While there are plenty of 64-bit CPUs available, I suspect the low-end chips account for a significant share of the PC market (and 0% of the Mac market). But I have no numbers, so it's just "is not", "is so".
Even the lowest of low-end Intel and AMD CPUs have been 64 bit for a couple of years now.
Incidentally, Apple's hardware lineup only went 64-bit across the board in August 2007, when the Mac Mini was upgraded to a Core 2 CPU. Prior to that (a mere 6 months ago) Apple was still selling hardware with a 32-bit CPU.
It's been out for about a year, and no one buys it. Right now, *every Mac* ships with Leopard, and Apple has sold millions of retail copies of Leopard and millions of Core 2 Duos w/ Tiger.
You really shouldn't rely on Slashdot for your Microsoft related news. Out in the real world, Vista uptake is fine.
Well, numbers are hard to find, but from Steam, the combined total of 64-bit Windows accounted for 3.2% of their users in November of last year. One would assume Valve users would be more likely to be running a 64-bit version of Windows compared with the average user (for example, aside from gamers being more likely to be enthusiasts who will actually seek *out* a 64-bit OS, they are also significantly less likely to be running on older hardware which cannot even *run* a 64-bit OS).
A highly questionable assumption, given gamers' notoriously superstitious nature and the fairly infamous software and driver compatibilities 64 bit Windows XP has suffered in the past (and still does, in many cases). If anything, one would expect 64 bit Windows to be under-represented in this demographic because gamers want maximum compatibility and maximum performance - which at this point is generally still seen as (32 bit) Windows XP.
So, while there are still too many assumptions to say "Leopard on 64-bit CPUs is x million, all 64-bit Windows is y million", the numbers we *do* have show the uptake of 64-bit Windows is a *very* small percentage of all new PCs, and the uptake of 64-bit Leopard running Macs is 100% of all new Macs.
Your numbers show nothing of the sort. Suggesting gamer demographics are representative of the entire PC userbase is just stupid (even if there weren't good reasons to expect 64-bit Windows to be atypically represented).
However, even if Windows 64-bit *is* more common than Mac 64-bit, the momentum is on the Mac's side, and none of this has any bearing on your statement (which was what this all is in reply to) that, "neither Linux's, or OSX's, situations have really changed markedly since it was written (with the exception of OS X gaining full "64-bitness")." I'd say Mac OS X's "situation" *has* changed markedly. Apple went from selling 100% of their Macs with 64-bit CPUs and a 32-bit OS to selling 100% of their Macs with 64-bit CPUs and a 64-bit OS. I don't see how you can not call that a "marked change".
Because in the context of 64 bit platform uptake across the whole market (ie: what ESR is talking about), even 100% of Apple's current sales is a vanishingly small proportion. It's also completely unreliable as an indication of the overall market's adoption of 64 bit platforms, given - as you've pointed out - you don't have a choice between 64 and 32 bit OS X.
Ie: the position's haven't changed. Neither OS X or Linux is going to displace Windows in the forseeable future, *that* is the overall point I am making. The supplementary point is that OS X's (or Linux's) "64-bitness" has no bearing on this, because - contrary to ESR's assertions - a platform's "64 bitness" is not yet a limiting factor (nor is it likely to be for another 12-18 months).
In short, people are not running out in droves and buying Macs instead of Windows - and they *certainly* aren't doing it because OS X is 64 bit and Windows is not. Ie: according to ESR's theories, Windows is going to win the "64 bit war", because neither Linux nor OS X are in any position to displace it.
I wouldn't be too sure about that. *Right now*, every Mac sold ships with a 64-bit OS, whereas even on the fraction of PCs sold with 64-bit CPUs, only a fraction of *those* actually run 64-bit Vista.
Huh ? No meaningful "fraction" of PCs has been sold without a 64 bit CPU for quite some time. Certainly not all of them are running 64 bit Windows, but I'm sure it's more than the tenth or so that would be necessary to exceed non-Windows PCs.
I would be very surprised if Mac OS X wasn't the most widely deployed 64-bit OS.
It would be jaw-droppingly astounding if that were true, given 64 bit OS X has only been out for a matter of months, whereas even 64-bit Vista has been out for over a year.
Personally, I'd be amazed if there were more OS X 10.5 boxes out there than 64-bit XP boxes (let alone including 64-bit Windows 2003 machines as well).
If you look at ESR's projections based upon market dominance at tipping points between dominant processor architectures of the past, there should be a clear 64bit market winner in 2008. Winning means more than 50% market share. It's obviously speculation, but well reasoned...
ESR's opinion seems to be in no small part based on the assumption that during 2008, "low end PCs" will be shipping with 4G RAM (and "high end" ones with 16G), thus necessitating a 64 bit OS to utilise it. Ignoring for a second that "high end" PCs have been available with 8G or more of RAM since last year (but are unlikely to have more than 4G "standard" anytime soon), I doubt 4G is going to become "mandatory" this year, simply because it's not necessary. Personally, I'll be surprised if the 4G "$300 PC" appears before 2010 (or maybe during the 2009/2010 Christmas period).
There are some other problems in that paper as well. For example his assertion that - all else being equal - OS X would be "unopposed" as the 64 bit platform of the future when (in 2006) it wasn't even completely 64 bit.
Reading that paper today, it's difficult to see how anyone could assert the "winner" _won't_ be Windows. It has all the hardware support, the software support, the inertia, the legacy support and the "features" that ESR identifies as being necessary, while neither Linux's, or OSX's, situations have really changed markedly since it was written (with the exception of OS X gaining full "64-bitness").
?? Living in the UK, I didn't even know the USA had an active socialist party until I googled it in order to reply to you; from my perspective the US politics has two centre right parties, one is just further right than the other. Modern English[sic]* politics is similar, we have three right of centre parties instead of two.
Being Australian, with a fairly similar political spectrum to the UK, I would have expected a Pom to perceive the Democrats and Repbulicans as Right and Far Right;).
The solution to bad government is not no government, but a fixed government, one that keeps people from screwing with each other but largely stands out of their way, allowing people the freedom to make of themselves what they want.
Keeps people from screwing with each other ? You mean like, say, being able to own guns ?
Most AIDS victims get themselves infected through willing sexual contact. While that shouldn't matter for getting help to people, the fact is that it's more difficult to muster sympathy for illnesses that people inflict upon themselves.
Are you suggesting most people who have AIDS had unprotected sex, shared needles, or similar, with someone they knew to be HIV positive ?
Because there is a VAST gulf of difference between people who engage in "behaviour" (even "high-risk behaviour") with each other and people who do so with people they know to be HIV-positive.
Consensual sex (or needle sharing, or whatever) in no way, whatsoever, is equivalent to consensual infection by a (typically) fatal diseases.
It is evil because the big pharma corporations call themselves "ethical companies" to distinguish themselves from generic pharmaceutical companies, who are presumably "unethical" by bringing low cost generic drugs onto the market, to give people affordable alternatives. If they proclaim themselves to be "ethical" the should behave ethically and try to produce drugs that are urgently needed.
Ethical != Moral.
Eg: the lawyer who gets a client that he knows is guilty of murder acquitted - because of, say, errors in police procedure - is behaving perfectly ethically, although not morally.
The Swiss are _very_ independant minded, perhaps even moreso than Americans.
No, they're very community minded. There's a difference. The average American would just about feel oppressed living in Switzerland (especially if he hadn't been living here for long enough to be granted the "right" kind of residence permit).
Never mind ex post facto for a minute. The Protect America Act has been in place how long? What has it accomplished? What? For all these rights that have been trampled, what has been gained? What? Name one positive good outcome from it?
Well, have you been killed by terr'ists yet ?
(There's a huge market out there for tiger-repelling rocks as well...)
Except with a hands free, you have both hands available, so you can accurately control the car and safely respond to safety issues. If you're holding a phone, driving becomes more erratic as you're trying to steer and change gear with one hand.
The problem with using a phone while driving is not one of physical control, but one of attention. Which is why people with only one arm, or other physical disabilities, are allowed to drive.
Most people use Windows yes. However with the GUI changing (just look from XP to Vista), training students on an outdated platform of Windows is worse then teaching them *NIX. Because most Linux/Unix GUIs don't need to be new for the sake of being new, most skills acquired on KDE 1 can be transferred to KDE 4 with little problems, and the same with Gnome.
Given the differences in look and feel that can exist between KDE installations *of the same version*, your assertion is ridiculous on its face. Anyone stumped by the "GUI changes" from XP to Vista (heck, from Windows _95_ to Vista, given it still has the same fundamental look and feel that was introduced 12 years ago) is going to be completely and utterly lost with the changes from KDE1 to KDE4.
Think back to the old DOS skills and Apple ][ skills, now they are not needed anymore, a few wasted cells in your brain, today if you learned Unix back in the '80s running OS-X or Ubuntu in 2008 will be second nature to you, take someone brought up on Windows 98 and sit them down on a Vista machine, they would be confused because they were learned on 98 and now its Vista and everything looks different!
Idiotic comments like this merely demonstrate how little experience you have with Unix (or anything, really). You couldn't even transplant the average Linux user onto a Solaris system _today_ without them having some serious usability problems, let alone a UNIX box from the 80s.
He means VGA when he says analog. And it's supported, but "crippled" so that with many forms of media, performs only somewhat better (540p) than that S-Video port, or is completely disabled.
Complain to the person DRMing their content then, because they're the ones responsible. Vista can drive a 1080p screen just fine with an analogue VGA output (and certainly plays all my movies like that just fine).
Removing all of Quicktime and removing Quicktime are two different things, please understand which one i'm talking about. If I drag the Quicktime Icon from OSX into the trash and with iTunes, nothing in the OS is affected, if I remove all elements of Quicktime from the system then it affects the OS.
Why are you comparing it to:
However, when you remove IE from the system (after figuring out the process because it isn't a program you can just uninstall) the OS won't work the same way afterwards.
Which is a completely different thing ?
The accurate comparison to what you're doing with Quicktime, is deleting iexplore.exe - as another poster tried to point out.
My point is that IE is a part of windows in such that if you removed it, you lose elements of windows explorer, if you remove itunes and quicktime, the OS isn't affected, you don't lose functionality. It's nothing like IE, get a clue please.
It's exactly like IE. If you remove ALL of Quicktime from OSX, you *will* break things.
As Engadget does too often for my taste, the review misses the point of this product entirely. Please pull your head out of the tech-sheets long enough to look at the thing as a 'product' not a 'laptop'
Doesn't work as a "product" either (at least for any product where "works as a computer" is a significant factor). A regular old MB gives you essentially the same amount of portability at a much lower cost (and with much more functionality).
This is a laptop for people who don't like computers, to love.
The MBA is a laptop for people who want a toy to look cool with at the coffee shop.
Once the RDF wears off, the MacBook Cube is not going to be a big seller. There's just not enough people who fit into its tiny demographic.
Further, the Air is only a third of an inch deeper (8.94 vs. 8.6), so in terms of depth (and in screen height when opened) they're functionally identical. As such, on a airline tray table they'd behave pretty much the same. (Since tray tables are typically 16.5" wide by 9.5-10.5" deep, the Air's extra width has little impact. Still room for it and a cup of coffee.)
Or you could get a regular MB, which takes up essentially the same amount of space on the tray table as an MBA, but is substantially more capable and leaves you with enough change to buy an iPhone and an AppleTV as well.
It's a struggle to see why anyone interested in a useful computer, rather than a cool looking toy, would by an MBA instead of an MB. It just ain't that much smaller.
I've already conceded that you're correct that from Apple's perspective (ie, the technical perspective) it is considered an 'upgrade'. My point, however, is that it's not marketed as such, has no technical limitation enforcing it and for all intents and purposes, is simply a full system installer.
What ?
* It most certainly IS "marketed as such [an upgrade]". It's marketed at existing Macintosh users and no-one else.
* It most certainly DOES have "technical limitations". You can't install it on anything except apple hardware without modifying it and you can't even run it "normally" after that.
The most important bit in my mind when using the price to compare against Windows licenses is the fact that it is NOT marketed, labeled or packaged as an upgrade. From the consumer's perspective, therefore, it's not an upgrade - and skewing the numbers by comparing it to Windows upgrade pricing is misleading.
You're delusional. You're claiming Apple is marketing and selling OS X at everyone and condones (nay, encourages) using it on non-Apple computers. Exactly what evidence do you have to support this ?
Strictly speaking you are factually incorrect. An upgrade contains some sort of mechanism to verify you have an existing copy either already installed on the target volume, or else have some other proof of existing ownership of a previous version (the old install CD, etc).
Strictly speaking, I'm absolutely correct. Please provide a link to the universal definition of "upgrade" you are using.
Mac OS X contains NO such installation restrictions whatsoever, unlike typical Microsoft upgrade packages that, though they do include all the data required for a complete install, are modified to include proof of previous ownership.
MacOS X most certainly does include such installation restrictions, it's called a "Macintosh".
Furthermore, to my knowledge there are far fewer legal encumbrances on Apple's OS either (such as an EULA that prohibits you from using the new OS without being a licensee of a previous version, or restricting transferability to new hardware).
What ? You can't even legally install OS X on hardware that isn't blessed by Apple. Exactly how is that "less encumbrance" ?
Technically you do NOT need a Mac to run Mac OS X. Most would find the Mac OS X CD about as useful as a coaster, but technically savvy people have been known to have gotten Mac OSX running on commodity Intel Core Duo hardware.
"Technically", you do not need to have bought a previous version of Windows (or anything at all) to "run" Windows.
As far as not being able to buy a Mac without a Mac OS license--how is that different from the majority of PCs sold in retail today? You cannot walk into a Best Buy and pick up any machine there and ask them to give you one with a blank hard drive, and give you a discount for not using the Windows license.
Maybe not, but you can certainly walk into thousands of other shops and buy a PC without an OS. Heck, you can even buy them from major vendors like Dell if you really want to.
Yes, the situation with Macs is even worse, but it is a problem on the PC side too--there has been an uphill battle to get manufacturers to sell "naked PCs" to users so they can install the OS of their choice, even while Microsoft has in the past launched campaigns portraying VARs that sell "naked PCs" as being evil, or at least shady enablers of piracy.
It has never, ever, been hard to buy a PC without Windows (or DOS, if you want to go that far back).
Finally, even if you have managed to avert the obvious Microsoft Tax, you still pay indirectly on "Windows certified" hardware, because you have to pay to cover the costs of Windows driver development, certification and signing even if you never use the product with Windows. Basically you cannot buy a PC without giving Microsoft at least some of your money
This is just so wacked out I don't even know how to respond.
There is no dongle with Apple--you are using such terms to convey a bias.
No, I'm using such terms to convey reality. The whole Macintosh is the dongle. No Mac ? No (legal) OS X.
It does look at the TPM integrated within the machine. Those are two different things that work in somewhat different ways, even if the end purpose id the same (to limit functionality to a specific device).
OS X runs on Macs that don't have TPM modules.
With Apple, you get Mac OS X . That's it. There isn't a convoluted product line combined with licesning schemes that make your brain hurt. You get all the features of OS X and all is good. Buy one copy or buy it for the family. easy to figure it out.
This is the difference between being in a niche market and having a big enough market to differentiate products.
Contrast that with Microsoft: Vista Basic or Premium or Business or Ultimate? Wait...I don't get the jazzy "wow" stuff with Basic? What a gyp! Now...do I get the upgrade, or full retail, or OEM or enterprise licensing? Am I even legally entitled to buy the OEM versio
Let's try this again. Buy a retail copy of Leopard. Put together your own system using parts known to work for OS X. Install that copy of Leopard on that hardware you did not buy from Apple.
At which point you've broken the licensing agreement. If you're willing to do that, I think it's only fair to compare an identical scenario with Windows, no ?
(This is also ignoring the difficulties of installing and using OS X on a Hackintosh.)
The software on the disk is not an upgrade - it installs a full version of the system on any hardware it recognizes. Period. No keys, no phone home, no dongle.
The software is *sold* as an upgrade. That's how its price is set. That's all that matters in a *price comparison*.
So, you can compare the cost of OS X to the upgrade cost for Windows (since, as you state, you've probably paid for the initial OS X version with the hardware purchase) or, you can compare the same cost of OS X to the full retail cost for Windows (since you may not have any previous version of OS X).
Whether or not you *have* a copy is irrelevant. If you have a Mac, you've paid (directly or indirectly) for a MacOS license.
For comparative purposes, it functions like the full retail install of Vista and not like an upgrade, and it is disingenuous at best to equate them as such. I'm sure Apple prices it exactly as you describe - but you're blurring the lines to call it an 'upgrade' package when there is no such requirement at all and more importantly, there is no difference in practice.
I'm not blurring any line. MacOS retail boxes are sold as upgrades. There is no MacOS equivalent to a "full retail" version of Vista (or any Windows) that you can legally install on any computer you want. Any attempts to suggest that the version of OS X being sold on shelves is comparable in that way, is simply wrong.
You can't legally use a store-bought copy of OS X without already having paid for an "OEM" copy of OS X. Just like you can't use an "upgrade" version of Windows without already having some version to upgrade from. The situation is *exactly* the same.
Take a blank disk, that copy of OS X (whichever version you want) and install. Period.
Utterly irrelevant.
You can bitch at them for not selling upgrades, but you don't get to call that thing they actually sell an 'upgrade package'.
You can only run MacOS on a Mac. You can't buy a Mac without buying a MacOS license as well. That is why every retail copy of OS X is priced as an upgrade.
The difference between Microsoft's and Apple's upgrades is how they are verified. Apple uses a hardware dongle, Microsoft needs you to demonstrate you already have a copy.
Completely and utterly irrelevant. Either you have DRM-encumbered media, in which case the DRM in Vista means you can actually use it, or you don't, and the DRM does nothing.
the exremely annoying UAC prompts,
Which are exactly the same as the ones in Linux and OS X.
the HUGE amount of software that ran fine with XP that doesn't run with Vista,
Which is proportionally miniscule.
the HUGE amount of system rescources needed to get decent performance...
A Ghz-class processor, a gigabyte or more of RAM and a US$30 video card. Heady stuff, indeed, needing a machine less than 5-6 years old.
Slashdot Mirror
While there are plenty of 64-bit CPUs available, I suspect the low-end chips account for a significant share of the PC market (and 0% of the Mac market). But I have no numbers, so it's just "is not", "is so".
Even the lowest of low-end Intel and AMD CPUs have been 64 bit for a couple of years now.
Incidentally, Apple's hardware lineup only went 64-bit across the board in August 2007, when the Mac Mini was upgraded to a Core 2 CPU. Prior to that (a mere 6 months ago) Apple was still selling hardware with a 32-bit CPU.
It's been out for about a year, and no one buys it. Right now, *every Mac* ships with Leopard, and Apple has sold millions of retail copies of Leopard and millions of Core 2 Duos w/ Tiger.
You really shouldn't rely on Slashdot for your Microsoft related news. Out in the real world, Vista uptake is fine.
Well, numbers are hard to find, but from Steam, the combined total of 64-bit Windows accounted for 3.2% of their users in November of last year. One would assume Valve users would be more likely to be running a 64-bit version of Windows compared with the average user (for example, aside from gamers being more likely to be enthusiasts who will actually seek *out* a 64-bit OS, they are also significantly less likely to be running on older hardware which cannot even *run* a 64-bit OS).
A highly questionable assumption, given gamers' notoriously superstitious nature and the fairly infamous software and driver compatibilities 64 bit Windows XP has suffered in the past (and still does, in many cases). If anything, one would expect 64 bit Windows to be under-represented in this demographic because gamers want maximum compatibility and maximum performance - which at this point is generally still seen as (32 bit) Windows XP.
So, while there are still too many assumptions to say "Leopard on 64-bit CPUs is x million, all 64-bit Windows is y million", the numbers we *do* have show the uptake of 64-bit Windows is a *very* small percentage of all new PCs, and the uptake of 64-bit Leopard running Macs is 100% of all new Macs.
Your numbers show nothing of the sort. Suggesting gamer demographics are representative of the entire PC userbase is just stupid (even if there weren't good reasons to expect 64-bit Windows to be atypically represented).
However, even if Windows 64-bit *is* more common than Mac 64-bit, the momentum is on the Mac's side, and none of this has any bearing on your statement (which was what this all is in reply to) that, "neither Linux's, or OSX's, situations have really changed markedly since it was written (with the exception of OS X gaining full "64-bitness")." I'd say Mac OS X's "situation" *has* changed markedly. Apple went from selling 100% of their Macs with 64-bit CPUs and a 32-bit OS to selling 100% of their Macs with 64-bit CPUs and a 64-bit OS. I don't see how you can not call that a "marked change".
Because in the context of 64 bit platform uptake across the whole market (ie: what ESR is talking about), even 100% of Apple's current sales is a vanishingly small proportion. It's also completely unreliable as an indication of the overall market's adoption of 64 bit platforms, given - as you've pointed out - you don't have a choice between 64 and 32 bit OS X.
Ie: the position's haven't changed. Neither OS X or Linux is going to displace Windows in the forseeable future, *that* is the overall point I am making. The supplementary point is that OS X's (or Linux's) "64-bitness" has no bearing on this, because - contrary to ESR's assertions - a platform's "64 bitness" is not yet a limiting factor (nor is it likely to be for another 12-18 months).
In short, people are not running out in droves and buying Macs instead of Windows - and they *certainly* aren't doing it because OS X is 64 bit and Windows is not. Ie: according to ESR's theories, Windows is going to win the "64 bit war", because neither Linux nor OS X are in any position to displace it.
I wouldn't be too sure about that. *Right now*, every Mac sold ships with a 64-bit OS, whereas even on the fraction of PCs sold with 64-bit CPUs, only a fraction of *those* actually run 64-bit Vista.
Huh ? No meaningful "fraction" of PCs has been sold without a 64 bit CPU for quite some time. Certainly not all of them are running 64 bit Windows, but I'm sure it's more than the tenth or so that would be necessary to exceed non-Windows PCs.
I would be very surprised if Mac OS X wasn't the most widely deployed 64-bit OS.
It would be jaw-droppingly astounding if that were true, given 64 bit OS X has only been out for a matter of months, whereas even 64-bit Vista has been out for over a year.
Personally, I'd be amazed if there were more OS X 10.5 boxes out there than 64-bit XP boxes (let alone including 64-bit Windows 2003 machines as well).
If you look at ESR's projections based upon market dominance at tipping points between dominant processor architectures of the past, there should be a clear 64bit market winner in 2008. Winning means more than 50% market share. It's obviously speculation, but well reasoned...
ESR's opinion seems to be in no small part based on the assumption that during 2008, "low end PCs" will be shipping with 4G RAM (and "high end" ones with 16G), thus necessitating a 64 bit OS to utilise it. Ignoring for a second that "high end" PCs have been available with 8G or more of RAM since last year (but are unlikely to have more than 4G "standard" anytime soon), I doubt 4G is going to become "mandatory" this year, simply because it's not necessary. Personally, I'll be surprised if the 4G "$300 PC" appears before 2010 (or maybe during the 2009/2010 Christmas period).
There are some other problems in that paper as well. For example his assertion that - all else being equal - OS X would be "unopposed" as the 64 bit platform of the future when (in 2006) it wasn't even completely 64 bit.
Reading that paper today, it's difficult to see how anyone could assert the "winner" _won't_ be Windows. It has all the hardware support, the software support, the inertia, the legacy support and the "features" that ESR identifies as being necessary, while neither Linux's, or OSX's, situations have really changed markedly since it was written (with the exception of OS X gaining full "64-bitness").
?? Living in the UK, I didn't even know the USA had an active socialist party until I googled it in order to reply to you; from my perspective the US politics has two centre right parties, one is just further right than the other. Modern English[sic]* politics is similar, we have three right of centre parties instead of two.
Being Australian, with a fairly similar political spectrum to the UK, I would have expected a Pom to perceive the Democrats and Repbulicans as Right and Far Right ;).
(Damn English, not having grammatically correct genderless singular pronouns).
Yes, it does. They just happen to be the same as the male pronouns.
Stop trying to live your life to the drum beat of political correctness.
The solution to bad government is not no government, but a fixed government, one that keeps people from screwing with each other but largely stands out of their way, allowing people the freedom to make of themselves what they want.
Keeps people from screwing with each other ? You mean like, say, being able to own guns ?
Since most Linux OSs are free, there's no business reason to bloat up the system with feature frills.'"
Since most Linux OSes are free, there's no business reason for them to deliver features people want (and hence are prepared to pay for).
Most AIDS victims get themselves infected through willing sexual contact. While that shouldn't matter for getting help to people, the fact is that it's more difficult to muster sympathy for illnesses that people inflict upon themselves.
Are you suggesting most people who have AIDS had unprotected sex, shared needles, or similar, with someone they knew to be HIV positive ?
Because there is a VAST gulf of difference between people who engage in "behaviour" (even "high-risk behaviour") with each other and people who do so with people they know to be HIV-positive.
Consensual sex (or needle sharing, or whatever) in no way, whatsoever, is equivalent to consensual infection by a (typically) fatal diseases.
It is evil because the big pharma corporations call themselves "ethical companies" to distinguish themselves from generic pharmaceutical companies, who are presumably "unethical" by bringing low cost generic drugs onto the market, to give people affordable alternatives. If they proclaim themselves to be "ethical" the should behave ethically and try to produce drugs that are urgently needed.
Ethical != Moral.
Eg: the lawyer who gets a client that he knows is guilty of murder acquitted - because of, say, errors in police procedure - is behaving perfectly ethically, although not morally.
If you have trouble seeing that, then I doubt anyone can successfully explain it to you.
I said this in another post, but it's worth repeating. These people aren't evil, they're psychopathic.
This isn't revolutionary I'm sure, but this kind of candor shocked me, These people really are as evil as people say.
They're not evil, they're psychopaths. A distinction that may not always be obvious, but is important.
The Swiss are _very_ independant minded, perhaps even moreso than Americans.
No, they're very community minded. There's a difference. The average American would just about feel oppressed living in Switzerland (especially if he hadn't been living here for long enough to be granted the "right" kind of residence permit).
Never mind ex post facto for a minute. The Protect America Act has been in place how long? What has it accomplished? What? For all these rights that have been trampled, what has been gained? What? Name one positive good outcome from it?
Well, have you been killed by terr'ists yet ?
(There's a huge market out there for tiger-repelling rocks as well...)
Except with a hands free, you have both hands available, so you can accurately control the car and safely respond to safety issues. If you're holding a phone, driving becomes more erratic as you're trying to steer and change gear with one hand.
The problem with using a phone while driving is not one of physical control, but one of attention. Which is why people with only one arm, or other physical disabilities, are allowed to drive.
Most people use Windows yes. However with the GUI changing (just look from XP to Vista), training students on an outdated platform of Windows is worse then teaching them *NIX. Because most Linux/Unix GUIs don't need to be new for the sake of being new, most skills acquired on KDE 1 can be transferred to KDE 4 with little problems, and the same with Gnome.
Given the differences in look and feel that can exist between KDE installations *of the same version*, your assertion is ridiculous on its face. Anyone stumped by the "GUI changes" from XP to Vista (heck, from Windows _95_ to Vista, given it still has the same fundamental look and feel that was introduced 12 years ago) is going to be completely and utterly lost with the changes from KDE1 to KDE4.
Think back to the old DOS skills and Apple ][ skills, now they are not needed anymore, a few wasted cells in your brain, today if you learned Unix back in the '80s running OS-X or Ubuntu in 2008 will be second nature to you, take someone brought up on Windows 98 and sit them down on a Vista machine, they would be confused because they were learned on 98 and now its Vista and everything looks different!
Idiotic comments like this merely demonstrate how little experience you have with Unix (or anything, really). You couldn't even transplant the average Linux user onto a Solaris system _today_ without them having some serious usability problems, let alone a UNIX box from the 80s.
He means VGA when he says analog. And it's supported, but "crippled" so that with many forms of media, performs only somewhat better (540p) than that S-Video port, or is completely disabled.
Complain to the person DRMing their content then, because they're the ones responsible. Vista can drive a 1080p screen just fine with an analogue VGA output (and certainly plays all my movies like that just fine).
Removing all of Quicktime and removing Quicktime are two different things, please understand which one i'm talking about. If I drag the Quicktime Icon from OSX into the trash and with iTunes, nothing in the OS is affected, if I remove all elements of Quicktime from the system then it affects the OS.
Why are you comparing it to:
However, when you remove IE from the system (after figuring out the process because it isn't a program you can just uninstall) the OS won't work the same way afterwards.
Which is a completely different thing ?
The accurate comparison to what you're doing with Quicktime, is deleting iexplore.exe - as another poster tried to point out.
My point is that IE is a part of windows in such that if you removed it, you lose elements of windows explorer, if you remove itunes and quicktime, the OS isn't affected, you don't lose functionality. It's nothing like IE, get a clue please.
It's exactly like IE. If you remove ALL of Quicktime from OSX, you *will* break things.
As Engadget does too often for my taste, the review misses the point of this product entirely. Please pull your head out of the tech-sheets long enough to look at the thing as a 'product' not a 'laptop'
Doesn't work as a "product" either (at least for any product where "works as a computer" is a significant factor). A regular old MB gives you essentially the same amount of portability at a much lower cost (and with much more functionality).
This is a laptop for people who don't like computers, to love.
The MBA is a laptop for people who want a toy to look cool with at the coffee shop.
Once the RDF wears off, the MacBook Cube is not going to be a big seller. There's just not enough people who fit into its tiny demographic.
Further, the Air is only a third of an inch deeper (8.94 vs. 8.6), so in terms of depth (and in screen height when opened) they're functionally identical. As such, on a airline tray table they'd behave pretty much the same. (Since tray tables are typically 16.5" wide by 9.5-10.5" deep, the Air's extra width has little impact. Still room for it and a cup of coffee.)
Or you could get a regular MB, which takes up essentially the same amount of space on the tray table as an MBA, but is substantially more capable and leaves you with enough change to buy an iPhone and an AppleTV as well.
It's a struggle to see why anyone interested in a useful computer, rather than a cool looking toy, would by an MBA instead of an MB. It just ain't that much smaller.
I've already conceded that you're correct that from Apple's perspective (ie, the technical perspective) it is considered an 'upgrade'. My point, however, is that it's not marketed as such, has no technical limitation enforcing it and for all intents and purposes, is simply a full system installer.
What ?
* It most certainly IS "marketed as such [an upgrade]". It's marketed at existing Macintosh users and no-one else.
* It most certainly DOES have "technical limitations". You can't install it on anything except apple hardware without modifying it and you can't even run it "normally" after that.
The most important bit in my mind when using the price to compare against Windows licenses is the fact that it is NOT marketed, labeled or packaged as an upgrade. From the consumer's perspective, therefore, it's not an upgrade - and skewing the numbers by comparing it to Windows upgrade pricing is misleading.
You're delusional. You're claiming Apple is marketing and selling OS X at everyone and condones (nay, encourages) using it on non-Apple computers. Exactly what evidence do you have to support this ?
Strictly speaking you are factually incorrect. An upgrade contains some sort of mechanism to verify you have an existing copy either already installed on the target volume, or else have some other proof of existing ownership of a previous version (the old install CD, etc).
Strictly speaking, I'm absolutely correct. Please provide a link to the universal definition of "upgrade" you are using.
Mac OS X contains NO such installation restrictions whatsoever, unlike typical Microsoft upgrade packages that, though they do include all the data required for a complete install, are modified to include proof of previous ownership.
MacOS X most certainly does include such installation restrictions, it's called a "Macintosh".
Furthermore, to my knowledge there are far fewer legal encumbrances on Apple's OS either (such as an EULA that prohibits you from using the new OS without being a licensee of a previous version, or restricting transferability to new hardware).
What ? You can't even legally install OS X on hardware that isn't blessed by Apple. Exactly how is that "less encumbrance" ?
Technically you do NOT need a Mac to run Mac OS X. Most would find the Mac OS X CD about as useful as a coaster, but technically savvy people have been known to have gotten Mac OSX running on commodity Intel Core Duo hardware.
"Technically", you do not need to have bought a previous version of Windows (or anything at all) to "run" Windows.
As far as not being able to buy a Mac without a Mac OS license--how is that different from the majority of PCs sold in retail today? You cannot walk into a Best Buy and pick up any machine there and ask them to give you one with a blank hard drive, and give you a discount for not using the Windows license.
Maybe not, but you can certainly walk into thousands of other shops and buy a PC without an OS. Heck, you can even buy them from major vendors like Dell if you really want to.
Yes, the situation with Macs is even worse, but it is a problem on the PC side too--there has been an uphill battle to get manufacturers to sell "naked PCs" to users so they can install the OS of their choice, even while Microsoft has in the past launched campaigns portraying VARs that sell "naked PCs" as being evil, or at least shady enablers of piracy.
It has never, ever, been hard to buy a PC without Windows (or DOS, if you want to go that far back).
Finally, even if you have managed to avert the obvious Microsoft Tax, you still pay indirectly on "Windows certified" hardware, because you have to pay to cover the costs of Windows driver development, certification and signing even if you never use the product with Windows. Basically you cannot buy a PC without giving Microsoft at least some of your money
This is just so wacked out I don't even know how to respond.
There is no dongle with Apple--you are using such terms to convey a bias.
No, I'm using such terms to convey reality. The whole Macintosh is the dongle. No Mac ? No (legal) OS X.
It does look at the TPM integrated within the machine. Those are two different things that work in somewhat different ways, even if the end purpose id the same (to limit functionality to a specific device).
OS X runs on Macs that don't have TPM modules.
With Apple, you get Mac OS X . That's it. There isn't a convoluted product line combined with licesning schemes that make your brain hurt. You get all the features of OS X and all is good. Buy one copy or buy it for the family. easy to figure it out.
This is the difference between being in a niche market and having a big enough market to differentiate products.
Contrast that with Microsoft: Vista Basic or Premium or Business or Ultimate? Wait...I don't get the jazzy "wow" stuff with Basic? What a gyp! Now...do I get the upgrade, or full retail, or OEM or enterprise licensing? Am I even legally entitled to buy the OEM versio
Let's try this again. Buy a retail copy of Leopard. Put together your own system using parts known to work for OS X. Install that copy of Leopard on that hardware you did not buy from Apple.
At which point you've broken the licensing agreement. If you're willing to do that, I think it's only fair to compare an identical scenario with Windows, no ?
(This is also ignoring the difficulties of installing and using OS X on a Hackintosh.)
The software on the disk is not an upgrade - it installs a full version of the system on any hardware it recognizes. Period. No keys, no phone home, no dongle.
The software is *sold* as an upgrade. That's how its price is set. That's all that matters in a *price comparison*.
So, you can compare the cost of OS X to the upgrade cost for Windows (since, as you state, you've probably paid for the initial OS X version with the hardware purchase) or, you can compare the same cost of OS X to the full retail cost for Windows (since you may not have any previous version of OS X).
Whether or not you *have* a copy is irrelevant. If you have a Mac, you've paid (directly or indirectly) for a MacOS license.
For comparative purposes, it functions like the full retail install of Vista and not like an upgrade, and it is disingenuous at best to equate them as such. I'm sure Apple prices it exactly as you describe - but you're blurring the lines to call it an 'upgrade' package when there is no such requirement at all and more importantly, there is no difference in practice.
I'm not blurring any line. MacOS retail boxes are sold as upgrades. There is no MacOS equivalent to a "full retail" version of Vista (or any Windows) that you can legally install on any computer you want. Any attempts to suggest that the version of OS X being sold on shelves is comparable in that way, is simply wrong.
You can't legally use a store-bought copy of OS X without already having paid for an "OEM" copy of OS X. Just like you can't use an "upgrade" version of Windows without already having some version to upgrade from. The situation is *exactly* the same.
Apple does not sell upgrades.
Apple only sell upgrades.
Take a blank disk, that copy of OS X (whichever version you want) and install. Period.
Utterly irrelevant.
You can bitch at them for not selling upgrades, but you don't get to call that thing they actually sell an 'upgrade package'.
You can only run MacOS on a Mac. You can't buy a Mac without buying a MacOS license as well. That is why every retail copy of OS X is priced as an upgrade.
The difference between Microsoft's and Apple's upgrades is how they are verified. Apple uses a hardware dongle, Microsoft needs you to demonstrate you already have a copy.
Lets start with the built in DRM, [...]
Completely and utterly irrelevant. Either you have DRM-encumbered media, in which case the DRM in Vista means you can actually use it, or you don't, and the DRM does nothing.
the exremely annoying UAC prompts,
Which are exactly the same as the ones in Linux and OS X.
the HUGE amount of software that ran fine with XP that doesn't run with Vista,
Which is proportionally miniscule.
the HUGE amount of system rescources needed to get decent performance...
A Ghz-class processor, a gigabyte or more of RAM and a US$30 video card. Heady stuff, indeed, needing a machine less than 5-6 years old.