Like it or not, the ugly truth is that when it comes to all things computers, the vast majority of consumers aren't looking for choices, they just want something that gets the job done sufficiently well so that they can go on their merry way. They have other things they'd rather be doing with their lives such as going out and getting some excersize, having lunch with some friends or even just chatting on AIM. Maybe I'm in the minority, but that sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
Think about it for a second. What name sounds friendlier to you: gaim or AOL Instant Messenger. How about MPlayer/VLC or Windows Media Player? Don't get me wrong because I love VLC and use it as my main movie player and I use Adium instead of iChat. iChat sounds a lot friendlier though and don't underestimate the importance of a name. iChat gives a much better idea of what the product does and also comes with the computer. If I say Adium or VLC, most people will say, "what the hell is that?" and then forget about it. After all, they haven't seen any marketing and iChat is working just fine for them, so why should they care?
Bottom line is that consumers would rather have their decisions made for them because they are easily intimidated and uninterested in learning. That's a testiment to poor attitudes by the people who want them to be more interested. If you set someone up with a linux system on their new computer, don't think that they using the software by choice. They trust you that the software will work well for them and they aren't going to bother to see if there's anything else they might like better.
If I understand right, what you're trying to say is that (speaking as a mac user), apple and linux are in the same situation: we all want 3rd parties to support our platforms. In the meantime, not having malware is an advantage that we can take advantage of. Even despite this, Windows can still be a better choice for people. If apple's business model relies on nitch marketshare, then they are only targeting certain markets. They can still make money from devices like the iPod (and rumored iPhone) that anyone, regardless of whether or not they own a mac, can use.
You're making a huge assumption here. You're assuming that Apple will put that kind of virtualization into leopard. They aren't. As you said, developers will ask the question "why should I port this app to mac os x when I can just run the windows version?". Apple is using the ability to run windows on a mac so that the people who need that one windows app will be able to run it. Don't forget that people aren't buying macs to run windows software, they're buying them to run mac software. Apple knows this and while they'll make it possible to run windows apps on their computers, they aren't going to make it simple. Otherwise, you'd get that developer mentaility of "why should I port this to the mac?" that you just talked about.
Speaking as a mac user, I too, was unimpressed. What everyone seems to continually forget is that Jobs also said that there were "top secret" features. The reality is, we still have no idea what's in leopard. Personally, I'm afriad of feature bloat right now.
I think that all Jobs was trying to accomplish with the demo was to give developers an idea of leopard's power and show them what kinds of things it can do. He showed developers how the address book tied into time machine to give them an example of the kinds of things timemachine can do. He also did it to show them how they could take advantage of it in their own applications. Once he did the demo of the addressbook, he included a few new features in mail to go along with it. With Core Animation, all he wanted to do was show developers what kinds of things it could do. Finally, the whole point of the iChat demo was to show developers what kinds of things leopard is capable of.
People are thinking too hard about the leopard demo. The demo was only supposed to be a display of a few of the technologies that are in it. We still know nothing about what leopard is and what it isn't.
I don't know if it was or wasn't a good idea to hold back on new leopard features. All I know is that Microsoft is having enough trouble getting their own ideas into vista.
Bingo. The only way to go from the ICE to EV is to "just do it". You have to force people to do the kinds of things that they might not want to do and make them live with it until the necessary infrastructure is built up, no matter how long it takes. I don't know enough about the tech stuff, but in business, when you're trying to make a relatively radical change, the only way you can do it is create the product and do your best to drag your customers along with you. I'd like to think that the oil companies are aware of the fact that we're going to be out of oil in about 20 years and would be willing to help with the R&D to make it happen because they'll be in that same situation. What are they going to do when their whole source of revenue is completely gone with no chance at coming back?
Anyway, yeah, it would take some ballsy politicians to make it happen, but this situation kind of reminds of slavery and the civil war. After the civil war, slavery was gone and the south just had to deal with it. Eventually, it started to prosper again. Yes, it took awhile, and so will the transition away from ICEs no matter how it's replaced. All we know is that it will take a pretty long time and we're better off trying to get it done now than wait until we're all out of gas and have no way to mow the lawn.
I think you're on the right track. What Microsoft wants people to believe is that with commercial development, help is only a phone call away. It doesn't matter if the quality of the support is good or not. What matters is that it's there. In addition, commercial software is created by a tangible entity where the programmers are specifically hired by the company because they're good programmers. Open source is created by volunteers who aren't getting paid and so have less incentive to make good software. Of course, that's all perception and the reality doesn't matter. Instead of just dismissing everything that Microsoft said, I think the community instead needs to discuss ways to better educate the public so that they have a positive perception of open source. For now, the perception is that open source software is software that's only used by hobbiests and is too complictated for the average user. If you ever need help, you get that from going to forums or sending emails and not knowing if you'll even get help or when you'll get it. Not only that, but the support doesn't come from people trained to help the common user, it comes from tech-oriented hobbiests that they won't be able to understand. That, I think, is what has to be dealt with.
I can't believe what I've been reading here. I don't like IE/windows anymore than the next poster, but give microsoft some credit for actually providing phone support for their pre-release software.
This is very simple: it's beta software and you don't have to install it if you don't want to. It's beta software and because it's beta software, MS can put any OS validation scheme they want because they aren't forcing IE7 on users. Of course, they can do it regardless anyway. At this point, what ever they want to do is completely fine. At this point, we don't know what features will be in the final release. Is it safe to assume that the validation scheme will be in the final release? Probably. For now, we have to give them the benifit of the doubt. If the final release does have it, that's when you start giving them hell for it. Hell, the final release could still be beta software but the fact is that we just don't know. I may not be optimistic about vista but since I haven't used it, I don't think that I can say that it's good or bad.
This is why I think that too many people are making more of bootcamp than it really is supposed to be. It seems to be that if Apple has access to the windows API, they'd be more interested in making it as easy as possible for developers to port their software to mac os x. Apple could also write APIs to make it easy for them to create a more mac-like interface and also to be able to integrate with the operating system in general. Booting back into windows would be a last-ditch solution. I also think that many users who want to switch know that it's going to cost them extra money to get all new software and if there's a mac version of the product that they use, they will just factor it into the cost of switching. Potential switchers need to hear more than just, "we may not have a mac version of the product you use now, but we do have this product and it's better blah blah blah". On the other hand, if there's a mac version of the software they use, they know it will be compatible with what they're currently using and they'll easily be able to factor it into the equation.
You also start to hint at the other major problem. We'll assume for a second that they do agree on a standard. Now you're going to have to have the standards body approve every piece of software to make sure that it's compliant. Ease of use is a philosophy. Creating this kind of standard requires that the developers to want to be consistant. If this does actually happen, the freedom of toolkit choice that the open-source community values so much will almost completely cease to exist. If the developers/users want a new toolkit, they'll just have to wait until the standards body approves it. Now there's the issue of how well applications integrate with each other. There's just too much to deal with and I really don't think the community can make it happen.
yeah, and I've heard people say "hot as hell" but this is rediculous. I wonder if I should start saying "hot as the gas produced by those crazy scientists".
Well, I'm no geo-scientist but it would seem to me that we're creating a dangerous imbalance in the eath's natural resources. Obviously, I have no idea what I'm talking about and maybe that doesn't mean anything, but I feel like the earth is going to do what it has to so it can "heal" itself. Again, this is just a completely uneducated guess.
Just wanted to point out that neither the Zen or napster will work with my mac. When you look at it that way, Apple provides more inter-operability then the other companies do. It looks like Real does now, but I can't use the Zen with it. Sony's webpage doesn't say if their MP3 players will work, but they do say their store still doesn't. Come talk to me when a few more of these company's products/services will work with my mac. this case is rediculous.
You can castigate the 'crappy video card' all you want, but the imaging
model in the MacOS fully USES the graphic programmability of
that card, for ALL applications, and supports it (virtual video memory)
in ways the Wintel boxes don't. This happens because the OS
designers and the card programmers all talk to each other.
Before going into production.
I'm just curious. Can you be more specific about the graphics features that the wintel box don't support. I've always suspected something that makes it unique, but I don't know enough to really understand it. Thanks.
I think you nailed Apple's reasoning for not making a mac os x for basic x86 machines when you said that windows is at a precarious point. Right now, while Microsoft has released beta 1 of vista, they don't have a schedule for beta 2 which leaves lots of room for more features to be cut. Just sit back and let Microsoft screw up in that way that only Microsoft can. Apple doesn't need to take over the world overnight. I'd rather them take marketshare a bit at a time so that as their marketshare increases to significant levels, hardware vendors will have time to develop solid drivers based on IO/Kit so that the "it just works" mentality can continue to thrive.
I think this is just Apple's already-known plans to prevent the OS from not running on anything they haven't sold as a Mac.
That's exactly what I think. And besides, if you accept that a mac is both the hardware and software then it's not like they're being particularly invasive.
You say that linux is ready for the desktop and maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I just have one question. When something goes wrong, is there a tech-support number for the user to call? I know that a lot of companies have awful tech support but that's besdies the point. The fact is that the number is there for the user to call and it's nice, easy and familiar. I think that kind of support channel is key for any kind of adoption of linux on the desktop. Even if you say use google to find the solution to the problem, what if the user's interenet connection doesn't work? There has to be a support channel outside the computer for the user. Now, I confess that I haven't looked into it so maybe there is a number that the user can call in which case, disregard this post.
When I use my mac, I feel like I have control of my computer. When I use windows and I have all this useless crap all over my system tray and all this useless stuff always seems to pop up on the screen (granted, I'm using other people's computers) I feel like I don't have control of the computer. This is especially true when I'm setting something up for someone and the wizard says "Windows is now doing (insert task) as if it's a person doing what you asked it to instead of a machine doing what you told it to.
Bottom line for me is that I find my mac fun to use and it stays out of my way when I'm trying to get something done. When I use windows, I'm constantly being annoyed by software that tries to be everything to everybody and won't get out of your way as well as an operating system that thinks it knows what I want to do better than I do.
Actually, I'm not sure about that. The more marketshare that mac os x has, the more likely developers are to support it, so while it may not be easy to get mac os x to run on a dell, apple may allow it to be doable simply to increase the mac os x userbase. Just a thought.
I might be wrong on this, but I remember hearing that Office for the Mac was the only product other than Windows and Office XP where MS was actually making money. Has anyone else heard that?
Slashdot Mirror
Like it or not, the ugly truth is that when it comes to all things computers, the vast majority of consumers aren't looking for choices, they just want something that gets the job done sufficiently well so that they can go on their merry way. They have other things they'd rather be doing with their lives such as going out and getting some excersize, having lunch with some friends or even just chatting on AIM. Maybe I'm in the minority, but that sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
Think about it for a second. What name sounds friendlier to you: gaim or AOL Instant Messenger. How about MPlayer/VLC or Windows Media Player? Don't get me wrong because I love VLC and use it as my main movie player and I use Adium instead of iChat. iChat sounds a lot friendlier though and don't underestimate the importance of a name. iChat gives a much better idea of what the product does and also comes with the computer. If I say Adium or VLC, most people will say, "what the hell is that?" and then forget about it. After all, they haven't seen any marketing and iChat is working just fine for them, so why should they care?
Bottom line is that consumers would rather have their decisions made for them because they are easily intimidated and uninterested in learning. That's a testiment to poor attitudes by the people who want them to be more interested. If you set someone up with a linux system on their new computer, don't think that they using the software by choice. They trust you that the software will work well for them and they aren't going to bother to see if there's anything else they might like better.
If I understand right, what you're trying to say is that (speaking as a mac user), apple and linux are in the same situation: we all want 3rd parties to support our platforms. In the meantime, not having malware is an advantage that we can take advantage of. Even despite this, Windows can still be a better choice for people. If apple's business model relies on nitch marketshare, then they are only targeting certain markets. They can still make money from devices like the iPod (and rumored iPhone) that anyone, regardless of whether or not they own a mac, can use.
It's great that your hardware is ready, but if the software isn't ready then that doesn't mean a whole lot.
You're making a huge assumption here. You're assuming that Apple will put that kind of virtualization into leopard. They aren't. As you said, developers will ask the question "why should I port this app to mac os x when I can just run the windows version?". Apple is using the ability to run windows on a mac so that the people who need that one windows app will be able to run it. Don't forget that people aren't buying macs to run windows software, they're buying them to run mac software. Apple knows this and while they'll make it possible to run windows apps on their computers, they aren't going to make it simple. Otherwise, you'd get that developer mentaility of "why should I port this to the mac?" that you just talked about.
If I write a post that says that I haven't converted to linux, will that increase the number of useless posts on the wall?
Speaking as a mac user, I too, was unimpressed. What everyone seems to continually forget is that Jobs also said that there were "top secret" features. The reality is, we still have no idea what's in leopard. Personally, I'm afriad of feature bloat right now.
I think that all Jobs was trying to accomplish with the demo was to give developers an idea of leopard's power and show them what kinds of things it can do. He showed developers how the address book tied into time machine to give them an example of the kinds of things timemachine can do. He also did it to show them how they could take advantage of it in their own applications. Once he did the demo of the addressbook, he included a few new features in mail to go along with it. With Core Animation, all he wanted to do was show developers what kinds of things it could do. Finally, the whole point of the iChat demo was to show developers what kinds of things leopard is capable of.
People are thinking too hard about the leopard demo. The demo was only supposed to be a display of a few of the technologies that are in it. We still know nothing about what leopard is and what it isn't.
I don't know if it was or wasn't a good idea to hold back on new leopard features. All I know is that Microsoft is having enough trouble getting their own ideas into vista.
Bingo. The only way to go from the ICE to EV is to "just do it". You have to force people to do the kinds of things that they might not want to do and make them live with it until the necessary infrastructure is built up, no matter how long it takes. I don't know enough about the tech stuff, but in business, when you're trying to make a relatively radical change, the only way you can do it is create the product and do your best to drag your customers along with you. I'd like to think that the oil companies are aware of the fact that we're going to be out of oil in about 20 years and would be willing to help with the R&D to make it happen because they'll be in that same situation. What are they going to do when their whole source of revenue is completely gone with no chance at coming back?
Anyway, yeah, it would take some ballsy politicians to make it happen, but this situation kind of reminds of slavery and the civil war. After the civil war, slavery was gone and the south just had to deal with it. Eventually, it started to prosper again. Yes, it took awhile, and so will the transition away from ICEs no matter how it's replaced. All we know is that it will take a pretty long time and we're better off trying to get it done now than wait until we're all out of gas and have no way to mow the lawn.
I think you're on the right track. What Microsoft wants people to believe is that with commercial development, help is only a phone call away. It doesn't matter if the quality of the support is good or not. What matters is that it's there. In addition, commercial software is created by a tangible entity where the programmers are specifically hired by the company because they're good programmers. Open source is created by volunteers who aren't getting paid and so have less incentive to make good software. Of course, that's all perception and the reality doesn't matter. Instead of just dismissing everything that Microsoft said, I think the community instead needs to discuss ways to better educate the public so that they have a positive perception of open source. For now, the perception is that open source software is software that's only used by hobbiests and is too complictated for the average user. If you ever need help, you get that from going to forums or sending emails and not knowing if you'll even get help or when you'll get it. Not only that, but the support doesn't come from people trained to help the common user, it comes from tech-oriented hobbiests that they won't be able to understand. That, I think, is what has to be dealt with.
I can't believe what I've been reading here. I don't like IE/windows anymore than the next poster, but give microsoft some credit for actually providing phone support for their pre-release software. This is very simple: it's beta software and you don't have to install it if you don't want to. It's beta software and because it's beta software, MS can put any OS validation scheme they want because they aren't forcing IE7 on users. Of course, they can do it regardless anyway. At this point, what ever they want to do is completely fine. At this point, we don't know what features will be in the final release. Is it safe to assume that the validation scheme will be in the final release? Probably. For now, we have to give them the benifit of the doubt. If the final release does have it, that's when you start giving them hell for it. Hell, the final release could still be beta software but the fact is that we just don't know. I may not be optimistic about vista but since I haven't used it, I don't think that I can say that it's good or bad.
This is why I think that too many people are making more of bootcamp than it really is supposed to be. It seems to be that if Apple has access to the windows API, they'd be more interested in making it as easy as possible for developers to port their software to mac os x. Apple could also write APIs to make it easy for them to create a more mac-like interface and also to be able to integrate with the operating system in general. Booting back into windows would be a last-ditch solution. I also think that many users who want to switch know that it's going to cost them extra money to get all new software and if there's a mac version of the product that they use, they will just factor it into the cost of switching. Potential switchers need to hear more than just, "we may not have a mac version of the product you use now, but we do have this product and it's better blah blah blah". On the other hand, if there's a mac version of the software they use, they know it will be compatible with what they're currently using and they'll easily be able to factor it into the equation.
You also start to hint at the other major problem. We'll assume for a second that they do agree on a standard. Now you're going to have to have the standards body approve every piece of software to make sure that it's compliant. Ease of use is a philosophy. Creating this kind of standard requires that the developers to want to be consistant. If this does actually happen, the freedom of toolkit choice that the open-source community values so much will almost completely cease to exist. If the developers/users want a new toolkit, they'll just have to wait until the standards body approves it. Now there's the issue of how well applications integrate with each other. There's just too much to deal with and I really don't think the community can make it happen.
yeah, and I've heard people say "hot as hell" but this is rediculous. I wonder if I should start saying "hot as the gas produced by those crazy scientists".
Well, I'm no geo-scientist but it would seem to me that we're creating a dangerous imbalance in the eath's natural resources. Obviously, I have no idea what I'm talking about and maybe that doesn't mean anything, but I feel like the earth is going to do what it has to so it can "heal" itself. Again, this is just a completely uneducated guess.
Just wanted to point out that neither the Zen or napster will work with my mac. When you look at it that way, Apple provides more inter-operability then the other companies do. It looks like Real does now, but I can't use the Zen with it. Sony's webpage doesn't say if their MP3 players will work, but they do say their store still doesn't. Come talk to me when a few more of these company's products/services will work with my mac. this case is rediculous.
You can castigate the 'crappy video card' all you want, but the imaging model in the MacOS fully USES the graphic programmability of that card, for ALL applications, and supports it (virtual video memory) in ways the Wintel boxes don't. This happens because the OS designers and the card programmers all talk to each other. Before going into production.
I'm just curious. Can you be more specific about the graphics features that the wintel box don't support. I've always suspected something that makes it unique, but I don't know enough to really understand it. Thanks.
-dan
I think you nailed Apple's reasoning for not making a mac os x for basic x86 machines when you said that windows is at a precarious point. Right now, while Microsoft has released beta 1 of vista, they don't have a schedule for beta 2 which leaves lots of room for more features to be cut. Just sit back and let Microsoft screw up in that way that only Microsoft can. Apple doesn't need to take over the world overnight. I'd rather them take marketshare a bit at a time so that as their marketshare increases to significant levels, hardware vendors will have time to develop solid drivers based on IO/Kit so that the "it just works" mentality can continue to thrive.
I think this is just Apple's already-known plans to prevent the OS from not running on anything they haven't sold as a Mac.
That's exactly what I think. And besides, if you accept that a mac is both the hardware and software then it's not like they're being particularly invasive.
You say that linux is ready for the desktop and maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I just have one question. When something goes wrong, is there a tech-support number for the user to call? I know that a lot of companies have awful tech support but that's besdies the point. The fact is that the number is there for the user to call and it's nice, easy and familiar. I think that kind of support channel is key for any kind of adoption of linux on the desktop. Even if you say use google to find the solution to the problem, what if the user's interenet connection doesn't work? There has to be a support channel outside the computer for the user. Now, I confess that I haven't looked into it so maybe there is a number that the user can call in which case, disregard this post.
When I use my mac, I feel like I have control of my computer. When I use windows and I have all this useless crap all over my system tray and all this useless stuff always seems to pop up on the screen (granted, I'm using other people's computers) I feel like I don't have control of the computer. This is especially true when I'm setting something up for someone and the wizard says "Windows is now doing (insert task) as if it's a person doing what you asked it to instead of a machine doing what you told it to.
Bottom line for me is that I find my mac fun to use and it stays out of my way when I'm trying to get something done. When I use windows, I'm constantly being annoyed by software that tries to be everything to everybody and won't get out of your way as well as an operating system that thinks it knows what I want to do better than I do.
I'm surprised that no one is wondering when microsoft will finish winfs?
so what features aren't planned for longhorn?
Actually, I'm not sure about that. The more marketshare that mac os x has, the more likely developers are to support it, so while it may not be easy to get mac os x to run on a dell, apple may allow it to be doable simply to increase the mac os x userbase. Just a thought.
I might be wrong on this, but I remember hearing that Office for the Mac was the only product other than Windows and Office XP where MS was actually making money. Has anyone else heard that?
That sounds more like Bill Gates and Longhorn to me