]

Safari crashes and hangs on me a *lot* more than Firefox does. Usually it's from Flash, but not always. Past that, Firefox saves the tabs and sites I have open; that makes the crashes in Safari much worse than the few I've had in Firefox. I actually use both daily, though for a somewhat silly reason I won't go into.

Re:MBP

[ColdWetDog]

Yeah, prices are a bitch. I have an OWC 240 GB at over $500 - but that's a lot cheaper than a new MBP. I also put the 7200 RPM drive in the optical slot and so I have a terabyte of storage in a laptop - pretty cool, if you ask me. The current processor refreshes really don't impress me much, nor do the video cards. Since I'm mostly doing Photoshop / Dreamweaver on the machine, I don't need supermonster RayTraceTheUniverse graphics cards.

Re:MBP

[Jethro]

Well, I'll be going from a macbook to a MBP, that alone would add some power. Honestly this thing is well due for an upgrade. Takes it about four hours to export a five minute 720p fairly low quality video. which is a bit much for me.

Re:MBP

[ColdWetDog]

Funny? I guess I never get mod points because I haven't smoked pot in a long time. Must be some strong stuff you young'ins have. In my day we if we got dizzy from inhaling the smoke we thought we were buzzing along just fine.

Re:MBP

[Anonymous Coward]

Reformat? Oh right, only windows users need to do that..my mistake.

Re:MBP

[Jethro]

Actually I did do a clean OS install, and it helped a bit, but like I keep pointing out in this thread, it's actually a fairly old machine, I don't really use it the same way I did 4 years ago (didn't have HD video back then, didn't have to edit 15P RAW files, etc). It's time to upgrade!

Re:MBP

[Anonymous Coward]

My comment was based on your stated use (two users logged in and ff). Therefore I assumed that if it was getting slow that it was probably a software issue and not a hardware one.

Re:MBP

[supernes]

You're wrong.

Sent from my Firefox

Re:MBP

[Saint Fnordius]

That's just the thing: Safari/Webkit's "Inspect Element" is nowhere near as useful as Firebug is. I personally have Firefox and Safari or Chrome running most of the time.

Re:MBP

[alexandre_ganso]

you mean, like opening iphoto? Mine is dead for a full minute then. Won't even talk about opening windows 7 in vmware...

Re:MBP

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I realize this is OT, but that font problem has GOT to be fixed. It's seriously one of the worst things about the Mozilla family of products (it affects Thunderbird, too, which is about email, which is about text, which is usually displayed with, you know, FONTS). What has it been, a decade? And they still can't get rendering right?

Re:MBP

[DCstewieG]

That's not really true any more, it's just different. But I know what you mean, I still use Firefox/Firebug at work but Safari at home.

Re:MBP

[rovolo]

Firefox saves the tabs and sites I have open

I wish that Safari did that automatically, but now that Safari 5 has extensions there's the 'Sessions' extension.

Re:MBP

[Anonymous Coward]

Past that, Firefox saves the tabs and sites I have open; that makes the crashes in Safari much worse than the few I've had in Firefox.

How about you press "Reopen all windows from last session" after your Safari crashes next time?
How often does it crash anyway - once a month? :)

Re:MBP

[Bert64]

Yeah, loading large apps brings the whole machine to a crawl, a time machine backup kicking off in the background makes video playback stall, my older one didn't have these problems at all.

Re:And???

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is friendly to LGBT community and needs to cater to their interests as well. Hence, the Mac news.

Re:And???

[UnknowingFool]

So you're saying OS X is not? I would be interested if Apple announces the successor to Snow Leopard and what features it might have. Then there is the hardware refresh.

Daily Steve Jobs Bowl Movement Updates Next

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, I remember when Slashdot use to be a tech and open source news and tech discussion forum. Can't believe it has transformed into an Apple fanblog.

Re:Daily Steve Jobs Bowl Movement Updates Next

[westlake]

Man, I remember when Slashdot use to be a tech and open source news and tech discussion forum. Can't believe it has transformed into an Apple fanblog.

The success stories in the consumer market space this year have been the iOS in mobile devices, OSX and Windows 7 on the desktop. Trend for 'iOS,Android', iOS tops Linux, StatCounter Global Stats

For a "hackable" Linux as a client-side OS the year has really been something of a downer. The "OtherOS" is gone from the PS3 and only the geek seems to have noticed. Ubuntu has its Netbook Edition, but the netbook platform itself seems to be headed South.

Whatever Android and Chrome may become, they are almost certainly going to be more Google than Geek. In mid October of 2010 that may not be quite as cheering a prospect as it looked in 2008. Sony HDTVs To Come With Google TV Interface

I welcome our OS IX overlords

[klubar]

If Apple sticks with the "big cats" theme, then 10.7 will the last of the dot releases of OS X. There are only 7 big cats, unless you count the various leopards separately (but somehow the distinction between the Neofelis nebulosa and the Neofelis diardi may be too fine).
The big cats are:

• Tiger, Panthera tigris (Asia)
• Lion, Panthera leo (Africa, Gir Forest in India; extinct in former range of southeast Europe, Middle East, much of Asia, and North America)
• Jaguar, Panthera onca (the Americas; from the Southern United States and Mexico to northern Argentina)
• Cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus (Africa and Iran; extinct in former range of India)
• Cougar, Puma concolor (North and South America)
• Leopards
  • Snow Leopard, Uncia uncia (mountains of central and south Asia)
  • Leopard, Panthera pardus (Asia and Africa)
  • Bornean Clouded Leopard, Neofelis diardi (Borneo and Sumatra)
  • Clouded Leopard, Neofelis nebulosa (southeast and south Asia)

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[God'sDuck]

• Piano Cat

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Sponge Bath]

They can start on domestic cats. OS 11.0 "Tortie"

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[at_slashdot]

Maybe they will have a Liger release :D

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I welcome our OS IXoverlords

Stop living in the past. OS 9.2.2 is long forgotten.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[samkass]

Could include some now-extinct cats like sabre-toothed ones. But you're probably right... MacOS X is now about 10 years old and is probably due for a major rejiggering soon.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[geekoid]

Snow leopards, and Leopards are separate Genus. Something you should have noticed sine your said seven, but then only listed six categories.

And big cat isn't an actual classification.

So they could go with 'Saber tooth' or maybe 'LOL'

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[metamechanical]

I think you forgot long cat.

From everything I learned in school, long cat is long.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. Because all along, Apple's OS X development has been held hostage to the number of big cat species. Somehow, I'm not worried that Apple will run out of name or ideas for OS X.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[linguizic]

You forgot to mention LOL cat. Personally I would love to have OS X Ceiling Cat and OS X Basement Cat.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Hylandr]

In keeping with the status quo within apple I suggest naming the next OS "Robot Unicorn".

- Dan.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

OS X 10.8 Battle Cat
OS X 10.9 Lion-O

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Dynedain]

Since they are using the names, and except for the Cheetah print and Snow Leopard, not actually showing pictures of the animals, they still have options. They used both Panther and Jaguar.

10.0 Cheetah
10.1 Puma
10.2 Jaguar
10.3 Panther
10.4 Tiger
10.5 Leopard
10.6 Snow Leopard
10.7 Lion?

Other names still available, especially if they include medium-sized cats (which they already did depending on how you classify puma):
bobcat, mountain lion, lynx, cougar, caracal, ocelot, and a whole slew of region-specific minor species

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[twistedcubic]

Actually, I heard they were considering using characters from Toy Story for OS XI.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[UnknowingFool]

Yeah but that doesn't mean Apple has to stick to big cat families.

• Ocelot
• Caracal
• Serval
• Bobcat

Also they could use species like they did for Snow Leopard. After all Snow Leopard was a major change under the hood from Leopard but didn't add many user distinguishable changes. The main thing users may have noticed is that the system files and library sizes shrunk by half or so. There are also the hybrid species like Tiglon and Ligers.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

"There are only 7 big cats, unless you count the various leopards separately (but somehow the distinction between the Neofelis nebulosa and the Neofelis diardi may be too fine)."

There are many more if you include extinct ones such as the saber-toothed cats. Although naming an OS after an extinct species might not be desirable :-)

And let's not forget the vast diversity of the lolcat clan.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you mention it, "Clouded" Leopard is kind of a no brainer...

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

What about OS X 10.8 Thundercat?

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[mr_mischief]

10.10 Thunder, thunder, Thundercats! Hoooooo!

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[phallstrom]

I predict that about the time OSX runs out of big cat names, Microsoft will jump on the big cat bandwagon and release Windows Garfield. Millions of dollars will be spent marketing it, Odie will replace Clippy, and after selling hundreds of copies, Microsoft will declare it a success[1]

[1] in relation to the Kin.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

ThunderCats Ho!

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Blakey Rat]

They already used Puma, which isn't on your list, so I'm guessing they'll just pick some smaller cats. OS X 10.8 Serval!

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[mr_mischief]

Although Apple could probably pull it off, I'd be wary if I was naming an operating system to call it Lynx, but I agree with your general idea that they aren't limited to the exact divisions a zoologist or geneticist might impose upon the list.

There's no reason they couldn't change from cats to something else within 10, though. There's also no reason they couldn't bump the version numbers to 11 just to start a new list even if it's not a major rewrite of the system. Microsoft sure wouldn't be able to sue them for misleading version numbers on that count.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

wouldn't that be bloat-wear It continues to take system resources due to bad memory handling and grows until it crashes.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they'll release a netbook friendly OS and call it Kute Kitten.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Bert64]

We've had snow leopard, so perhaps clouded leopard is the next one!

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[VolciMaster]

Could include some now-extinct cats like sabre-toothed ones. But you're probably right... MacOS X is now about 10 years old and is probably due for a major rejiggering soon.

And Linux is about 19 years old and is probably due for a major rejiggering, too :)

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Marc_Hawke]

Didn't they already use Panther? That's not even on your list, so that means they're willing to use a broader ranged nomeclature than your suggestion.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[dwightk]

well, Snow Leopard and Leopard were used separately, so that leaves Lion and Cougar

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[betterunixthanunix]

The Linux kernel has been rejiggered several times, and nobody runs plain GNU/Linux anymore...

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[UnknowingFool]

Well OS X is based on BSD (30+ years) which is based on Unix (40+). As for major rejiggering, Snow Leopard contained a lot of changes under the hood and fewer changes to userland. That's why Apple said the Snow Leopard upgrade was only $29.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Quiet_Desperation]

They could use that as a springboard into the "mythical creature" series for OS XI.

OS 11.0 - Unicorn
OS 11.1 - Bandersnatch
OS 11.2 - Jabberwock
OS 11.3 - Seraphim
OS 11.4 - Canadian
OS 11.5 - Basilisk

"Today Macworld provides coverage as Apple.... RELEASES OS 11.6 - THE KRACKEN!"

Geez, with mythical creatures they could go for decades.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

Bobcat
Wildcat
Tomcat
etc...

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[ceoyoyo]

10.6 is Snow Leopard, and 10.3 was Panther and 10.1 was Puma. Even if they didn't use any more leopards they've still got Lion, and Cougar (so up to 10.8).

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[lochnessie]

Maybe they'll name the next version "Civet," acknowledging that we're willing to pay a premium for whatever they crap out.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm betting on lolcat...

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

I predict that about the time OSX runs out of big cat names, Microsoft will jump on the big cat bandwagon and release Windows Garfield. Millions of dollars will be spent marketing it, Odie will replace Clippy, and after selling hundreds of copies, Microsoft will declare it a success[1]

[1] in relation to the Kin.

says the apple fanboi

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[aardwolf64]

So, you say there are only 7 big cats, and then proceed to list 6 of them. What's the seventh???

You didn't technically list Panther (10.3), which is the Genus of Jaguar (10.2), Tiger (10.4), Leopard (10.5), and Lion (10.7).

If we're allowed to use the Genus, we can still have Acinonyx (10.8), Uncia (10.9), and Neofelis (10.10). Unfortunately Puma was already used for 10.1 (but not Cougar, which is in the Genus Puma.)

Confused yet? I certainly am. Perhaps they should have used the Seven Dwarfs. Then this would be OS X 10.7 Doc.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[vought]

Lion is plausible, but I suspect it will be called Leo.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[bill_mcgonigle]

OS X 10.8 Serval!M/i>

After the last few releases 'Civet' seems most appropriate.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[jjb3rd]

10.7 - El Chupacabra

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

Liger, liger, pants on fire.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[semiotec]

Ninja Cat

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[oliverk]

Missed one...

OS 11.7 - Duke Nukem Forever

Let's collectively pray that Kracken is stable over a long, long time :)

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

After the last few releases 'Civet' seems most appropriate.

If they can make a Mac that shits coffee beans, I'll buy it in a heartbeat.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[dgatwood]

Prior to the official name announcements, I've been jokingly calling every upcoming Mac OS X release ocelot for several releases now. I keep hoping someday the right people will overhear me and the name will stick....

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[the_B0fh]

nobody runs slackware anymore?

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[bennomatic]

• Missing Cat

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[bennomatic]

Yeah, using the Sabre cats might cause people to start making jokes about OS X being long in the tooth.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[CharlyFoxtrot]

XNU and the mach kernel on which it is based is considerably younger than BSD. OSX is an os at least as modern as it's competitors. It's a solid foundation for a quite a few more years.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[KalAl]

11.7 - Jackalope

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[jcr]

The cat names are getting a bit tiresome, IMHO. I'd like to see the last cat name be "Panzer", which would segue into world war two hardware, so we could have releases with names like "Mustang", "Corsair", and "Garand".

-jcr

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget about Panther, the black version of the jaguar and cheetah.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot: LOL Cat

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

Liger was the internal code name for the WWDC seed of Leopard. It was called this because was called Leopard but stillnmostly Tiger. ;)

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[grouchomarxist]

OS 11.7 - G-Spot

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[grouchomarxist]

OS 11.8 - Slashdot User's Girlfriend

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

OS 11.7 Esquilax..."A legendary horse, with the head of a rabbit, and the body of a rabbit."

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Paradise Pete]

If Apple sticks with the "big cats" theme, then 10.7 will the last of the dot releases of OS X. There are only 7 big cats

They used leopard twice, so there should still be one left over.

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[eyendall]

You forgot Garfield

Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords

[Sazerac]

Perhaps OS X 10.8 could be called "Kzin."

Allow me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's what is going happen:

* Jobs will give the name of the new OS that won't be coming out for at least a year and encourage developers to get involved with it by offering some promotion/kool-aide.

* There will be updates to the macbook pro and macbook air line. Maybe some small addition to the macbook. (The new macbook air is supposed to be epic. I'm gonna hope for -typical- with an i3 chipset. Just saying...)

* He will not want to talk about iOS saying this is about Macs with the exception of the new iLife Package which will have some App Made Easy program in it.

* See above...new version of iLife.

* There will be some one more things nonsense, everyone will go nuts. Drink more kool-aide, spend all your money...hoozah.

Yes, I own I mac and an iphone...but I hate the hype. Anyone that really cares read macrumors and daringfireball, right? (Yes, gruber is an asshole.)

Re:Allow me...

[mr_mischief]

I own a few Macs, but non with Intel CPUs in them. Mine all have 68xxx, G3, or G4 chips. I also own one iPod, but that was a gift from an employer. What I care about is the abilities of the system and the quality of the hardware and software. My older Macs serve the same purpose as my really old PCs: nostalgia.

All that said, it'd be stupid once you've built a hype-following fan base as a core part of your customer base not to keep them coming back for more hype. The company (while under good leadership) knows this, and won't lose its hype-loving fan base to Mac clones, BeOS, Haiku, Ubuntu, and other hype-happy developments if it can help it. Without Steve Jobs, they nearly lost their shirts without the hype. They'll give their market what it wants since he's back, and probably after he leaves again now that they've had a chance to learn the lesson the hard way.

Re:Allow me...

[UnknowingFool]

Jobs will give the name of the new OS that won't be coming out for at least a year and encourage developers to get involved with it by offering some promotion/kool-aide.

I would think that you'd want to give developers some time between announcement and release so that developers could use/test the release.

He will not want to talk about iOS saying this is about Macs with the exception of the new iLife Package which will have some App Made Easy program in it.

Considering that when Jobs just talked about iOS and their new line of iPods just last month, one of the main complaints is that he didn't discuss OS X or the Mac at all, Jobs focusing on OS X this month isn't unreasonable.

Re:Allow me...

[indiechild]

Just another pretender. "Yeah, look at me, I'm not like those other Apple sheeple, I'm so much cooler than them. I'll even chuck in a few Apple put-downs so that the haters think I'm an alright guy."

Re:And???

[paimin]

Not everyone here is an Apple-hate troll like you.

I welcome our OS XI overlords as well

[klubar]

That would be the wayback machine to OS 9 (which may have been one of the finest OSs ever). I welcome our XI overlords as well.

Re:I welcome our OS XI overlords as well

[Y-Crate]

I would argue Mac OS 8.6 was the best Classic OS release. It pushed the old architecture about as far as it could go, and got it about as stable as you could hope for given the technical limitations of cooperative multitasking and unprotected memory.

It removed a ton of cruft, swapped out the kernel, added Carbon support and basically pulled a Weekend at Bernie's on what was an embarrassingly out of date codebase.

I'm still not even sure why Mac OS 9 happened beyond the need for something between 8 and 10 on the release schedule. It didn't add very many new features (voice login and uh... yeah), and brought us back to 8.5 levels of stability. Definitely the Weekend at Bernie's 2 release. An uninspired and pointless sequel that arrived too late.

Re:I welcome our OS XI overlords as well

[phillymjs]

Mac OS 9 probably should have been called Mac OS 8.7, but for the fact that Jobs needed a quick way out of the contracts Apple had with the cloners, which were killing Apple.

The loophole that was found was that the cloners' licenses to distribute Mac OS were only valid for version 8.x. Thus they renamed Mac OS 8.7 to Mac OS 9 and refused to license the new major version to the cloners, putting them out of business.

~Philly

Re:I welcome our OS XI overlords as well

[vought]

Mac OS 8 was originally developed as Mac OS 7.7. I have the beta CD to prove it....

Re:I welcome our OS XI overlords as well

[Anonymous Coward]

Your memory is fuzzy. It was Mac OS 7.6.x then moved to Mac OS 8.

Re:I welcome our OS XI overlords as well

[mr100percent]

Interesting, but OS 9 had a ton of new features, it was way way more than a point release. Carbon libraries? Mulitple user support? File Encryption? AppleShare over IP? Keychain? Voiceprint login? Software Update?

Re:I welcome our OS XI overlords as well

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, you're a major revision off. The cloners were allowed to purchase licenses for System 7 (which was later rebranded as Mac OS 7), and what was to become Mac OS 8.0 was originally branded as 7.7.

Re:I welcome our OS XI overlords as well

[phillymjs]

Ah, right, right. I stand corrected.

Re:I welcome our OS XI overlords as well

[Anonymous Coward]

Not exactlty. This happened with Mac OS 7.7 being rebranded as Mac OS 8.0. To the best of my knowledge, there haven't been any Macintosh clones (except maybe some late Umax machines) running Mac OS 8.x

Re:I welcome our OS XI overlords as well

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

Mac OS 9 probably should have been called Mac OS 8.7, but for the fact that Jobs needed a quick way out of the contracts Apple had with the cloners, which were killing Apple.

The loophole that was found was that the cloners' licenses to distribute Mac OS were only valid for version 8.x. Thus they renamed Mac OS 8.7 to Mac OS 9 and refused to license the new major version to the cloners, putting them out of business.

~Philly

Even ignoring that it was MacOS 8: http://news.cnet.com/Umax-gains-Mac-OS-8-license/2100-1001_3-203029.html

Re:I welcome our OS XI overlords as well

[Anonymous Coward]

Great theory except the cloner's licenses were for 7.x, not 8.x.

Re:I welcome our OS XI overlords as well

[Anonymous Coward]

You're one version too far. That was OS 8. Mac OS 8 was going to be 7.7, which Jobs moved to 8 to kill off the cloners. I think they boosted what could have been 8.7 to 9 just so they could call the NeXTStep-based OS "OS X"

Re:I welcome our OS XI overlords as well

[Anonymous Coward]

You're one version off. It was MacOS 8 that should have been 7.6. The licenses were for 7.x versions.

Waiting on a Macbook Air refresh

[Shivetya]

it is woefully overdue. Ramp it up to 4gb of memory at least, being stuck at 2gb really limits the device. Prices of SSD should allow it to be the only storage offering available.

Apple still needs something to excite the lower end consumer, the Mac Mini doesn't cut it as it doesn't even come with keyboard and mouse which really does put off some people. I think they would be best served offering it up with keyboard, mouse, and a decent (read:no ips) stand alone display. Give people a complete solution and try to get all this into their hands for as near to $500 you can. Yeah, I know, we can't reach that price point, but I don't see why 699 isn't possible with the screen instead of being the price for just the box. I know it won't happen, but it something has got to give. Perhaps a cheaper packaging of the mini components would do the trick.

Having seen people in Best Buy they never do much other than look at the price and then go play with the iPad.

Re:Waiting on a Macbook Air refresh

[geekoid]

If they did that wit the mine, it wuld cost as much as an iMac. Plus it would undermine the 'value' of all there other products. It would be a bad move for Apple. They are doing fine in the market they want. They don't want to compete with Dell.

Re:Waiting on a Macbook Air refresh

[Massacrifice]

Forget it. They'll sell you an iPad instead of a Macbook Air. They make so much more money from the apps. They wont let their Mac business eat into their iGizmo business margins.

Re:Waiting on a Macbook Air refresh

[Yvan256]

I'm on my third Mac mini (first one was a G4/1.42GHz, second one was a Core 2 Duo/1.83GHz with intel GMA950, third one is the new mid-2010 model, still Core 2 Duo but running at 2.4GHz and with the much better nVidia 320M).

I'm still using ViewSonic VP171s that I bought when I was still using a PC, my wired, non-optical Logitech mouse that I bought nearly a decade ago and the same Apple aluminium flat keyboard that I bought at the same time as my second Mac mini.

Why would Apple need to package a keyboard and a mouse with their Mac mini? That would defeat the whole goal of the machine, which is "BYODKM" (bring your own display, keyboard and mouse).

Re:Waiting on a Macbook Air refresh

[AshtangiMan]

I agree, but the base mini should only cost $399. If it were a BYODKM equivalent Dell it would come in at $299, so it can still have a "good design" fee attached. The minis are just too expensive as they are.

Re:Waiting on a Macbook Air refresh

[Anonymous Coward]

Do the math. App store is important economically but it's not a huge part of the Apple total revenue. Selling hardware is far more important in that sense. The app store is a great sales point for Apple of course, but hardware still brings in the cash.

Re:Waiting on a Macbook Air refresh

[Yvan256]

I agree the Mac mini shouldn't cost as much, however I don't see Apple selling it for 400$. If they could bring it back to their introduction price of 500$ however, that would be nice.

I also think the new AppleTV, at 100$, is a living room Mac in disguise. It has bluetooth, so you already know they can make it work with their wireless keyboard and wireless magic trackpad. Since it runs iOS, that means Safari and Mail too. Living room Mac for 100$ + keyboard + trackpad. I'm guessing we'll see a bluetooth mini-keyboard (no numeric keypad) with built-in trackpad pretty soon.

Re:And???

[ihatejobs]

Because Slashdot has a giant hard on for anything to do with Apple and their lemmings.

Go iSheep go!

Re:And???

[sexconker]

Because the release of the next major version of the second most popular Desktop OS family is news.

Vista/7 is getting a major version update?

Protip, duder:

XP//NT/2000
7/Vista
--LARGE GAP HERE--
Linuxes
OS X

Jailbreak

[Microlith]

I wonder how long it will be until Apple divides the low and high end Macs via lock down. They seem to have gotten people to buy into it in the mobile space, no reason they can't sucker more people in on the slightly higher end.

Re:Jailbreak

[cowscows]

Yes, it's only a matter of time before Apple decides to lock out a bunch of their iOS developers by making the development platform prohibitively expensive. I'm sure they can't wait to do that.

Re:Jailbreak

[betterunixthanunix]

Maybe your iOS development fee will also include a license for Mac OS X on your low-end iOS desktop? I really wouldn't put that sort of thing past Apple.

Re:Jailbreak

[Dynedain]

I'm not sure they will. After all, right now you can buy a Mini with OSX server, and even sans optical drive if you wish. If they wanted to force more expensive hardware for their upper-end features, they would prevent OSX Server from running on a Mini. Originally the EULA prevented you from using OSX Server on anything other than an XServe or MacPro, but now they not only allow it, they endorse it.

They want Macs to be the machines people are using to create content and apps for the mobile gadgets. I don't see why they would undermine that. However, I would not be surprised if they built-in an AppStore for OSX.

Re:Jailbreak

[Abcd1234]

I wonder how long it will be until Apple divides the low and high end Macs via lock down.

Oy, the haters are at it again.

Apple isn't this stupid. I know, I know, you want to believe Apple is stupid. It makes you feel good to think Apple is stupid. But clearly they're not.

I point this out because only someone who's stupid would be unable to grasp that consumers have different expectations for their computers than they do for their other consumer electronics. People don't *expect* their phone or MP3 player to be open, hackable things (except for the geeks around here with their nerdy horseblinders on). They've never expected that, any more than they expect to hack their TV or their Blu-Ray player.

But a laptop or a computer is obviously a different thing. Much like, for decades, they've never expected to hack their CD player, for decades they've expected to be able to buy COTS software and install it on their laptop. So Apple would have to be staffed with fucking idiots to take away that ability.

Re:Jailbreak

[Microlith]

Apple isn't this stupid. I know, I know, you want to believe Apple is stupid. It makes you feel good to think Apple is stupid. But clearly they're not.

I don't believe they're stupid, I believe they're greedy.

People don't *expect* their phone or MP3 player to be open, hackable things

Of course this COMPLETELY JUSTIFIES what Apple does, right? People don't expect their PCs to be open, hackable things either.

Apple would have to be staffed with fucking idiots to take away that ability.

I think you overestimate how much the average person users their computer.

But go ahead, insult me more. It makes your argument stronger.

Re:Jailbreak

[Abcd1234]

I don't believe they're stupid, I believe they're greedy.

No, you believe they're greedy enough to do stupid things. It comes down to the same thing.

Of course this COMPLETELY JUSTIFIES what Apple does, right?

Justify? What? It's a consumer electronics device that they sell to people who buy them. There is no "justified" or "not justified", as that would imply a moral argument where one doesn't exist.

Seriously, calm down and get a grip.

I think you overestimate how much the average person users their computer.

I think you underestimate what people expect from a desktop computer.

But go ahead, insult me more. It makes your argument stronger.

Alright: you're an insane, Apple-hating fear-monger, much like a rather vocal minority here on Slashdot who feels they must foist their needs and desires regarding Apple devices upon everyone else, despite never intending to own or use one.

It's kinda hilarious, really: you demand choice and freedom, but only insofar as it's *your* choices and *your* definition of freedom.

Re:Jailbreak

[ColdWetDog]

I would not be surprised if they built-in an AppStore for OSX.

Too Late! already been there, done that

Re:Jailbreak

[Microlith]

Alright: you're an insane, Apple-hating fear-monger, much like a rather vocal minority here on Slashdot who feels they must foist their needs and desires regarding Apple devices upon everyone else, despite never intending to own or use one.

Well, I do own a Macbook. So if ownership is a requirement that must be met to criticize how Apple is handling things on the mobile front, then I guess I qualify. Fortunately it is not.

But I'm no I'm a fear monger. Just look at how the entire mobile market place is turning into the Media Industry's dream world of devices whose security module is slanted against the user. Motorola's already managed an unhackable bootloader, I don't imagine it'd take much more for a device to prevent rooting (or at least delay it beyond the useful lifetime of the device.)

And once you have that done, all you need to do is push it up the stack. After all, last I looked most people treated their computers like black boxes as it is.

And it's funny how I'm the one foisting my "needs" and "desires" on other people when it's Apple feeding lock down to everyone. If I had my way, no one else would even be aware that anything was different, except that I might actually own an iPhone.

It's kinda hilarious, really: you demand choice and freedom, but only insofar as it's *your* choices and *your* definition of freedom.

Explain this to me: I criticize Apple's lock down of mobile spaces, and somehow I am being the oppressive one.

I think your perspective is completely and utterly fucked if you think an argument for ALL people to have more freedom with their property, that they don't even necessarily have to take part in, is a bad thing.

But there are those who do want to take it away, and they stand to profit greatly from it. But go ahead, this isn't the first time you've attacked me for taking a pro-owner, anti-lock down stance.

Re:Jailbreak

[Anonymous Coward]

> Originally the EULA prevented you from using OSX Server on anything other than an XServe or MacPro

This is false.

Apple has sold a standalone version of OS X Server for as long as it has existed, which was long before there were such things as MacPros. Apple encouraged you to run it on an XServe, but if you bought a standalone version you could install it on any Mac capable of running (that generation) of OS X.

Admittedly I've only been running it in this manner since 2003, at which time the "Permitted License Uses and Restrictions" section of the license agreement explicitly stated: "This license allows you to install and use once copy of the Mac OS X Server software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time." There are no additional restrictions on where the software may be installed. Subsequent versions were not materially more restrictive.

Re:Jailbreak

[Dynedain]

10.3 server was not permitted on a Mini. Nothing stopped you other than EULA and the fact it was only sold bundled with an XServe or MacPro. It was not available as a standalone product.

Re:Jailbreak

[koiransuklaa]

Mini server pricing is a joke though. I was just in a Apple store and checked the price tag as I'd really like one. It was ~1200€ (that's about $1600). So yeah, you can get OS X server on low end hardware. You just need to pay high end price for it :)

Re:Jailbreak

[Dynedain]

A web-based store is not the same thing as the AppStore with one click purchasing and install.

Re:Jailbreak

[Dynedain]

And how much would it cost you to purchase a PC with Windows 2008 and unlimited CALs?

Re:Jailbreak

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 2008?

Re:Jailbreak

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're just flat out wrong.

I have in front of me a retail standalone copy of OS X 10.3. You could install it, as stated in the EULA that I previously quoted, on any Apple product you could coax the installer in to running on -- without violating any license agreement. Really. I bought a retail copy of OS X 10.3 Server. I also bought a retail copy of OS X 10.5 Server. They're both sitting here on my desk. I'm looking at the the disks and the EULAs that came with them. I've already quoted the 10.3 EULA. Perhaps you did you not read my prior post?

Granted there were a few complications. Mac Minis didn't exist until 2005, after OS X 10.3 was initially released, so installing OS X 10.3 Server on a Mac Mini at the time it was initially released would have been challenging without access to Apple's hardware development labs. Installing it later would present technical challenges since the Mac Mini probably can't run OS X 10.3.0, so you'd need to update to 10.3.8 or thereabouts then clone to the Mini, but again, Apple's 10.3 Server EULA does not disallow this.

And of course 10.3 Server was not sold with nor would run on a Mac Pro because the Mac Pro was not sold until 2006 at the earliest, after OS X 10.4 was released. Apple never publicly released an Intel build of OS X 10.3, precluding any possibility of 10.3 Server or client booting a Mac Pro.

Re:And???

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of us left linux for a more polish UNIX.

Dead fucking serious.

1994-2002 were great years to use linux. Haven't missed it at all.

Re:And???

[ByOhTek]

This isn't the release of the next major version. This is a press release for an event for which there is speculation for the next major release being announced.

The announcement of the release or upcoming release would actually be FP worthy.

Android

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait... you forgot to mention how this applies to Android. Slashdot, you're losing your fair and unbiased abilities.

Re:And???

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly you're trolling. Show me one somewhat reliable report on how many users use each OS that doesn't put Windows 5.x/6.x first, OS X.x second and Linux (all distros) third on the desktop...

May be just in time for...

[FranckMartin]

... an updated timezone info for Fiji:

Fiji New Daylight savings starts October 24th with no end in sight.

Re:And???

[Anonymous Coward]

I would bet money there are more OSX users on Slashdot than linux users.

Interested to see any changes in OSX

[StuartHankins]

I recently (within the past few months) upgraded from Tiger to Snow Leopard and it went very well... I knew the next release would be out sometime before mid-2011 but I just couldn't wait any longer. The biggest issue for upgrading was not having updates for software running on Tiger anymore.

Things I hope they change:

• Make it easier to install binaries used on other *nix systems. Because the pain of using Fink or DarwinPorts is too much. Both install absolutely ridiculous sized frameworks and trying to compile something when you don't have a binary is a mixture of voodoo and tears, roughly where Linux was 15 years ago. Recently I wanted to install a2ps to use some documentation scripts I created which run on Fedora / RHEL. I gave up, it was too much bother.
• Make it easier to setup passthru printers (required to print large documents successfully from Parallels). Yes I know CUPS, I maintain all printers company-wide for our RHEL servers. So it was only a little bit of an inconvenience to setup... but the thought of trying to explain how to do that to someone else isn't a happy thought. The raw printers don't even show up in the GUI, the only way you see them is in Terminal or the CUPS web interface.
• Let me set my Terminal preferences for new windows, then actually use those preferences. Every day at work, I start up at least 2 rdesktop sessions using a separate script for each. Every day it adds another terminal preference to the list. Periodically I go back and delete these extra prefs. Just use my existing prefs like Tiger did, already!
• This new "downloaded from the internet" warning causes some people problems, so provide a way to turn it off. Previous versions of AFP do not like files with more than 2 or 3 extended attributes (or whatever they're called) and trying to copy or move these files to a network AFP share fails. I setup my downloads folder as a watched folder, and created a folder action script to remove 2 or 3 of the most common extended attributes. Another thing I don't want to try to explain to someone.
• Change the swapping settings to be less aggressive by default. I upgraded to 4GB to get around most of the swapping but I've found the easiest way to keep the system stable and happy is to just shut it down regularly.
• Please don't add a lot of extra eye candy or things to slow us down. I'm using a 2007 MacBook Pro and while it's plenty fast for what I need, I don't want to have to upgrade either.
• Above all, the system works very well so don't screw it up. This is really important.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[mikael_j]

You forgot "Please unbreak Spaces and Exposé", although I suppose that falls under "...don't screw it up" for Snow Leopard.

Spaces has a nasty "Oops I disabled the keyboard" bug that requires restarting the dock to get the keyboard back. It also has as some UI issues, previously you could hit your "show all desktops" shortcut and then a number for the desktop to go directly to the desktop, that's no longer possible. You also used to be able to hit the spaces shortcut followed by moving your mouse pointer over a desktop and then hitting the shortcut again to go to that desktop, that's also been taken away in Snow Leopard for some reason...

As for Exposé, the new layout seems, IMHO, to fly in the face of what we know about efficient user interface design, previously windows were placed relative to their position on the screen and sizes were also relative (large windows being large and small ones being small). Now we've got some weird layout where windows fly all over the place for no reason which makes it a lot harder to find windows quickly.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[AstrumPreliator]

Make it easier to install binaries used on other *nix systems. Because the pain of using Fink or DarwinPorts is too much. Both install absolutely ridiculous sized frameworks and trying to compile something when you don't have a binary is a mixture of voodoo and tears, roughly where Linux was 15 years ago. Recently I wanted to install a2ps to use some documentation scripts I created which run on Fedora / RHEL. I gave up, it was too much bother.

I always wanted a very nice package management system for OSX. Kind of like Synaptic on top of apt. I agree that Fink and DarwinPorts are woefully lacking and I'd like to see an all-encompasing package management system for OSX. I'm just afraid if Apple has anything to do with it then it will turn out like their iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch app store.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[StuartHankins]

I use Spaces daily / throughout the day, but I haven't run into this problem. Maybe because I invoke it using keyboard + mouse (Apple key + 3-finger click)? If it helps you, I'm using BetterTouchTool 0.626 to accomplish this.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[mikael_j]

Well, from what I've read about this issue it only seems to occur when invoking Spaces using <shortcut key> + <number> combinations, something I use a lot.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[StuartHankins]

If they implement a decent package management tool, they're probably going to want to prevent the user from unknowingly doing something stupid and wrecking the system. Right now it's all too easy to use Fink or MacPorts or DarwinPorts and install one little thing that causes it not to boot.

So to that end I think there may be a need to "approve" apps as compatible. You don't want someone replacing CUPS for instance with a newer version, because then some system printing apps / code no longer works correctly. I'm not sure the best way to accomplish this.

To give a parallel, you can use rpm -e <packagename> in RHEL/Fedora and it will NOT always tell you what all will break... but yum erase <packagename> will work as expected, even listing the 32-bit and 64-bit versions separately.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that you're a dummy, don't you?
The latest release (10.6, Snow Leopard) was anything but a "crap candy fad-driven GUI enhancement."

In conclusion, you are a royal turd, and I respectfully disagree with your opinions concerning Mac OS X.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[Moridineas]

Spaces has a nasty "Oops I disabled the keyboard" bug that requires restarting the dock to get the keyboard back.

Interesting, how do you trigger that? I don't think I've run into it.

It also has as some UI issues, previously you could hit your "show all desktops" shortcut and then a number for the desktop to go directly to the desktop, that's no longer possible. You also used to be able to hit the spaces shortcut followed by moving your mouse pointer over a desktop and then hitting the shortcut again to go to that desktop, that's also been taken away in Snow Leopard for some reason...

Interesting, I didn't know about any of those shortcuts. The numbers one sounds useful. You CAN however however and switch to a space by press Enter, or switch to a window a space by pressing the space bar.

My main beef with spaces is:

1) It doesn't work at all with Java programs
2) It sucks on multi-monitor

As for Exposé, the new layout seems, IMHO, to fly in the face of what we know about efficient user interface design, previously windows were placed relative to their position on the screen and sizes were also relative (large windows being large and small ones being small). Now we've got some weird layout where windows fly all over the place for no reason which makes it a lot harder to find windows quickly.

Agree. I don't like the new exposé as much either. I also don't like how minimized windows show up at the bottom of exposé--very irritating, I never want to access them that way.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

For number one, checkout brew.
It doesn't have all the software you could possibly want, but there is plenty.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[Moridineas]

This new "downloaded from the internet" warning causes some people problems, so provide a way to turn it off. Previous versions of AFP do not like files with more than 2 or 3 extended attributes (or whatever they're called) and trying to copy or move these files to a network AFP share fails. I setup my downloads folder as a watched folder, and created a folder action script to remove 2 or 3 of the most common extended attributes. Another thing I don't want to try to explain to someone.

I assume:

defaults write com.apple.LaunchServices LSQuarantine -bool NO

Only disables the GUI warning, not the creation of the attribute? We just got rid of our last OS9 computer ~6 months ago, and our network file server is running netatalk which seems to deal ok. At least I haven't noticed any problems lately.

Let me set my Terminal preferences for new windows, then actually use those preferences. Every day at work, I start up at least 2 rdesktop sessions using a separate script for each. Every day it adds another terminal preference to the list. Periodically I go back and delete these extra prefs. Just use my existing prefs like Tiger did, already!

That sounds irritating--what do you do to trigger the new settings being created?

Incidentally, why do you use rdesktop over one of the native RDP apps?

Change the swapping settings to be less aggressive by default. I upgraded to 4GB to get around most of the swapping but I've found the easiest way to keep the system stable and happy is to just shut it down regularly.

I haven't noticed this. I virtually never reboot my MBP and have not noticed extreme swapping (4gb).

Above all, the system works very well so don't screw it up. This is really important.

I've been using OSX since 10.3. I think every upgrade since then has been a good one. 10.6 probably my least favorite, though it did add some good things.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[StuartHankins]

There is more margin on software upgrades than hardware, strictly speaking, although they would of course like to sell both. Brand loyalty is Apple's #1 asset, and like the automobile aftermarket, keeping that loyalty through upgrades and accessories keeps people coming back.

Look at it this way, the device isn't just a tool, you learn to depend on it, like a carpenter's favorite tape measure. Yes there are fancier, shinier tape measures, but the carpenter remembers something that grants the existing tape measure extra value. Similarly, I don't want to go to another laptop unless it's an obvious win because I found one that works for me.

As far as adding gewgaws goes, there's always somebody who thinks adding some extra flash will be great. I want to underscore that Snow Leopard actually runs faster than Tiger on the same laptop*** and I don't want an "upgrade" that has less functionality or is noticeably slower.
***I removed the internal optical drive and installed a second, faster, larger hard drive in the bay. Then my optical drive was moved to an external case and it all works fine. It boots from the new drive automatically and both are accessible at any time.

What would make me upgrade the hardware? Maybe a cooler-running version? This one gets pretty hot. I'm pleased with it otherwise, it has the ports I need and is pleasantly quick. It's not too heavy and the battery life is sufficient for my needs, although I don't use it on battery much anymore. It gets maybe 2.5 hours on a charge if I'm using WiFi or an AirCard.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[bkmoore]

NeXTSTEP's Installer.app had a working package uninstaller. To uninstall a package, you just clicked on its receipt and selected uninstall. For some reason this was dropped in Mac OS X 1.0 and was never reinstated. I have used all versions of NeXT/OS X from NeXTSTEP 2.3 to OS X 10.6 over the past 20 years, and it seems Apple commonly removes random features from time to time only to possibly reinstate them at some future release. It's like the quote from Bud Tribble, "Well, just because he (Steve) tells you something is awful or great, it doesn't necessarily mean he'll feel that way tomorrow." Maybe Steve has a bad day and decides to throw out some feature he feels is bloated. Who knows... I think lately Steve has decided Color and Title Bars are a distraction, as evidenced by iTunes 10. It reminds me of NeXTSTEP 2.3's interface guidelines... but I digress. (ok I'm a fan boy and I admit it.) I agree both DarwinPorts and Fink suck, I refuse to use either one. For me, the app either has a .app bundle for it, or I run it under Linux.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[maztuhblastah]

Make it easier to install binaries used on other *nix systems.

What makes you think Apple has any interest in encouraging the use of cross-platform apps that might, say, allow a user to easily transition away from their locked-down, proprietary environment?

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[StuartHankins]

I think we read the same articles. LSQuarantine didn't solve the issue for me. I was trying to save to a small NAS and it kept giving me a strange error. What I did was add a line to another script (credit to "Unquarantine" by Henrik Nyh http://henrik.nyh.se/2007/10/lift-the-leopard-download-quarantine ):

Other script did this (excerpt):
do shell script "xattr -d com.apple.quarantine " & (addedItems as text)
I added this:
do shell script "xattr -d com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms " & (addedItems as text)

I was NOT getting the problems from all downloads, specifically I was having trouble with the Apple SDK files which have another attribute on them.

For the terminal issue, I have a .term file for the servers I use regularly. It's an XML file, which among other things contains a line of the server to connect to:

ExecutionString ~/open_terminal_session.sh nodbus2101;exit

That script just calls rdesktop with the hostname, username, and resolution settings.

I prefer rdesktop since that's what I've always used. It seems to be substantially faster and more reliable than the Microsoft Mac Remote Desktop software. It's small and light, it works.

As of right now, with 4GB RAM, Parallels 5 with an XP Pro VM, 2 rdesktop sessions, FireFox, Thunderbird, and an assortment of widgets and added utilities, I'm showing ~1.2GB wired / ~1.9GB active / ~0.7GB inactive / ~0.2GB free, with 354K page ins and only 45 page outs. If I leave it running for a couple of days the page outs shoots skyward as a percentage of total paging. If I launch PhotoShop in the VM, paging soars. If I allocate more than 1GB to the VM, paging soars. If I launch a bunch of stuff in the VM concurrently, paging soars. It's not like I'm memory-starved.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[Phleg]

Make it easier to install binaries used on other *nix systems.

Take a look at homebrew. MacPorts and Fink both suck heavily, but brew has been fantastic to use.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[StuartHankins]

Thanks for the info.

I spent a few minutes at the Homebrew site, but I can't tell which packages have config files available and didn't find any documentation. I would rather not install it just to find out that the packages I want to use aren't there.

I would much prefer a solution which uses standard RPM / DEB files, or has a large enough community that I can assume most packages have installers already created and tested. Then there's the whole package-management side of it, where you want to upgrade or remove one thing without breaking the others. I didn't see any explanation of this with Homebrew, but maybe I missed something.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[AresTheImpaler]

you can see the packages at this location. Homebrew is pretty neat, I dislike fink and Macports. Said that, the documentation needs some work and there aren't as many apps, but the most popular applications are there.
http://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/wiki/_pages

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[RocketRabbit]

Your other points ring true, but the first one fails. Fink is astoundingly easy to use - it has basically the same interface as most any other Unix package management system. You pick the thing you want to install, it asks you if it can install the dependencies, and it's off and away.

This is hardly hard work. Even if you don't have a binary in a repo, it simply takes a bit longer because of the compilation step.

Fink and the Ports system both work great, and they coexist without problems (now). Look at the situation with Linux, where you have several competing package management systems, which are completely incompatible with each other. A slight misconfiguration upstream somewhere doesn't just cause the package installation process to fail - it can totally cheese your whole system! I used to use Ubuntu with MythTV, but that was a hairy fucking mess when it came to installing upgrades. I need 2 separate versions of MySQL? What in the fuck is MythTV doing even storing program scheduling data in a database, when a flat text file would work just as well and even allow a person to edit it manually, say over an SSH session? This is just one example of the problems you are faced with even in an easy-to-use distro like Ubuntu.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[StuartHankins]

It gives their products additional value, the same reason Microsoft doesn't battle cygwin.

Both Windows and OS X are "locked-down, proprietary environments" if you want to look at it that way (vs open-source OS's such as Linux).

If you used a Mac, you'd wonder why someone would want to use something else. I can run pretty much anything I want on my work machine, and I chose OS X after trying Linux and Windows. For what I do, it's just so much better than the other stuff available. So from my viewpoint, why would you want to transition to another OS?

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[StuartHankins]

Thanks this was very helpful. I may give it a spin.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[StuartHankins]

Fink never worked correctly for me, I got a bunch of errors with other tools (which it broke) and after reading about it, the consensus was it works sometimes, for some people, in some situations. It's older and less up-to-date than MacPorts/DarwinPorts.

I melted a system doing a MacPorts/DarwinPorts selfupdate. I had used it to install BubbleTrouble2 or some such silly game for my kids and I wanted to get the newest version of MacPorts and the game itself. When I noticed it locked up and the fans at 100% I did a hard poweroff. The system would no longer boot and I had to use the OS X install CD to recover, then I had an extra "Previous System" folder I couldn't merge or get rid of.

So no, neither of these are working for me. They do not coexist without problems, installing duplicate packages for instance causes all kinds of workarounds.

So far as you're talking about the state of package management on Linux, most people consider the available tools such as apt-get and yum superior to all other platforms. You were using some free, unsupported OS and something went awry. I'm talking about commercial, supported software such as OS X. The last RHEL patch that broke something was.. I have no idea. I've been using Red Hat since 5.2 and RHEL since RHEL 3. I've never had a patch break something.

As to your comments on databases, I don't know where to begin. You're seriously arguing for file-based storage over DB storage for this use? And you <chuckle> want to "edit [the text file] manually, say over an SSH session"? Come on, please tell me you're upset and not thinking clearly.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[Bing Tsher E]

It gives their products additional value, the same reason Microsoft doesn't battle cygwin.

Actually, Microsoft purchased OpenNT (later known as Interix) and then crippled it and threw the carcass out for free as 'Services for Unix.' OpenNT was a very robust and fairly complete POSIX subsystem that ran directly on top of the NT Kernel. Cygwin is a DLL hack that rides up on top of Win32. Microsoft likes cygwin being there because it keeps people outta their kernel. It gives people 'just enough' to take the big incentive off for people to write a real POSIX subsystem like the one in OpenNT that they killed.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[Moridineas]

Very interesting stuff, thanks for the details. May have to check out rdesktop. I hadn't liked it the last time I used it but that was years ago. I use the MS program which I find VERY painful. I find it completely indeterminate what username/password/host combo it is going to use. I really don't understand what's going on with that program. CoRD as a gui program is nice.

And I didn't even know about .term files -- that is really cool. I'll have to play around with them. Thanks!

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't use Fink or MacPorts, use Homebrew.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[nanoakron]

That's one thing I often ask of my Sony Vaio-using family: Does Win7 run FASTER on your 4 year old Vaio than XP, because Snow Leopard certainly beats Tiger on my 2006 MacBook Pro?

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[RocketRabbit]

Fink IS apt.

MacPorts is more analogous to the FreeBSD Port system, although different in implementation.

It's unfortunate that your computer got hosed, but without a post-mortem on the logfiles it's impossible to say that MacPorts did this.

Unlike most users of these packages, you ended up with problems. There are occasional problems, but I haven't had them.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[Guy Harris]

Things I hope they change:

• Make it easier to install binaries used on other *nix systems. Because the pain of using Fink or DarwinPorts is too much. Both install absolutely ridiculous sized frameworks and trying to compile something when you don't have a binary is a mixture of voodoo and tears, roughly where Linux was 15 years ago. Recently I wanted to install a2ps to use some documentation scripts I created which run on Fedora / RHEL. I gave up, it was too much bother.

Meaning "make it easier to run binaries built and packaged for other *nix systems" (presumably meaning "packaged for Linux" in most cases), or meaning "make some better framework for getting and installing UN*X-utility binaries built and packaged for Mac OS X"? The former is unlikely (new executable image format support in the kernel, ld.so installed as an ELF binary in parallel with Mach-O dyld, ELF Linux-binary-compatible .so shared libraries installed along with Mach-O native shared libraries, and system call compatibility stuff if it has to support statically-linked Linux binaries), the latter might be more likely (some equivalent of apt-get/pkg_add/whatever, although what role Apple would have in maintaining the repository of packages is another matter).

Change the swapping settings to be less aggressive by default. I upgraded to 4GB to get around most of the swapping but I've found the easiest way to keep the system stable and happy is to just shut it down regularly.

To what "swapping settings" are you referring here?

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[Guy Harris]

Make it easier to install binaries used on other *nix systems.

What makes you think Apple has any interest in encouraging the use of cross-platform apps that might, say, allow a user to easily transition away from their locked-down, proprietary environment?

Because it can also make it easier to transition to OS X for users of other desktop UN*Xes? The cross-platform apps only allow a user to easily transition away from OS X if the other platform is an adequate replacement for OS X, and the cross-platform apps are adequate replacements for the equivalent OS X apps, for them - and that might not be the case for many users other than the ones already using the other platforms.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[Brett Johnson]

For Terminal Preferences, I too noticed that starting with Leopard, they were all messed up. They still seem completely non-intuitive to me. I too had a set of .term files set up. It seems the new version of Terminal uses a new XML format file, .terminal. It seemed to understand the old format, but failed in some way (I forget the details). In any case, I ended up creating a set of .terminal versions of the files, and my problems went away. The .terminal files are completely different than the old .term files, and annoyingly full of Base64 encoded serialized objects.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently (within the past few months) upgraded from Tiger to Snow Leopard and it went very well... I knew the next release would be out sometime before mid-2011 but I just couldn't wait any longer. The biggest issue for upgrading was not having updates for software running on Tiger anymore.

Things I hope they change:

• Make it easier to install binaries used on other *nix systems. Because the pain of using Fink or DarwinPorts is too much. Both install absolutely ridiculous sized frameworks and trying to compile something when you don't have a binary is a mixture of voodoo and tears, roughly where Linux was 15 years ago. Recently I wanted to install a2ps to use some documentation scripts I created which run on Fedora / RHEL. I gave up, it was too much bother.

Huh? How could it possibly be any better or easier to install a2ps? Are you sure you know how to use mac ports?

$ sudo port install a2ps
Password:
---> Computing dependencies for a2ps
---> Dependencies to be installed: psutils
---> Fetching psutils
---> Attempting to fetch psutils-p17.tar.gz from http://distfiles.macports.org/psutils
---> Verifying checksum(s) for psutils
---> Extracting psutils
---> Configuring psutils
---> Building psutils
---> Staging psutils into destroot
---> Installing psutils @p17_0
---> Activating psutils @p17_0
---> Cleaning psutils
---> Fetching a2ps
---> Attempting to fetch a2ps-4.14.tar.gz from http://mirrors.kernel.org/gnu/a2ps
---> Verifying checksum(s) for a2ps
---> Extracting a2ps
---> Applying patches to a2ps
---> Configuring a2ps
---> Building a2ps
---> Staging a2ps into destroot
---> Installing a2ps @4.14_0
---> Activating a2ps @4.14_0
---> Cleaning a2ps
$ a2ps --version
GNU a2ps 4.14
Written by Akim Demaille, Miguel Santana.

Copyright (c) 1988-1993 Miguel Santana
Copyright (c) 1995-2000 Akim Demaille, Miguel Santana
Copyright (c) 2007- Akim Demaille, Miguel Santana and Masayuki Hatta
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[antifoidulus]

Actually as an OS X sysadmin the thing I REALLY want is the ability to use the software update mechanism for non-Apple signed packages. Obviously this feature would have to be approached carefully(and should be off by default), but if I could put a list of public keys in a secure(root owned 700) directory and have any packages signed with the corresponding private key updatable via software update that would make life a lot easier. As it stands we have to use remote desktop to install various packages(home grown and 3rd party), which works but it's much more time consuming than it needs to be.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[mrfrostee]

Check out Homebrew: http://github.com/mxcl/homebrew

I find it much less obnoxious than Fink and DarwinPorts.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

One might suggest that if you keep finding that your keyboard breaks because you invoke Spaces with + combinations, you should probably stop doing it and use one of the other ways of doing it. Sure, it should be fixed, but willfully doing something you know risks disconnecting your keyboard just so you can shout about it disconnecting your keyboard is pretty stupid.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[mikael_j]

Hello there Mr Troll.

Clearly I'm not using the software in that particular way because I want to trigger the bug, I simply use it that way because it fits into my workflow and the feature exists.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[StuartHankins]

In Linux you have the ability to set the swappiness of the machine, basically what is the balance between in-use RAM and memory swapped to physical disk. Here's an article that might explain it better than I could: http://wiki.xdroop.com/space/Linux/swappiness In OSX, my day starts with almost all page ins, many hundreds of thousands, which is great, and very few page outs. For instance right now I've got 300K page ins and 0 page outs. But at some point, depending on usage, the page outs jump to hundreds of thousands. They go from being statistically insignificant to a large percentage of swaps, almost as if a scale were tipped. I show mostly inactive memory when this happens (although sometimes the free memory is very high, in the hundreds of MB or low GB's) so my best guess is that the system is too eagerly swapping items to disk, then having to fetch them again.

I'm not sure what issues you'd have if you statically linked the libraries in the executables (something I've had to use to get newer versions of rar to run on old versions of RHEL). Assuming of course you have dependencies resolved. Can you explain a bit further please?

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[Guy Harris]

I'm not sure what issues you'd have if you statically linked the libraries in the executables (something I've had to use to get newer versions of rar to run on old versions of RHEL). Assuming of course you have dependencies resolved. Can you explain a bit further please?

If you have a dynamically-linked binary, the binary itself contains no code that makes system calls (traps to the kernel) - it contains calls to the system call stub routines, but it doesn't contain the stubs themselves, they're in the libc.so/libSystem.dylib/whatever shared library. That means that a "Linux binary compatibility" option for another OS could run Linux binaries dynamically-linked with system libraries by providing versions of those shared libraries that implements those stubs atop the other OS's native system calls (and other APIs).

If you have a completely statically-linked binary, the system call stubs are linked into the binary itself, so it contains the traps to the kernel. That means that a "Linux binary compatibility" option for another OS would have to handle those traps, when made from a Linux binary, the same way that Linux does.

This applies not only to system calls, but also to other calls whose implementations might be significantly different in different OSes. Linux's (GNU libc's) getpwnam(), for example, might read the nsswitch.conf file and determine which plugins to use to look up a user's password entry, and call those plugins itself; OS X's, however, ultimately asks the DirectoryService daemon to do the lookup, via a Mach message to that daemon. To run, on OS X, a dynamically-linked Linux binary that calls getpwnam(), the libc.so provided on OS X would have to provide a getpwnam() binary-compatible interface with the Linux one (the pointer it returns would have to point to a structure laid out the same way the one on Linux is), but it could be implemented the same way the OS X one is, by asking DirectoryService to find the password database entry. To run a statically-linked binary, it would have to arrange that, for example, an open() system call to open /etc/nsswitch.conf work, and that a "files" plugin would have to be able to open /etc/passwd and read it, etc., as the implementation of getpwnam() would be built into the executable itself.

(This is the same issue SunOS 5.x had when trying to run SunOS 4.x binaries; originally, it only supported running dynamically-linked binaries, by providing implementations of the relevant APIs that worked in the 5.x system, but eventually had to hack up stuff to support statically-linked binaries.)

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[StuartHankins]

Ah, I understand much better now. It seems the issues I ran into when trying to compile software on OS X are trivial compared to these. Many thanks.

Re:Interested to see any changes in OSX

[StuartHankins]

Interesting, I didn't notice the change in terminal files since they just ran (except for not closing when exiting). So earlier today I exported (after adding the "run" command) a much smaller XML file. I opened it and could see the ugly binary segment used for the "font" key.

I tried adding the ExecutionString key, no results, it didn't launch the script. I never did figure out why or what to change it to so it would work.

What worked -- I wouldn't have thought of it without this thread -- was modifying this key value in my existing .term file, which was previously set to 2 (I noticed it was 1 in the .terminal file):

<key>ShellExitAction</key>
<string>1</string>

Thanks for the idea!

Re:And???

[Tsiangkun]

Haha. AC has a point. MacOS is the UNIX on the desktop and laptop that linux was never able to achieve.

Re:This is news

[kwerle]

I recommend you change your /. settings so you don't see apple news.

Easy enough.

People may say OSX 10.7 has a codename Cheetah...

[digitaldc]

...but everyone knows they're Lion.

Re:And???

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just the standard Apple marketing. The whole hipster blogosphere will cream itsself over the slightest hint of what Apple will do or not do.

Re:And???

[Vectormatic]

now that would be an interesting poll

Thanks for Plagiarizing MacRumors without credit..

[Anonymous Freak]

Why, with the exception of removing direct internal MacRumors links, this "story" looks to be identical wording to the MacRumors story on this.

This just in...

[name_already_taken]

Steve Jobs has just washed* his cereal bowl, a spoon, and what appears to be a small plate.

* You can actually see him, through his kitchen window, doing his dishes if you walk down his street.

If you were talking about bowel movements, well that's not only gross but silly too. Everyone knows the iToilet hasn't been unveiled yet. At least it won't have the buffer overflows that Microsoft's MyToilet prototype suffered from when Steve Ballmer demonstrated it.

Re:Thanks for Plagiarizing MacRumors without credi

[Anonymous Freak]

Correction: The original submission from Kildjean has the link to MacRumors at the bottom. The approved /. story does not. Kildjean did right, samzenpus removed it.

Dear Apple....

[Lumpy]

I' love to "get back to the mac" but I cant. You wont make a mac pro that is affordable in any way so I had to abandon the Mac platform and go back to the PC platform like many MANY businesses have.

I would love to stick with Final Cut and the mac platform... but I am able to buy 2X the machine for 1/2 the money AND have enough left over to buy new video camera gear. for the price of ONE Mac Pro quad core that can do AVCHD editing smoothly.

I loved editing on the mac platform, but they made the mac pro platform way too expensive.

Re:Dear Apple....

[aristotle-dude]

I' love to "get back to the mac" but I cant. You wont make a mac pro that is affordable in any way so I had to abandon the Mac platform and go back to the PC platform like many MANY businesses have.

I would love to stick with Final Cut and the mac platform... but I am able to buy 2X the machine for 1/2 the money AND have enough left over to buy new video camera gear. for the price of ONE Mac Pro quad core that can do AVCHD editing smoothly.

I loved editing on the mac platform, but they made the mac pro platform way too expensive.

Dear, Lumpy.

If you are indeed a professional and you were able to afford Final Cut and a mac in the first place, you should be aware that you can "write off" hardware and software upgrade costs as a "BUSINESS EXPENSE". If you don't actually have a business then I have to ask you, WTF were you using Final Cut for in the first place?

Re:Dear Apple....

[jimicus]

There may be a glimmer of truth to this. The Mac Pro is fairly obviously aimed at people who need a proper workstation (in the original sense of the word - a computer sat on their desk which is way more powerful than your average PC).

Thing is, your average PC has come so far that the market for proper workstations has dropped a fair chunk in the last ten years.

Why didn't you go for something like an iMac?

Re:Dear Apple....

[peterd11]

The problem with the iMac is that it has no expandability. You can't add a second hard drive, second optical drive, and especially can't add any PCI cards. A serious user of Final Cut Pro most likely does need one or more supporting video PCI cards. Expandability like that which is common in PCs shouldn't require the premium price of a Mac Pro.

Re:Dear Apple....

[FreeBSDbigot]

"write off" -- I do not think this means what you think it means. It's still an expense, which may or may not be partially offset by a reduction in tax. Partially, unless you're in the mythical 100% tax bracket.

Re:Dear Apple....

[bill_mcgonigle]

If you are indeed a professional and you were able to afford Final Cut and a mac in the first place, you should be aware that you can "write off" hardware and software upgrade costs as a "BUSINESS EXPENSE"

Forget tax treatment, if it's really that much more productive, it pays for itself pretty quickly.

Re:Dear Apple....

[Anonymous Coward]

His point is that the value proposition isn't there. Sure, the mac is nice to edit on, but it's also not the only professional solution. Other solutions are simply more cost-effective, or offer superior performance for the dollar. Final Cut Pro isn't the only show in town either. In fact, it's not even used for that many movies. Typically large professional firms are using Premier Pro or Avid's offerings (Pinnacle Pro etc.).

Re:Dear Apple....

[vijayiyer]

Go get a quad core iMac. It's plenty fast enough for using Final Cut Pro. I've been using it on a Macbook Pro, and really, it's just fine unless you're using it for 10 hours a day. If you were using it for 10 hours a day for your business, I'd imagine the cost of the Mac Pro would be negligible.

Re:Dear Apple....

[mjwx]

Why didn't you go for something like an iMac?

Because if you read his original post, he said he needed a proper workstation.

I can get a custom built SMP Xeon workstation for almost half the cost of an entry level Mac Pro. If I want to buy something like a GIS workstation from the likes of HP and formerly Sun they may cost the same but are a lot more powerful.

Re:Dear Apple....

[mjwx]

Forget tax treatment, if it's really that much more productive, it pays for itself pretty quickly.

The thing is that it's not that much more productive. I've supported a mixed environment before, Mac OS X (10.4 and 10.5) and Windows (2000, XP and Vista), our Mac based staff were had about 80% of the production of our PC based staff in the same period of time doing Adobe CS work (Flash, Illustrator, Photoshop) as well as having higher support costs and not fiiting in with our VLK (so we had to buy retail office) in addition to higher intial costs.

Mac's fail at just about every aspect of TCO, if they fail (and they do fail) there is no such thing as manufacturer supported NBD (Next Business Day) recovery which costs thousands in downtime (telling a professional support team they need to make an appointment with a "genius" is not acceptable, on site support at minimum).

Re:Dear Apple....

[dangitman]

I would love to stick with Final Cut and the mac platform... but I am able to buy 2X the machine for 1/2 the money AND have enough left over to buy new video camera gear.

What? A decent video camera costs twice what a Mac Pro costs (and that's not even including accessories). You're not going to get a camera worth using for half the price of a Mac Pro.

for the price of ONE Mac Pro quad core that can do AVCHD editing smoothly

Again, WTF? Why would you edit in AVCHD? It's not even possible in FCP. You convert the AVCHD to Apple ProRes for editing. But again, if you're in the Mac Pro realm, you're not even recording in AVCHD in the first place.

Re:Dear Apple....

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

iMacs have a Firewire 800 port. I know a lot of people who do all their video work on external drives anyway, since it's much easier than taking the drives out of the machine all time to upgrade them or give them to another person to work on.

Re:Dear Apple....

[Lumpy]

Sounds like you know nothing about doing business.

Spend $10,000 to upgrade the editing machine...

Or Spend $10,000 to upgrade editing machine, buy new software, pay for training AND buy a new HD Pro Video camera...

Now I have more tools for my business instead of only one tool.

It's a no brainer. Apple priced their stuff out of even business reach.

Finally it's not that much more productive. With clients wanting BluRay's Apple adds a step that blows up your workflow.

Only sony has a editor -> bluray workflow. I hate getting in bed with the devil, but I have to make money.

Re:Dear Apple....

[Lumpy]

Imac upgrade the video card.... Stop.. you cant.
you need a good video card for 3d Composting... imacs dont come with good video cards.

Re:Dear Apple....

[bill_mcgonigle]

telling a professional support team they need to make an appointment with a "genius" is not acceptable, on site support at minimum

Once upon a time I worked at a big Mac shop, and the way this was handled was to have 5 spares on the shelf (about 5000 users). Machine fails and it's either a hard-drive swap or a restore from backup. I don't get spending an FTE on Dell Gold.

But I have a FoF who does do Mac on-site work. He gets his tickets from Apple, roams the NYC area. When I had some OSX Servers under AppleCare (5-ish years back) we got Kodak techs dispatched (in New England) for mobo replacements and such. Seems like it exists if you know what to ask for (granted, Apple Enterprise is self-defeating and often impenetrable).

New desktop?

[LoudMusic]

The discussion seems to be very OS oriented, but I'd like to see some hardware changes. There have been plenty of "refreshes" but nothing that is a truly NEW Apple computer. How about a desktop computer between the mini and the pro? Something better than the absolute base model and the absolute top end, that I can use on my KVM switch. The current pricing is $700 and $2500. Bit of a price gap for headless desktops there.

Re:New desktop?

[mikael_j]

How about a desktop computer between the mini and the pro?

That would be the iMac. Yes, I know it's got a monitor attached to it but that's what they're offering, and you can use it as just a monitor if you end up buying a faster machine and want to reuse the iMac's monitor.

Apple as a company seems to have little interest in a "pure" "hobbyist" machine, they sell systems...

• Mac Mini - HTPC/SFF Desktop/Small server offering, plenty of punch of for its form factor, not much in terms of upgradeability.
• iMac - Midrange to fairly powerful desktop, really only the RAM that can be easily upgraded (except for the usual external addons), hard drive can be replaced with a little effort (not that hard if you take a few minutes to read up on it beforehand).
• Mac Pro - High end/upgradable system, this one is for those who need workstation performance/reliability and/or the ability to add and remove hardware.
• XServe - The Mac server, that's about it. A pretty good offering if you're looking to buy servers for an almost all-Mac/*nix environment though.

Re:New desktop?

[LoudMusic]

The iMac isn't particularly more powerful than a Mac mini, if at all. It just has the display attached, which is fine, but doesn't make it better.

And my wants are nothing of a "pure" "hobbyist". I would like a better Mac than a Mac mini to attach to my workstation KVM switch for work but I can't justify the $2500 entry fee for a Mac Pro. I want a Mac Semi-Pro.

I get the distinct impression that Apple doesn't care about desktop users at all anymore. Their focus is almost entirely mobile computing in a variety of packagings. The Mac mini, iMac, and Mac Pro just seem to be strung along because they own the intellectual property and can make cultural sales, but aren't interested in developing new options. Back in the days of the Mac Pro G3 and G4 there were models coming in around $1500 which had multiple drive bays and expansion slots, but when they hit the G5 model the base cost shot up to $2500.

Re:New desktop?

[Imagix]

The iMac isn't particularly more powerful than a Mac mini, if at all. It just has the display attached

Huh? My iMac has a quad-core i7 CPU and 16 GB RAM. The mini has at best a Core 2 Duo and 4 GB of RAM (8 GB max). That's a non-trivial jump.

Re:New desktop?

[mikael_j]

The iMac isn't particularly more powerful than a Mac mini, if at all. It just has the display attached, which is fine, but doesn't make it better.

If you max out a current-gen iMac you'll have a 27" IPS monitor with a native resolution of 2560x1440, Radeon 5750 graphics, 16 GiB of 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM, 2.93 GHz Core i7 CPU, 256 GB SSD + 2 TB regular SATA hard drive.

In comparison a maxed out current-gen Mac Mini has Geforce 320M graphics, 8 GiB of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM, 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU and a 500 GB hard drive (although I suppose you could swap out the hard drives on both the iMac and Mac Mini).

That's a pretty big performance difference IMO and the cheapest IPS monitor I can find here in .se with a resolution of 2560x1440 goes for SEK 8490 ($1277) just for the monitor.

And my wants are nothing of a "pure" "hobbyist". I would like a better Mac than a Mac mini to attach to my workstation KVM switch for work but I can't justify the $2500 entry fee for a Mac Pro. I want a Mac Semi-Pro

I can definitely understand that, I'd love to have a stripped-down Mac Pro or similar model as well but I ended up settling on a 27" Core i7 iMac instead because I just couldn't justify the expense of a Mac Pro + IPS monitor.

I get the distinct impression that Apple doesn't care about desktop users at all anymore. Their focus is almost entirely mobile computing in a variety of packagings. The Mac mini, iMac, and Mac Pro just seem to be strung along because they own the intellectual property and can make cultural sales, but aren't interested in developing new options. Back in the days of the Mac Pro G3 and G4 there were models coming in around $1500 which had multiple drive bays and expansion slots, but when they hit the G5 model the base cost shot up to $2500.

I think they do still care, it's just that their product catalog has so much more in it, and the media hype is all about the mobile devices. From what I can tell Apple wants to have the entire "ecosystem" available, from servers to desktops, mobile devices and entertainment center solutions, buy even if they focused more on the computer side the media would still end up reporting on the latest iDevice since that's what the average reader cares about.

As for the G3 and G4 days I'd have to say that they have obviously changed their focus a bit since then, back then it felt like a lot more of their target customers were pros and the computing market in general was a lot less focused on pre-built packages, back then it wasn't really considered all that odd to build your own computer from parts, these days people have CS degrees and call themselves "hardware geeks" even though they've never even cracked a computer case open...

Re:New desktop?

[Yvan256]

The iMac isn't particularly more powerful than a Mac mini, if at all.

Compare the CPUs, the GPUs and the hard drives between the Mac mini and the iMac. If that's not a huge difference to you then I don't know what you're looking for.

Mac mini vs iMac:
- Core 2 Duo running at 2.4 or 2.66GHz
- integrated nVidia 320M sharing 256 MiB of the system RAM
- 2 GiB RAM (max 8 GiB)
- 320 or 500 GB hard drive (2.5", 5400 RPM)

iMac:
- Core i3/i5/i7 running at 2.8GHz or higher (with quad-core options)
- ATI Radeon HD 4670/5670/5750 with 256, 512 or 1024 MiB of dedicated DDR3 RAM
- 4 GiB RAM (max 16 GiB)
- 1 or 2 TB hard drive (3.5", 7200 RPM)

As for Apple not caring about desktops, just look at their desktops vs laptops sales. People who want desktop computers have been in the minority for the last few years.

Re:New desktop?

[Ensign_Expendable]

Users have been begging for a mid-range desktop forever. I suspect they will still be begging after October 20.

Re:New desktop?

[mr100percent]

Making new product lines is what made Apple stagnant in the 1990s. When Steve Jobs came back, he cut it all down to a simple product matrix of 4 items (now 6 if you lump all iOS devices together). I don't think they want to repeat that mess.

Re:New desktop?

[jsepeta]

yeah, they could upgrade the motherboards to support SATA3 and USB3 which likely wouldn't cost much dough.

Re:New desktop?

[giuda]

Huh? My iMac has a quad-core i7 CPU and 16 GB RAM. .

LOL why?

FaceTime event

[WilyCoder]

Only reason they are having this event is to announce and demo FaceTime for Mac.

*ducks*

Re:FaceTime event

[Yvan256]

There's rumors that they plan to bring iChat (now with FaceTime support) to Windows as well.

Re:And???

[UnknowingFool]

Also there's probably lots like me that use more than one (Windows, Linux, and OS X).

What comes after Lion?

[surfcow]

I'm voting for "ThunderCat".

Or perhaps "Tabby".

Re:People may say OSX 10.7 has a codename Cheetah.

[kenrblan]

Unfortunately Apple wasted the Cheetah codename as an internal codename for the original initial release of 10.0.0. The newer releases were all faster which is kind of ironic.

Re:And???

[Yvan256]

The poll would need to specify if it's about your preferred choice or the OS you spend most of your time with because company policies.

Slashdot should to these two polls next:

Which is your preferred OS? (given a choice, which do you use)
- Windows 95/95 OSR2/98/98SE/ME/NT
- Windows XP
- Windows Vista
- Windows 7
- Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
- Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
- Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
- Linux (Red Hat, Ubuntu, etc)
- I use Open/FreeBSD you insensitive clod!

Which OS do you use the most? (even if you don't like it but are forced to use it for various reasons)
- Windows 95/95 OSR2/98/98SE/ME/NT
- Windows XP
- Windows Vista
- Windows 7
- Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
- Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
- Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
- Linux (Red Hat, Ubuntu, etc)
- I use Open/FreeBSD you insensitive clod!

Re:And???

[Dog-Cow]

You may think Macs are too expensive for what you get, but you don't need to spend anywhere close to $2000 to get something running Mac OS X.

Apple buys Sanrio

[Anonymous Coward]

and releases HellOSX Kitty

Re:And???

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

This is worthy of a front page news item why?

Because this is an ad-supported site and every news story with the word 'Apple' in it generates heaps of comments. Think about that next time to you contribute to the thread.

Re:And???

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because a lot of people use Windows doesn't mean its a good system. It just means the vast majority of computer users have no clue as to what they are doing.

Re:And???

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is friendly to LGBT community and needs to cater to their interests as well. Hence, the Mac news.

I found this funny and I'm a Mac user. nicely played

Re:Are You Serious? I Can't Control Myself Right N

[Coren22]

m..mom?

Re:Thanks for Plagiarizing MacRumors without credi

[TimmyDee]

You must be new here. This is standard Slashdot M.O. Just put quotes around what someone else wrote (without citing them), and somehow they think that's OK. It's shockingly prevalent here.

Re:And???

[d3vi1]

That's a matter of debate. OS X is as good as Ubuntu, Fedora, as a desktop but where it really shines is the apps. OSS apps are great, but unusable unless the complete workflow of the department allows for them. In ours, we HAVE to use MS Office, Sharepoint, Exchange, regardless of our personal preference.

Regardless of that, you have VMWare, Parallels and VirtualBox in Mac OS X and I am running RHEL, Solaris, NetApp Simulator, Windows Server and others in it.

Whether OS X is better than Linux at being a UNIX workstation is of little relevance. Having MS Office with Outlook, as required by policy is relevant though.

The 2010 MacBook Pro is a very powerful beast, under OS X. With the SSD my Sandbox infrastructure boots up in 90 seconds while the physical servers take about 10 minutes to boot.

VOLTRON

[AtlantaSteve]

Make this happen...

Re:And???

[DJRumpy]

More likely it made news because it doesn't have to be some certified or confirmed event to be newsworthy. Don't' forget we use a mod system for a story to even get this far to begin with. Obviously it is of interest to a large number of folks. As news sites go, I prefer this method as we essentially choose our own headlines. If only 'certified' events, known facts, and 'proven' theories (is there such a thing?) made news, we wouldn't have much left to talk about and we would hear about them after the fact more likely as not. I come here for such news, be it from Linux, OS X, Windows, potential future gadgets, random tech talk, or whatever. The day that Apple news is no longer news for nerds is the day /. has lost it's way. It is as much a part of nerd history as Linux, Unix, Windows and everything else PC.

I find it interesting that the Apple haters are whining (aren't they always?) about an Apple story being posted, yet they are silent when a story about 'potential' Android developers 2-3 years from now isn't even blinked at. A bit of a double standard there don't you think? I personally consider such conjecture news as well, even about an android story even though I don't own any of those devices. Surprise, not everyone is a fanatic to the point where we can't stomach hearing about news from either 'camp'. If someone's dislike of a company is getting so extreme that they can't stomach even hearing said company's name, perhaps it's time to take a break away from the PC and a few internet blogs.

This site encompasses more than just a singular personal pronoun.

Last but not least, if they didn't want to hear such stories, why oh why do they always flock in droves to read and then comment on them?

Re:And???

[Anonymous Coward]

Woo looks like the Apple iSheep modded this guy up through the roof for defending their honor!

This is not news about the next major version release, this is "news" about an Apple event where someone might, potentially say something about the next release. This is not newsworthy and doesn't belong on the front page. The editors put through the Apple stories because they generate ad hits, and its really getting to the point of sickening.

Possible stock split?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm hoping they're gonna announce a stock split!

I heard it was a Macaulay Culkin comeback effort

[elrous0]

Mac press, you've been punked! But seriously, he is looking for work. He's got his SAG card and here are some recent headshots.

Re:And???

[Dahan]

Instead its half assed, baseless speculation based on a the graphic for a press event.

No, the event invitation specifically mentions that they'll be previewing the next version of OSX: "Come see what's new for the Mac on October 20, including a sneak peek of the next major version of Mac OS X."

While it's speculation that it'll be named "Lion", it's not speculation that they're announcing the next version.

Don't forget

[pastafazou]

the Egyptian Sphynx. Don't let the human face fool you, this is definitely a big cat to be fearful of. Largest of the big cats, razor sharp claws, rumored magical abilities, and a fondness for difficult riddles makes this a big cat you don't want to mess around with.

Buy the WHITE ones & drink the kool-aid

[mrnick]

Apple is great at innovating. Everyone will be holding their breath at the awesome features until he springs the gotcha and hands you the kool-aid to wash it down with.

(iPhone)
The iPhone is the greatest PDA phone ever, don't worry it is not really a PDA phone, it's a smart phone!

The iPhone is still the greatest smart phone ever, don't worry you can develop and use WEB apps for it!

The iPhone is the greatest PDA phone ever, don't worry we have the App Store! "You are so like children. We must save you from yourselves."

(MacBook)
Our line of black MacBooks have been outselling the white ones 10 to 1, don't worry we don't sell the black ones anymore!

Our full line of laptops, including the MacBook, come with our patented aluminum unibody enclosure and backlit keyboards, don't worry we've redesigned the MacBook with the shiny white case you have grown to love and removed it's backlit keyboard!

(The Future)
What's next? Pick one that sounds great to start but ends up really sucking:

Apple's full line of laptops now have USB 3.0 and eSATA, but don't worry they now all run Apple iOS. "You are so like children. We must save you from yourselves."

Good news, we still have lots of the white MacBooks left. We've lowered the price by $25! Don't worry, we removed the expansion ports and permanently attached it with it's maximum memory (1GB)!!

Apple announces it's biggest merger every... from this day forward we will be known as MappleSoft, come on out and say a few words Bill!!

Buy the FRIGN WHITE ones & drink the kool-aid ALREADY!

Nick Powers

p.s. Yes "You are so like children. We must save you from yourselves." is a quote from the movie iRobot.

Re:And???

[masmullin]

Yeah some of us are just generalist-hate trolls! We spread our evil evenly.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:And???

[ceoyoyo]

Even if the majority of Slashdot members don't use OS X, I bet the majority of the ones in the Apple section are at least interested.

Except for trolls like yourself, of course.

Re:And???

[masmullin]

OSX was designed in California not Poland. Im sure that there is some great software coming out of Poland, but OSX is in no way Polish.

It is however a more polished UNIX.

Re:And???

[masmullin]

Do you go crazy from CMD+C vs CNTL+C like I do?

Re:And???

[PincushionMan]

The announcement of the release or upcoming release would actually be FP worthy.

I actually read that as FTP worthy and had to do a double take.

Cameleopard

[SteeldrivingJon]

ie, giraffe.

Re:And???

[ArcherB]

Haha. AC has a point.

MacOS is the UNIX on the desktop and laptop that linux was never able to achieve.

Very good point... except GNU's Not Unix.

Re:And???

[masmullin]

- MS-DOS/Win 3.1
- Windows 95/98/ME
- Windows Server NT/2k/2k3/2k8
- Windows XP
- Windows Vista/7
- Mac OS 9
- Mac OS X lteq 10.4 (Tiger or earlier)
- Mac OS X gteq= 10.5 (Leopard or later)
- Linux KDE
- Linux Gnome
- BSD
- some other esoteric OS (like OS/2)

Good luck.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope this goes well for them. I want Apple to succeed. I don't own and will never buy a Mac, I'm just a Windows hater. I'm doing everything in my power to help Apple get more market share, even though I primarily use Linux.

I don't go telling people Linux is suitable for the average Joe when I have to add the equivalent of an if statement to xorg.conf to get it to handle internal/external display toggling correctly.

It's about managing expectations

[bradgoodman]

"An Apple press conference?!" one might ask - "Oh boy! What could it be? Announcement of the new CDMA iPhone for Verizon? Maybe a 4G/LTE iPhone?! A newer iPad? Something totally different to be dazzled with that no one is even thinking about?!"

.

Bzzzzzz Wrong answer. Just a new desktop OS, or maybe a Laptop.

"Oh. Apple still makes those?"

Re:And???

[UnknowingFool]

I've gotten used to it as my OS X is on a laptop and has different sized keys and I use a full size keyboard for Linux/Windows. I do find however that I use shortcuts much more often on OS X than Windows/Linux. There's some inconsistency in the functionality in some applications for some reason. Ctrl-C doesn't always copy in all Windows applications, etc. I get more frustration when switching to the Windows trackpad after using the MacBook one. I'm always trying to use two finger scrolling and it doesn't work.

Re:And???

[UnknowingFool]

I would be excited if there was a way to run 10.7 on my current specs on my machine instead of having to drop 2000-3000 on an apple. Yes, I understand why it is done that way normally. You can see this as a troll post, but I am being honest, not trolling. I would be more than happy to switch to OSX if they worked out compatibility so that I can do what I do with *nix or windows and just install that on my main pc. 2000-3000 would get me an awesome upgrade on my current system that would blow a mac out of the water (unless I put OSX on there, than that would be cool). When it comes to new versions of OSX, that is the #1 main reason why I am never interested in those releases, but always interested in new Ubuntu or Windows versions that come out

The MacMini ($700+) or iMac ($1200+) do not cost $2000-3000. As for the rest of your post, you realize you can run OS X on your current PC via virtualization right? VirtualBox is one such software that allows you to do this.

Re:And???

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much everyone on /. is in the apple section. Categorizing submissions by sections is only helpful when your website receives 100+ articles per day. And singular grouping is ineffective... like when Google stories end up in apple. Idle is the only section ever removed.

most will be happy with a MATE Imac or a system wi

[Joe The Dragon]

most will be happy with a MATE Imac or a system with imac hardware without the screen.

Apple is pushing games on the mac now but the hardware does not say that as the.

MAC MINI $700 for a system with a old core 2 cpu only 2gb ram + 5400RPM HD + on board nvidia video is not that good of a system and it only has 2gb ram. Now make it a little bigger to have a full size HDD and 4gb base ram with 4 slots and I3 / I5 cpu or a AMD cpu then for $800 can have a better system maybe give a PCIX16 slot (2 wide) for a video card (system can also have on board video) + a X4 slot for 1 other card. But all of that is not needed some of the old g4 / g5 uses may just want a full size HDD + at least 4 ram slots with a up to date cpu and good on board video.

Imac have weak video cards for there screen size. starting at $1200 for a ATI Radeon HD 4670 with 256MB + 3.06GHz Intel Core i3 on a 21.5-inch screen and maxing out at $2000 for a ATI Radeon HD 5750 with 1GB + 2.8GHz Intel Core i5 (add $200 for a 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7) on a 27-inch screen. $2000 only 4gb ram?

Mac pro over kill hardware price Do you realy need a 1k PSU for a 1 cpu system with a ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB GDDR5.

Mac pro at $2500 comes with a W3530 cpu about $300 (same price area as the i7-930) but apple only puts 3gb ram in and only a ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 (add $200 for a ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB)

But when you can get good I7 systems with 6gb ram and a better or the same video card for $1000-$1500. Where is the that extra $1000+ going a full boxed copy of Windows 7 Ultimate is only $300 oem full is like $200 and big oem like dell pay less.

There are people who may not want to play games but for $2500 you should get a Nvidia Quadro or ATI fire pro ATI FireGL card.

Alot of people with old g4 / g5 towers may just want a good desktop at $1000-$1500 and for that a card like ATI Radeon HD 5770 is fine.

If apple wants to get in to games then $2000+ should get you SLI or crossfire video.

Re:And???

[vought]

I use NeXTStep 4.2 on VMWare, you insensitive clod!

Re:And???

[Stregano]

I appologize, as I think that what I put in was not seen in the manner I was thinking it would (well, I figured that the negative stuff about Macs would get a troll). Here is the thing, I am not talking bad about Mac. I love OSX. I have no problems with it. Now if I want OSX, I need to run it through a virtual box. Me, personally, I am fine with that. The problem I see that not everybody else is. Yes, I know this is /., so most of the people here are comfortable with that. Now the thing is, I think it would be stellar if I did not need a virtual machine to run OSX. I should have also specified that if I wanted specs similar to my machine, it would easily cost 2000-3000 for similar specs on a Mac. I did say on my current specs machine in my post. I was only saying that for some of us, we simply do not have the extra cash for an entire Mac. Let's face it, virtual machines are cool and all, but to be able to run the OS straight up is way cooler.

Er, what? Macbook Pro?

[seebs]

You mean the one they just did a refresh of in April? Normally it's more like a year between updates. April got us new CPUs (the shift to i5/i7) and new video hardware (although it sorta sucks).

Re:Thanks for Plagiarizing MacRumors without credi

[Anonymous Freak]

Yeah, I ended up replying to myself on this. Looks like the original submission had the citation, but it got stripped when posting to the main page. A bit mean, since it looks like Engadget is the immediate source, when it's actually the OP citing MacRumors citing Engadget.

How about Liger?

[FellowConspirator]

The hybrid of P. leo and P. tigris is called a Liger. It's the biggest of the big cats (up to 900kg).

In fact, there are a number of other well-known hybrid big cat varieties: tigon, and their hybrid offspring litigons and titigons. There's also pumapards. All have varying degrees of fertility. The liger and tiglons have been known to appear naturally.

Personally, I think they could milk it and just go with other wild cats like lynxes, ocelots, etc.

Re:And???

[jedidiah]

> Haha. AC has a point. MacOS is the UNIX on the desktop and laptop that linux was never able to achieve.

Except MacOS isn't exactly Unix on the desktop. It's entirely something else on the desktop.

It also deviates from Unix enough underneath for it to be a problem if you are trying to have it play nice with all of the other Unixen.

Re:most will be happy with a MATE Imac or a system

[UnknowingFool]

Mac pro over kill hardware price Do you realy need a 1k PSU for a 1 cpu system with a ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB GDDR5.

A Mac Pro is an expandable workstation. If Apple didn't put a powerful enough PSU for the the 3 PCI slots and the 3 HD expansion bays, there would be complaints that Apple put in an underpowered PSU. Some people actually use them.

Mac pro at $2500 comes with a W3530 cpu about $300 (same price area as the i7-930) but apple only puts 3gb ram in and only a ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 (add $200 for a ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB)

Perhaps maybe because a Xeon is not the same thing as a Core i7. Intel considers them different families, maybe you should too.

But when you can get good I7 systems with 6gb ram and a better or the same video card for $1000-$1500. Where is the that extra $1000+ going a full boxed copy of Windows 7 Ultimate is only $300 oem full is like $200 and big oem like dell pay less.

Again an i7 isn't a Xeon. If you want an i7 from Dell, buy one.

There are people who may not want to play games but for $2500 you should get a Nvidia Quadro or ATI fire pro ATI FireGL card.

I don't think it is listed anywhere on the MacPro website nor does Apple hint that the MacPro is a "gaming machine". The problem is that you keep saying it's not a gaming machine but that's just your misunderstanding of what a MacPro is. It has always been a professional workstation so that professionals can edit sound/music/graphics/video for a living. It is not made for you to play Crysis, although you can do it. If you want a gaming machine, companies like Alienware make equipment specifically for you.

Re:And???

[DurendalMac]

Yeah, I guess that's why OS X is officially classified as Unix. It IS Unix, end of story. It's just a Unix variant that has been overhauled for 10 years to be far more user-friendly and accessible than others.

Re:And???

[DurendalMac]

One word: Hackintosh. Not the easiest thing to do, but not that difficult either if you have the right hardware. Hell, Linux can sometimes be more of a hassle than a Hackintosh.

Re:most will be happy with a MATE Imac or a system

[Joe The Dragon]

But apple is trying to push games on mac osx but the hardware is not there for it.

and apple should have better prices / hardware if they want to push gameing.

Meow!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can haz new OS?

Re:And???

[jedidiah]

A user like you would never get near enough to the part of the system that is governed by those specifications in order to tell.

It could just as easily be the NT kernel underneath and a rube like you would never know.

Re:And???

[Anonymous Coward]

This post deserves an entry in the /. hall of fame.

Re:And???

[dgatwood]

There's something truly sadistic about control-C as the keystroke for copying... when you've just typed the last line in a twenty-line command in a terminal window SSHed to a UNIX box. :-)

Re:most will be happy with a MATE Imac or a system

[UnknowingFool]

But apple is trying to push games on mac osx but the hardware is not there for it.

That doesn't make your specific complaint that the MacPro is not a gaming machine any more valid, just like if you said that OS X Server isn't very portable. It's a server; it's not made to be portable even if it's a 1U. You could say that the iMacs are not very powerful gaming machines; that's a valid complaint.

and apple should have better prices / hardware if they want to push gameing.

Apple has said that you can play games on Macs and want to dispel the notion that you can't. I don't remember them ever saying that they are the best in gaming like Alienware advertises. Also for the record, Dell (not Alienware) advertises that you can game, surf the web, etc. on their budget Dells. Why don't you take Dell to task that their budget PCs aren't gaming machines?

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're saying your Mac is "getting tired" and slowing down due to age and you think that's completely normal for a computer?? And you're willing to pay more money for another one?!?!

W T F

Mac users.
(mod me a Troll, but seriously.... )

Re:And???

[BarryJacobsen]

Do you go crazy from CMD+C vs CNTL+C like I do?

I use a utility to remap the keys (I standardize on OS X as that's my main) and if it's a virtualized windows machine via Parallels then the OS X shortcuts will work as well.

Re:WTF

[Jethro]

Um.

Yes.

1. When I originally got this computer it was only being used by one person. Now it's being used by two people.

2. Newer software (especially Firefox) need more resources.

3. My camera now takes much larger photos, and it takes more power to process them.

4. My video camera now shoots hidef video, which, again, requires a lot more power to process.

5. Heck, a lot of video content online is HD. Takes a lot more power to VIEW that without skipping.

Basically if I was still using this computer in 2006, it'd still be fine.

Ummm few things

[Sycraft-fu]

1) (in my best morbo voice) WRITEOFFS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! You don't get stuff for free. It isn't like you just buy new hardware and then pay that much less in taxes. Yes, there are various kinds of tax writeoffs related to physical goods. No they don't come anywhere near what the goods cost (and you have to take them over time).

2) Managing expenses is extremely important to small business. You generally have a limited amount you can grow your market, particularly in the shit economy we currently have. Thus the difference between profit and loss is in expenses. My parents are fighting with that right now. Their business is nearly profitable, would have been had growth continued. However they cannot grow sales, they've tried, just doesn't work. The only thing they can do is keep expenses under control. That includes things like not spending shitloads on computers when you don't have to.

3) Who says you need to be a business to want pro software? Where do you think people learn this, magic? Someone who is in to videography, either just for fun or perhaps because they are trying to make a business out of it might well want a professional editing suite. In the case of Apple's software, Final Cut is it. Also there's the problem that they don't offer good lower end versions. Final Cut Express hasn't been updated in years. It isn't like Sony Vegas where a home user can buy software that is just like the pro stuff, only less capable.

Regardless, the cost of hardware matters and trying to pass it off as just a "business expense" is not at all realistic. He's right about systems too. I have a Core i7 860 here and with Vegas 10 I can edit 1080p 4:2:0 video no problem, generally realtime playback for simple edits and so on. A more powerful, dual processor, system isn't needed.

Re:Ummm few things

[aristotle-dude]

1. Of course it is not a 100% refund but you will get some of the money that you invested in hardware back in tax reductions.

2. Time is money. You have to weigh the TCO (total cost of ownership) and not just the initial ticket price. The more time you spend "fixing" your computer, the less time you have to actually drive foot traffic to your business.

3. If you want to learn videography, software and computer hardware is only part of the problem. You also have cameras and camera supplies. If your budget is tight and you want to learn, it might be more cost effective to find a nearby community college or try volunteering at a local TV station.

Re:Ummm few things

[Sycraft-fu]

You are still making a more or less nonsensical argument. The original poster had a good point: Apple has no good priced desktop hardware if you do something (like video editing or games or whatnot) that needs a reasonable amount of power, but not ridiculous amounts. You are now trying to use increasingly twisted logic to justify that he should be willing to simply buy a Mac Pro. If you cannot just accept that, sorry, but Apple's desktops are really expensive then you are just being a zealot, blinded by your love for the platform, not thinking logically.

One of the arguments I hate the most when it comes to platforms is that you "Just shouldn't do X," where X is something that platform isn't good at or you "Should just be willing to spend more," even if another platform does just want you want for less. Computers are tools, nothing more nothing less. The best one should be used for the job and part of that is cost.

I get tired of platform zealots that argue that you should compromise, you should spend more or not get what you want, just to use their platform of choice. That is a bullshit argument. Arguments should be made based off of merit for the job.

Re:Ummm few things

[UnknowingFool]

3) Who says you need to be a business to want pro software? Where do you think people learn this, magic? Someone who is in to videography, either just for fun or perhaps because they are trying to make a business out of it might well want a professional editing suite.

You don't need to be in a business but you have to expect to pay "professional" prices for professional software. You do the same for hardware. Would you also argue that Canon is trying to rip you off selling a $10,000 DSLR when you can get a consumer Canon model for $150?

In the case of Apple's software, Final Cut is it. Also there's the problem that they don't offer good lower end versions. Final Cut Express hasn't been updated in years. It isn't like Sony Vegas where a home user can buy software that is just like the pro stuff, only less capable.

So your complaint is that Final Cut Express ($99) isn't like Vegas 10 ($599) because it is less powerful and cheaper than Final Cut? If you don't like Final Cut, you can get Adobe Premiere ($799) or Avid Xpress Studio HD ($1695). No one says you have to use Final Cut.

Regardless, the cost of hardware matters and trying to pass it off as just a "business expense" is not at all realistic. He's right about systems too. I have a Core i7 860 here and with Vegas 10 I can edit 1080p 4:2:0 video no problem, generally realtime playback for simple edits and so on. A more powerful, dual processor, system isn't needed.

There is ability and there is convenience. I can too also edit a 1080p 4:2:0 video on my Core 2 Duo. But it's going to take freakin' forever. The reason that people get more powerful machines like a MacPro is that they can cut film while doing other tasks. On less powerful systems, you'd have to prepare to wait a lot more.

Re:Ummm few things

[mjwx]

2. Time is money. You have to weigh the TCO (total cost of ownership) and not just the initial ticket price. The more time you spend "fixing" your computer, the less time you have to actually drive foot traffic to your business.

Indeed, you raise a good point here. I've supported Mac's in a mixed environment (10.4/5 vs XP/Vista) and I spent more time fixing Mac's per support call. They simply aren't as simple to correct as Windows Machines.

But lets look at other aspects of TCO shall we.
Downtime, when hardware fails (and Mac's have a failure rate equivlent to Dell):
DELL/Lenovo/HP: Make 1 call, get a tech out within 24 hours (NBD or Next Business Day).
Apple: Make an appointment with a Genius at their pleasure, waste my time to take it to them, wait for them to fix it and then come back an pick it up.
Now I charge out at $150 an hour, it takes 2 hours there and back where I'm not being productive and we get at least twice as much downtime as with Dell. Typical turnaround for a failed Mac is 7 working days. 7 days where someone is not productive. Typical turn around for a Dell is 28 hours, 1.5 days where someone is not productive.

Mac TCO is terrible no matter which way you look at it.

Re:Ummm few things

[Sycraft-fu]

Ummm these arguments are rather random.

So as to your first point that is silly. You are saying a Core i7 isn't pro hardware? Gee, better tell all the pros who use them! Like it or no, an i7 (or even Core 2 Quad) system with a good bit of RAM and so on works really well even on heavier tasks. Not saying there aren't some things that need eve more power, but very few. Workstation, dual core, registered RAM, hardware just costs a hell of a lot more. There is no reason to buy it if you don't need that performance. At this point, many things can't even use it. Hell Apple's own Logic suffers from not being able to use all 12 cores in a dual core Mac Pro. There is no sense in saying someone need a workstation just because they do "pro" work.

As for Vegas, no my complaint is that they have nothing like Vegas Movie Studio. Go to Sony's site. They have Vegas for $45, $95, $125, and $600. The three cheaper ones are cut down consumer versions. You can look at their page to see what in particular gets cut. However there $100 and $130 versions are the same basic software as their top flight program, just with some limits on them, mostly that don't matter to home users. It is a very real way to get experience with the tool, but not pay the full price. Then, if you want Vegas pro, pay the difference to get it. They are all the current Vegas 10 engine, they all work the same in fundamental terms.

You don't get that with Final Cut. Final Cut Express is badly neglected, it is nothing like the current Final Cut Pro. As such it isn't a realistic recommendation.

As to your last comment what I'm saying is I can edit 1080p video WELL. The previews run at full speed, I can encode at near realtime with the CPU (and faster actually because it'll use the GPU). It isn't a matter of it being slow or painful, it works extremely well. I don't need a second CPU. I don't need large amounts of expensive FBDIMMs.

That's the point. A Core i7 desktop works WELL for lots of high end uses, and they are cheap. $1200-1500 or so gets you a nice one. For about $1300 you can have a Dell with a 3GHz i7, 12GB RAM, 1TB HD, 1GB video card, and a 23" monitor. Well that matters to people. Consider you'd spend over a grand ($2500) more just to get a Mac Pro and that one has only a single CPU and 3GB of RAM. Takes $3500 to get a dual processor 2.4GHz quad core system. Fine if you need it (though you can get that cheaper elsewhere) but for a single core solution it is woefully overpriced.

If you've got that kind of money to blow, fine, but don't hate on the original poster for not wanting to.

Re:Ummm few things

[dangitman]

Apple: Make an appointment with a Genius at their pleasure, waste my time to take it to them, wait for them to fix it and then come back an pick it up.

Or, you could buy from an Apple vendor that offers corporate-level support.

Re:Ummm few things

[UnknowingFool]

So as to your first point that is silly. You are saying a Core i7 isn't pro hardware? Gee, better tell all the pros who use them! Like it or no, an i7 (or even Core 2 Quad) system with a good bit of RAM and so on works really well even on heavier tasks. Not saying there aren't some things that need eve more power, but very few. Workstation, dual core, registered RAM, hardware just costs a hell of a lot more. There is no reason to buy it if you don't need that performance. At this point, many things can't even use it.

No I'm saying a Xeon runs rings around your i7 so which one do you consider "pro"? Intel considers Xeon to be workstation/server grade CPU and i7 to be consumer grade. And buying "pro" hardware is always going to cost you more. But your point is "well if I don't like the price or don't need the performance, everything else is way too expensive, but my stuff is still pro." Basically you've defined your system as "pro" without really acknowledging what most professionals consider "pro".

Hell Apple's own Logic suffers from not being able to use all 12 cores in a dual core Mac Pro. There is no sense in saying someone need a workstation just because they do "pro" work.

Seeing how the last version of Logic Pro was released on March 20, 2010 and they released the 12 core Mac Pro in August 2010, Apple might release an update that corrects it in the future. Unless I am unaware of time travel technology Steve Jobs is holding back from us. However I am guessing that people who get a 12-core MacPro are most likely using it as a server and not a workstation and will not need it to edit sound.

As for Vegas, no my complaint is that they have nothing like Vegas Movie Studio. Go to Sony's site. They have Vegas for $45, $95, $125, and $600. The three cheaper ones are cut down consumer versions. You can look at their page to see what in particular gets cut.

Doesn't Final Cut Express pretty much allow you to do everything that Vegas Movie Studio does except the authoring? But if you have a Mac, iDVD (part of iLife) will do the DVD authoring. You don't have all the effects with FCE as you might have with Vegas Studio but it's comparable in other regards. DVD Studio (part of Final Cut Studio) does it on the Pro side.

However there $100 and $130 versions are the same basic software as their top flight program, just with some limits on them, mostly that don't matter to home users. It is a very real way to get experience with the tool, but not pay the full price. Then, if you want Vegas pro, pay the difference to get it. They are all the current Vegas 10 engine, they all work the same in fundamental terms.

I don't think that missing nearly half the features is "some limits". The majority of the differences I can see relate to the "pro" features a professional might expect like 24-bit audio instead of 16-bit audio. It's great that you've found a program that works for you and that it has tiered pricing so that you can get some features and not others. It has been a weakness of Apple that they do have "pro" and "consumer" and very little in between Final Cut Express was supposed to solve some of that but like you said, it hasn't been updated. I suspect there hasn't been very much demand.

That's the point. A Core i7 desktop works WELL for lots of high end uses, and they are cheap. $1200-1500 or so gets you a nice one. For about $1300 you can have a Dell with a 3GHz i7, 12GB RAM, 1TB HD, 1GB video card, and a 23" monitor. Well that matters to people. Consider you'd spend over a grand ($2500) more just to get a Mac Pro and that one has only a single CPU and 3GB of RAM. Takes $3500 to get a dual processor 2.4GHz quad core system. Fine if you need it (though you can get that cheaper elsewhere) but for a single core solution it is woefully overpriced.

Here's the deal: You think the core i7 works great for you. Great. But have yo

Re:Ummm few things

[Sycraft-fu]

If you think a Xeon runs rings around an i7 that betrays only your ignorance of processors. Current Xeons ARE i7s. They are the same cores, same design, etc. While they do have versions with more cache (which is not of use for desktop apps) and more cores (there are 8 core Xeons) they are not the ones Apple uses. They use the Xeon X5560 which is a 2.8GHz, 4 core, 8MB cache, 45nm i7 class CPU. That is the same as the Core i7-930. The difference is that i7s are uniprocessor only. That particular Xeon supports dual processors (they have others that support more). Also the Xeons, or rather their memory controllers, support more RAM. The i7 supports 24GB, the Xeons can do over 100GB. Of course you have to use FBDIMMs for that, which are much more expensive.

If you are buying in to hype about Xeons being some special "pro" thing it is just that: Hype. Xeons are workstation CPUs. They support featres that the desktop CPUs do not, notably FBDIMMs/ECC RAM and multi-processor configurations. They are not a different architecture. A 2.8GHz 5000 series Xeon is the same as a 2.8GHz 900 series i7 in terms of calculations per second.

In terms of Logic's support that was mostly just to demonstrate how little uses high end workstations, even in terms of high end software. There is actually some need for that, people on the EastWest forums bitch about it. However it is a bit of a black mark on Logic. Other programs, like Cubase, supported them fine. They were built with support for much larger numbers of cores so they could scale. You don't have to have a system on the market to build an app that can thread itself out enough to be ready for the future.

Yes, in fact I HAVE run i7s against Xeons. I do computer support for a living at an engineering department. We've got everything from some old ass P4s up to some brand new 6-core Xeons. I've played with Xeon workstations, and i7 desktops. I've benchmarked them. A single processor Xeon system is no faster than a single processor i7 system. A dual processor one is, of course, but only if you've need for the second processor's power and apps that can use it.

I mean to say single processor 2.8Ghz Mac Pro, not single core. It was a typo. Point is the base Mac pro has a single Xeon X5560 @ 2.8GHz. That's a quad core i7 class chip. You can get that for less than $1500 from Dell. Yes I realize it is not a Xeon and it doesn't support 144GB or RAM and so on. That's the point: If you don't need all that, Apple doesn't offer an option. There is an awful lot out there that works really well one a single, fast, quad core and Apple doesn't offer that.

That was the whole point the original poster was trying to make and what I've been trying to explain. You keep trying to go off on tangents to somehow "prove" that the Mac Pro is better as if it matters. The point is that on a PC, you can get a good, cheap system that does what you want in that range, on the Mac you cannot. That is a problem for some people.

Re:Ummm few things

[UnknowingFool]

Your exact quote:

Regardless, the cost of hardware matters and trying to pass it off as just a "business expense" is not at all realistic. He's right about systems too. I have a Core i7 860 here and with Vegas 10 I can edit 1080p 4:2:0 video no problem, generally realtime playback for simple edits and so on. A more powerful, dual processor, system isn't needed.

You wanna spend less on a system, that's fine, but you give the impression that those that do spend more for a video editing system are wasting their money. I am merely pointing out that cost difference are mainly due to component differences and that it is simply passed down from Intel to Apple to the buyer. If you feel Xeons are overpriced, talk to Intel about it, not Apple. I am also pointing out that what some people consider as "pro" hardware and software is not your definition. Some people need a workstation and 24-bit audio, not a high-end desktop with 16 bit audio. I never need either in my work, but I'm not going to argue with those that do it for a living that say they need it. In short I'm saying: You != every professional.

Re:And???

[Duncan J Murray]

Er... And Amiga OS?

Re:And???

[jedidiah]

...my response was modded as flamebait but it brings up a very important question.

      Just what does "unix compliance" provide? In truth it allows for the sort of diversity in
      most of the rest of the system that allows clueless consumers to crow that MacOS is a
      "certified Unix" along side of AIX.

      Those two operating systems represent a level of deviation that dwarfs the sorts of things
      that different flavors of Linux get eviscerated for.

Thus an actual professional Unix admin views the idea that MacOS "is a Unix" as somewhat of a joke.

Re:And???

[mikestew]

So take it up with The Open Group, lay off the ad hominem attacks on those that reply, and possibly save yourself the down-modding.

So far all you've effectively said is "no, it's not!" with "dumbass" tacked on to the end. At least the "rubes" have a certification group to back them up.

Re:And???

[Anonymous Coward]

Careful with that joke, like all things 20th century on /. , it's an antique

Re:People may say OSX 10.7 has a codename Cheetah.

[yabos]

Yeah, kinda funny since 10.0.0 was sloooooowwwwwwwwww(although I was running it on a G4 400Mhz)

Re:And???

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the point in putting different versions of Windows and OS X into the poll and slapping all the Linux distributions and their versions together into one entry?

How about:

- Windows

- OS X

- Linux

- BSD

Re:And???

[Yvan256]

Since Linux is free, I assume most people would use up-to-date versions.

Newer versions of Mac OS X are not supported on older hardware.

Re:And???

[Yvan256]

I would like to see the numbers for XP, Vista and 7 all on their own.

The first one should be MS-DOS/Windows 3.11 (3.1 cannot be used on a network if my memory is right, which I'm sure isn't and somebody will reply to correct me)

Linux KDE vs Linux Gnome... good idea. Lots more flame wars that way.

Re:And???

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot isn't only LGBT-friendly, it's friendly to all sexual orientations, including (but not limited to) Asexuals (Linux news), Promiscuous Risk-takers (Windows news), BDSM/Anal (MSCEs welcomed here), and Polygamists (*BSD news).

I know, the last one could also be called Beastie-ality, but I guess Slashdot does draw the line somewhere. After all, just mention Second Life and watch all hell break loose!

Re:And???

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't make a lot of sense. Just "Windows" and "OS X", otherwise, why not brake down Redhat, Ubuntu, Debian, etc.? Sounds like it's designed to make Linux look better than Windows and Mac OS X by breaking their numbers down.

Re:And???

[Anonymous Coward]

The announcement of the release or upcoming release would actually be FP worthy.

Yes it would. But so is:

a press release for an event for which there is speculation for the next major release being announced.

Fucking Apple-haters (actually *-haters, just this time it happens to be an Apple-hater), act like they are the only ones that get to decide what ends up on Slashdot.

Re:most will be happy with a MATE Imac or a system

[binary paladin]

Apple isn't pushing games. Valve is pushing games.

And it doesn't matter anyway. The geeks around here build gaming rigs. Great. Fantastic.

My dad plays PC games. He plays them on... basically a stock computer. Same with my brother. Same with my sister-in-law. The list goes on.

I have a custom gaming machine that screams. It gets better FPS than theirs. It rules. So what? Casual PC gamers outnumber people who build their own rig.

Re:And???

[Guy Harris]

> Haha. AC has a point. MacOS is the UNIX on the desktop and laptop that linux was never able to achieve.

Except MacOS isn't exactly Unix on the desktop. It's entirely something else on the desktop.

What is "Unix on the desktop", then? (If the answer involves the letter X and the number 11, that's why I use the term "UNIX+X11" - or, for the benefit of the "Linux is not UNIX" types, "UN*X+X11" - to refer to all the other desktop UN*Xes.)

The "UNIX" parts that matter to me largely involve typing stuff in response to a string ending with '$' - no, I don't like the C shell :-) - not the GUI stuff, and there are at least two pretty different flavors of the GUI stuff out there so that a third flavor, especially if it lets you use the same key sequence to copy from or paste to a terminal emulator that you use in other apps, rather than having to add Shift+ to avoid colliding with the interrupt or "literal next" character, isn't a problem for me.

It also deviates from Unix enough underneath for it to be a problem if you are trying to have it play nice with all of the other Unixen.

One requirement of being a UN*X is that there is at least one thing you do differently from all other UN*Xes to be annoying. :-) What are examples of things OS X does differently that are more of an problem than, say, things Solaris does differently, or HP-UX does differently, or {Linux,your favorite Linux distribution} does differently, or AIX does differently (saving the best for last :-))?

Re:And???

[Anonymous Coward]

freedos

Twice nothing is still nothing.

[westlake]

Sounds like it's designed to make Linux look better than Windows and Mac OS X by breaking their numbers down.

It scarcely matters one way or the other.

StatCounter Global Stats, iOS tops Linux

LOLCATS could work too!

[Webcommando]

I mentioned this in another thread a while back, but lolcats could be used and there are plenty of names to use...

Monorail Cat, Basement Cat, Ceiling Cat (is watching you boot), itty bitty OS committee, Serious Cat, and I made you an Mac cookie but I eated it cat...

There's new ones daily!

Re:And???

[fyngyrz]

The whole hipster blogosphere will cream itsself over the slightest hint of what Apple will do or not do.

Considering Apple's present market capitalization, I'm afraid you've mischaracterized where the interest is coming from. It's only the most valuable technology company in the world, you know. So what it does demands attention; both from the technology sector in general, and of course from its customers.

Re:And???

[fyngyrz]

Don't' forget we use a mod system for a story to even get this far to begin with

Well, ok, yeah, you certainly have a point there, but in spite of that, some worthwhile stories do get through.

The REAL codename

[Anonymous Coward]

The release's codename is Ceiling Cat. Believe nothing else.

Re:And???

[ByOhTek]

Actually, I didn't specify apple.

If MS announced a meeting / press release and wouldn't say what it was, it would not be FP worthy.

If any *BSD team did so, it would not be FP worthy.

If any Linux distro did so, it would not be FP worthy.

I cannot think of a single group that could do that, where it would be FP worthy.

Wait. Aliens, from outer space. Yes, if they did that, it would be FP worthy.

I must be a hater of everything that isn't a space alien!

Re:And???

[jedidiah]

It is not an "ad hominem" to declare that you are a MORON misusing technical terms you don't fully understand and have no interest in educating yourself about.

The fact that a real Unix user would seek to understand what a particular buzzword means highlights the very stark difference between Unix and MacOS.

Re:And???

[calidoscope]

One of the simplest ways of demonstrating MacOS X is not UNIX is executing $ touch FOO foo and then doing a directory listing.

Re:This is news

[tehcyder]

I recommend you change your /. settings so you don't see apple news.

For us non-believers, the retarded fanboy comments to Apple stories are often the most amusing thing on slashdot.

Thou protesteth too much!

[Geotopia]

This is worthy of a front page news item why?

And you followed the link to read it and THEN commented because?

Re:And???

[Anonymous Coward]

You do know that MacOSX UNIX can use different file systems, right ?

Some of them are case sensitive, some are not.

If you have a case sensitive file system, you get exactly what you expect, and with a case insensitive filesystem, you get the appropriate results, regardless of what you might expect.

Re:And???

[DurendalMac]

Oh yes, a "user like me". I guess a user like you is too much of an arrogant asshat to even look it up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_UNIX_Specification#Mac_OS_X_and_Mac_OS_X_Server

Newsflash, jagoff: Mac OS X has been stamped as Unix since 10.5. The Open Group (you know, the guys who determine if an OS meets the standards to be Unix) has said so, and THEY are the ones who determine if an OS is compliant with the Single Unix Specification, not /. posters who like to talk big and obviously have no damned clue. Yes, you obviously know more than me, Mr. Jedidiah. Please tell me again how OS X is not Unix when it has been such for years, oh wise one!

Re:And???

[DurendalMac]

And the Austin Group (you know, the guys who MAKE that determination) says otherwise. It's their call, not a sysadmin's.

Re:And???

[DurendalMac]

Sigh...yet another neckbeard with a truly boggling sense of unwarranted self-importance. It's okay, neckbeard. Sometimes you are just flat-out wrong. It's okay to admit it. It's also okay to admit that you're being an unbelievable asshole when you have been PROVEN TO BE WRONG, YOU DIMWITTED FUCK. YOU DO NOT DETERMINE WHAT MAKES UNIX UNIX. The Austin group does. If they say it's Unix, then it's Unix. That is their call to make. You can piss and moan and insult everyone who disagrees with you, but the facts are the same. Deal with it, you pathetic turd.

Re:And???

[DurendalMac]

I also find it laughable that you claim I'm a "rube" based on disagreeing with you on one point. Have you formally been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome yet?

Anyway, I'm done for now. I have some assembly to write. Oh, wait, I forgot that I'm not competent enough because you said so!

Re:And???

[worx101]

Yet another professional Unix admin views it as anything but a joke. Its the main reason I use a mac, it's a hell of alot more friendly with other more "orthodox" unix flavors than non-nix OSes. It provides the bridge to the different OSes I need to admin without the gnashing of teeth with tons of work arounds. You may dislike it, but its still unix.... An extremely modified one, but still unix.

Re:And???

[Anonymous Coward]

You mad !

What bothers you more, that everyday people are using UNIX, or that Apple put the effort into UNIX to make it usable for normal people ? Maybe you are just upset that apple is UNIX, and that doesn't jive with your personal religious views of who uses apple these days.

You old too. I can tell because flexibility of the mind goes first, and yours has none left.

Re:And???

[Guy Harris]

One of the simplest ways of demonstrating MacOS X is not UNIX is executing $ touch FOO foo and then doing a directory listing.

$ ls
FOO foo
$ sw_vers
ProductName: Mac OS X Server
ProductVersion: 10.5.5
BuildVersion: 9F33

So, if you see two files, it's not UNIX?

(Hint: HFSX can be case-sensitive.)

Yes, the default local file system in OS X is case-insensitive. In practice, that does get in my way on some rare occasions (e.g., when the CVS/SVN/Git repository for a project on which I'm working happens to have two files whose names differ only in case, or when I'm checking out a *BSD CVS repository and it hits the directory with the source for CVS), but I've managed to work around that (or, in the first case, fixing it - the projects in question either directly support Windows or have ports to Windows, so they shouldn't have files whose names differ only in case).

If it matters, you can get case-sensitive file systems, but some native apps, unfortunately, assume case-insensitivity.

Re:And???

[DurendalMac]

In that case (pun intended), a disk image formatted as case-sensitive might do the trick without breaking native applications.