And of course, there's more, in addition to all the other existing open source components which they use and contribute to.
There's even more which they don't release, and you can like that or not (it's a business decision to them), but you can't claim that they don't release code.
My favorite game is Tetris Max 2.9, available only in Classic (OS 8/9).
My favourtie Mac Tetris is Quinn, but the Tetris Company has put a stop to it. Oh well, I still got Tetris DS, which has online multiplayer and a few nice new variations on the Tetris theme.
As far as the multiple users issue goes, imagine using a computer with just one profile with five other users (who are idiots). That's not going to be any fun.
I agree. If you're in a situation where multiple people use a single Mac, you got two options: Use something like At Ease which makes sure nothing gets broken, or tell people to save to a disk and re-install the whole Mac from an image once a week.
The most annoying issue for me was the stickies. I'd want to make a small note of something, and someone else would eventually open up Stickies (without knowing what it was) and close all of the stickies (never saving them, of course). Gah!
It also went up against good stuff like AmigaOS 1.1 (with color displays and preemptive multitasking since '85). Unfortunately for Apple, AmigaOS was superior in every conceivable way.
Uhm... Try no? I owned an Amiga. The OS was technically superior the Apple's System. In every other way, it sucked balls. It was an unusable ugly piece of trash.
Fortunately, it was only used to start games and this one application which copied pirated floppies, so nobody cared about its suckyness too much:-)
Well, in that case, I hereby grant you a one-time voucher which allows you to hate pre-OS X Macs for no more than two hours a day during the next five years.
they did a horrible job at handling everything I needed to do with them
Like what?
they didn't work well in multiple user environments
What do you mean by "not well"? Before Mac OS 8, there was no support for multiple users.
That's not "not well", it's "not at all".
they didn't have nearly enough of the software I was allowed to use under Windows
Ah, now I get it. You couldn't play games on your Macs.
It wasn't the most usable OS available. Perhaps most usable in a home environment, but not in a work or school environment IME.
I don't think "usable" means what you think it means:-P
Macs did not have true multi-user capabilities before Mac OS X. That means if several people had to use the same Mac with separate accounts for each Mac, you were likely to run into problems. That doesn't make the OS itself any less usable for the end user, regardless of whether you're sitting in front of your Mac while in school, at home or at work.
Graphical file managers _never_ got better than the one in Mac OS 9. In fact, they've gone downhill from there (OSX's is a piece of shit).
I tend to agree. The spatial Finder was a great idea. I like the addition of the NeXT-style browser in Mac OS X, but unfortunately, the new Finder really feels like Frankenstein's Monster, taking parts from everywhere without properly integrating them.
I use Mac OS X's Finder, and it's better than Windows or Nautilus, but there's still a huge amount of work to be done. Unfortunately, we get iWeb instead:-)
I took OS comparison course in MIT's business school some years back, and must say of all the courses I took in computer science, that one became the least useful the quickest.
That's why you should always learn concepts instead of implementations. Concepts remain useful and can be used to judge new implementations, while implementations always go away eventually.
Technically, that's not memory protection, but memory consumption. Memory protection protects the address space of each application from other applications, so applications can't overwrite other application's memory data.
Prior to Mac OS X, all Mac applications shared one common memory space, which had the advantage that hacking was simple, but had the disadvantage that one rogue application could crash everything, or even worse, change other applications' data without anyone noticing.
The difference between the old Mac OS and Mac OS X isn't that it used to suck but now it's great. The difference is that Mac OS X's appeal is broader; it is good in more ways than the old Mac OS was.
Yeah, I did use and like Mac OS 9, Mac OS 8 and System 7. I did smoke lots of weed, but that had nothing to do with it. There are two things to consider: First, it went up against crap like Windows 3.11 and Windows 95. Second, it was the prettiest, most easy-to-use OS, even with cooperative multitasking and lack of memory protection.
Mac OS X added a lot to what makes a Mac great, but Mac OS 9 had a lot going for it, too.
The problem with choice is that once there are too many, people get confused
Not generally true. If you go into a computer shop, you get the choice of maybe 20 computers. That will not change. The difference is that now you have a little note pointing out which OS it runs in addition to how fast it is, how big the disk is and so on.
Let's face it, for most people, the OS isn't an issue. They read their mail, write some letters, play some casual flash games. It simply does not matter which OS they run, except that if they don't run Windows, they won't get infected by malware withing hours of starting up their computer for the first time. But from the viewpoint of functionality, it doesn't matter for most people.
Think about it this way, is your grandmother able to install 4 different operating systems in order to run the 4 different programs that haven't been ported to each of the other 3 yet?
Most definitely not, unless you're talking about the operating system of the dead. But your rhetorical question is pointless either way. Why in the world would she have to do such a thing? I'm typing this on a Mac. Apple has like 3% market share. I could think of no application I could possibly want which I can't already have natively on my Mac. Why should that change if Apple has 25% market share? What application could my hypothetical grandma want to run on her computer that does not already run on a Mac???
The whole idea of having to have more than one OS if there are several competing OSes is just plain absurd.
you cannot possibly simulate that with a Wii controller
Uhm... you don't need to? Vibrate the controller to show the player that he has hit something. Only track motion again once the player has moved the controller back into a position where it makes sense.
Wow. That'd be a nightmare for both the end user and developer. Now the developer has to target multiple platforms, and the end user has to install a new operating system for that one program he wants.
Is this a joke? Since when is "choice" a nightmare for the consumer?
And, not trying to insult you, but I guess you don't write code for a living. If there were three or four equally strong operating systems, standards like OpenGL would have it way easier. Which means that writing an application which runs on several systems would be what most developers would do, and hece wouldn't be much harder than targeting a single OS.
The problem right now is that, as an example, most PC games devs target DirectX and Microsoft's proprietary technologies. This means that porting those games to other platforms like Linux or the Mac is a nightmare. That would change, and in the end, it would be a lot easier on many developers.
And if MS had some actual competition, you sure as hell wouldn't have to wait a decade for a crappy update to a crappy OS anymore.
I don't think anyone is rooting for Apple to become the new Microsoft. We want three or four operating systems that have similar market share and compete against each other fairly.
How about being able to install a program just by visiting a website, or get updates for said program?
Uhm... are you serious?
That's not a feature, that's a bug.
How about being hassled for a password when you try to install a program or change a system setting or Mac OS, while Windows just lets you do it?
Have you ever used a Mac? You can install applications and change settings without being asked for a password, as long as it changes thing inside your personal folder or Library. Most Mac applications are installed by dragging them to your disk, anyway.
You hardly ever need to enter your password.
Anyway, both of your examples are not missing features. You can do everything on a Mac that you can do on a PC.
How many Joe-Sixpacks actually use Garageband or Video editing software?
Okay, I lied in the title. I really dunno about Joe Sixpack, but I do know that a lot of people I know use iMovie. Non-technical people. My mom regularly makes movies with iMovie, for example of school plays. My girlfriend recently made a movie of her cats, complete with GarageBand sound and an iDVD DVD for her relatives. My sister regularly makes movies of her girlscout camps and events. My little brother makes little zombie movies complete with fake blood and flying knives.
The interesting thing is that I never told my mom about it. Five years ago, she called me every day because she couldn't figure out how to eject the floppy disk. Then she got an iMac. Now she's making her own fricking DVDs.
That's the difference between Macs and PCs, and it's happening, even if PC users don't really understand or believe it.
I've already got a GameCube, I don't need to buy another one. (...) So where are all of these Revolution games that are supposed to be so innovative? So far all I see is a bunch of normal console games with GameCube level graphics.
Hahaha... Sorry, that doesn't even warrant a real reply. Come on, Ken, post with your real Login name.
All males are forced to do military service, and they get to store the weapon at home.
Not any more. There are plenty of ways to avoid military service nowadays, even if that means you have to do something else (social service) instead.
I know. That does not contradict what I wrote. All males are forced to do military service by law. Obviously, there are exceptions, for example if you're physically or psychologically incapable of doing it. Which more and more people are (or claim to be).
The reason for the vast amount of guns in homes over here is simple: All males are forced to do military service, and they get to store the weapon at home. That means to things:
Almost every male person in Switzerland has had exhaustive professional gun training
Most of the people here have guns provided by the army, which are huge and can't be concealed
Hence, we do not have too much trouble with these gun, despite the fact that almost everyone has one.
Nevertheless, a huge amount of crimes involving guns are committed with guns given out by the military. Most of these are a result of trouble in relationships, and a lot of these crimes would not be committed or would not end deadly were it not for the fact that everyone has a gun and ammo at home.
There's a difference between pointing out a problem and taking away responsibility. Yes, humans are always responsible for the crimes they commit. However, if you wish to lower the crime rates, you need to figure out what it is that makes people commit a crime. These are two entirely different concepts.
For example, if a person rapes somebody, that may be the result of abusive parents. Pointing out this fact does not mean that he isn't responsible for what he did, but it does give hints at how he should be punished or treated, and it does help figuring out how to lower the rate of rapes.
Slashdot Mirror
Uhm... You're mistaken. Some of Apple's open-sourced code:
And of course, there's more, in addition to all the other existing open source components which they use and contribute to.
There's even more which they don't release, and you can like that or not (it's a business decision to them), but you can't claim that they don't release code.
Come on, Ballmer, your user names is giving you away :-D
My favourtie Mac Tetris is Quinn, but the Tetris Company has put a stop to it. Oh well, I still got Tetris DS, which has online multiplayer and a few nice new variations on the Tetris theme.
I agree. If you're in a situation where multiple people use a single Mac, you got two options: Use something like At Ease which makes sure nothing gets broken, or tell people to save to a disk and re-install the whole Mac from an image once a week.
Heh :-)
Uhm... Try no? I owned an Amiga. The OS was technically superior the Apple's System. In every other way, it sucked balls. It was an unusable ugly piece of trash.
Fortunately, it was only used to start games and this one application which copied pirated floppies, so nobody cared about its suckyness too much :-)
Well, in that case, I hereby grant you a one-time voucher which allows you to hate pre-OS X Macs for no more than two hours a day during the next five years.
Like what?
What do you mean by "not well"? Before Mac OS 8, there was no support for multiple users.
That's not "not well", it's "not at all".
Ah, now I get it. You couldn't play games on your Macs.
I don't think "usable" means what you think it means :-P
Macs did not have true multi-user capabilities before Mac OS X. That means if several people had to use the same Mac with separate accounts for each Mac, you were likely to run into problems. That doesn't make the OS itself any less usable for the end user, regardless of whether you're sitting in front of your Mac while in school, at home or at work.
S: (n) hate, hatred (the emotion of hate; a feeling of dislike so strong that it demands action)
Hating PCs or an OS is absurd. Well, maybe if you're forced to use it...
This is almost too obvious, but what the hell, it's Slashdot: You weren't capable of using the most usable OS available? Heh.
So your personal mantra would be "crashing is better than telling me if there's a memory problem"?
I tend to agree. The spatial Finder was a great idea. I like the addition of the NeXT-style browser in Mac OS X, but unfortunately, the new Finder really feels like Frankenstein's Monster, taking parts from everywhere without properly integrating them.
I use Mac OS X's Finder, and it's better than Windows or Nautilus, but there's still a huge amount of work to be done. Unfortunately, we get iWeb instead :-)
You hated a specific brand of personal computers, yet you think Mac users were the ones smoking something?
What did those poor Macs do to you? Steal your lolly when you were in kindergarden?
That's why you should always learn concepts instead of implementations. Concepts remain useful and can be used to judge new implementations, while implementations always go away eventually.
Technically, that's not memory protection, but memory consumption. Memory protection protects the address space of each application from other applications, so applications can't overwrite other application's memory data.
Prior to Mac OS X, all Mac applications shared one common memory space, which had the advantage that hacking was simple, but had the disadvantage that one rogue application could crash everything, or even worse, change other applications' data without anyone noticing.
Daring Fireball wrote about this recently. Here's the most important quote of the article:
Yeah, I did use and like Mac OS 9, Mac OS 8 and System 7. I did smoke lots of weed, but that had nothing to do with it. There are two things to consider: First, it went up against crap like Windows 3.11 and Windows 95. Second, it was the prettiest, most easy-to-use OS, even with cooperative multitasking and lack of memory protection.
Mac OS X added a lot to what makes a Mac great, but Mac OS 9 had a lot going for it, too.
Not generally true. If you go into a computer shop, you get the choice of maybe 20 computers. That will not change. The difference is that now you have a little note pointing out which OS it runs in addition to how fast it is, how big the disk is and so on.
Let's face it, for most people, the OS isn't an issue. They read their mail, write some letters, play some casual flash games. It simply does not matter which OS they run, except that if they don't run Windows, they won't get infected by malware withing hours of starting up their computer for the first time. But from the viewpoint of functionality, it doesn't matter for most people.
Most definitely not, unless you're talking about the operating system of the dead. But your rhetorical question is pointless either way. Why in the world would she have to do such a thing? I'm typing this on a Mac. Apple has like 3% market share. I could think of no application I could possibly want which I can't already have natively on my Mac. Why should that change if Apple has 25% market share? What application could my hypothetical grandma want to run on her computer that does not already run on a Mac???
The whole idea of having to have more than one OS if there are several competing OSes is just plain absurd.
Uhm... you don't need to? Vibrate the controller to show the player that he has hit something. Only track motion again once the player has moved the controller back into a position where it makes sense.
Is this a joke? Since when is "choice" a nightmare for the consumer?
And, not trying to insult you, but I guess you don't write code for a living. If there were three or four equally strong operating systems, standards like OpenGL would have it way easier. Which means that writing an application which runs on several systems would be what most developers would do, and hece wouldn't be much harder than targeting a single OS.
The problem right now is that, as an example, most PC games devs target DirectX and Microsoft's proprietary technologies. This means that porting those games to other platforms like Linux or the Mac is a nightmare. That would change, and in the end, it would be a lot easier on many developers.
And if MS had some actual competition, you sure as hell wouldn't have to wait a decade for a crappy update to a crappy OS anymore.
I don't think anyone is rooting for Apple to become the new Microsoft. We want three or four operating systems that have similar market share and compete against each other fairly.
Uhm... are you serious?
That's not a feature, that's a bug.
Have you ever used a Mac? You can install applications and change settings without being asked for a password, as long as it changes thing inside your personal folder or Library. Most Mac applications are installed by dragging them to your disk, anyway.
You hardly ever need to enter your password.
Anyway, both of your examples are not missing features. You can do everything on a Mac that you can do on a PC.
Okay, I lied in the title. I really dunno about Joe Sixpack, but I do know that a lot of people I know use iMovie. Non-technical people. My mom regularly makes movies with iMovie, for example of school plays. My girlfriend recently made a movie of her cats, complete with GarageBand sound and an iDVD DVD for her relatives. My sister regularly makes movies of her girlscout camps and events. My little brother makes little zombie movies complete with fake blood and flying knives.
The interesting thing is that I never told my mom about it. Five years ago, she called me every day because she couldn't figure out how to eject the floppy disk. Then she got an iMac. Now she's making her own fricking DVDs.
That's the difference between Macs and PCs, and it's happening, even if PC users don't really understand or believe it.
In addition to what everyone else has said:
Camera, remote control, size, weight, magnetic power adapter and so on.
Put a small sticker over it.
Adding another option which actually changes the case costs more than all the cameras, so it's not gonna happen.
Hahaha... Sorry, that doesn't even warrant a real reply. Come on, Ken, post with your real Login name.
I know. That does not contradict what I wrote. All males are forced to do military service by law. Obviously, there are exceptions, for example if you're physically or psychologically incapable of doing it. Which more and more people are (or claim to be).
I'm Swiss.
The reason for the vast amount of guns in homes over here is simple: All males are forced to do military service, and they get to store the weapon at home. That means to things:
Hence, we do not have too much trouble with these gun, despite the fact that almost everyone has one.
Nevertheless, a huge amount of crimes involving guns are committed with guns given out by the military. Most of these are a result of trouble in relationships, and a lot of these crimes would not be committed or would not end deadly were it not for the fact that everyone has a gun and ammo at home.
I think you may be confusing something.
There's a difference between pointing out a problem and taking away responsibility. Yes, humans are always responsible for the crimes they commit. However, if you wish to lower the crime rates, you need to figure out what it is that makes people commit a crime. These are two entirely different concepts.
For example, if a person rapes somebody, that may be the result of abusive parents. Pointing out this fact does not mean that he isn't responsible for what he did, but it does give hints at how he should be punished or treated, and it does help figuring out how to lower the rate of rapes.
At least in Switzerland, the cans (the few remaining not replaced by PET bottles, at least) are alu. They're that way everywhere I've been in Europe.