Which is what Windows 8 may fix. The hardware requirements there are substantial. A touch screen sensitive enough to be used with a finger and accurate enough for stylus work. A hinge to let this go into tablet mode (which is an expensive part). Largish SSD. If Microsoft starts pushing retina, they'll run into the same issues Apple is with driving retina.
I doubt it. The rMBP shot up to a 3-4 week waiting list for preorders and haven't moved. Which means Apple has been steadily selling out every rMBP they can make. And they have been holding back in many markets. Which means that sell out continues for a minimum of a few more months. Generally Apple is ready for the initial surge (like with the standard MBP and the air). So my guess is their sales are going to very strong for this quarter. For next quarter they, if rumors are true, they release the 13" rMBP which is likely to sell much stronger.
4th quarter they focus on the iPhone 5, the 7" ipad.... so computer sales will be 'eh.
Chameleon specifically: First off Parallels does exactly what you are asking for. So there is a well supported commercial version with Chameleon. However, Chameleon seems to have an encumbered license. Some people believe all the code is under the APSL some believe it is under the GPL. No way is Apple including GPL code tightly intermixed with stuff like their firmware. And no way are they going to try and license something with ambiguous licensing and ambiguous ownership. So buying it is out.
Something like Chameleon: Absolutely trivial. The problem isn't creating Chameleon it is supporting it. If they do what you suggest they have to support two entirely different graphical subsystems. Right now every developer who targets 10.8 gets to target one mode of display. Which makes testing easy, especially when looking for things like skips or lags. With a corrupted graphics system that is officially supported developers would have to target two subsystems. One of the advantages that Apple offers its developers is simpler hardware / OS features than Windows and Android. Doing what you want would go totally against the grain of Apple's whole development model.
It doesn't matter whether those other old devices are in fact supporting a retina display. It matters whether they are running a graphic subsystem used by the retinas. Developers under this model are getting a simple message, "build the next version of your app for retina". With two graphic subsystems the message becomes, "build for a range of devices".
I think you need to separate out your issue of not liking Lion from what 10.8 is for, which is to: 1) upgrade the security 2) integrate better with iOS including retina, the notification system, upgrade the integration with facebook... 3) open the door to Apple TV.
You are an unusual case of someone who upgraded, didn't downgrade immediately, uses a MacPro (which is unusual), doesn't care about 10.8 features and doesn't want to get things like Samba from Macports. You are cutting against the grain too much.
One year. June 2007-June 2008. In June 2008 AT&T rolled out 3G along with the iPhone and that model exploded. But that was precisely RIM's CEO's point it wasn't the iPhone it was the iPhone & 3G combination. Had 3G not rolled out till 2010 there would have been 2 1/2 years where the iPhone was a niche device.
Vista was an upgrade for people with the right hardware. The "certified for windows vista" vs. "works with windows vista" being used on older / cheaper machines was Microsoft being too cute for their own good. Had they kept the spec where it should have been (i.e. 2g of ram minimum), 64 bit drivers only... they wouldn't have had that backlash. Vista was quite good. Microsoft, as usual just couldn't stick with one game plan.
As an aside had they done the right thing they also could have included: new Windows File System Document Security
per the original LongHorn spec and Vista would have been seen as a major upgrade.
1) Apple's failure to overhaul the MacPro for years. That's a valid criticism. I think the MacPro is at this point a total ripoff. What used to be an excellent workstation just isn't anymore. If possible I think if one needed a MacPro now, buy used. Criticism is valid.
2) The fact that Apple isn't upgrading the older MacPros to 10.8. There are good technical reasons for that, and I think they are making the right call. Apple's willingness to demand the right hardware is one of the key reasons OSX is so pleasant to use, and the older MacPros while being very fast 32bit machines, are 32 bit machines.
3) Further I see no harm to the MacPro people in not being able to upgrade to 10.8. There aren't really any major MacPro 10.8 features. The logical upgrade path is to switch over to the 2013 machines when they become available. Because those are going to be excellent and likely will take advantage of 10.8 features. Just think about how much horsepower it is going to take to drive dual 30" retina displays. If the 2013 machines suck then Apple is simply out of the high end desktop market.
4) And your list is a perfectly good example of how personal it is. Dropping PPC kept me on 10.6 all last year. And there was no good reason Apple had to drop Rosetta they could have kept it for a decade. But I signed up for a fast moving platform, and I got bit on that one. OTOH when they dropped classic I was ready.
I'm using one right now. The OS is addressing those extra pixels. For example my wallpapers are 2880x1800. What the system does though is size things up that would otherwise be small by default. For things that are huge it runs them at their native resolution. So for example if I use a 1080p video stream full screen it runs has if the screen were 1920x1080 and the GPU makes complex adjustments. If on the other hand I use it in a box I get the 1920x1080 pixel by pixel with the rest of the screen wrapped. For example this is the standard rMBP setup for Final Cut Pro (http://www.blogcdn.com//media/2012/06/mza2289436121407075041.800x500-75.jpg ). The image (on a rMBP not in the graphic) you see is pixel for pixel perfect 1080p.
So no you address those pixels. OTOH the world is built around the 96 PPI standard so what the OS is doing is showing good judgement about when to double and when not to.
I don't believe you can restore from a Lion Time Machine backup to Snow Leopard. Do you know?
You can't automatically Apple assumes you want the latest image. After you reinstall 10.6 as your OS though you can go to any of the older weekly files that were from 10.6 pull them down. You have a full history. Copy your backup drive using something that understands rsync structure. Delete the newer backup and use migration assistant.
Some of the Apple backup utilities allow you to do this as well. Just google there is planty of info on this.
In terms of the built-in samba/smb integration. We have had some persistent browse / connection issues with multiple Lion workstations on our office network. I've read reports that Mountain Lion seems to work better in mixed environments.
I don't know the answer. But I'd just use the MacPorts samba which is a clean samba and much newer than Apple's.
(2) Could't agree with you more. And its not like this is subtle. The costs were in their public earnings reports sent to the SEC. To introduce LTE Verizon and AT&T had to send lots of people out on trucks....
(1) Here I disagree. When the iPhone came out, it was a niche device and RIM was dominant. There had been other very expensive niche devices like the Palm-Phone. RIM was still gaining market share, much less subscribers, in the US (which was one of the first markets to have problems) all the way till January 2010.
There is actually a semi technical reason for the lockout. There are replacing the graphical subsystem and drastically increasing what's expected of the GPU. The reason for this is the shift to retina displays. They need to take load off the GPUs. In theory they could just offer the kernel with 2 graphical subsystems, which is what Microsoft would do but that's just not the culture on OSX. Developers have a more narrow target and it costs more.
I agree for someone who likes C64 games, and doesn't want to upgrade Apple is a terrible choice. But that's not a change. They've always been like that. They introduced a graphical subsystem in 10.0 started an almost complete overhaul in 10.2 finished the overhaul in 10.4 and then replaced it again in 10.6.
There are critical bugs in XP that Microsoft said (years ago) they will never patch. It leaves the OS open to attack over the Internet. I don't call that proper support.
That's the same level of support they've always given. Microsoft use to have errors in their trig formulas which were in Visual Studio. It took them a decade to fix. I'm not talking proper support, I'm saying maintaining support. If you want good support you don't buy Microsoft to begin with.
MS is also known to be a promoter of bloat, encouraging OEMs to load up systems with garbage and making people feel they have to have their systems constantly thrashing with anivirus scanning activity. Because of decades of piss-poor engineering, they allowed organized crime to gain a foothold and become very well financed and resourceful at a rate that was absolutely needless.
All true, and true of their new systems as much as their old.
I think you may be misunderstanding something. You were talking about how you shouldn't upgrade because the new MacPros aren't much better in 6 years (I actually think more like 3) and mentioned that in 2013 that won't be the situation. The OS issue isn't a problem for a year.
Why didn't you just roll it back if you didn't like Lion?
Anyway, 10.8 mission control is pretty much the same. They aren't "fixing" that. As for Samba, I doubt it. But "sudo port install samba3" and you are off to the races with samba. Stability / memory I'm not sure what you mean.
Maybe you didn't understand this. The rMBP is unfixable without specialized equipment, like the right solvents. That doesn't mean Apple can't fix, just that you can't. They still sell a battery replacement service. You pay them $199 and they take your rMBP and replace the battery. On the older systems it was cheaper, generally around $129.
so a simple GPU check, if it can handle it do it if not dont (you know, like Aero)
Which is pretty much what they are doing. They just announced in advance what GPUs can handle it.
when MS can handle the different GPUS yet apple cant (wont) thats a problem.
Not really. MS is excellent with legacy hardware and software support. Apple has always been terrible. The expectations are different. And frankly I buy Apple because I like the advantages of the entire platform moving every 4 years and their aggressiveness. I get more rapid change, and in exchange I pay more.
To put it another way, would you have been ok with windows XP ONLY working on flat screen LCD screens? Would you be ok with windows 7 ONLY working on 1080P screens?
Yes the same way I'm applauding Microsoft targeting the new generation of touch screens on keyboard laptops with Windows 8.
(I call it retard-a-scroll, but it's actually a good idea, if I hadn't spent all those years getting used to the opposite. What could they have been thinking?
That people who have been using Mac's supposedly for 20 years would know that this sort of setting can be reversed via. control panel in about 4 seconds.
Leasing is a terrible deal too unless you are filthy rich and do not care about money.
BS. Leasing is quite often a great deal. It depends on the residual on the lease. Cars that have a strong used market frequently have very high residuals because the finance company can make a profit. The finance company is basically buying the car for much less than dealer cost and washing some of that time through the first buyer. That's how Avis, Hertz, National used to make their money by buying new cars well below normal cost, putting some milage on the and then selling them at a high used price. As a buyer of a lease you are doing great: Heads some of that high residual strong used market washes back to you when you turn the car in. Tails, the used market has dryed up. So even better you have an option of taking your cut of the residual but because the the finance company is going to get creamed you can buy your own car back for a fraction of the residual.
I agree with you regarding Apple and software. Yes that is their marketing strategy. I'm an example, my feeling was that OEM SCO + apps was just under a grand. An Apple is way cheaper than a Sun workstations and I'm getting a steal getting a Unix that also runs a full business productivity suite. If it wasn't for Apple I'd probably be running some PIA VM windows / Linux solution that takes forever to setup. That being said, there are exceptions:
1) When apple was making G5s they were way cheaper than http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/p/index.html. For a short time Apple actually found itself being a player in supercomputing.
2) There are lots of Linux people who like the MBP as a laptop, Linus being an example. For example you can consider the recent rMBP as a top of the line Zenbook and the Zenbook is selling well. People like the very high resolution all SSD loaded with memory and fast processor in a thin form factor even if they hate OSX.
And what reputation did Apple have before this for long term hardware support with newer OSes? Apple isn't changing their behavior this is what they do.
Slashdot Mirror
Which is what Windows 8 may fix. The hardware requirements there are substantial. A touch screen sensitive enough to be used with a finger and accurate enough for stylus work. A hinge to let this go into tablet mode (which is an expensive part). Largish SSD. If Microsoft starts pushing retina, they'll run into the same issues Apple is with driving retina.
I doubt it. The rMBP shot up to a 3-4 week waiting list for preorders and haven't moved. Which means Apple has been steadily selling out every rMBP they can make. And they have been holding back in many markets. Which means that sell out continues for a minimum of a few more months. Generally Apple is ready for the initial surge (like with the standard MBP and the air). So my guess is their sales are going to very strong for this quarter. For next quarter they, if rumors are true, they release the 13" rMBP which is likely to sell much stronger.
4th quarter they focus on the iPhone 5, the 7" ipad.... so computer sales will be 'eh.
I get your point. Let me respond 2 ways:
Chameleon specifically: First off Parallels does exactly what you are asking for. So there is a well supported commercial version with Chameleon. However, Chameleon seems to have an encumbered license. Some people believe all the code is under the APSL some believe it is under the GPL. No way is Apple including GPL code tightly intermixed with stuff like their firmware. And no way are they going to try and license something with ambiguous licensing and ambiguous ownership. So buying it is out.
Something like Chameleon: Absolutely trivial. The problem isn't creating Chameleon it is supporting it. If they do what you suggest they have to support two entirely different graphical subsystems. Right now every developer who targets 10.8 gets to target one mode of display. Which makes testing easy, especially when looking for things like skips or lags. With a corrupted graphics system that is officially supported developers would have to target two subsystems. One of the advantages that Apple offers its developers is simpler hardware / OS features than Windows and Android. Doing what you want would go totally against the grain of Apple's whole development model.
It doesn't matter whether those other old devices are in fact supporting a retina display. It matters whether they are running a graphic subsystem used by the retinas. Developers under this model are getting a simple message, "build the next version of your app for retina". With two graphic subsystems the message becomes, "build for a range of devices".
I think you need to separate out your issue of not liking Lion from what 10.8 is for, which is to: ...
1) upgrade the security
2) integrate better with iOS including retina, the notification system, upgrade the integration with facebook
3) open the door to Apple TV.
You are an unusual case of someone who upgraded, didn't downgrade immediately, uses a MacPro (which is unusual), doesn't care about 10.8 features and doesn't want to get things like Samba from Macports. You are cutting against the grain too much.
In what way. I'm not talking bundled apps here. What do you see as wrong with their new OS in and of itself in terms of usability?
One year. June 2007-June 2008. In June 2008 AT&T rolled out 3G along with the iPhone and that model exploded. But that was precisely RIM's CEO's point it wasn't the iPhone it was the iPhone & 3G combination. Had 3G not rolled out till 2010 there would have been 2 1/2 years where the iPhone was a niche device.
Vista was an upgrade for people with the right hardware. The "certified for windows vista" vs. "works with windows vista" being used on older / cheaper machines was Microsoft being too cute for their own good. Had they kept the spec where it should have been (i.e. 2g of ram minimum), 64 bit drivers only ... they wouldn't have had that backlash. Vista was quite good. Microsoft, as usual just couldn't stick with one game plan.
As an aside had they done the right thing they also could have included:
new Windows File System
Document Security
per the original LongHorn spec and Vista would have been seen as a major upgrade.
Yes it is for me. But that's way more fun than computer OSes :)
There are three issues here:
1) Apple's failure to overhaul the MacPro for years. That's a valid criticism. I think the MacPro is at this point a total ripoff. What used to be an excellent workstation just isn't anymore. If possible I think if one needed a MacPro now, buy used. Criticism is valid.
2) The fact that Apple isn't upgrading the older MacPros to 10.8. There are good technical reasons for that, and I think they are making the right call. Apple's willingness to demand the right hardware is one of the key reasons OSX is so pleasant to use, and the older MacPros while being very fast 32bit machines, are 32 bit machines.
3) Further I see no harm to the MacPro people in not being able to upgrade to 10.8. There aren't really any major MacPro 10.8 features. The logical upgrade path is to switch over to the 2013 machines when they become available. Because those are going to be excellent and likely will take advantage of 10.8 features. Just think about how much horsepower it is going to take to drive dual 30" retina displays. If the 2013 machines suck then Apple is simply out of the high end desktop market.
4) And your list is a perfectly good example of how personal it is. Dropping PPC kept me on 10.6 all last year. And there was no good reason Apple had to drop Rosetta they could have kept it for a decade. But I signed up for a fast moving platform, and I got bit on that one. OTOH when they dropped classic I was ready.
I'm using one right now. The OS is addressing those extra pixels. For example my wallpapers are 2880x1800. What the system does though is size things up that would otherwise be small by default. For things that are huge it runs them at their native resolution. So for example if I use a 1080p video stream full screen it runs has if the screen were 1920x1080 and the GPU makes complex adjustments. If on the other hand I use it in a box I get the 1920x1080 pixel by pixel with the rest of the screen wrapped. For example this is the standard rMBP setup for Final Cut Pro (http://www.blogcdn.com//media/2012/06/mza2289436121407075041.800x500-75.jpg ). The image (on a rMBP not in the graphic) you see is pixel for pixel perfect 1080p.
So no you address those pixels. OTOH the world is built around the 96 PPI standard so what the OS is doing is showing good judgement about when to double and when not to.
I'm speculating, if you are quoting a fact, even from memory I'll defer. But right now Xcode 4.5 doesn't work with the Mountain Lion previews.
Yes absolutely. You can't fix. But $199 is totally different from unfixable.
I don't believe you can restore from a Lion Time Machine backup to Snow Leopard. Do you know?
You can't automatically Apple assumes you want the latest image. After you reinstall 10.6 as your OS though you can go to any of the older weekly files that were from 10.6 pull them down. You have a full history. Copy your backup drive using something that understands rsync structure. Delete the newer backup and use migration assistant.
Some of the Apple backup utilities allow you to do this as well. Just google there is planty of info on this.
In terms of the built-in samba/smb integration. We have had some persistent browse / connection issues with multiple Lion workstations on our office network. I've read reports that Mountain Lion seems to work better in mixed environments.
I don't know the answer. But I'd just use the MacPorts samba which is a clean samba and much newer than Apple's.
On your points.
(2) Could't agree with you more. And its not like this is subtle. The costs were in their public earnings reports sent to the SEC. To introduce LTE Verizon and AT&T had to send lots of people out on trucks....
(1) Here I disagree. When the iPhone came out, it was a niche device and RIM was dominant. There had been other very expensive niche devices like the Palm-Phone. RIM was still gaining market share, much less subscribers, in the US (which was one of the first markets to have problems) all the way till January 2010.
There is actually a semi technical reason for the lockout. There are replacing the graphical subsystem and drastically increasing what's expected of the GPU. The reason for this is the shift to retina displays. They need to take load off the GPUs. In theory they could just offer the kernel with 2 graphical subsystems, which is what Microsoft would do but that's just not the culture on OSX. Developers have a more narrow target and it costs more.
I agree for someone who likes C64 games, and doesn't want to upgrade Apple is a terrible choice. But that's not a change. They've always been like that. They introduced a graphical subsystem in 10.0 started an almost complete overhaul in 10.2 finished the overhaul in 10.4 and then replaced it again in 10.6.
There are critical bugs in XP that Microsoft said (years ago) they will never patch. It leaves the OS open to attack over the Internet. I don't call that proper support.
That's the same level of support they've always given. Microsoft use to have errors in their trig formulas which were in Visual Studio. It took them a decade to fix. I'm not talking proper support, I'm saying maintaining support. If you want good support you don't buy Microsoft to begin with.
MS is also known to be a promoter of bloat, encouraging OEMs to load up systems with garbage and making people feel they have to have their systems constantly thrashing with anivirus scanning activity. Because of decades of piss-poor engineering, they allowed organized crime to gain a foothold and become very well financed and resourceful at a rate that was absolutely needless.
All true, and true of their new systems as much as their old.
I think you may be misunderstanding something. You were talking about how you shouldn't upgrade because the new MacPros aren't much better in 6 years (I actually think more like 3) and mentioned that in 2013 that won't be the situation. The OS issue isn't a problem for a year.
If that makes a fanboy so be it.
Why didn't you just roll it back if you didn't like Lion?
Anyway, 10.8 mission control is pretty much the same. They aren't "fixing" that. As for Samba, I doubt it. But "sudo port install samba3" and you are off to the races with samba. Stability / memory I'm not sure what you mean.
Maybe you didn't understand this. The rMBP is unfixable without specialized equipment, like the right solvents. That doesn't mean Apple can't fix, just that you can't. They still sell a battery replacement service. You pay them $199 and they take your rMBP and replace the battery. On the older systems it was cheaper, generally around $129.
Here is an article in ifixit that backs up my point about the repair cost: http://ifixit.org/2763/the-new-macbook-pro-unfixable-unhackable-untenable/
so a simple GPU check, if it can handle it do it if not dont (you know, like Aero)
Which is pretty much what they are doing. They just announced in advance what GPUs can handle it.
when MS can handle the different GPUS yet apple cant (wont) thats a problem.
Not really. MS is excellent with legacy hardware and software support. Apple has always been terrible. The expectations are different. And frankly I buy Apple because I like the advantages of the entire platform moving every 4 years and their aggressiveness. I get more rapid change, and in exchange I pay more.
To put it another way, would you have been ok with windows XP ONLY working on flat screen LCD screens? Would you be ok with windows 7 ONLY working on 1080P screens?
Yes the same way I'm applauding Microsoft targeting the new generation of touch screens on keyboard laptops with Windows 8.
(I call it retard-a-scroll, but it's actually a good idea, if I hadn't spent all those years getting used to the opposite. What could they have been thinking?
That people who have been using Mac's supposedly for 20 years would know that this sort of setting can be reversed via. control panel in about 4 seconds.
Leasing is a terrible deal too unless you are filthy rich and do not care about money.
BS. Leasing is quite often a great deal. It depends on the residual on the lease. Cars that have a strong used market frequently have very high residuals because the finance company can make a profit. The finance company is basically buying the car for much less than dealer cost and washing some of that time through the first buyer. That's how Avis, Hertz, National used to make their money by buying new cars well below normal cost, putting some milage on the and then selling them at a high used price. As a buyer of a lease you are doing great:
Heads some of that high residual strong used market washes back to you when you turn the car in.
Tails, the used market has dryed up. So even better you have an option of taking your cut of the residual but because the the finance company is going to get creamed you can buy your own car back for a fraction of the residual.
2013 they are doing a major update of the MacPro. You can hold out a year on 10.7.
I agree with you regarding Apple and software. Yes that is their marketing strategy. I'm an example, my feeling was that OEM SCO + apps was just under a grand. An Apple is way cheaper than a Sun workstations and I'm getting a steal getting a Unix that also runs a full business productivity suite. If it wasn't for Apple I'd probably be running some PIA VM windows / Linux solution that takes forever to setup. That being said, there are exceptions:
1) When apple was making G5s they were way cheaper than http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/p/index.html. For a short time Apple actually found itself being a player in supercomputing.
2) There are lots of Linux people who like the MBP as a laptop, Linus being an example. For example you can consider the recent rMBP as a top of the line Zenbook and the Zenbook is selling well. People like the very high resolution all SSD loaded with memory and fast processor in a thin form factor even if they hate OSX.
Absolutely. Apple is rather corporate unfriendly. And that comes (came) right from the top: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLvvzktuVY8
And what reputation did Apple have before this for long term hardware support with newer OSes? Apple isn't changing their behavior this is what they do.