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Windows 7 Overtakes XP, OSX Struggles To Beat Vista
judgecorp writes "Latest market share figures show the difference between perception and reality. Windows 7 just nudged past Windows XP with both around the the 43 percent mark. OS X and Windows Vista divide the rest of the spoils, with all versions of OS X only just adding up to a little more than the failed Windows version, according to data from Netmarketshare."
"Not everyone has the money to buy them. Sad, for them."
That's the kind of dumb, elitist comment that shows what a tool you are. Perhaps people don't see the point in paying extortionist fees for an OS and hardware that doesn't do anything that their current OS does and is typically of lesser performance.
Is it just me, or are more and more blatant flamebait stories reaching the front page recently? What actual relevant, meaningful news is contained in this story?
Seriously, why not go full on flame and top it off with a comment on Linux's desktop share, so we can include them in the flamefest that's sure to follow? Or I guess maybe I just did that for you... you're welcome Slashdot editors.
Next year...
Meanwhile Porsche and BMW 'have' to split the rest of the vehicles.
Apple is rich. As in very, very, very rich. Something tells me they really don't care.
OSX isn't very used outside the western world. So, I guess it has a lower worldwide marketshare, whereas Linux might have a higher one.
Apple also has no "non over-priced" products. I'm so bored of the what OS is better. It's a pile of files. The software you need to use is the real reason you use a computer, not because you want to use an OS. All marketing "make a demographic" back when software was in its infancy bullshit. I've got windows7 and do very little windowing.
OS X has it, Windows doesn't. And I think Win 8 will throw more mojo to OS X's direction.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
You my friend truly know nothing about operating systems. Sad, for you!
Keep going "Other" team!!
Track IP - Remotely track the IP address of a machine via email or MySQL.
This is the first comment you've made on slashdot - very poor effort. It's not even good shilling.
Watch those corners
It's getting to the point with you brainwashed Apple fans where I HAVE the mod points, but your post isn't even inspiring me to mod you down as a blatant shill. It's not inspiring me to do anything more than just roll my eyes and make this snarky reply, in fact.
My office is no longer putting XP systems out there - any system running XP that is brought into the shop is now automatically replaced as a matter of policy (for our business clients.) Sometimes we have to twist their arms, but frankly, we've got a deadline in 2014 and we're going to make our clients meet it whether they want to or not. XP market share is likely to plummet rapidly in the next 2-3 years.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Some of the history there looks a bit sus. And how much can you trust figures that give iOS 66% of the mobile OS market and Android only 21%?
Are there games requiring windows 7 yet?
I upgraded from 98 to 2000 because second life required 2000 ... 7? when I find a game I want requiring windows 7.... I have not run into one yet, but I'm sure it'll happen someday?
I upgraded from 2000 to XP but I don't remember which game wouldn't work on 2000 but did on XP
I'll upgrade from XP to
I only upgraded to the most recent service pack of XP when I recently got the couple years old GTA IV.
For all other activities I use my linux and mac machines, the windows PC is just for gaming.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I have some questions about both the data and the summary.
In the July to August time frame the data has 1% of the users moving to "other". I'm assuming that 1% is some mixture of Windows 8 and OSX 10.8 betas because I can't think of any other big events that happened between July and August. Which means the math is likely off in the summary.
As an aside in the source data I have problems OSX being well above 8% (now at 12%) of sales and the figure for market share being around 6-7%. I'd love to see some breakdown that explicates the discrepancy between sales figures and usage figures when they show up, because they are rather common.
Where does Linux figure in that list? :)
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Latest market share figures show the difference between perception and reality.
Yeah, let's just call statistics from netmarketshare "reality".
I think that the idea of an OS being able to be "beautiful" is sort or wonky. There is no reason such an interface couldn't run on winXP, win2k, or even somewhat in NT4, all you really need is the opengl support in the OS & drivers and you can do nifty things with alpha channel.
I'm also not convinced apple hardware is actually high quality, it's just that their os will only install on their hardware. apple is basically like a crossbreed between dell & microsoft, and this lets them charge premium prices on their run-of-the-mill hardware because their os won't install on other (less expensive, perhaps higher quality) intel hardware.
And OS X should be doing what? Competing with XP for market share? To use OS X you must buy and Apple machine! It's obvious it will have small numbers! Right now I'm using XP at work, because the company got this cheap Atom CPUs and have to put something to run it. But at home I got 2 Macbooks with Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion. What does it mean? That on those numbers I'm being counted twice... So what kind of credibility should we give to it?
Microsoft is not selling Vista any more. Apple is not selling OS X 10.6.
I believe what they are referring to with the words "market share" is what normal people call "installed base."
Agreed. In fact as soon as we move to do everything via browser an OS will be as talked about as a BIOS...it's there, it allocated memory, the drivers load it runs a browser, win. The days of the desktop OS are numbered, even if it's still a few years off. Microsoft see it, this is why they are moving all the office package "to the cloud". OS independent. Innovate or die.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
MacOS X is a taste, that's all -- neither better nor worse for everyone. Your preference.
My 18 year old daughter has had full exposure to both Windows and MacOS X; the Windows PC on her desktop, the MacBook Pro was a loaner for the last two years at High School, part of a Communications specialty program.
When it came time for a laptop for college, she wanted Windows. She's no computer expert, just a regular user, doing everyday stuff: games, word processing, photos, internet. And video... she liked video editing on the PC better. Largely because her Mac was just terrible at it. It didn't handle native video editing from her AVCHD camcorder, while her Windows PC did, easily. She did all her editing on the Mac in either DV (which worked dandy in any Windows editor back in the 90s) or in Apple's "iFrame" format, which is basically a chopped down qHD (960x540), I-Frame only. This is the format Apple actually "invented", since they couldn't deal with actual HD video, other than to transcode to ProRes, which they only support in Final Cut Pro (she ran Final Cut Express on the Mac).
Tragically, the school she just went off to (Montclair University) is still using Final Cut Pro in their Broadcasting department, so they strongly recommended a Mac PC. I had found a great 3rd generation i7-based laptop from Asus: metal casework, four USB 3.0, 8GB RAM, 750GB HDD, 1920x1080 display, separate graphics, etc. for $1100. Having to switch to a Mac, I manged to find a slower 2nd generation i7, only two USB 2.0 + Thunderbolt (good idea, but currently fairly useless), 4GB RAM, 1600x900 display, slower separate graphics, 750GB HDD, etc. for "only" $1800. That was a factory-refurbished model (this the "discount" price), and they screwed up and delivered an 8GB unit. But seriously -- you're paying twice as much just to get MacOS. Plus, add-in the $100 extra to put Windows on the system, and, well... have to wait on that new electric guitar.
Apple makes decent hardware. But so do many other companies -- after all, cool casework has been about the only innovation in personal computers for the last 10 years; everything else has been predictable, incremental growth. Apple's well known to be making 5x as much profit per PC shipped as just about anyone else. If you must have MacOS, it's the price you pay, but there's no basis for any technical belief Apple's making a superior product, HW or OS.
-Dave Haynie
I think you'll find that some companies are still buying vista. Chevron (for example) rolled out vista and are still using it as their SOE. Any new PC they buy will get an enterprise license of it.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Market share is important if you use actual applications - in other words, do real work with your computer. It also matters if you rely on third party hardware. The effort will go in to making sure they work on the dominant platforms, and the smaller ones will be an afterthought. You're more likely to find advice online relating to running the software on the dominant platform and bugs will get fixed for it first.
That's why I use Windows.
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
Then you must be making rather a lot of money. If you put an HP badge on it you'd not think that I bet.
lazy
Sent from my iPhone
Native software will always have significant advantages over web apps. That being the case there's no reason to assume we'll ever do everything via the browser.
Universal thin clients is as old and unfullfilled a prediction as "The year of Linux on the desktop". And you think Microsoft's vision of the future adds any weight? Ha ha.
"Not everyone has the money to buy them. Sad, for them."
Most of us on the other hand don't have the Time or Money to waste trying to use, fix and secure Redmond's pathetic products.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_economy
The software you need to use is the real reason you use a computer, not because you want to use an OS.
I'm a kernel hacker, you insensitive clod.
I'm no fan of web apps. like it all local. apart from office, the software I use is neither made by Windows or Mac and if I were to use word or excel on OS whatever I'd would not matter.
probably the same as everyone else, that windows 7 will get the job done until someone in microsoft picks a single design and sticks with it for windows 9.
Some businesses will keep using Windows XP because there are always factory floor computers that simply are a pain in the ass to upgrade - for all practical purposes it's impossible to upgrade, and the OS will get updated only when the old hardware gets dumped and they get a new computer... and that might never happen because factory managers are not likely to invest in fixing something that's not broken.
And there are personal users who use their computer entirely for facebook/email - they really don't care if their OS supports the latest industry standard features or not. Expect those to be still using windows xp, and maybe eventually switch to an internet appliance device (like ipad) and get rid of the computer altogether. For a great majority of people out there, an ipad does everything they expect from a computer: browse facebook, write email, play farmville. Remember it was only 20 years ago that computers still were not a household item, computers were for geeks. The computer became mainstream only because it started appealing to the dumb masses, it's not because all of a sudden there's a surge in computer geek population. It will eventually go back to what it was - computers one day will return to being a geeky thing, and general population will move to using locked-down internet appliances instead of general purpose computing devices.
As for me, I would rather use a decade old general purpose computer rather than an iPad. I would rather use Linux than OS X. I used computers before they were cool, and I will use computers after they stop being cool. I am the minority, I am a geek. Internet used to be a place where we could find like-minded people, but now it's eternal September.
But seriously -- you're paying twice as much just to get MacOS.
This is something I have to explain over and over: OS X is nice, but I pay twice as much for the trackpad. I can't use a non-Mac laptop without plugging in a mouse.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Apple likely made more on OS X than Vista (say 10.4->10.6 or so being the era in question) since people that wanted OS X had to buy hardware from Apple too which they make buckets of money on. Different business model entirely is it shocking that a mid to high end hardware manufacturer sells fewer units than the company that gets their software pre-bundled with everything from low end to top end systems?
Apple has a good model for a hardware company they get profit margin based on exclusivity, MS gets it because of the huge markups of software industry in general. Dell, HP and the like: "we'll make oddles of money buy selling 10's of B of stuff at 5-10% margins" yeah that sounds like a winner.
Looking at a) global numbers and b) combined consumer/corporate is pretty much the worst possible scenario for Apple. If you limit the "market" being examined to "U.S. consumers" then supposedly Apple has around 21-22% share.
The question isn't whether or not everything will move to a thin client, it's whether or not a significant chunk of users can do everything they need in a web browser.
Also, as per the article, MS still has 90% of the desktop market, their vision very much matters, especially as they creep into the mobile space, because they really could completely re-envision the desktop-laptop-mobile relationship. Not necessarily for the better of course, but they certainly can change things a lot.
Why does that matter?
It's a windows version that isn't going to succeed for desktop computing and everyone besides Microsoft knows that. I'd honestly be surprised if most of Microsoft didn't know that and just got a phone/tablet touch UI pushed on them by some high up idiot trying to compete with apple at the expense of their real business.
> OS X and Windows Vista divide the rest of the spoils, with all versions
> of OSX only just adding up to a little more than the failed Windows version
It didn't help that OEMs (e.g. Toshiba) were selling Vista machines that, when you opened the box, there was a little sticker warning you that 512 MB they were happy to let you buy it with was not recommended as a configuration.
Basically, it wasn't enough to run without using virtual memory, so it took 10 minutes of constant HD chugging before it became vaguely usable.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Slashdot has a deserved reputation for being the territory of Hardcore 20-Something Linux Fanboys
Dude, you're so behind the times. Try 30-something.
sheeple are still using stupid memes
Like 'sheeple.' Good going, Nietzsche.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Sure. After all OSX is Unix. And Linux is a copy of Unix.
Ha Ha.
The key is that both OS X and Linux use OpenGL for graphics, which is why they'd reuse a lot of code from the Mac.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Light years ahead?? How? OS X is one of the least customizable OS's out there. Its apple's way or the highway. Seriously, what does it do that windows can't??
Apple's quality hardware??
You mean the exact same hardware that gets used to make Windows PCs? Apple gave up its exotic hardware long ago. Now its just a basic intel board you can buy for half the cost of what apple is going to sell it to you for.
Next you'll be telling me that os x is magical. God you apple fans live in a fantasy world.
zosxavius photography
Also, as per the article, MS still has 90% of the desktop market, their vision very much matters
It matters, in that lots of people use Windows and their vision affects the direction that goes. But their vision for the past decade or two has mostly been wrong. You speak of mobile: they've been losing ground on mobile for years.
The ipad is not overpriced. the fact that they are killing the competitors in their market segments would indicate that to most people, the price is competitive for what you get.
No, that's an incorrect market analysis. If price were the most important thing, Lenovo and Dell would be the market leaders. Most Apple buyers aren't concerned with price. Those who base their purchases on price buy other brands - even tablets. Consider the huge popularity of the Kindle Fire or the Nexus 7. If Apple comes out with a tablet to compete with the Fire and the Nexus 7, I think they'll get their asses handed to them. And if Amazon comes out with a 10" Fire or Google a 10" Nexus, they'll hurt Apple real bad.
Apple's market share right now is just from first adopters and folks who want the latest toys.
As far as laptops and PCs are concerned, you can always do better with a non-Apple product in terms of price.
Apple is really a luxury brand: many folks buy Apple products to have the Apple logo. I'm surprised that Apple hasn't gone the Harley-Davidson route and sell logo'd apparel. A large chunk of Harley's profits are from apparel and licensing the name.
OS X comes with Apple's quality hardware. Not everyone has the money to buy them. Sad, for them.
Some have the sense to build a hackintosh with the exact same parts for $500 instead of paying $1500. Others take apart the apple box to find that the hardware is fairly pedestrian and common. Then the disillusionment starts to set in...
Current share of Win7 among Windows PCs is 46.60% ...
I wonder if it will ever be more than 50% ?
For example, in March 2012, Windows XP was installed
on 50.66% of all Windows computers
Apple also has no "non over-priced" products. I'm so bored of the what OS is better. It's a pile of files. The software you need to use is the real reason you use a computer, not because you want to use an OS. All marketing "make a demographic" back when software was in its infancy bullshit. I've got windows7 and do very little windowing.
Whats funny is that 99% of people spend 99% of their time in an application, not sitting in the operating system. Although I'm fully prepared to argue that I've used every major operating system produced in the last 20 years...and they're all pretty much the freaking same once you spend 3 days on it and get used to it.
So sitting in safari on a mac vs chrome on windows. Office apps on a mac vs office apps on windows. Any difference at all? Really? I guess at that point you get reduced to claiming that only an apple trackpad suits you. It doesn't really, but its a fairly pathetic thing to cling to as a last ditch effort to justify the higher cost.
Someone at work was asking me about laptops. She was in the Apple store looking at a new Air and the price tag (I believe it was $1200.) She currently has some run-of-the-mill Dell that's 5 years old.
She was asking if a disk drive was required, and I said to install most software you'd have to buy a USB DVD drive. No big deal. But she also owned Photoshop and whatever Adobe video processing software for Windows. I told her she'd either have to re-buy Windows or buy native Mac versions of her programs. I also said for that $1200 you can get a really well-equipped laptop (her current PC is a desktop) and you wouldn't have to re-buy everything. I told for for even $700 you could get a decent laptop that would run the programs.
Her conclusion? "Macs are too expensive. I like my iPhone, but not enough to buy a Mac computer."
This is someone who doesn't understand technology that much. If someone like that thinks it's too expensive, then it probably is...
Thunderbolt (good idea, but currently fairly useless)
If she is doing video work she needs this:
Seagate GoFlex Desk Thunderbolt Adapter
Docks any SATA drive, gives you Thunderbolt speed in accessing the disk.
We should see even more Thunderbolt storage stuff shortly.
Being able to quickly swap out drives should be really useful for video work.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The software you need to use is the real reason you use a computer, not because you want to use an OS.
I see you haven't met many Apple Fanbois.
Apple also has no "non over-priced" products.
And that's my show for tonight folks. Catch me on Comedy Central.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
The median family in the US make around $50K or less a year, while the median house is more in the range of $200K. This means the median family cannot afford the median house.
Perhaps a quarter of homes do not have a computer, so is it elitist for those of who can own a computer to so do?
What one has depends on two variables: what one can earn and how one allocated the resources. When I was a kid i did not have a nice pair of jeans or a pair of Jordans but I did have an Apple computer. The only reason this sounds elitist is that so many people think these highly popular consumer products are an entitlement. It is like parents clamoring that a toy has been sold out for christmas. I know kids are very demanding but really. We should have some perspective here. There are all sorts of thing we cannot afford or cannot have. Life goes on.
What is elitist is thinking not being able to afford a Mac is the most critical problem one has.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
âoeinnovationâ... âoestream of thoughtâ... âoeM$â and âoeMicroslothâ...itâ(TM)s...
What's all this shit about "actual coherent thought"? That was atrocious.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Given that Windows 7 running on any machine that support x86-64 instructions very well, no wonder why it's been widely adopted.
I myself really like Windows 7: surprisingly fast boot, very stable, and the implementation of the "Aero Glass" look and feel is far better than what was done in Windows Vista. It's probably the best version of Windows (client version) since Windows 2000 Professional.
Slashdot community, how is an anti-Apple post rated 5 Insightful, and an Apple defence post rated 0 Troll?
While not being sure as to which posts you're referring to, it might have something to do with Apple acting like a bunch of egotistical asses for the last few years (more so than usual).
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
Actually she wouldn't have to buy Photoshop and whatever video processing software for Windows again. You just need to call up Adobe and they'll give you new serial codes for the Mac version of a product you've legally registered.
Tea and kung-fu. Life is good. Rising Phoenix
Agreed. In fact as soon as we move to do everything via browser an OS will be as talked about as a BIOS...it's there, it allocated memory, the drivers load it runs a browser, win.
The days of the desktop OS are numbered, even if it's still a few years off. Microsoft see it, this is why they are moving all the office package "to the cloud". OS independent. Innovate or die.
Innovate or die is a good idea. The rest, not so much. It reminds me of the person that recently said to me that we could move all our servers to "the cloud" and never have to worry about hardware again. It isn't for everyone or everything. Little apps, relatively speaking, can run in the browser and such. Big heavy apps which need real power cannot or if they can they end up needing far more power on the client side to run well.
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
The problem with your analysis is that you've put the cart before the horse. Or, more accurately, the OS before the applications.
Your friend wants to run Adobe stuff. It runs on either OS X or Windows. She has the Windows versions. She is price sensitive. She has no major beef with her current application loader (er, OS).
Yep, the no brainer advice is to keep her on the Windows platform. Because of the apps. (As an aside, it's a moderate PITA to switch out operating systems for Adobe Creative Suite products. Totally amazing here in the 21st Century, but there you have it.)
But good luck finding a Dell that actually competes with an Air in terms of wieght, size and performance. Of course, if she's doing video, then she does not want an Air - she wants a fairly beefy high end laptop. A laptop that is sold by Apple, Dell, Asus, Lenovo, probably HP and bog knows who else. Your best technical advise to here would be 'you want something with a bit more horsepower than an Air - here are a bunch of choices.
The OS is a minor issue.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Don't worry, next year is the year of linux on the desktop (or so have I been told for the last 10 years :p)... all the people without money are in for a treat lol
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
Apple also has no "non over-priced" products.
If you look at their product lineup and try building an equivalent Windows machine, occasionally they do. If you start with what you need and then try to pick the closest Mac fulfilling those needs, then they mostly don't. I wish Apple would dare to kill their workstation segment by offering a "normal" Mac, no micro, no all-in-one, no workstation with Xeons and ECC ram. A normal mid-tower that runs an i7-3770K on a Z77 motherboard with OS X on it. If they can charge $2500 for a Mac Pro, I'm sure they could sell one for $1500 and get away with it.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Which Android device corresponds to the iPod touch again? If none, then yes, Apple is moving that many iDevices.
to bad the hardware is very limited.
And the desktops use higher cost laptops parts with small cases to look hip at the cost of more power / lower price and better cooling.
or an over priced tower with 2010 video cards at 2010 prices.
no real sever hardware.
laptops with sealed in battery.
hdd's in the imacs that have Temperature Sensor and or Firmware that makes non apple ones jack the fans to the max all the time. And drive cost alot like $150 to go from 1tb to 2tb when you can buy a 2tb for under $150.
"better" is defined as boots faster or somehow magically makes the game better
Or just continues to run at all. If a game has online multiplayer or phone-home digital restrictions management, you will need to connect to the Internet to run it. After April 2014, when Microsoft stops publishing patches to correct security defects in Windows XP, expect computer criminals to discover a way to 0wn all XP boxes on the net.
Also, you're ignorant of how most software these days comes for a Mac. It's on a disk image. Download & install. Even the OS. No need for a DVD drive. The most common use for mine? Installing Windows software in Parallels.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Battlefield 3 would be a major one. It requires Vista or 7 as it is DirectX 10 and above only, it has no DX9 support.
This is likely to accelerate as time goes on. There are serious design advantages to the DX10+ rendering model, and it is a pain to both implement it and then an old DX9 model. As more people have Windows 7 or newer systems, it is more profitable to have games require it.
they need a $1000-$1500 desktop non AIO
with desktop parts a min-range or better video card and maybe at least 1 pci-e 1 x4 slot and room for at least 2 sata HDD's and maybe room for a DVD or blu ray drive.
That's why god gave us the Preview button!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
and today's download caps / throttling / high cost roaming will also kill moving stuff to online only like that.
Is still elitist - and very, very dumb - to buy a overpriced OS and the overpriced companion hardware to do the same thing that any reasonably good pc can do.
And why elitist? Because almost everyone who buys a Mac or a "IThing" is to show that he has money to throw away and so is rich, and the only social group that throws money away is the supposed "elite".
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Yes and you can put a high end motor in a compact car (rice rocket) - doesn't make it a high end car. The fit and finish, the wholistic integration of the components - that is what makes a product high quality, not the components themselves.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Only a small percentage of users will ever run a "big heavy app", and then likely only on one of their computers.
It amazes me to see /.ers still protesting "thin clients will never happen" and in the next breath extoll the virtues of their latest tablet. How long till tablets and other thin clients pass traditional PC sales? How long till the count of "thin" apps sold passes the count of traditional software units sold? Heck, how long to Angry Birds alone has more installs than any other game (or has that already happened)?
Thin clients and browesr-based apps won't soon the the primary environment for a geek, or for someone who runs a "big heavy app" professionally. So what? That's a very thin corner of the market.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I couldn't agree more. I just installed Mountain Lion, which is a freaking insult to users. From the never stopping notifications, to the useless animations (some of it can't even be turned off, like switching workspaces, which gives me motion sickness), to useless mission control, to the one menu bar for all apps, to natural mouse scrolling, the list is endless.
Not only that, but now by default (I know it can be changed), it doesn't allow programs (called apps now) to be installed unless it comes from the app store. And icloud everywhere. No, I'm not going to pay A$$le to store my files, I can do it on my own server. If M$ did anything like this, there would be class action suits left and right.
Recently there's been lots of discussion around here how osx killed linux desktop and how everyone is switching to osx from linux. Well, if you do that, you are a moron. My xmonad desktop is more flexible and useful than osx. And how hooking up the credit card to Cupertino headquarters works for the FOSS people, is beyond me.
In fact 10.8 is so bad, I think M$ has a great chance with win8 metro or whatever they call it now. Still, win7 looks and works much better than this latest steaming pile from A$$le.
Now bring on those downvotes.
In other words, it is due to /. groupthink and nothing to do with the relevance of each post to the discussion at hand. Like most moderation here lately.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Bullshit. Most viruses spend their time in an appilcation as well. Java Runtime exploits. Acrobat Reader exploits. Flash exploits. The current versions of all the common OSs have converged on the same security model - there's no treal difference there.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
and if they did, I may have bought it. If they let me put me own together for $1000 then I'd have two.
Yup. The apple trackpad is worth paying for. Even if you're going to run windows on it. Carrying a mouse and keyboard around with your portable computer because the built in gear is awful is fucking retarded.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Are you seriously confused as to what a SATA dock is?
If so you do not need one.
The person who is doing a lot of DV sure as hell knows what a SATA dock is...
Basically it's a hard drive dock, where you can take bare SATA hard drives and quickly plug them in to use them without an enclosure. When you are swapping between a few different hard drives it saves a ton of time and money and space over using multiple enclosures.
Lastly, may I remind you that Google exists?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I predict Vista will be on more Desktop and Laptop systems than Windows 8 by October 2014, and Windows 8 will never overtake Windows 7.
The caveat here, of course, is that Microsoft will inevitably include Tablet and Phone "RT Version" Windows 8 installs in their ultimate numbers, which would articficially drive the numbers up beyond XP, Win7 and Vista combined by then (even with lackluster mobile sales, since mobile device sales dwarf the desktop/laptop market).
Compare an HP folio to an MBA and tell me which one is better value. From memory they're actually around the same price, and I've used both. The trackpad on the folio is garbage. It is not available with any other storage than a 128gb SSD, and has single channel memory.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Since you don't know the difference between a virus and a trojan you don't belong here.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Everything old is new again. Back in the 80s and previous we all ran thin clients back to a mainframe. That sucked then, and thin clients back to "the cloud" will suck in comparison to what proper desktop hardware will be able to offer in future, too.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
You may want to check if you can get Windows for free from the University. Depending on their Microsoft license, they may allow you to install it for academic use.
Use your head before you post there spanky. The attack vector is via applications. They run on the OS. If the OS had nothing to do with it, then there would be just as many viruses on OS X and Linux as on Windows.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Your angry birds example is neither a thin client app, or originally browser based. The ipad / modern tablet is not strictly a thin client device - it has a lot more processing power than desktops from a few years ago in a device much much smaller.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
yea your paying 1000$ extra for a slower machine than the walmart box
not all of us are looking for the prettiest computer, the nicest tennis shoes and the blingiest bling
Don't bother. Some people don't understand that hardware also encompasses the bits that you actually interact with. Like usable input peripherals on portable machines for example.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Pussies, all you will ever need is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RTdAkUb1S0
http://www.usimperio.com/recycled/product_images/ibm/ibm_trackpoint.jpg
So the median house costs 4 years of median income - perhaps a little excessive I agree, but hardly enough to put it out of reach - assuming you dedicate 50% of your income to it you could buy such a house in 8 years (plus a couple more to pay off the interest accrued). Or, assuming you lose ~50% of your income to insurance, retirement, etc. you could dedicate 50% of take-home, 25% total or $1k/month to pay it off in 16 years (call it 20+ including interest). That would still leave your $50k median household with ~$1k/month for food, utilities, maintenance, incidentals, savings, etc, and after that you only pay taxes and maintenance and could pass it on to your kids/grandkids when the time comes. Of course what actually seems to happen these days is that long before your house is paid off you sell it and buy a larger more expensive one so that you can go to the grave still making payments on a McMansion stuffed to the gills with junk you never use.
Not an ideal situation I agree, a median of price closer to $100k would make home ownership far more appealing - and historically that's roughly what it was until the housing bubble at the turn of the century (one reason I believe the bubble is still in effect). The biggest problem with returning to a more sustainable market is that over the last few decades most of the "desirable" neighborhoods have been slowly "upgraded" to larger, more expensive houses, and "downgrading" them doesn't make financial sense, so we're forced to wait through a long slow decline during which time purchasing a house is far less appealing as it's value is only likely to decline over time, where as historically it could be expected to hold reasonably steady.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Let me reword to show how stupid your summary is:
If Lamborgini can't even beat a "failed" version of a Honda Civic, what does that make them?
Oh, and the answer is: the richest company on the planet, worth more than Google and Microsft combined. So I think they're OK.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
It's a "thin app" not a "big heavy app". It doesn't require anything speciel to run, and could easily run in a browser (in fact, now it does).
The ipad / modern tablet is not strictly a thin client device - it has a lot more processing power than desktops from a few years ago in a device much much smaller.
Yes, that's my point right there. Some people have this weird notion of a "thin client" from the 90s: something with no processing power. Reality has moved on. The average high-end phone thse days is just a real-keyboard-and-monitor away from being all the compute most people need, lacking only a handy docking station - and people are starting to sell docking stations.
There's very little that people do outside of work these days that couldn't be done on a small device in an "app" environment, and as technology marches on, in a web browser.
And the "heavy lifing" apps vendors are all working on products that will be a thin client connecting to serious compute in the cloud (or corporate datacenter). I don't know if that will catch on, but the likes of AutoCAD would love to be able to give away a client and rent out the boxes that do the real work, instead of their current priacy-fraught model.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Oh, that's why the latest OS service pack (Mountain Lion) has caused a two hour drop in my battery life.
Battery life is why I actually liked my Mac because the OS is far behind both Windows and Linux, except for a few nice-to-haves. Guess my next laptop will be my favorite PC alternative: Asus.
There likely are this year, in terms of viruses per user. The first huge Apple botnet was found. Malware has made it into the app store. Apple's only advantage there is in being a smaller target; the OS itself isn't providing any security advantage.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
> Why OS X isn't more popular then?
You're simply swimming in the Kool-Aid and don't realize it.
That's why.
People can be given a Mac for free and not take to it. The "superiority" of MacOS is mostly in your head. "Beauty" is highly subjective.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
At least in this household 5 Linux installs and 1 aging OS X install (when it dies Apple is no more in this household). Oh, 1 Windows XP and Windows 7, but rarely booted only for netflix and software testing needs.
The virus numbers need to be adjusted for market share. According to the article, Windows has abot 90% of the market share, OSX 10%, so the virus numbers need to be adjusted accordingly. If and when OSX reaches 90% market share I am willing to bet it'll be lauged by as much virus activity as today's Windows. It's just natural, not defending one side or another. Virus author tries to reach as many machines as possible, hence the imbalance of Windows viruses vs. Mac. Trust me, Macs are virus prone.
MacOS suffers from a group think mentality even worse than Windows. If you decide to do something a little creative, you will get shouted down by the mob. You might even be accused of a pirate.
Someone has probably done that in this thread already.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I haven't had the inclination to even try something like that since the 90s. Not since cheap router appliances became cheap and plentiful.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Do desktop operating system marketshare comparisons even matter now? It's a declining market. The bigger shareholder is hardly in a position to set trends in the industry.
It's like trying to work out who sells more portable CD players. Move on.
The only thing worth figuring out now is which tablet player has the right strategy: Apple with their seperate-from-a-laptop-and-purposefully-limited-to-make-it-easier device or Microsoft with their no-compromises-it's-a-tablet-and-a-laptop-in-one device.
"We live in a global world" - Harvey Pitt, former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman
No. We understand all right. We actually know how technology works. We aren't just "proudly ignorant" conspicous consumers.
Usable input peripherals? On a Mac? You must be joking? All of their keyboards are crap to use. It doesn't matter how fancy they are.
They are no less in need of replacement inputs than any other laptop.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
How long has Slashdot been around.
What do you think the media age of the user community was then?
It seems that Apple users are also bad at math.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Funny thiing is that I may spend most of my time in an application (or two or three) but when the OS is lacking a decent file manager, a decent clipboard, a robust yet simple recovery system, and nags me every day for updates that require reboot, I DO care about the OS. Productivity goes way down no matter how good the application is if the environment I am working in is poor.
And just to mention, I care for neither Windows or Mac.
I think you'll find that some companies are still buying vista. Chevron (for example) rolled out vista and are still using it as their SOE. Any new PC they buy will get an enterprise license of it.
Impossible. Chevron is making money.
I am embarrassed that (what I can only assume are) Apple fanbois come up with such outlandish comparisons.
They're not even close to beating Vista. Vista is ONE VERSION of Windows, so the valid comparison is against ONE VERSION of OS X - that would be OS X 10.7 @ 2.29% vs Vista @ 6.15%. Of course the more telling comparison would be the newest OS versions which would be OSX 10.8 @ 1.34% vs Windows 7 @ 38.54%. or all versions of the two about 6% vs 82.47%. Now in the mobile market, Apple's iOS is kicking butt. And that impacts the future of OS X in a very negative way.
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
Although the trackpad is probably interacted with an awful lot and for most people it is worth a couple hundred or more to have a user input system they like.
Work bio at MMWD
It was a dumb comment but no less than your ignorant one of "typically lesser performance." I use linux primarily but I keep a mac mini for video work. I've found nothing better for video and photo editing than the overpirced apple equipment with it's quirky OS. I've used linux for this task but the software available there is lacking in many areas and as for windows I refuse to torture myself. Keeping it operating is a full time job. I have one windows laptop with XP for the controller software for my race car. Since I use it for absolutely nothing else and never attach it to the network it works fine for that. The machines at work require a full blown IT department just to keep about 80 to 90 percent of them running. To be fair we have some idiots using them but I've never seen such garbage for the money spent on licensing. Linux gives it's share of problems but hey, it's free! My Mac has never once given me any trouble whatsoever. It's flawless just like the macbook berfore it, the powerbook before that, and the Dual G4 tower I started video editing with. Yes, Macs are expensive. Perhaps even overpriced. It's nice to have something that never, ever lets you down though.
Not sure why everyone is so ecstatic over the mirco precentage points one OS has over another. Its irrelevant. I don't care even about the fruitcake at all.
No, you're doing it wrong. It's the e-machines they're talking about. You're comparing machines at the same price point. You're supposed to pick a windows laptop for $1000 less than the Mac and tell how much better the windows machine is. HP is overpriced for snotty people too!
But their vision for the past decade or two has mostly been wrong.
The market has spoken. Clearly, Microsoft is giving users what they want.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Actually, what's funny is that 99% of all viruses spend their time in Windows, but you still have the audacity to say that it is six of one and one half of the other. That takes a special combination of balls and stupidity, my friend.
Yes, this has been true in the past, but perhaps you've noticed plenty of reports on virus issues on macs? Its because there simply weren't enough of them for virus writers to bother with.
As a former operating system programmer, listening to someone say they think any machine is virus proof or worth spending extra for because it can't get a virus demonstrates something much lower down on the ladder than balls and stupidity.
Yes and you can put a high end motor in a compact car (rice rocket) - doesn't make it a high end car. The fit and finish, the wholistic integration of the components - that is what makes a product high quality, not the components themselves.
Never taken one apart then? They're made by one of the same far east manufacturers as dells, lenovo's and so forth, largely from the exact same parts.
A few years ago I took an old acer core 2 duo laptop and slapped osx on it without any shenanigans. Exactly the same hardware as a macboo pro from its era, although the screen panel on the acer was better than the one you'd have gotten in the macbook, and the keyboard and touchpad felt quite a bit better to me than most macbooks.
A few months ago I built a desktop with the exact same parts except the case, screen, keyboard and mouse as the highest end non xeon mac pro you can buy. Cost me $600 and again OS X slid right in because the hardware is the exact same as the apple product. The same. The same pieces with the same model numbers and from the same companies.
But you guys go on and continue contorting yourselves to find the reason why you spent twice as much. There isnt one.
Funny thiing is that I may spend most of my time in an application (or two or three) but when the OS is lacking a decent file manager, a decent clipboard, a robust yet simple recovery system, and nags me every day for updates that require reboot, I DO care about the OS. Productivity goes way down no matter how good the application is if the environment I am working in is poor.
Hmm, windows has an excellent file manager and 57,000,000 free ones if you don't like that one. It also has a decent clipboard and 100,000,000,000 free ones if you don't like that one. Recovery for many things seems plenty fine to me, can you be more specific? Oh, and we only get updates once a week, they install in the middle of the night, and reboots are maybe once a month and also happen after the installs complete while you're asleep.
I also think that 1% of people spend more than 15 minutes a day with a file manager and/or the clipboard.
Aren't we really grasping at the thinnest straws at this point?
Although the trackpad is probably interacted with an awful lot and for most people it is worth a couple hundred or more to have a user input system they like.
And anyone with a windows machine can select from thousands of keyboards, mice, trackpads and trackballs that suit them. Pretty much all for under $100. Where did the other $400 go?
Oh, thats right. They went to setting record level profits built on the backs of 3rd world slave labor, and nothing was passed along to charity or any other beneficial entity.
Apple got rich because a lot of deep pocketed people wanted to be as cool as Steve Jobs. I suppose the fact that Steve had a live in prostitute for many years because he had trouble relating to women is the key swing factor apple buyers can relate to.
yea I just looked at walmarts website, for 600 bucks you get a 17 inch toshiba laptop with a 2.5ghz i5 750 gig hard diskand 6 gigs of ram, meanwhile you would pay 1,200 for a 2.5 ghz i5 with 4 gigs of ram, 500 gig hard drive, 13 inch screen and a OS that doesnt run half of what people want
enjoy your logo
The only "innovation" going on in "the cloud" is the commoditization of routing/switching functions via SDNs (what Google & Nicira are doing). The cloud+tablet hype is an obvious swing back to a centralized model for corporate IT - only this time data centers are primarily accessed via public Internet pipes vs. private broadband. Downsides include loss of robust internally controlled data security and privacy, and increasing dependance upon ISPs and 3rd-party massive arrays of VMs. Whatever threats each of those high-profile entities are exposed to, ie. govts.and other criminal organizations infiltrating & snooping, so to will you and your company be equally visible and vulnerable. It would be very unfortunate if a robust desktop PC marketplace succumbs to cloud-dependent iPad-like dumb terminals. Don't let desktop PCs disappear.
This assumes that she has a retail copy of Windows -- my assumption for anyone who didn't realize that Windows doesn't just come with the computer is using a copy of Windows bundled for OEM installation. Those licenses aren't transferable.
Oh yeah? Then start buying one of those very well-known Logitech webcams (or almost any other of all the UVC-based cams out there), or try to get proper r/w NTFS support working (which package to choose for Snow Leopard? Tiger? Mountain Lion? And should you manually install macfuse? osxfuse? fuse4x? and which custom-tailored community-provided helper shell scripts to use to get GUI mounts working properly?), or try getting UDF support that is on par with other choices (10.4 sucked majorly in that regard, and I'm sure 10.6 has deficiencies there as well), or even buying a scanner (that one is arguably sort of ok), or try getting decent integrated SMART support (yes indeed, my MacBook HDD died...), or try getting write/*read* access to your HDD power management settings. And last time I heard some Linux graphics wiz described OS X as completely sub-par on the graphics system layer front (maybe does not apply to 10.8, though). And the things that Torvalds said about HFS+ were not all too pretty either...
Or just try figuring out where exactly in the GIMP Applications installation tree its Python plugins are supposed to be placed (almost all docs here are Linux-focused).
And don't tell me a twice-broken palm rest and balloon-bulged battery (after two years!) is "quality hardware".
That company has been obsessed with their oh-shiny childs play hardware for too long methinks, with development of their professional products woefully abandoned.
And don't get me started on their developer policy. All things to-be-paid-for, otherwise you'll end up with very outdated versions. Do they want people to do software development to have their under-represented infrastructure improved, or not???
I admit it: I'm an Apple customer. Once.
(not that Mafia$oft is much - if at all - better, admittedly)
"Market Share" can mean one of many things, including installed base.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
If Apple genuinely wanted mass market adoption of MacOS, they could easily do it, and it would become a serious contender for Windows.
All they have to do is release an affordable yet powerful computer, which is easy to do, but the margins are poor.
But they never will. It goes against their high end image. The words Apple and Poor are never allowed to belong in the same sentence.
Alls the pity.
the only news here is that Win7 now has greater marketshare than XP, the rest of the stats are no brainers because,
1/ Vista flopped as an OS, and
2/ OSX doesn't run on 'PCs' (yes, I know that you can hack a PC so that it can)
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Zune. Kin. Windows Phone. Spot. Plays for Sure. Surface. WebTV. Ultimate TV. MSN TV?
They profit out of their cash cows: Windows and Office. But that's 20+ year old vision. About the only new market they've been successful in has been XBox.
No. The virus numbers don't map. You are thinking of trojans, which are a completely different form of malware.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
No. I acn't say that I have. I also Googled for them and the only places I find saying it is a threat are sites trying to sell me antivirus software who don't actually deliver on their promise of listing any. This PC Mag article makes wild claims and then fails to identify a single virus, once again confusing them with Trojans. A search of CERT for OS X Virus turns up nothing but some Windows pages that have OS and version n.n.X in them.
As a long time and current systems programmer I would never claim any OS is virus proof. I never did make such a claim. The fact remains that Linux and OS X are far less susceptible to viruses than Windows.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Um, who cares why. If the fact is that the battery lasts longer then that's the fact. Does anyone actually do the research to find the device that has the most efficient battery usage rather than the device that will let them use it the longest per charge?
Huh? You should do some research before you write your posts. Because this is wrong. Not in my opinion wrong, but in fact wrong.
If you use half a dozen programmes at once, the way the OS handles the following things will matter to you- finding the application, launching the application, switching between the applications, displaying content from multiple applications on screen at once.
Ironically, it is precisely that cluster of functions that Win8 has decided to screw with. Up until now, MS (excluding Bob) has kept that relatively sacred.
Should I make a list of Apple's many, many, failures? What would that prove?
What is your point, exactly?
Required reading for internet skeptics
As far as the specific house example is concerned, the numbers don't quite work as cleanly as you might think. After all expenses are factored, a $200,000 would be $1000 a month over thirty years with at least a 25% down payment. It is true that someone who did not have to rent or bills could save up for a house in about 5 years. This was summarized by the richest women in the world. Stop buying drugs and you won't be poor.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
True, but the patent abuse is more than enough to justify not buying anything from Apple. Or Microsoft, for that matter.
Dilbert RSS feed
"But their [Microsoft's] vision for the past decade or two has mostly been wrong."
Couldn't be clearer.
And enterprise tools. Don't forget all of their moves into the server market and more serious corporate IT stuff.
Besides that, their '20+' year old vision is the foundation for, and the base of most of the successes they have had. There's nothing wrong with that particularly. Cars should drive on the road, so every increment in the last 100 years has been on cars driving on the road. Flying cars have never really materialized as economically feasible. Microsoft have made quite a lot of progress in the desktop paradigm, and there is a legitimate place for small steps towards some cloud connected future rather than leaping in headlong.
As I said, they might not make anything better. But there's a lot of room in the marketplace for a much better cellphone-desktop-homeserver-laptop-productivity+entertainment product suite and they could certainly leverage their existing windows user base to make some really interesting vision materialize. A microsoft built 'Xbox 4' that acts as your cable and other TV enterainment hub, that can, in turn, connect to or act as a home server from which all of your clients (family computers and mobile devices) connect to.
I think the enterprise stuff is really the big factor. If you go into any serious nerds house (especially linux nerds) we've got all sorts of stuff controlled from our PC's, one my buddies controlled his lights from a command line 14 years ago, we've got web servers, file servers, e-mail servers, synchronization and backup tools, user management etc. I don't even use a TV to watch TV, I can do that all with a video capture card and can record TV doing it - and so can everyone else on /. That connected vision is the future, most users aren't capable of it yet, but that's been microsofts deal in the enterprise - you can train someone in a year long course to do a half decent job of managing their corporate stuff for a small business. That's *still* too complicated for a home user, but the easier it gets, the more your 'desktop' is really just your main home server, and everything else is a client to it. Microsofts 'vision' for the future could be stuff we can all do already, (give or take some devices to help) it's just too hard for now - but that's a huge space they can get into.
"half of what people want"
A web browser? To *most* people a computer is just another appliance, like a toaster. It might have a few more features, but in the end they want it for a limited set of tasks. Browsing the web, editing photos, collecting/serving media, and a handful of other tools.
Windows, Linux, OSX all have these tools. It's merely a matter of preference now.
So, when I say that Apple's UI is horrible from a usability perspective and the fandroids say ' the market says otherwise' they're wrong?
Also, as I pointed out earlier, I can make a huge list of Apples failures and make the same claim "Apple's vision for the past decade or two has mostly been wrong".
It's a stupid argument no matter who makes it. Get a clue.
Required reading for internet skeptics
So, when I say that Apple's UI is horrible from a usability perspective and the fandroids say ' the market says otherwise' they're wrong?
That list was Microsoft's failures. Apple's UIs haven't been failures.
Whatever it is you believe is overriding your logic.
Wow, you're not terribly competent are you?
Yes, Apple's UI is a usability nightmare. Go do a google search.
Of course, that's completely irrelevant to the main point. That is, your argument isn't meaningful as I can make the same claim about any company, including Apple, by presenting a massive list of their failures over the years.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Native software will always have significant advantages over web apps. That being the case there's no reason to assume we'll ever do everything via the browser.
Universal thin clients is as old and unfullfilled a prediction as "The year of Linux on the desktop". And you think Microsoft's vision of the future adds any weight? Ha ha.
The browser itself is a barrier to webapps. In an in-browser app, as soon as you need to include third party content (which might be as simple as you're writing a twitter client and want to show the content of a tweeted URL), you have to deal with pages the browser refuses to load because of X-Frame-Options, REST API calls to, say, Dropbox, where that the browser refuses to return the data for the POST request to fetch the deltas because Dropbox hasn't set the CORS headers, etc. Security measures that are their to protect your app from others too, but it won't take you long to realise that if you instead have a native app with a WebKit pane for the third party content, a lot of the headaches the browser introduces go away.
(And of course as browsers auto-update a dozen or more times per year, and there are a few to support, a webapp is aiming at several uncontrolled moving targets)
installing that gps software, running office ... its not what you want, or what you think other people want, its what THEY want, and according to the numbers OSX dosent have what they want, and its more expensive
drum on apple boy drum on
The wally world special has a metal case too?
Hardware-wise, Macs are 2 generations behind. Apple's not even trying in the desktop market.
With the Mac Pro? Definitely. It's the red-headed stepchild of the Mac lineup right now. No one should buy one.
For the rest of the lineup, "2 generations" simply isn't accurate. The laptops are all on Ivy Bridge with current generation GPUs where applicable, the iMac and Mac Mini are on Sandy Bridge (but due to be updated some time this month).
Given that the vast majority (something like 65%+) of their sales are laptops, hardware-wise Apple are pretty current.
The Mac Pro is something of an aberration right now that is on no danger of becoming decent for some time (at least 2013).
Nah, trackpoint sucks dude. Gestures are pretty useless on it, and it is nowhere near as fast or accurate.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Weird, all the professional video editors I know now use PCs - mostly for performance reasons. These are not people who care about the price either - they can just specify much higher spec machines than Apple have available - Mac "Pro" - what a joke! Not sure why you think you need to "maintain" a PC any more than a Mac really. I own/use both, and they're about equal. My PC never crashes, my Mac has crashed. My iPhone and iPad have also locked up (and I'm willing to bet the vast majority of iOS users have had apps quit on them more than once - even though it's a fairly soft experience, that app suddenly disappearing is a crash.
So sorry, but trying to claim a Mac is a better buy for video editing is as ridiculous as people who have been using them for Flash authoring over the years. You're kidding yourself.
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
They're an oil company. They're still making money despite disallowing people to work more than 45 minutes at a time (compulsory PC breaks, you get locked out), monitors that report behaviour such as typing too fast to management, etc.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Also:
Any questions?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
My PCs last pretty much indefinitely. Funny thing, my officemate's Mac has had all kinds of problems.
Guess anecdotal stories are what you make of them.
Interlaced video is a joke. It was kind of neat before we had codecs with inter-frame compression, but it's not 1992 any more.
As a 30-something Linux Fanboy, I am appalled at your sterotyping! Facts are: Microsoft is the technology mafia, Steve Jobs ate children, Linus' tears cure cancer, and Richard Stallman created the universe. I don't understand why you all still get it wrong?! Geez! You are just going to have to admit you are a shamless fanboi! (note difference between the i and y, the y is perfectly acceptable, the i are the ones that need to be put down.)
Grins!
Because when they get out into the real world they won't see any, unless they're in design or something.
My guess is that they buy Windows 7 and then use the downgrade rights to install Vista, just like you would do for XP.
Complete BS. takes a couple of clicks to do it natively.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Well, I think that grandparent was trollish, but, in a short of way, it is really sad that buying better built or better specs equipment from Apple or from other brands has become not a matter of choice, but a matter of affordability even in first world countries for most people. On the plus side, here in Mexico Apple gear is now very affordable because their prices are matched now with the US price, and they keep a lower price for the exchange rate from USD to MX peso than the one in the financial markets or the open market. Apple stuff up to 12 years ago was sold here at least 2 times more expensive in USD than the US price. Adding to that the high VAT, at 15% 12 years ago or 16% now, and you can understand why the mexicans that can afford it do their shopping in the US.
Now, back on topic, the initial investment in Apple hardware is higher than in other brands, but the equipment is built to last, and the things the user interact most like the screen, keyboards and mice/trackpad are better than the common offers from their competitors. The Magsafe connector alone in their laptops helps to make them last far longer than other brands. Personally, I liked more the old style connector than the one used up to the new Retina Macbook pro because it detached more easily from the laptop than the straight angled one, and a discharged battery is less of a disaster than breaking an expensive laptop because you tripped with the power cord. I hope that when Apple's patent runs out in the Magsafe connector all the PC makers copy it. The OS is cheaper than any commercial OS, you can get Mountain Lion for all your machines your house for USD$ 20, how is that expensive? It is less than 3 hours at minimum wage in the USA, and the development tools are free. Now almost all Apple's software is under similar license terms. For the price of the last 3 updates of OS X for all my machines I bought a single license of Windows 7 pro 64 bit. On the performance side, unless you are running the latest games at the highest settings, BOINC, encoding full HD video with a low end video card or being part of a botnet you will not tax enough under common usage any x86 machine built in the last 2 years.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
The sandy bridge onwards gear supports AVX instructions for 256 bit math operations.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
A think client is one that just does UI presentation for the back end where the processing happens (e.g., RDP, dumb terminal, web app, etc). I'm not sure what you are implying is the demarcation point between thin and thick.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
So you're suggesting that if I buy a PC laptop i need a seperate bag for the mouse and keyboard to carry with me. Kinda makes an 11-13" machine sort of pointless, no?
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
I didn't spend anywhere near twice as much?
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
I wouldn't bet money on the native software advantage always being significant. Just compare what a browser tab can load and run now with five years ago, or say 15 years ago over dialup.
i see you havent read the site since, oh, around 1998, when people posted the same exact comment you just posted, and have been posting ever since.
now you could say things have changed since CmdrTaco left (funnily, none of the people in these threads seem to even know or care who he is) but even when he was here it was like this.
im sure the New Yorker has bags of letters just like this, people screaming about the 'rabble' the magazine is allowing into its pages.
Most people want a Toyota, not a BMW.
Well, that's what they buy, anyhow. Because the Toyota meets the base requirements and it leaves them money for the mortgage.
Personally I don't are about metal case, etc. my laptop leaves the house about three times a year. I'll be careful.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
Yes, Apple's UI is a usability nightmare. Go do a google search.
Why the fuck would I need to do a Google search? I know Apple's UIs are not a usability nightmares, as I use them. Google is for people like you that don't know, but want to find support for what they want to believe.
And in any case, the point of discussion was "failure" not usability. All those items I listed were Microsoft failures. They sold very poorly and were prematurely canned. The Kin after a matter of days. And they aren't individual products, they are various "visions" of the future, all of them wrong.
*IF* the topic was bad UIs, we could discount Microsoft's cash cows Windows and Office too. There would be nothing left.
The lack of competence is in your ability to argue logically and consistently.
If you use half a dozen programmes at once, the way the OS handles the following things will matter to you- finding the application, launching the application, switching between the applications, displaying content from multiple applications on screen at once.
Ironically, it is precisely that cluster of functions that Win8 has decided to screw with. Up until now, MS (excluding Bob) has kept that relatively sacred.
I guess the good news is that all of this stuff works fine in win7, and if you dont like it you can get 50,000,000,000 free software snippets to do all of this however you wish? Linux, windows, os x....all about the same at this point, once installed, tweaked and running.
There is no magic faery dust. Its an operating system and it does exactly the same things in approximately the same ways with the same results as any other mature full featured OS.
As a long time and current systems programmer I would never claim any OS is virus proof. I never did make such a claim. The fact remains that Linux and OS X are far less susceptible to viruses than Windows.
I'm sorry, but you're not a very experienced systems programmer if you think any massive, monolithic operating system written by 10,000+ people over decades long periods is less susceptible to viruses than any other. If anything, after years of being lanced by virus writers, I suspect Windows has fewer holes and flaws than OS X. Even apple has the PR machine in reverse, after riding that misconception for years.
http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/paul-thurrotts-wininfo/security-expert-windows-7-secure-mac-os-140118
http://www.techradar.com/us/news/software/operating-systems/apple-tones-down-claims-regarding-os-xs-unassailable-security-1087070
This has been an issue of opportunity and bang for the buck virus writing. Security companies find huge gaping holes in OSX all the time, and eventually Apple fills them. If there were no such holes, why the fixes? Yeah, thats right...people don't fix what wasn't broken.
In the meanwhile, I've gotten exactly zero viruses of any kind on any machine in my household. We use free virus protection, don't surf russian porn sites, and don't click on any dialogue boxes that say "Kan I install my foobar mach 7 browser helper now?". I do see some malware occasionally on some extended family machines, but they were installing random free software, and frankly you can see some of the same problems doing that with a mac...
But the brain has to have a justification for spending too much money on something, so when the air comes out of the virus thing, I'm sure someone will find some obscure and likely incorrect reason to buy these things.
So you're suggesting that if I buy a PC laptop i need a seperate bag for the mouse and keyboard to carry with me. Kinda makes an 11-13" machine sort of pointless, no?
I'm suggesting you buy the pc laptop that has the mouse and keyboard you love already built in. There are 75,000 to choose from. A little more selection option than you get with apple.
Quite simply you could buy about the most expensive reasonable PC laptop with the most awesome keyboard and mouse, and it'd still be cheaper than a comparatively pedestrian apple laptop.
I didn't spend anywhere near twice as much?
Well then, tell me what you bought and what you paid, and I'll show you an equivalent or better windows machine for half the price.
No. You are right. Every OS has exactly the same susceptibility to viruses. There is absolutely no point in having a security model. In the end none of it matters, because Cute Fuzzy Bunny tapped his heals together three times in his ruby slippers and made it so.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Nah, trackpoint sucks dude. Gestures are pretty useless on it, and it is nowhere near as fast or accurate.
Like anything else, practice makes perfect. I've seen some trackpoint slingers in some meeting presentations whose cursor precision makes my mousing look like I've got Parkinsons.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Again, as you seem incapable of reading, Apples UI is a different issue from a different example. Yes, it is a usability nightmare. From the zillions of functions crammed in to the home button attached to three different was to press it, the functions of which change with context! (If you don't know why this is bad design, you need to do some serious reading.) Look at the absolutely abysmal suite of gestures -- hell, just the five-finger swipe is all you need to see how poorly their UI adapted to changing user expectations. (A five-finger swipe is not just poor ergonomics, it's unintuitive and not discoverable. Compare the same functions on a properly designed UI like on the PlayBook) That's just for starters. Maybe you should pull your head out of Job's rotting ass and look at their UI objectively. If you're incapable of that, at least try out a properly designed UI for comparison.
The original point: I can list just as many failed products and initiatives for Apple as you do Microsoft -- does that mean that "their vision for the past decade or two has mostly been wrong." Of course not.
Your argument is pathetic. Get a clue.
Required reading for internet skeptics
In your own definition you say "just does UI presentation" and "web app" in the same sentance. Web apps can do a lot of the work client side. The "just does UI presentation" idea isn't what modern thin clients (the ones acutally being sold these days) are about, which is "boot from firmware, no apps installed or user data stored". They have a lot of processing power, and can do a lot of client side work, but when you reset one it's back to the default state. Mostly what the user sees is RDP (or VMware View or whatever), but there's a lot under the covers.
The selling point of moder thin clients is "no tech support for the device": no software installs, no OS patching (not quite true, there are FW updates), none of the usual desktop hassles, and cheap enough that they're not worth repairing if they have a hardware problem. They're really taking off in call centers and other shops where you want minimal user state that follows the user to whatever desk he logs in from.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Who cares about "viruses" as you define them? The current threat is app payloads: malicious banner ads, and otherwise legitimate documents with hidden malware. "Trojan" usually implies the user knowingly installing software (just not what he thinks), which is not the case here. For example, the current problem in the with the JRE exploit: if you're running Java and have a Java plugin in your browser, whether you get can get infected from simply visiting a web page depends on application settings (your web browser plug in settings), not the OS. PDF exploits are similar: your choice of Acrobat vs Foxit may matters, but not your choice of OS.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Again, as you seem incapable of reading
And now you're on to nonsensical insults. Clearly I can read and type, otherwise we wouldn't be having this correspondence.
Apples UI is a different issue from a different example. Yes, it is a usability nightmare. From the zillions of functions crammed in to the home button
Ah, finally it becomes clear you're talking about the iOS UI. And you're showing a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. All GUI OSs have elements that change with context. A real UI designer knows it's an area which CAN cause confusion, but is also a way to put in more functionality without cluttering the UI. It needs to be designed intelligently.
An idiot that doesn't know UI design, and repeats what he finds on Google, without understanding it.
iOS users are not confused by the operation on the Home Button. It's not a bad design.
The original point: I can list just as many failed products and initiatives for Apple as you do Microsoft -- does that mean that "their vision for the past decade or two has mostly been wrong." Of course not.
Who said it did? The first was your reply comment, the latter was my earlier one.
And though you repeat you can find as many failed Apple products as I can failed Microsoft products, you haven't done so. You've just kept on changing the topic.
Your argument is pathetic. Get a clue.
There's nothing wrong with the logic in MY arguments, sunshine. You entered the thread saying that the market shows Microsoft isn't wrong. And then each comment after that fails to follow the same point as the last. You argue like a young girl.
Who said it did?
You did. I quoted you directly.
This is a waste of time. I should have known, as you seem hell-bent on becoming the new Bonch.
i'd continue to argue about the iOS UI but it's clear that you're not competent enough to participate in that discussion.
Required reading for internet skeptics
I don't define them. If you had a clue what you were talking about you would know that. I also don't refer to motorcycles as tricycles, because I'm really weird about insisting that words actually have meaning. Obviously, it isn't important to you if you know what you say.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
You did. I quoted you directly.
No I didn't. You're a fucking imbecile.
You didn't? What about these posts then?
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3090857&cid=41213407
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3090857&cid=41216499
Some people's children...
Required reading for internet skeptics
Neither of them contain what you said was a quote, imbecile.
Yes, they did.
The original point: I can list just as many failed products and initiatives for Apple as you do Microsoft -- does that mean that "their vision for the past decade or two has mostly been wrong.",/b> Of course not.
Who said it did? The first was your reply comment, the latter was my earlier one.
It just goes to show how incompetent the Apple zealot truly is...
Required reading for internet skeptics
Do you get some kind of perverse pleasure about of being an imbecile?
Hey, it's not my fault that you're wrong. No need to resort to name-calling.
You'll get over it. Give Steve's rotting corpse some extra "love" time tonight and I'm sure you'll feel better.
Required reading for internet skeptics
No. You are right. Every OS has exactly the same susceptibility to viruses. There is absolutely no point in having a security model. In the end none of it matters, because Cute Fuzzy Bunny tapped his heals together three times in his ruby slippers and made it so.
Not very bright and petulant is no way to go through life son. I worked on the team that developed vax/vms, and worked for Jim Allchin and David Cutler before they went to microsoft to create the current instances of windows. Take the advice of a more experienced person...
To say that any large code piece is more or less susceptible to viruses is in and of itself foolish. One would have to have the imagination, tools and forethought of every person that might choose to hack the product to prevent it from being hacked, and in the process of making an operating system bulletproof, it'd also become unusable due to the onerous security. Not to mention there are security holes in every driver, app and plug in, and since most computers have software from a dozen or more suppliers...to create any sort of bulletproof or even nearly so system would be ridiculously implausible. About all you can do is hit 90%-95% and hope the user is smart enough to not do too many stupid things.
I gave you several informative links, but as is usually the case with apple stuff, the buyers respond like its a religion or staunch political perspective. Facts aren't important, because we've got our minds made up. Yet the facts remain that at almost any given time in the last 5 years, OS X has had more unpatched security holes in it than windows, and usually they're considered higher severity
But most hackers don't bother, because they can nail 50 windows idiots by getting them to click on something while they might only have a shot at one mac user, simply because there aren't that many. It'd be like developing a hack for a 1920's steam engine. You could do it, probably easily...but whats the point?
That's pretty good advice. Could you point me to any?
That is a phenomenally absurd statement. Your claim suggests that there is no such thing as slint, for example. If I have two code bases - one which has code that passes slint in its entirety and one which is chock full of code that does not - then I would be a moron not to say that the latter is more susceptible to viruses. It's great that you were David Cutler's chauffeur, but it doesn't qualify you to have opinions which you have firmly established are unfounded in skill or knowledge of security principles.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Man.
I'm 45. I'm not old.
You could call me Dennis.
I drank what? -- Socrates
You underline the fact you're an imbecile. And a nasty one at that.
Apparently you think that running a hunk of code through a checker means its virus proof, or moreso than another product.
I'm tempted to say something like "epic fail", but that'd be an insult to epic failures everywhere.
You are truly a moron.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
For many years, I've seen Windows share (as measured on various websites I own) hover around 70%, with MacOS climbing to around 20%. Linux has been stable in the range 5-10% - the remaining 1-2% is usually classified as "unknown".
My website data may be atypical, but it can't be _that_ atypical.