Apple is actually pretty good a QC. We have a pile of Dell laptops. (silence, knowing nods from the audience.)
The sheer number of "problems" stems from the fact Apple develops both the hardware and the software. If you look at just the number of bugs in the OS, they are pretty good compared to the industry. When you look at just the bugs in the software, they are pretty good compared to the industry. When you look at the hardware... well they are still pretty good. (But only because PC's are utter crap.)
There are days I wish AT&T never broke up, so that all I would have to support are Unix dumb terminals running on a Giant mainframe somewhere in the bowels of the phone company.
No offense, but I think you have a simplified perspective on the interface design process at Microsoft if you think developers just do what they feel like.
Explain "Clippy", "Bob", and why I need to click "Start" to turn off the machine.
If Apple wants to increase Profit, it needs to increase Market Share. Margins are already too high for 90% of the market.
That doesn't make sense. Selling more computers will undoubtedly increase profits. Yes. But market share has nothing to do with the number of computers you sell.
I bought Mac servers despite the fact they were more expensive than PC servers. Part of the it was the fact that a dual processor G5 kicks the shit out of any currently available PC rackmount in the market. Part of it was the fact that Apple put together a server system the comes standard with all the features I was looking for. (Adding fiber channel and Serial ATA to PC servers suddenly makes them WAY more expensive.)
Part of it was that Free-BSD will not only run on the hardware, we can get 24 hour warm body tech support, and vendor supplied drivers. (Because OSX is really FreeBSD underneath.)
In my "market" I really don't care how many other servers the vendor sells. I just want a server that does W,X and Y, costs less than Z, and will run for 3 years without needing a major upgrade.
Bullhockey. Microsoft has burned a lot of bridges with Licensing 6.0. I know. I was there. The "IBM compadible" market hasn't been "IBM compadible" since the introduction of the i286. It's the WinTel market, and it's running into serious scaling issues. Intel has been trying to move us all over to Itanium for years. "IBM Compadibles" today are PPCs running mainframe or mini software.
Microsoft has gotten us all used to changing Operating systems every 3 years. They have also gotten us used to our old programs not longer working. Frankly if the next Microsoft OS is non-backward compadible as they say it will be, most people are going to have an easier (and cheaper) time migrating to something else.
By that time Linux will have it's usability issues squared away, and OSX will have been stable for years, not to mention have a few thousand software titles under it's belt.
We just bought a pile of G5 rackmounts and I ported our in-house Linux apps over in less than a day. They even bundle in all of the compiler and make tools you need to compile your Unix apps. And even better, they work.
(And for the record, I went Mac because after 3 years I'm tired of being the only person in the building who can fix certain problems.)
I hate to be a nag, but designing a mother board is like designing a car. It's like saying a Rolls is just a Benz with a different exhaust manifold. About the only thing most cars have in comment is the fact they use a Sterling 4-stroke combustion cycle. (Well, except for the Wenkel rotory engines, diesels...)
G5 servers employ a completely different bus than the G4, which is completely different from the G3, etc. An AMD Athlon uses a different bus than an Intel P4, which is different still from an Intel PIII, etc. Heck, just google around for all the different types of RAM. Yes, desktop PC's are standardized, but I can assure you that server hardware can get pretty exotic.
And the brief experiment with licensing the OS revealed that beyond cannibalizing their own market, third party vendors can also tarnish the brand with poor quality control. We had a pile of MacOS clones when I took over our network in '99. People say Apples are crap, well these things made Apples look great in comparison. (At least Apple mints a few million of the same model at a time so there is a spare parts market.)
Yes. Despite the fact that Outlook is banned on my network, our Marketing folks insist on using it for their calendar.
If it were up to them we would be running Exchange. Thank God it isn't. No wait. Thank God that I know what the hell I'm doing, and I have management that have been there long enough to remember WHY we do it that way.
Not to cast aspersions, but I regularly tell my CEO, no. That isn't going to work on our network. In fact it's going to require more staff to maintain, require expensive licenses, and...
And I never get past those 2 points. (Joys of working for a non-profit.) It helps that I've been with the company 6 years, built the current data center from scratch, introduced email to the entire staff, and suggested we use Linux back before linux was cool.
Well, our IT department is writing one using MySQL and Tclhttpd. (Some kind soul just wrote a WebDav module for the webserver.)
I like Tclhttpd because it's a webserver implemented as a TCL package. I can hack, override, or out-in-out reimplement any chunk of the system. (For instance, I rewrote a chunk of the mime handler to deal with cases where a file is being pulled from an index and has to be renamed for the client.)
We are also a postfix shop. (I'm in the middle of migrating our Email setup from Gentoo to OS x.)
Work just bought me a 12" iBook (1Ghz). I regularly get 5+ hours out of the battery.
Between that and the sleep function I don't find myself running for a power outlet very often. My first day with it I had flopped it on my desk, and after 3 hours of regular work I realized that the cord was not plugged in. I still had 25% of the battery.
And that was with compiling and installing big chunks of software. (And keep in mind that was 3 hours on top of my 40 minute bus ride to work.)
I was doing some consulting work for a coffee shop, and the owner's biggest beef was people who indescriminately plug into her place. They often have a habit of unplugging anything that is in their way, beit lights, a radio, whatever.
Please folks, before we become social pariahs, ask before you plug.
I'm joining the love fest. My new 12" iBook is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I love the wireless coverage, but most of all I love the battery.
I have yet to drain the sucker.
To boot I had all my in-house Linux apps ported to Darwin in 2 days. (Folks, forget Gentoo for Darwin. It's not ready for prime time, just compile the apps yourself. I only had a few binary TCL extension to port, so YMMV.)
Punch him? Hell any true nerd would employ the proper tool to accumulate power throughout the entire arm motion, and apply leverage to focus the energy in a particular spot.
Whether that object is a baseball bat, golf club, or clue-by-four is a matter of personal preference.
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The sheer number of "problems" stems from the fact Apple develops both the hardware and the software. If you look at just the number of bugs in the OS, they are pretty good compared to the industry. When you look at just the bugs in the software, they are pretty good compared to the industry. When you look at the hardware... well they are still pretty good. (But only because PC's are utter crap.)
There are days I wish AT&T never broke up, so that all I would have to support are Unix dumb terminals running on a Giant mainframe somewhere in the bowels of the phone company.
Explain "Clippy", "Bob", and why I need to click "Start" to turn off the machine.
That doesn't make sense. Selling more computers will undoubtedly increase profits. Yes. But market share has nothing to do with the number of computers you sell.
I bought Mac servers despite the fact they were more expensive than PC servers. Part of the it was the fact that a dual processor G5 kicks the shit out of any currently available PC rackmount in the market. Part of it was the fact that Apple put together a server system the comes standard with all the features I was looking for. (Adding fiber channel and Serial ATA to PC servers suddenly makes them WAY more expensive.)
Part of it was that Free-BSD will not only run on the hardware, we can get 24 hour warm body tech support, and vendor supplied drivers. (Because OSX is really FreeBSD underneath.)
In my "market" I really don't care how many other servers the vendor sells. I just want a server that does W,X and Y, costs less than Z, and will run for 3 years without needing a major upgrade.
Bullhockey. Microsoft has burned a lot of bridges with Licensing 6.0. I know. I was there. The "IBM compadible" market hasn't been "IBM compadible" since the introduction of the i286. It's the WinTel market, and it's running into serious scaling issues. Intel has been trying to move us all over to Itanium for years. "IBM Compadibles" today are PPCs running mainframe or mini software.
Microsoft has gotten us all used to changing Operating systems every 3 years. They have also gotten us used to our old programs not longer working. Frankly if the next Microsoft OS is non-backward compadible as they say it will be, most people are going to have an easier (and cheaper) time migrating to something else.
By that time Linux will have it's usability issues squared away, and OSX will have been stable for years, not to mention have a few thousand software titles under it's belt.
We just bought a pile of G5 rackmounts and I ported our in-house Linux apps over in less than a day. They even bundle in all of the compiler and make tools you need to compile your Unix apps. And even better, they work.
(And for the record, I went Mac because after 3 years I'm tired of being the only person in the building who can fix certain problems.)
G5 servers employ a completely different bus than the G4, which is completely different from the G3, etc. An AMD Athlon uses a different bus than an Intel P4, which is different still from an Intel PIII, etc. Heck, just google around for all the different types of RAM. Yes, desktop PC's are standardized, but I can assure you that server hardware can get pretty exotic.
And the brief experiment with licensing the OS revealed that beyond cannibalizing their own market, third party vendors can also tarnish the brand with poor quality control. We had a pile of MacOS clones when I took over our network in '99. People say Apples are crap, well these things made Apples look great in comparison. (At least Apple mints a few million of the same model at a time so there is a spare parts market.)
Strip the passengers out of a cessna. That's 150-300 kilos right there.
I was trying to agree with you. But my ramble about aerial pipe bombs was truncated down to the first 2 lines when I realized how scary it was.
Hell, the cost of flying lessons dwarfs the cost of the entire DIYnproject, even if the try to use gold plated parts.
Well you sometimes hear about human pilots freezing up too...
If it were up to them we would be running Exchange. Thank God it isn't. No wait. Thank God that I know what the hell I'm doing, and I have management that have been there long enough to remember WHY we do it that way.
And I never get past those 2 points. (Joys of working for a non-profit.) It helps that I've been with the company 6 years, built the current data center from scratch, introduced email to the entire staff, and suggested we use Linux back before linux was cool.
I like Tclhttpd because it's a webserver implemented as a TCL package. I can hack, override, or out-in-out reimplement any chunk of the system. (For instance, I rewrote a chunk of the mime handler to deal with cases where a file is being pulled from an index and has to be renamed for the client.)
We are also a postfix shop. (I'm in the middle of migrating our Email setup from Gentoo to OS x.)
I hate to break it to you, but Dells, HPaqs, catch fire too.
You plug in an aftermarket trackball or clitpoint. If the wire disturbs you, the unit has built-in bluetooth.
I've seen devices that will happily clip (or be superglued) to the side of your laptop's case. [see sig]
A prophet is never regarded in his home town, I guess.
Between that and the sleep function I don't find myself running for a power outlet very often. My first day with it I had flopped it on my desk, and after 3 hours of regular work I realized that the cord was not plugged in. I still had 25% of the battery.
And that was with compiling and installing big chunks of software. (And keep in mind that was 3 hours on top of my 40 minute bus ride to work.)
Please folks, before we become social pariahs, ask before you plug.
I take it I'm not the only one who, upon unwrapping his iBook, busted root and hacked pam to allow su - to take me where I wanted to go, unmolested.
You realize, of course, that the unit does have 2 perfectly functioning USB ports...
I have yet to drain the sucker.
To boot I had all my in-house Linux apps ported to Darwin in 2 days. (Folks, forget Gentoo for Darwin. It's not ready for prime time, just compile the apps yourself. I only had a few binary TCL extension to port, so YMMV.)
I use the thing every day on my commute to work.
This is on a factory model, no aftermarket batteries, no special hacks.
I think the press have been watching too many Vampire movies where taking out the lead vampire miraculously solves the problem in under 90 minutes.
If you are willing to compromise on the speed, and increase the gore, CNN would probably cover it. Throw in nudity, and FOX would have it for sure.
Whether that object is a baseball bat, golf club, or clue-by-four is a matter of personal preference.