Macs have had contextual menus since the mid-90's. I had a four button mouse in 1994.
The reason Apple's menu is stuck to the top, is to encourage muscle memory. The menus are in the same place all the time, and they're infinitely tall. You can fling your mouse at the top of the screen and hit a menu, with much less aiming. This is covered exhaustively in every text on UI design, which Microsoft wiped their ass with.
I'm still wanting somebody to explain to me what "tweaks" they had on PCs that made the user experience so much better. Why does needing to fuck around with my computer to make it work right sound like a good idea to you? I would really like a specific example. To me, it sounds like the bogus hand-waving of somebody who didn't like Macs because they were "too pretty" or some such ridiculous bullshit.
Packaging!=design. That's why Apple's products are superior to Microsoft's...always have, always will be.
Note that (physical) packaging can be well designed as well...and Apple does a hell of a job with that. But that's beyond the scope of this discussion.
I completely disagree with you. Apple's saving grace has been tight integration between OS and hardware. Without control over both ends of the computing experience, Apple couldn't be as successful as they are today.
The clones almost killed Apple. Licensing earlier would have changed Apple's product, and (in my opinion, shared by the author of the article) changed it for the worse.
If you were a Mac repair guy, why couldn't you install that doohickey that put ADB and serial on your G3 machine? What's the big freakin' deal there?
And I'm still using a Mac from ten years ago, and my parents have gone through three PCs in as many years. What's your point?
Anybody who pays any attention to these things knows that the "useful life" of a Mac is about 30-50 percent longer than a PC. You go dig up the TCO stats.
Ah, so there would have been one more company building "macintoshes". That would have totally changed the landscape of computing as we know it.
Not.
Apple would not have been able to produce their product had they been beholden to a legacy userbase or a manufacturing parter (which would take away all their profits, just like happened in the Mid-90's with the cloning fiasco).
OK, you read the article. You did NOT understand it.
I know exactly what BeOS is. It's an interesting operating system developed by a company led by Apple expatriate Jean Louis Gassee, who then failed to sell his OS back to Apple. Gil Amelio chose NeXT, and thereby sealed his own doom by bringing Steve Jobs back home.
Because there aren't any software developers for BeOS?
I have all the software options I could ever need on my Mac. And, in my experience, the Mac versions of a lot of programs Just Work Better than their PC counterparts. More marketshare would not improve my computing experience.
OK, fair enough, you do need more than zero people to use the same computer as you do, so you don't have to code your own software. But, apart from that, marketshare means fuck-all.
What's too expensive about a $1600 laptop with a DVD burner, wireless networking, and a kick-ass battery life?
Seriously, I want to know. Because, I mean, since I'm one of those pretentious people, I must be too stupid to compare the cost/benefit ratio of Apple vs. other hardware vendors and make a sound decision on how to spend my money.
Enlighten me, O Wise Proletarian...
Oh wait, you've never used a Mac, so you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
Usability wise, 9x/NT was a turd next to MacOS 7-9. Yes, NT was more stable than Classic OS (although I routinely measured my uptimes in the hundreds of days), but the UI on windows sucks, has always sucked, and always will suck.
For Christ's sake, they put the Start bar on the bottom of the screen just to be different from Apple. What a bunch of lamers.
How many Microsoft updates have measurably improved the day-to-day performance of your computer?
Want to play games? Buy a PC. Want to do work with your computer, instead of working on your computer? Buy a Mac.
I have both. Perfect solution.
Oh yeah, and Marathon kicked the holy hell out of Doom and Doom II (and I happened to like it better than Quake, although Quake had a great engine). Too bad Bungie is now in the belly of the beast...they used to be a great game publisher.
But since they're consistently profitable and not even a little bit beleaguered, they obviously understand their business a little bit better than, say, you do.
OK, I'm packing the pony in horse manure for safe transit. You go find the biggest pile of shit you can near your house, and dig all the way through it. You'll find your pony!
Which is almost appropriate, except for the fact that skills atrophy (and become less commercially viable) when sitting on the shelf for two years, particularly in a field like biotech.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes. All four people who write Real Viruses code in assembly. They are not the threat.
Real security comes from 1) design 2) implementation and 3) maintenance. OSX does a much better job on all three fronts than any other OS available.
Macs have had contextual menus since the mid-90's. I had a four button mouse in 1994.
The reason Apple's menu is stuck to the top, is to encourage muscle memory. The menus are in the same place all the time, and they're infinitely tall. You can fling your mouse at the top of the screen and hit a menu, with much less aiming. This is covered exhaustively in every text on UI design, which Microsoft wiped their ass with.
I'm still wanting somebody to explain to me what "tweaks" they had on PCs that made the user experience so much better. Why does needing to fuck around with my computer to make it work right sound like a good idea to you? I would really like a specific example. To me, it sounds like the bogus hand-waving of somebody who didn't like Macs because they were "too pretty" or some such ridiculous bullshit.
Packaging!=design. That's why Apple's products are superior to Microsoft's...always have, always will be.
Note that (physical) packaging can be well designed as well...and Apple does a hell of a job with that. But that's beyond the scope of this discussion.
I'm sure the fact that Apple computers get faster with each rev of the OS has nothing to do with it.
I completely disagree with you. Apple's saving grace has been tight integration between OS and hardware. Without control over both ends of the computing experience, Apple couldn't be as successful as they are today.
The clones almost killed Apple. Licensing earlier would have changed Apple's product, and (in my opinion, shared by the author of the article) changed it for the worse.
If you were a Mac repair guy, why couldn't you install that doohickey that put ADB and serial on your G3 machine? What's the big freakin' deal there?
And you're mad at Apple, not Wacom, why exactly?
And you didn't put an ADB card in your Mac, why exactly?
Jesus. Interfaces change. Get over it.
And I'm still using a Mac from ten years ago, and my parents have gone through three PCs in as many years. What's your point?
Anybody who pays any attention to these things knows that the "useful life" of a Mac is about 30-50 percent longer than a PC. You go dig up the TCO stats.
Ah, so there would have been one more company building "macintoshes". That would have totally changed the landscape of computing as we know it.
Not.
Apple would not have been able to produce their product had they been beholden to a legacy userbase or a manufacturing parter (which would take away all their profits, just like happened in the Mid-90's with the cloning fiasco).
OK, you read the article. You did NOT understand it.
Yet another excellent reason to avoid corporate bureaucracies. What does this have to do with my computer experience?
I know exactly what BeOS is. It's an interesting operating system developed by a company led by Apple expatriate Jean Louis Gassee, who then failed to sell his OS back to Apple. Gil Amelio chose NeXT, and thereby sealed his own doom by bringing Steve Jobs back home.
BeOS was great. Never got any traction. Too bad.
Most viruses are written in Visual Fucking Basic.
Next?
Because there aren't any software developers for BeOS?
I have all the software options I could ever need on my Mac. And, in my experience, the Mac versions of a lot of programs Just Work Better than their PC counterparts. More marketshare would not improve my computing experience.
OK, fair enough, you do need more than zero people to use the same computer as you do, so you don't have to code your own software. But, apart from that, marketshare means fuck-all.
How many "updates" were worth the price I paid for them? All of the ones I bought. Next question?
I didn't try to argue that Macs had a lot of games. I can run Starcraft and UT2k4, and that's cool by me.
Not a lot of PC games in the last couple years I've been interested in. A few, yes, but not like back in the day...
Right, 'cuz that BSD codebase is so poorly designed, huh?
What's too expensive about a $1600 laptop with a DVD burner, wireless networking, and a kick-ass battery life?
Seriously, I want to know. Because, I mean, since I'm one of those pretentious people, I must be too stupid to compare the cost/benefit ratio of Apple vs. other hardware vendors and make a sound decision on how to spend my money.
Enlighten me, O Wise Proletarian...
Oh wait, you've never used a Mac, so you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
Never mind. Move along.
Usability wise, 9x/NT was a turd next to MacOS 7-9. Yes, NT was more stable than Classic OS (although I routinely measured my uptimes in the hundreds of days), but the UI on windows sucks, has always sucked, and always will suck.
For Christ's sake, they put the Start bar on the bottom of the screen just to be different from Apple. What a bunch of lamers.
Considering the longevity of Macintoshes vs. PC's, no, I would indeed expect the numbers to differ.
Regardless, marketshare is irrelevant. My Powerbook works just fine regardless of what computer you might like to use.
Good job explaining why I won't invest in Microsoft, but I will invest in Apple.
Licensed it to whom? Everybody thought mice were a dumb idea.
You didn't read the article, did you?
How many Microsoft updates have measurably improved the day-to-day performance of your computer?
Want to play games? Buy a PC. Want to do work with your computer, instead of working on your computer? Buy a Mac.
I have both. Perfect solution.
Oh yeah, and Marathon kicked the holy hell out of Doom and Doom II (and I happened to like it better than Quake, although Quake had a great engine). Too bad Bungie is now in the belly of the beast...they used to be a great game publisher.
Your stance makes perfect sense, particularly since Apple's new peripheral architecture is so darn proprietary and hard to find inexpensive gear for.
I mean, who ever heard of this USB thing?
But since they're consistently profitable and not even a little bit beleaguered, they obviously understand their business a little bit better than, say, you do.
Because Microsoft never releases broken software from beta, right?
*snort*
What color bridge would you like, sir?
Oh, so I can only not get jobs that I'm qualified for by my recent experience.
Uh huh. Nothing wrong with that.
OK, I'm packing the pony in horse manure for safe transit. You go find the biggest pile of shit you can near your house, and dig all the way through it. You'll find your pony!
Which is almost appropriate, except for the fact that skills atrophy (and become less commercially viable) when sitting on the shelf for two years, particularly in a field like biotech.