How often does Apple release patches and the like? I'm just curious to see how it compares to say Windows. Apple has a couple flavors of updates. Their Security Updates are issued once every few weeks (monthly perhaps) and contain just that, security related patches. May 3 was Security Update update 2005-005 - the fifth in as many months.
Other updates come in the form of point releases (10.3.8 -> 10.3.9 for instance). They include any Security Updates that might have occured and gracefully manage updating multiple point releases all at once.
Updates usually are separated one for Client and one for Server flavors of Mac OS X.
Do they have some sort of web-interface like Windows-update, or is it a self-contained program, or is it an open thing that you can use whatever browser/program you'd like to download? Updates can be had in a variety of ways. Apple posts them on the support.apple.com site along with a list of areas they address so you know what you are getting into or can distirbute the updates across an office, but probably the majority are downloaded and installed automatically using the Software Update tool. This can be triggered manually (when you read about an update) or set to run "automagically". It will also downlaod updates relevant to your configuration. For instance, if you have an iSight video camera, or an iPod, it knows and will alert you if there is an update. If not, it won't bother you unless you connect one of those devices and it goes and gets the updates then. Same with software like iPhoto - you won't be bothered unless you install the software.
Are there lots of little patches all the time, or just big lumps of patches like this one? Security Updates are very small and about monthly. Point releases are less frequent and larger. Mac OS X 10.3 Panther had 9 point releases making 10.3.9 the last such point release in the life cycle. The article is addressing the largest Security Update I know of.
The best part of Apple's Software Update is that it does not always require a restart (though it does some times) and it will prompt one to enter an administrative password, just like other software installs, so you can't accidentally initiate updates.
Though I support all software vendors issuing quality products the first go round, I recognize QA cannot catch ever issue and I find it cause for minor cellebration when Microsoft, Apple, the FOSS community, or any developer for that matter issues free patches for their work.
This is a wonderful benefit of the Internet. No waiting for CDs in the mail. No waiting until a new version hit store shelves. I remember running a BBS with WWIV and being mailed 5.25" floppies with the latest improved and patch source.
Three cheers for software vendors and the Internet for giving us multi-megabyte patches free and instantly!
True that! But because Dell sells Red Hat Linux (or Wal-mart sells Linspire) doesn't mean Microsoft lost either.
I believe one of the reasons AMD is able to create superior processors is because they don't crank out nearly the volume that intel does.
Have you lost your mind?
If they did it would take them longer and cost more to upgrade the fabs each generation.
But if AMD had Intel's volume, they would also have additional revenues to retool.
As for "take longer/cost more", most people agree that Feature-Resources($)-Time are all interconnected where you can affect one by altering the other two. If AMD had a fixed feature set ("retooling") and threw lots of resources ($) at it, it wouldn't have to take a long time.
forgive me for being too phylosophical about the Internet but...
If the Internet is about a free and imediate exchange of global information, and internet search engines are leading us towards internet archives, does requiring a subscription to access content ensure that that very content will not be archived by the greater Internet body of knowledge?
If $50 a year gets you access to NYT articles since 1851, what happens in another 154 years when many more NYT articles are not in the Google archives?
NYT and others will have to provide some way to plug in their par-to-view archives with the greater Google archives in the year 2159 to get all that content from 300 years ago.
I recently had my own OSS spam filter catch a wedding announcement of a friend from college because even though several recipients were in my contact list, many were not.
Too bad we cannot answer our phones, our US mailboxes, or even check email without constant threat of unsolicited advertisement or identity theft.
But why Apple products so frequently these days? Using the same premiss, there are other product lines that could, but do not, follow: - cell phones certainly have a large 3rd party market, but there is hardly the consumer community for the Nokia XYZ123. - game consoles look like a good target too, with all their 3rd party controlers and games, but again, passionate communities for gamers seem more focused on the games than the console's themselves. I recall people bashing console X or Y because of the titles available. With Apple products, it seems more the focus on the product, not the add-ons. - PC makers like Dell or Gateway or HP who sell millions each quarter clear the "popularity" question. There are "extensible" and in theory, are built for "longevity", but any of those three companies would shout for joy to have the Consumer Economy of Apple's Mac mini, even though it has only be available for a few months.
What is it about Apple's products that make them so apt to spark community?
see the XMLHTTP request ? that updates the counter with the correct number every minute, so yeah while it isnt bang on "real time" its a pretty innovative approach to get there
I didn't say the number wasn't close, I just said it wasn't "real time". Obviously I read the code or I couldn't have posted the comment.
Remember Konfabulator? You know, the program that Dashboard totally ripped off and has destroyed the market for?
True enough that Dashboard widgets take a page right out of Konfabulator's playbook and nothing but Job's RDF can distort that fact.
Still, Deshboard is really just a next version of Sherlock, Apple's tool for searching the yellow pages, tracking packages, and looking up movie times, all rolled into a Konfabulator desktop model.
Seems like the right thing for Apple to have done would be to buy Konfabulator out right.
Take a look at the code and you will see that it gets a seed from the server and calculates a rate: if (last_time && time - last_time != 0) {
download_rate = calculate_rate(time, count);
tick_time = Math.round(1000.0 / download_rate); } else {
download_rate = initial_rate;
tick_time = Math.round(1000.0 / download_rate); }
It uses the rate so that the browser is somewhat accurate, but not truly.
Also of note, the default rate is 2.0/second: var initial_rate = 2.0;// The initial rate, in downloads/second.
It looks like even though Tiger has only been out a few hours, Apple is well on its way to building three more "community economies".
I find it so interesting that the iPod (in all its flavors) and Mac mini have oodles of accessories foreach.
With Spotlight, Dashboard, and Automator all generating the software equvalent of these accessories, it seems appropriate to explore the "community economies" Apple is creating.
Perhaps there is a better phrase than "community economies" to describe the markets that emerge from supporting a specific product as well as the communities that for from them (take for instance, iPod community websites). Whatever they may be called, it is interesting how Apple seems more capable than other manufacturers, even in other spaces, to develop these "community economies".
But why is this becoming common for Apple products? Apple seems second only to automobile makers in creating accessory markets and communities of owners & supporters. The same doesn't exist for GAP or Sony or even Microsoft, though an argument can be made that the latter has a huge community of PC software vendors.
But more than the vendors, it is the concept of little sub-economies and users so specific to a particular product that is very interesting to me.
Okay, let's just say I am looking for the company that sells computer hardware and software and I know the name of the company is "Tiger something or other". So I search for "Tiger".
Now your hits may varry, but what I got was: (0) Google "News results for tiger" - linking to three Apple OS X Tiger related articles but this doesn't really count since Tiger Direct wouldn't show up in News anyway. (1) A link to 5 Tigers information center that is about live tigers (2) Well what have we here? Tiger Direct - the #2 result after a website about real Tigers!!??!! (3) Tiger Haven with more stuff about real tigers (4) Finally, Apple's OS X Tiger website - in at number 4
In the top ten are also sites on Tiger Woods and - huh? Tiger Airways!!! Did someone's lawyers miss something here?
So let's try the search again, but this time with "Tiger Software" (0) Google News links to two stories, both on Apple OS X Tiger Oh here it is! This must be what has Tiger Direct's lawyers in a fuss: (1) Tiger Direct!!!! Number one on the results! (2) The Paper Tiger - SOFTWARE to organize something or other (3) Somesite talking about TIGER software - but it isn't Apple's OS X Tiger - huh? (4) Finally Zeropaid with a news bit about Apple OS X Tiger.
Well I must be out to lunch because the two most obviously offensive Google searches (to me anyway) came up empty.
Even searches like "buy tiger" come up with Tiger Woods, Tiger tables, some UK site not about Apple, and even an Amazon link in the top 5 but it is for selling Tiger Woods stuff, not OS X.
This lawsuit is stupid - has erased any hope of me ever buying from Tiger Direct, and is intended to drive traffic to TigerDirect.com so I suggest you don't go there unless you are going to complain.
Just a note about iChat AV and its ability to do a 4 person chat. They don't advertise this, but apparently you need a G5 to initiate the chats. If your Mac is anything less, like a notebook or the Mini, you're S.O.L.
How do you know this? Is there a webpage you can point me to? I have a PowerBook so this is disturbing to read.
Everyone is a buzz about Spotloght and it is no doubt going to be great, but I am also looking forward to improving productivity with Automator.
As with lots of scripting languages, sometimes it is just plain faster to brute force what you are doing than sit down, recall a language syntax and function set, write a script, give it a test, and then run it. What I see as cool about Automator is that it makes building a script so freaking easy and fast and since you can call scripts with scripts, you can build a nice function library of scripts to make the process even faster.
I am also digging on Dashboard. At first I didn't like the idea of a second desktop that is different than the first, and I will have to try before I agree that it makes sense to keep these on a different desktop, but I love the idea of the small applets (I used Konfabulator breifly) for small tasks like weather, itunes, stock tickers, and calculator. That they take minimal system memory means I will be more apt to keep them open and within easy reach without having to launch the applicaiton.
Lastly, I am totally excited about iChat AV supporting up to four people (including me) in a video chat. It just looks so cool to see three people sitting around the virtual room like that and this feature is making me finally break down and buy the iSight. It looks like the best autofocusing camera available for $150.
I don't want to spend $500+ for a calculator either.
Then don't buy any computer. What the hell do you think they are anyway?
The Mac mini is a TOTALLY capable computer for even upper end user and low end professional work like movie editing. Plus, it comes with Tiger and iLife which are about half the cost if purchased seprately from Apple anyway.
...when Apple was shipping that turd pile called "System 9" no one was criticizing the "wizards" or the "control panel". Now all of the sudden it's "crap". Funny that.
Two things: (1) since when is something Apple does "untouchable" and cannot be criticized? (2) I didn't say Apple's System 9 control panels rocked, I said the way that Apple's Spotlight lets you type what you want to do and then finds the wizard is what rocks.
As for your enlightening article about the Start menu, it doesn't carry weight with me. So some Microsoft employee (note the use of "we" in the article) wrote a blog to justify it. So what? No doubt there is justification for it. So what? That doesn't make it right, intuitive, or a feature that becomes untouchable in future OS revisions, it just makes it a feature so bad that someone had to write a justisification for it.
The rest of your dumb rant aside,... Why do we have to ignor the rest of my dumb rant? Because you cannot refute it or because it is "dumb"?
Microsoft has to cater to several hundred million people with whatever ships in Longhorn. Let me know when you get to that point and we'll talk about how much you suck because you're not making enough changes to your core product that some random guy in Slashdot seems to think are necessary.
Right. Don't mind me. I'm just the user base, the target audience, the person who Microsoft wants to sell this product to or better yet give this product to so that I will recommend it be deployed in my company.
The line of "let me know when you do [insert achievement] and then you can bash it" is absolutely hard headed. I suppose a male obstitrician should never give a woman advice on her pregnancy, or perhaps NASA ground control shouldn't tell the astronaughts what to do in space.
I stand by my statement that Microsoft's feet are firmly planted and they are only growing as far as they can reach without taking a step. Too bad for us as users, but too bad for MS share holders too.
Okay, so this is "pre-beta" (isn't that called "Alpha"?) but what I see from the limited information is that MS is really afraid to take some giant leaps.
Looking at other OS updates that made major improvements (Mac OS -> OS X, OS/2 -> OS/2 Warp, Linux pre-boot floppy -> Red Hat Fedora), they all abandoned antiquated concepts in favor of innovation.
Take for example the "Control Panel". Same old Windows crap. Tons of grouped 'wizards' for managing your system. Why not take a page out of Apple's Spotlight book and allow the user to type in what they are wanting to do "add a user", "change desktop wallpaper" and give them the control.
Other examples? Okay, the Start menu is old and busted. It was in Win95 and it still is. Can't MS, in their innovative, new OS, get with the usability? I'm not saying Apple's Dock or Linux's menu bar and virtual desktops are better, I'm just saying that they are CLOSER to providing an intuitive interface. Why the hell would anyone go to "Start" to logout?
Just consider for a moment that the My Documents screenshot takes your eye on a journey just to figure out what is going on. For navigation we have what looks like a left nav tree structure, but we also have a drop down at the top (above the menu for goodness sakes!) and there is ofcourse the window name, "My Documents". I am assuming there is a third way to navigate, via the left arrow to the side of the drop down - whew, what is a computer novice to do? Then there is all the text - six menu bar options, presumably with drop downs, and four columns of file information (though it is not displaying the files in the columns, it is displaying them in an icons view, leading me to believe this is a mockup and not a real screen). Lastly, there is this summary with a folder icon (won't it ALWAYS be a folder icon? and, what's this, a link to "Show all properties..." Who is designing this screen anyway?
Of course, the file browser isn't what Longhorn is all about, but it does show that MS isn't reaching too far from where their feet are firmly planted and it also shows that integrating system wide searching ontop of this design is going to ADD confusion and complexity, not eliminate it.
The rise of this market was independent of anthing happening in the PC (i.e., Wintel) world.
I disagree. THe PC world brought us the digital communication era. It was the need to have email, calendaring, and contacts available from a remote (palm top) device that made PDAs/Treos/Blackberries even possible.
If this were not the case, then why was the Apple Newton an ultimate failure, though the Palm devices ignited the market? (hint: Newton was introduced before the availability of the information noted above.)
Slashdot Mirror
maybe this could help. Also this may hold some clues. Both feature keyword searching.
How often does Apple release patches and the like? I'm just curious to see how it compares to say Windows.
Apple has a couple flavors of updates. Their Security Updates are issued once every few weeks (monthly perhaps) and contain just that, security related patches. May 3 was Security Update update 2005-005 - the fifth in as many months.
Other updates come in the form of point releases (10.3.8 -> 10.3.9 for instance). They include any Security Updates that might have occured and gracefully manage updating multiple point releases all at once.
Updates usually are separated one for Client and one for Server flavors of Mac OS X.
Do they have some sort of web-interface like Windows-update, or is it a self-contained program, or is it an open thing that you can use whatever browser/program you'd like to download?
Updates can be had in a variety of ways. Apple posts them on the support.apple.com site along with a list of areas they address so you know what you are getting into or can distirbute the updates across an office, but probably the majority are downloaded and installed automatically using the Software Update tool. This can be triggered manually (when you read about an update) or set to run "automagically". It will also downlaod updates relevant to your configuration. For instance, if you have an iSight video camera, or an iPod, it knows and will alert you if there is an update. If not, it won't bother you unless you connect one of those devices and it goes and gets the updates then. Same with software like iPhoto - you won't be bothered unless you install the software.
Are there lots of little patches all the time, or just big lumps of patches like this one?
Security Updates are very small and about monthly. Point releases are less frequent and larger. Mac OS X 10.3 Panther had 9 point releases making 10.3.9 the last such point release in the life cycle. The article is addressing the largest Security Update I know of.
The best part of Apple's Software Update is that it does not always require a restart (though it does some times) and it will prompt one to enter an administrative password, just like other software installs, so you can't accidentally initiate updates.
Though I support all software vendors issuing quality products the first go round, I recognize QA cannot catch ever issue and I find it cause for minor cellebration when Microsoft, Apple, the FOSS community, or any developer for that matter issues free patches for their work.
This is a wonderful benefit of the Internet. No waiting for CDs in the mail. No waiting until a new version hit store shelves. I remember running a BBS with WWIV and being mailed 5.25" floppies with the latest improved and patch source.
Three cheers for software vendors and the Internet for giving us multi-megabyte patches free and instantly!
Who's got a list of format's not hacked?
- PSP UMB
- N Gage
- DVD
- Audio CD
- DVD Audio
all have been visited by hackers
Intel hasn't lost until Dell sells AMD
True that! But because Dell sells Red Hat Linux (or Wal-mart sells Linspire) doesn't mean Microsoft lost either.
I believe one of the reasons AMD is able to create superior processors is because they don't crank out nearly the volume that intel does.
Have you lost your mind?
If they did it would take them longer and cost more to upgrade the fabs each generation.
But if AMD had Intel's volume, they would also have additional revenues to retool.
As for "take longer/cost more", most people agree that Feature-Resources($)-Time are all interconnected where you can affect one by altering the other two. If AMD had a fixed feature set ("retooling") and threw lots of resources ($) at it, it wouldn't have to take a long time.
I am interested how AMD's dual core offerings compare to Freescale MPC8641D dual core chips and other dual core PowerPC offerings in IBM's pipeline.
Does anyone have any insight into the landscape of the emerging dual core market space - who is ahead and who is not (besides Intel)?
forgive me for being too phylosophical about the Internet but...
If the Internet is about a free and imediate exchange of global information, and internet search engines are leading us towards internet archives, does requiring a subscription to access content ensure that that very content will not be archived by the greater Internet body of knowledge?
If $50 a year gets you access to NYT articles since 1851, what happens in another 154 years when many more NYT articles are not in the Google archives?
NYT and others will have to provide some way to plug in their par-to-view archives with the greater Google archives in the year 2159 to get all that content from 300 years ago.
No seriously, I don't get it.
...but I don't get how it relates to copywrite for McDonald and McMunchies.
So the Lord MacDonald guy appointed Ronald McDonald, the mascot with red hair, to be his body guard.
Okay, that is some very funny stuff...
I don't get it....
So Lord MacDonald apointed McDonald's mascot, Ronald McDonald, to be his body guard? Then he paid him £1 for a certificate?
What did I miss?
I recently had my own OSS spam filter catch a wedding announcement of a friend from college because even though several recipients were in my contact list, many were not.
Too bad we cannot answer our phones, our US mailboxes, or even check email without constant threat of unsolicited advertisement or identity theft.
Popularity + Extensibility + Longevity = Consumer Economy
Very insightful comments you made.
But why Apple products so frequently these days? Using the same premiss, there are other product lines that could, but do not, follow:
- cell phones certainly have a large 3rd party market, but there is hardly the consumer community for the Nokia XYZ123.
- game consoles look like a good target too, with all their 3rd party controlers and games, but again, passionate communities for gamers seem more focused on the games than the console's themselves. I recall people bashing console X or Y because of the titles available. With Apple products, it seems more the focus on the product, not the add-ons.
- PC makers like Dell or Gateway or HP who sell millions each quarter clear the "popularity" question. There are "extensible" and in theory, are built for "longevity", but any of those three companies would shout for joy to have the Consumer Economy of Apple's Mac mini, even though it has only be available for a few months.
What is it about Apple's products that make them so apt to spark community?
see the XMLHTTP request ? that updates the counter with the correct number every minute, so yeah while it isnt bang on "real time" its a pretty innovative approach to get there
I didn't say the number wasn't close, I just said it wasn't "real time". Obviously I read the code or I couldn't have posted the comment.
Remember Konfabulator? You know, the program that Dashboard totally ripped off and has destroyed the market for?
True enough that Dashboard widgets take a page right out of Konfabulator's playbook and nothing but Job's RDF can distort that fact.
Still, Deshboard is really just a next version of Sherlock, Apple's tool for searching the yellow pages, tracking packages, and looking up movie times, all rolled into a Konfabulator desktop model.
Seems like the right thing for Apple to have done would be to buy Konfabulator out right.
the counter isn't exactly "real".
:
// The initial rate, in downloads/second.
Take a look at the code and you will see that it gets a seed from the server and calculates a rate:
if (last_time && time - last_time != 0) {
download_rate = calculate_rate(time, count);
tick_time = Math.round(1000.0 / download_rate);
} else {
download_rate = initial_rate;
tick_time = Math.round(1000.0 / download_rate);
}
It uses the rate so that the browser is somewhat accurate, but not truly.
Also of note, the default rate is 2.0/second
var initial_rate = 2.0;
I'd like to see stats from the major web properties like Google that show which browsers are hitting them.
I have firefox on three boxes (probably representing five downloads since I have upgraded once on two boxes).
I think the download number is a nice indicator, but downloads and usage are different animals and the latter seems more important in the long run.
It looks like even though Tiger has only been out a few hours, Apple is well on its way to building three more "community economies".
I find it so interesting that the iPod (in all its flavors) and Mac mini have oodles of accessories for each.
With Spotlight, Dashboard, and Automator all generating the software equvalent of these accessories, it seems appropriate to explore the "community economies" Apple is creating.
Perhaps there is a better phrase than "community economies" to describe the markets that emerge from supporting a specific product as well as the communities that for from them (take for instance, iPod community websites). Whatever they may be called, it is interesting how Apple seems more capable than other manufacturers, even in other spaces, to develop these "community economies".
But why is this becoming common for Apple products? Apple seems second only to automobile makers in creating accessory markets and communities of owners & supporters. The same doesn't exist for GAP or Sony or even Microsoft, though an argument can be made that the latter has a huge community of PC software vendors.
But more than the vendors, it is the concept of little sub-economies and users so specific to a particular product that is very interesting to me.
Okay, let's just say I am looking for the company that sells computer hardware and software and I know the name of the company is "Tiger something or other". So I search for "Tiger".
Now your hits may varry, but what I got was:
(0) Google "News results for tiger" - linking to three Apple OS X Tiger related articles but this doesn't really count since Tiger Direct wouldn't show up in News anyway.
(1) A link to 5 Tigers information center that is about live tigers
(2) Well what have we here? Tiger Direct - the #2 result after a website about real Tigers!!??!!
(3) Tiger Haven with more stuff about real tigers
(4) Finally, Apple's OS X Tiger website - in at number 4
In the top ten are also sites on Tiger Woods and - huh? Tiger Airways!!! Did someone's lawyers miss something here?
So let's try the search again, but this time with "Tiger Software"
(0) Google News links to two stories, both on Apple OS X Tiger
Oh here it is! This must be what has Tiger Direct's lawyers in a fuss:
(1) Tiger Direct!!!! Number one on the results!
(2) The Paper Tiger - SOFTWARE to organize something or other
(3) Somesite talking about TIGER software - but it isn't Apple's OS X Tiger - huh?
(4) Finally Zeropaid with a news bit about Apple OS X Tiger.
Well I must be out to lunch because the two most obviously offensive Google searches (to me anyway) came up empty.
Even searches like "buy tiger" come up with Tiger Woods, Tiger tables, some UK site not about Apple, and even an Amazon link in the top 5 but it is for selling Tiger Woods stuff, not OS X.
This lawsuit is stupid - has erased any hope of me ever buying from Tiger Direct, and is intended to drive traffic to TigerDirect.com so I suggest you don't go there unless you are going to complain.
The dumb part is that you can't turn them off.
I guess this is to maintain the "quality" of the app while at the same time, driving CPU sales.
I agree with you. Let's turn these fatures off for PowerBook users!
To me, Dashboard looks like Konfabulator and Sherlock got put in a blender.
Just a note about iChat AV and its ability to do a 4 person chat. They don't advertise this, but apparently you need a G5 to initiate the chats. If your Mac is anything less, like a notebook or the Mini, you're S.O.L.
How do you know this? Is there a webpage you can point me to? I have a PowerBook so this is disturbing to read.
Everyone is a buzz about Spotloght and it is no doubt going to be great, but I am also looking forward to improving productivity with Automator.
As with lots of scripting languages, sometimes it is just plain faster to brute force what you are doing than sit down, recall a language syntax and function set, write a script, give it a test, and then run it. What I see as cool about Automator is that it makes building a script so freaking easy and fast and since you can call scripts with scripts, you can build a nice function library of scripts to make the process even faster.
I am also digging on Dashboard. At first I didn't like the idea of a second desktop that is different than the first, and I will have to try before I agree that it makes sense to keep these on a different desktop, but I love the idea of the small applets (I used Konfabulator breifly) for small tasks like weather, itunes, stock tickers, and calculator. That they take minimal system memory means I will be more apt to keep them open and within easy reach without having to launch the applicaiton.
Lastly, I am totally excited about iChat AV supporting up to four people (including me) in a video chat. It just looks so cool to see three people sitting around the virtual room like that and this feature is making me finally break down and buy the iSight. It looks like the best autofocusing camera available for $150.
COUGH COUGH ;) http://www.apple.com/macmini/
I don't want to spend $500+ for a calculator either.
Then don't buy any computer. What the hell do you think they are anyway?
The Mac mini is a TOTALLY capable computer for even upper end user and low end professional work like movie editing. Plus, it comes with Tiger and iLife which are about half the cost if purchased seprately from Apple anyway.
...when Apple was shipping that turd pile called "System 9" no one was criticizing the "wizards" or the "control panel". Now all of the sudden it's "crap". Funny that.
...
Two things: (1) since when is something Apple does "untouchable" and cannot be criticized? (2) I didn't say Apple's System 9 control panels rocked, I said the way that Apple's Spotlight lets you type what you want to do and then finds the wizard is what rocks.
As for your enlightening article about the Start menu, it doesn't carry weight with me. So some Microsoft employee (note the use of "we" in the article) wrote a blog to justify it. So what? No doubt there is justification for it. So what? That doesn't make it right, intuitive, or a feature that becomes untouchable in future OS revisions, it just makes it a feature so bad that someone had to write a justisification for it.
The rest of your dumb rant aside,
Why do we have to ignor the rest of my dumb rant? Because you cannot refute it or because it is "dumb"?
Microsoft has to cater to several hundred million people with whatever ships in Longhorn. Let me know when you get to that point and we'll talk about how much you suck because you're not making enough changes to your core product that some random guy in Slashdot seems to think are necessary.
Right. Don't mind me. I'm just the user base, the target audience, the person who Microsoft wants to sell this product to or better yet give this product to so that I will recommend it be deployed in my company.
The line of "let me know when you do [insert achievement] and then you can bash it" is absolutely hard headed. I suppose a male obstitrician should never give a woman advice on her pregnancy, or perhaps NASA ground control shouldn't tell the astronaughts what to do in space.
I stand by my statement that Microsoft's feet are firmly planted and they are only growing as far as they can reach without taking a step. Too bad for us as users, but too bad for MS share holders too.
Okay, so this is "pre-beta" (isn't that called "Alpha"?) but what I see from the limited information is that MS is really afraid to take some giant leaps.
Looking at other OS updates that made major improvements (Mac OS -> OS X, OS/2 -> OS/2 Warp, Linux pre-boot floppy -> Red Hat Fedora), they all abandoned antiquated concepts in favor of innovation.
Take for example the "Control Panel". Same old Windows crap. Tons of grouped 'wizards' for managing your system. Why not take a page out of Apple's Spotlight book and allow the user to type in what they are wanting to do "add a user", "change desktop wallpaper" and give them the control.
Other examples? Okay, the Start menu is old and busted. It was in Win95 and it still is. Can't MS, in their innovative, new OS, get with the usability? I'm not saying Apple's Dock or Linux's menu bar and virtual desktops are better, I'm just saying that they are CLOSER to providing an intuitive interface. Why the hell would anyone go to "Start" to logout?
Just consider for a moment that the My Documents screenshot takes your eye on a journey just to figure out what is going on. For navigation we have what looks like a left nav tree structure, but we also have a drop down at the top (above the menu for goodness sakes!) and there is ofcourse the window name, "My Documents". I am assuming there is a third way to navigate, via the left arrow to the side of the drop down - whew, what is a computer novice to do? Then there is all the text - six menu bar options, presumably with drop downs, and four columns of file information (though it is not displaying the files in the columns, it is displaying them in an icons view, leading me to believe this is a mockup and not a real screen). Lastly, there is this summary with a folder icon (won't it ALWAYS be a folder icon? and, what's this, a link to "Show all properties..." Who is designing this screen anyway?
Of course, the file browser isn't what Longhorn is all about, but it does show that MS isn't reaching too far from where their feet are firmly planted and it also shows that integrating system wide searching ontop of this design is going to ADD confusion and complexity, not eliminate it.
The rise of this market was independent of anthing happening in the PC (i.e., Wintel) world.
I disagree. THe PC world brought us the digital communication era. It was the need to have email, calendaring, and contacts available from a remote (palm top) device that made PDAs/Treos/Blackberries even possible.
If this were not the case, then why was the Apple Newton an ultimate failure, though the Palm devices ignited the market? (hint: Newton was introduced before the availability of the information noted above.)