I'm least familiar with KDE; but I've seen enough to realize it WANTS to be Windows (well, newer version want to be more like macOS than Windows > ver. 7), but is even more clumsy and childish.
Dude, there's a date in your KDE screenshot that says "2000-10-24". That's one year before OSX, and already we can see where Apple took their design ideas. Same taskbar with big icons, even the same 3 buttons on the window toolbars.
At this point even Ubuntu Unity looks sophisticated compared to OSX. That says a lot.
Depends on what you mean by "sophisticated". If you mean "obnoxiously busy", then I would agree.
but that very issue is one part of the magic of overdriving vacuum tube amps for rock-n-roll, baby!
Yeah, like the Aphex Anal Exciter. I read an article once in Modern Recording or somesuch that the "Aphex effect" was accidentally "discovered" when the "inventor" mis-wired a tube amplifier Kit he was building. His "mod" apparently starved some (or all) of the tubes for (IIRC) bias voltage. This created a peculiar (and pleasant) type of clipping/distortion (likely more like "crossover distortion", which is created when the waveform transitions between negative and positive phase, and the tubes kind of "flat line" around the zero-point). He apparently put the amplifier away in a closet, until several years later, when he drug it out and tried to analyze what was actually happening that sounded so good (at least to him). To me, I think it makes stuff sound a bit "harsh", unless you use it very judiciously.
I was a R&R soundman in a former life; so I know firsthand what tube guitar-amps sound like...;-)
pure analong systems have been doing this for decades, let's bring back the vacuum tube
If you are talking about "limiting", those "algorithms", especially when implemented in analog hardware, have serious and inherent limitations as far as response times and "recovery" times, due to having "integration" in their "envelope-following" circuitry.
This appears to be a sample-by-sample mathematical transform (and importantly, one that doesn't require the deadly "integration" that always imparts a time-delay in attack and release), that, through mathematical witchery, can accomplish dynamic range limiting allegedly without the downsides of analog (or digital) integration.
Also, when you reach a certain OS limit on a particular hardware, Apple leaves you alone. One downside of that, however - I had an old iPod Touch, whose apps were no longer supported, since it peaked at iOS 4.3. No way can one retrieve those from the app store. It would be nice if the App store recognized a device, and automatically configured itself to only pick software that's supported on that device, so that one isn't left high & dry on a device that's otherwise working perfectly well.
The main reason to not allow upgrades is when a particular computer (I'm including phones & tablets here as well) has limited storage, or other limits that would make an upgraded OS very unresponsive or poor performer. Otherwise, if one gets something w/ adequate resources, it should be upgradable for the foreseeable future.
I think they have now actually addressed your legitimate concern with the App Store, at least as it concerns 32 vs. 64 bit devices. I thought I had read recently that, when iOS 11 becomes available, 32 bit devices will only be shown 32 bit Apps (and vice versa?).
I happen to have an iPad 2 that I use every day, that I wish I hadn't panicked and Upgraded to iOS 9.? when iOS 10 (which wasn't compatible) was getting ready to come out. For one thing, there is a bug in Mobile Safari that makes it almost unusable with some websites, due to it having to deal with a "there was a problem with this page. Reloading.." error. Grrrr!!! Plus, there is OFTEN ridiculous pauses in the keyboard input. It always catches up, but it is a mystery what it is off doing during those 1 to 10 second "freeze-ups". So yeah, I wish that I could DOWNGRADE my iPad to iOS 7 or 8. But I don't think I've EVER wished that on macOS. But the progress on that side of the hardware-universe is much more stately than in the mobile dimension...
I wonder which one you've never actually seen. KDE, Windows 3.1 or OS X.
I'm over 60 years old. Do you think I've seen (and used) Windows 3.1 at some point?
And as far as macOS/OS X goes, take a look at my Username...
I'm least familiar with KDE; but I've seen enough to realize it WANTS to be Windows (well, newer version want to be more like macOS than Windows > ver. 7), but is even more clumsy and childish. I will admit, it is more Windows 95 or Windows 7 than it is W 3.1; but when I last looked, it seemed like it was closer to 3.1 than 95 or 7. For example, here's KDE 2, looking like Windows 95/7:
Really? IME Apple's reputation for prematurely obsoleting hardware through OS updates is worse than probably any other major brand. It certainly seems to be around these parts. Some of that might be earned by the way they keep borking iOS updates for mobile devices, but I've also heard a few horror stories about the desktop OS being worse after upgrading than it used to be, even on not-that-old MacBooks.
That said, I was actually talking about Apple more generally, not just about the longevity of their systems. Almost everything they've released, both software and hardware, for at least the past couple of years seems to have ranged from mediocre to downright disappointing. I work in the world of small businesses, where quite a few places run Apple instead of Windows, and right now they appear to be little happier with their situation than we are with ours in Microsoft land.
I think that, even though it is hard to compare iOS obsolescence with any other Mobile OS, because no other Mobile OS seems to actually UPDATE their OS on devices more than once they are out the door at the factory; IMHO, it SEEMS like Apple "obsoletes" their mobile hardware "prematurely", ONLY because of the much more rapid advances in mobile SoCs, making even devices that are only a few generations old seem ridiculously slow in comparison to their more recent counterparts. Then, compound that with features that are designed with that extra processing and display power in mind, and voila!, Apple has "intentionally" sabotaged your old iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. But, when they release some new iOS feature, but don't allow it to be used on older devices, Apple is "Intentionally Obsoleting" and "Forcing Upgrades". So, they are kind of "damned if they do, damned if they don't" when it comes to extending iOS support to older devices. With all that said, I DO wish Apple would allow DOWNGRADING for iOS devices; so if you Upgrade and Regret it, you could Downgrade.
As for macOS, it is pretty rare to hear of people complaining about "slowness" after a macOS upgrade. In fact, there is often a performance IMPROVEMENT. But again, there is always SOMEBODY that (IMHO imagines) that their Mac runs slower after an update; but I think those people fall into one of two camps: Those who have systems that are memory-starved in the first place; and those who simply imagine things. Neither of those are Apple's fault.
Finally, people always seem to be "disappointed" in Apple. But again, IMHO, that is because Apple is often seen as the company who can do things with "tech" that no one else can. And when that new MacBook Pro (or whatever) comes out, even though it HAS to use the same CPUs and GPUs as EVERYONE else, SOMEHOW Apple is expected to be able to add Faster-than-Light Travel, Teleportation, and Unlimited Free Energy with each new model. IOW, it's about EXPECTATIONS. Everyone else is just supposed to create a computer that doesn't continually crash and eat your files; but Apple is expected to break the laws of physics every single time; and when they don't, people complain that "Apple has lost it".
The problem becomes how does an American company compete against a foreign company that is not abiding by the same standards? Sure, we could enact tarriffs and prevent import of items not meeting some moral threshold, but then we will also not be able to export (either through retaliatory sanctions or competitive pricing) anything either. It's a very complicated issue.
Liberals won't want to hear it, but in the push for "equity", we've made ourselves uncompetitive. Higher minimum wage, union short-sightedness and even the idea that everyone should be entitled to be able to afford every little luxury (thus making cheap Chinese imports desirable) have put us in this position.
But the alternative gives us things like Rivers that catch on fire...
When someone can pick up a plant from China and plop it down in WA, pay the same wages, follow the same work rules, dispose of their waste in the same manner, THEN you can say outsourcing is a fair thing to do.
The fact is that you can't. And you can't for reasons that most people agree are reasonable...health and safety of the workers, environmental protection, workplace environment rules, etc. Most people would agree that these rules are in place for what they might call moral reasons, or, it's the right thing to do.
But for some reason, it's no longer the right thing to do when that plant is in China or other third world places. Somehow, what is considered immoral pollution here is not immoral pollution in China. Intolerable work environments here are some how perfectly fine in the third world. But, US consumers and manufacturers are more than happy to take advantage of the low costs of product even when that is only possible in a factory that would be sued out of existence were it in the US.
Outsourcing to China and other places isn't "competition" it's exploitation. But try and do anything about it and you will be called a protectionist or worse.
Well, if that idiot industrial toady that Trump appointed to be head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, has anything to say about it (and unfortunately, he does), maybe those pesky environmental laws that make us "non-competitive" will all be repealed, and we'll all be on the way to Make America Great Again! [/sarcasm]
Oh, and lets not forget that wifi and bluetooth don't play together nicely on *any* samsung phone.
So forget streaming music from the cloud to your bluetooth speakers at home unless it's already pre-buffered to your phone (guess that excludes live radio)
FitBit and Apple own this space already, and no amount of Intel "magic" is going to get them to catch-up to those two widely disparate, but both widely successful, platforms.
You aren't alone, Linux does a lot of things right but driver support and commercial software aren't among them. I don't blame the OS, I blame companies that just don't write software for the platform or worse, offer a shaky unsupported afterthought Linux release.
Seeking help is also a problem, if I say I'm having problem with Software X someone will invariably recommend Software Y. Yeah sure, ok, spoon isn't working with your soup? Try fork? Oh that's impractical well? Make your own spoon then. *scream into pillow for 45 minutes*
So yeh 20+ years on, and I'm still stuck with Windows
No you're not...
There is another, even better alternative to *nix and Windows.
I agree with you on the fundamental premise of "put Linux on it" to get better privacy and usually longer support lifetimes... but this is actually bad advice in this particular narrow scenario. These Clover Trail SOCs don't have Linux drivers! Moreover, all Clover Trail systems shipped with 32-bit UEFI with no legacy boot support (aka no CSM). None of the major distros have put any effort in to supporting this platform. These computers are pretty much Windows only, the only sane option seems to be to run Windows 8.1 on them.
The problem is, "Linux" and "Support" in NO WAY belong in the same sentence!
We did prevent this. We're still quite happily running on Windows 7, even on machines purchased just a few months ago.
Of course, Microsoft has also rigged the system so you can no longer buy a new PC with Windows 7 preinstalled. So now we're not buying any new PCs for a while and will make do with what we've got. We're assuming something has to give before the 2020 cliff, whether it's MS providing a version of Windows 10 without the major downsides for non-enterprise customers, Apple getting their act together again so MacBooks are a viable alternative, or some other platform becoming more attractive to software developers so alternatives to the key programs we depend on are available elsewhere.
Apple already has their act together. That's why they don't pull shit like this (yes, everyone eventually obsoletes hardware; but Apple has a VERY good reputation for not doing this, especially for 64-bit systems).
When NEXT got acquired by Apple, they re-designed the UI somewhat from NEXTSTEP to get OS X, which remained consistent until Apple decided to make it look more like iOS, due to the popularity of the latter
While I agree with 99% of your post, I disagree with the statement above.
The reason why certain things, like "Natural Scrolling" were instituted in OS X (but which were still "defeatable") was not actually just because iOS was so popular; but because people that owned both Macs and iOS devices suffered "muscle memory issues" because the scroll direction was opposite on the two OSes.
But even the "iOS-ification" of macOS has been glacially-slow and deliberate, compared with the "Throw ALL of the User's experience out the window" (pun intended, because multi-windowing was one of casualties of The-Interface-Formerly-Known-as-Metro) changes between Windows 7 and 8.
You're on crack, the shift from OS 9 to OS X was enormous. Prior to that I would say you're right. Mostly OS 6 through 9 had mostly the same UI.
Contrast that Windows 95 and every version of windows has had a start button in the same exact spot, only Windows 8 did that change dramatically and it shifted back for 10.
It was a bit of a re-learn for those familiar with MacOS "Classic".
But, still nowhere NEAR the learning-curve between Windows prior to 8, compared to Windows 8.
I STILL find myself sort of "lost" sometimes in the pseudo-Metro interface on some of our Windows Servers > 2008 R2. It was, and remains, a HORRIBLE, NON-DISCOVERABLE, Interface!
Actually, you can't do it at all with Apple as it turns out, but it sure was fun watching you make a fool of yourself. Thanks!
WTF does that article have to do with automatically recognizing Bluetooth Keyboards on a Mac?
I genuinely didn't see anything about that in my (admittedly fast) skimming of the linked article. So, if you'd like to continue your tirade, please point to the text in that article that has anything to do with Keyboard recognition on the Mac.
Read your own post idiot. You just said you have to "Ness around" with Apple. So if all the driver's are there, why do you have to "mess around"? You are so fucking stupid it blows the mind.
By "ness around" [sic], I mean that you have to press a couple of key sequences that the "new keyboard identifier" requests, so it can determine which keyboard LAYOUT is being added; NOT to determine whether there is keyboard activity on Bluetooth vs. USB.
All the drivers are there with Linux too, so I guess that makes YOU the moron. HAND and FOAD now:^)
IF all the drivers are there, then why do you have to mess around?
Oh, I know, they may be PRESENT, but YOU have to decide which one to use, rather than the OS being smart enough to at least give you something that will work well enough to get started.
Very doubtful. Unlike MS and Linux/Android, Apple moves VERY slowly and carefully with UI paradigm shifts.
Surely you jest. What was it, iOS 9 where Apple changed the way that you navigate through all your open apps so that you swipe towards the left to see older apps instead of the right? And iOS10 where they decided peoples Home buttons weren't wearing out fast enough so they made you double tap the home button to unlock your device if you didn't have a fingerprint sensor? And what was the purpose behind those changes? Well in one case, Apple wanted to try and push people to seeing widgets on their lock screen (defaulting to Apple software), and in the other case it seemed to be a very arbitrary and useless change that was confusing to me when I had two different apple devices that behaved in the opposite way on the same screen.
Yes, yes, I know. Everything Apple does is one big Conspiracy.
You're kidding, right? The swipe left vs. right went completely unnoticed by me. I don't use that feature often enough to remember which way to swpie anyway!
As for the Double-Tap thing with the Home button: I believe that was because Apple had decided to pile some extra functionality onto their single "physical" button, and needed to differentiate between actions.
But if that's the best you can come up with, that's pretty minor stuff in the overall scheme of things for an OS.
You're right, Apple has continued to support the top-of-its-line computers all the while dropping support for it's lower-end units on a continuing basis.
BZZT, wrong, Chucko!
Some of the Macs "orphaned" along the way were 2007 and 2008 Mac Pros. Fortunately, I believe the Mac Hacker community alleviated that problem.
And while they may "upgrade" some hardware with the "latest", it often may not function with the same level of compatibility it did with previous iterations.
True. Some configurations have things like certain GPUs that simply cannot support things like GCD and OpenCL. I'm sure there are other examples I can't remember offhand.
[...] unlike Apple, which kills it dead and you're stuck.
And so your computer simply stops working if you can't upgrade the OS? Riiiiiight.
All hardware support ends at some point. That's a fact. But Microsoft's sin was in prematurely and unnecessarily ending support for relatively modern hardware; and worse yet, having an error message so badly worded that a non-savvy User is likely to think that they just "Upgraded" their computer into oblivion.
THAT's the difference between Apple and Microsoft.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm least familiar with KDE; but I've seen enough to realize it WANTS to be Windows (well, newer version want to be more like macOS than Windows > ver. 7), but is even more clumsy and childish.
Dude, there's a date in your KDE screenshot that says "2000-10-24". That's one year before OSX, and already we can see where Apple took their design ideas. Same taskbar with big icons, even the same 3 buttons on the window toolbars.
At this point even Ubuntu Unity looks sophisticated compared to OSX. That says a lot.
Depends on what you mean by "sophisticated". If you mean "obnoxiously busy", then I would agree.
but that very issue is one part of the magic of overdriving vacuum tube amps for rock-n-roll, baby!
Yeah, like the Aphex Anal Exciter. I read an article once in Modern Recording or somesuch that the "Aphex effect" was accidentally "discovered" when the "inventor" mis-wired a tube amplifier Kit he was building. His "mod" apparently starved some (or all) of the tubes for (IIRC) bias voltage. This created a peculiar (and pleasant) type of clipping/distortion (likely more like "crossover distortion", which is created when the waveform transitions between negative and positive phase, and the tubes kind of "flat line" around the zero-point). He apparently put the amplifier away in a closet, until several years later, when he drug it out and tried to analyze what was actually happening that sounded so good (at least to him). To me, I think it makes stuff sound a bit "harsh", unless you use it very judiciously.
I was a R&R soundman in a former life; so I know firsthand what tube guitar-amps sound like... ;-)
pure analong systems have been doing this for decades, let's bring back the vacuum tube
If you are talking about "limiting", those "algorithms", especially when implemented in analog hardware, have serious and inherent limitations as far as response times and "recovery" times, due to having "integration" in their "envelope-following" circuitry.
This appears to be a sample-by-sample mathematical transform (and importantly, one that doesn't require the deadly "integration" that always imparts a time-delay in attack and release), that, through mathematical witchery, can accomplish dynamic range limiting allegedly without the downsides of analog (or digital) integration.
Also, when you reach a certain OS limit on a particular hardware, Apple leaves you alone. One downside of that, however - I had an old iPod Touch, whose apps were no longer supported, since it peaked at iOS 4.3. No way can one retrieve those from the app store. It would be nice if the App store recognized a device, and automatically configured itself to only pick software that's supported on that device, so that one isn't left high & dry on a device that's otherwise working perfectly well.
The main reason to not allow upgrades is when a particular computer (I'm including phones & tablets here as well) has limited storage, or other limits that would make an upgraded OS very unresponsive or poor performer. Otherwise, if one gets something w/ adequate resources, it should be upgradable for the foreseeable future.
I think they have now actually addressed your legitimate concern with the App Store, at least as it concerns 32 vs. 64 bit devices. I thought I had read recently that, when iOS 11 becomes available, 32 bit devices will only be shown 32 bit Apps (and vice versa?).
I happen to have an iPad 2 that I use every day, that I wish I hadn't panicked and Upgraded to iOS 9.? when iOS 10 (which wasn't compatible) was getting ready to come out. For one thing, there is a bug in Mobile Safari that makes it almost unusable with some websites, due to it having to deal with a "there was a problem with this page. Reloading.." error. Grrrr!!! Plus, there is OFTEN ridiculous pauses in the keyboard input. It always catches up, but it is a mystery what it is off doing during those 1 to 10 second "freeze-ups". So yeah, I wish that I could DOWNGRADE my iPad to iOS 7 or 8. But I don't think I've EVER wished that on macOS. But the progress on that side of the hardware-universe is much more stately than in the mobile dimension...
I wonder which one you've never actually seen. KDE, Windows 3.1 or OS X.
I'm over 60 years old. Do you think I've seen (and used) Windows 3.1 at some point?
And as far as macOS/OS X goes, take a look at my Username...
I'm least familiar with KDE; but I've seen enough to realize it WANTS to be Windows (well, newer version want to be more like macOS than Windows > ver. 7), but is even more clumsy and childish. I will admit, it is more Windows 95 or Windows 7 than it is W 3.1; but when I last looked, it seemed like it was closer to 3.1 than 95 or 7. For example, here's KDE 2, looking like Windows 95/7:
https://www.kde.org/screenshot... ...And here's a sample of KDE screenshots over several versions:
https://www.kde.org/screenshot...
So, yeah, maybe not W 3.1; but DEFINITELY a Windows clone.
Really? IME Apple's reputation for prematurely obsoleting hardware through OS updates is worse than probably any other major brand. It certainly seems to be around these parts. Some of that might be earned by the way they keep borking iOS updates for mobile devices, but I've also heard a few horror stories about the desktop OS being worse after upgrading than it used to be, even on not-that-old MacBooks.
That said, I was actually talking about Apple more generally, not just about the longevity of their systems. Almost everything they've released, both software and hardware, for at least the past couple of years seems to have ranged from mediocre to downright disappointing. I work in the world of small businesses, where quite a few places run Apple instead of Windows, and right now they appear to be little happier with their situation than we are with ours in Microsoft land.
I think that, even though it is hard to compare iOS obsolescence with any other Mobile OS, because no other Mobile OS seems to actually UPDATE their OS on devices more than once they are out the door at the factory; IMHO, it SEEMS like Apple "obsoletes" their mobile hardware "prematurely", ONLY because of the much more rapid advances in mobile SoCs, making even devices that are only a few generations old seem ridiculously slow in comparison to their more recent counterparts. Then, compound that with features that are designed with that extra processing and display power in mind, and voila!, Apple has "intentionally" sabotaged your old iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. But, when they release some new iOS feature, but don't allow it to be used on older devices, Apple is "Intentionally Obsoleting" and "Forcing Upgrades". So, they are kind of "damned if they do, damned if they don't" when it comes to extending iOS support to older devices. With all that said, I DO wish Apple would allow DOWNGRADING for iOS devices; so if you Upgrade and Regret it, you could Downgrade.
As for macOS, it is pretty rare to hear of people complaining about "slowness" after a macOS upgrade. In fact, there is often a performance IMPROVEMENT. But again, there is always SOMEBODY that (IMHO imagines) that their Mac runs slower after an update; but I think those people fall into one of two camps: Those who have systems that are memory-starved in the first place; and those who simply imagine things. Neither of those are Apple's fault.
Finally, people always seem to be "disappointed" in Apple. But again, IMHO, that is because Apple is often seen as the company who can do things with "tech" that no one else can. And when that new MacBook Pro (or whatever) comes out, even though it HAS to use the same CPUs and GPUs as EVERYONE else, SOMEHOW Apple is expected to be able to add Faster-than-Light Travel, Teleportation, and Unlimited Free Energy with each new model. IOW, it's about EXPECTATIONS. Everyone else is just supposed to create a computer that doesn't continually crash and eat your files; but Apple is expected to break the laws of physics every single time; and when they don't, people complain that "Apple has lost it".
The problem becomes how does an American company compete against a foreign company that is not abiding by the same standards? Sure, we could enact tarriffs and prevent import of items not meeting some moral threshold, but then we will also not be able to export (either through retaliatory sanctions or competitive pricing) anything either. It's a very complicated issue.
Liberals won't want to hear it, but in the push for "equity", we've made ourselves uncompetitive. Higher minimum wage, union short-sightedness and even the idea that everyone should be entitled to be able to afford every little luxury (thus making cheap Chinese imports desirable) have put us in this position.
But the alternative gives us things like Rivers that catch on fire...
When someone can pick up a plant from China and plop it down in WA, pay the same wages, follow the same work rules, dispose of their waste in the same manner, THEN you can say outsourcing is a fair thing to do.
The fact is that you can't. And you can't for reasons that most people agree are reasonable...health and safety of the workers, environmental protection, workplace environment rules, etc. Most people would agree that these rules are in place for what they might call moral reasons, or, it's the right thing to do.
But for some reason, it's no longer the right thing to do when that plant is in China or other third world places. Somehow, what is considered immoral pollution here is not immoral pollution in China. Intolerable work environments here are some how perfectly fine in the third world. But, US consumers and manufacturers are more than happy to take advantage of the low costs of product even when that is only possible in a factory that would be sued out of existence were it in the US.
Outsourcing to China and other places isn't "competition" it's exploitation. But try and do anything about it and you will be called a protectionist or worse.
Well, if that idiot industrial toady that Trump appointed to be head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, has anything to say about it (and unfortunately, he does), maybe those pesky environmental laws that make us "non-competitive" will all be repealed, and we'll all be on the way to Make America Great Again!
[/sarcasm]
Always Be Evil(sm)
Oh, and lets not forget that wifi and bluetooth don't play together nicely on *any* samsung phone.
So forget streaming music from the cloud to your bluetooth speakers at home unless it's already pre-buffered to your phone (guess that excludes live radio)
What a pile of shit!
Get an iPhone.
Because then you'll have Siri. Upgrade to a better class of spyware!
Prove that Siri is Spyware, or STFU.
FitBit and Apple own this space already, and no amount of Intel "magic" is going to get them to catch-up to those two widely disparate, but both widely successful, platforms.
You aren't alone, Linux does a lot of things right but driver support and commercial software aren't among them. I don't blame the OS, I blame companies that just don't write software for the platform or worse, offer a shaky unsupported afterthought Linux release.
Seeking help is also a problem, if I say I'm having problem with Software X someone will invariably recommend Software Y. Yeah sure, ok, spoon isn't working with your soup? Try fork? Oh that's impractical well? Make your own spoon then. *scream into pillow for 45 minutes*
So yeh 20+ years on, and I'm still stuck with Windows
No you're not...
There is another, even better alternative to *nix and Windows.
I agree with you on the fundamental premise of "put Linux on it" to get better privacy and usually longer support lifetimes... but this is actually bad advice in this particular narrow scenario. These Clover Trail SOCs don't have Linux drivers! Moreover, all Clover Trail systems shipped with 32-bit UEFI with no legacy boot support (aka no CSM). None of the major distros have put any effort in to supporting this platform. These computers are pretty much Windows only, the only sane option seems to be to run Windows 8.1 on them.
The problem is, "Linux" and "Support" in NO WAY belong in the same sentence!
We did prevent this. We're still quite happily running on Windows 7, even on machines purchased just a few months ago.
Of course, Microsoft has also rigged the system so you can no longer buy a new PC with Windows 7 preinstalled. So now we're not buying any new PCs for a while and will make do with what we've got. We're assuming something has to give before the 2020 cliff, whether it's MS providing a version of Windows 10 without the major downsides for non-enterprise customers, Apple getting their act together again so MacBooks are a viable alternative, or some other platform becoming more attractive to software developers so alternatives to the key programs we depend on are available elsewhere.
Apple already has their act together. That's why they don't pull shit like this (yes, everyone eventually obsoletes hardware; but Apple has a VERY good reputation for not doing this, especially for 64-bit systems).
No such thing. Windows has sucked ass since Windows 2000.
You mean since Windows 1.0, right?
Moscow and Washington are in talks to create a joint cyber security working group...
Does this need further analysis?
I think not.
the shift from OS 9 to OS X was enormous.
that was in 2001. Since then it's always been looking like an old KDE, version after version.
LOL! KDE looks like Windows 3.1 compared to even OS X 10.0
When NEXT got acquired by Apple, they re-designed the UI somewhat from NEXTSTEP to get OS X, which remained consistent until Apple decided to make it look more like iOS, due to the popularity of the latter
While I agree with 99% of your post, I disagree with the statement above.
The reason why certain things, like "Natural Scrolling" were instituted in OS X (but which were still "defeatable") was not actually just because iOS was so popular; but because people that owned both Macs and iOS devices suffered "muscle memory issues" because the scroll direction was opposite on the two OSes.
But even the "iOS-ification" of macOS has been glacially-slow and deliberate, compared with the "Throw ALL of the User's experience out the window" (pun intended, because multi-windowing was one of casualties of The-Interface-Formerly-Known-as-Metro) changes between Windows 7 and 8.
You're on crack, the shift from OS 9 to OS X was enormous. Prior to that I would say you're right. Mostly OS 6 through 9 had mostly the same UI.
Contrast that Windows 95 and every version of windows has had a start button in the same exact spot, only Windows 8 did that change dramatically and it shifted back for 10.
It was a bit of a re-learn for those familiar with MacOS "Classic".
But, still nowhere NEAR the learning-curve between Windows prior to 8, compared to Windows 8.
I STILL find myself sort of "lost" sometimes in the pseudo-Metro interface on some of our Windows Servers > 2008 R2. It was, and remains, a HORRIBLE, NON-DISCOVERABLE, Interface!
Actually, you can't do it at all with Apple as it turns out, but it sure was fun watching you make a fool of yourself. Thanks!
WTF does that article have to do with automatically recognizing Bluetooth Keyboards on a Mac?
I genuinely didn't see anything about that in my (admittedly fast) skimming of the linked article. So, if you'd like to continue your tirade, please point to the text in that article that has anything to do with Keyboard recognition on the Mac.
Read your own post idiot. You just said you have to "Ness around" with Apple. So if all the driver's are there, why do you have to "mess around"? You are so fucking stupid it blows the mind.
By "ness around" [sic], I mean that you have to press a couple of key sequences that the "new keyboard identifier" requests, so it can determine which keyboard LAYOUT is being added; NOT to determine whether there is keyboard activity on Bluetooth vs. USB.
NOW do you understand?!?
All the drivers are there with Linux too, so I guess that makes YOU the moron. HAND and FOAD now :^)
IF all the drivers are there, then why do you have to mess around?
Oh, I know, they may be PRESENT, but YOU have to decide which one to use, rather than the OS being smart enough to at least give you something that will work well enough to get started.
Very doubtful. Unlike MS and Linux/Android, Apple moves VERY slowly and carefully with UI paradigm shifts.
Surely you jest. What was it, iOS 9 where Apple changed the way that you navigate through all your open apps so that you swipe towards the left to see older apps instead of the right? And iOS10 where they decided peoples Home buttons weren't wearing out fast enough so they made you double tap the home button to unlock your device if you didn't have a fingerprint sensor? And what was the purpose behind those changes? Well in one case, Apple wanted to try and push people to seeing widgets on their lock screen (defaulting to Apple software), and in the other case it seemed to be a very arbitrary and useless change that was confusing to me when I had two different apple devices that behaved in the opposite way on the same screen.
Yes, yes, I know. Everything Apple does is one big Conspiracy.
You're kidding, right? The swipe left vs. right went completely unnoticed by me. I don't use that feature often enough to remember which way to swpie anyway!
As for the Double-Tap thing with the Home button: I believe that was because Apple had decided to pile some extra functionality onto their single "physical" button, and needed to differentiate between actions.
But if that's the best you can come up with, that's pretty minor stuff in the overall scheme of things for an OS.
You're right, Apple has continued to support the top-of-its-line computers all the while dropping support for it's lower-end units on a continuing basis.
BZZT, wrong, Chucko!
Some of the Macs "orphaned" along the way were 2007 and 2008 Mac Pros. Fortunately, I believe the Mac Hacker community alleviated that problem.
And while they may "upgrade" some hardware with the "latest", it often may not function with the same level of compatibility it did with previous iterations.
True. Some configurations have things like certain GPUs that simply cannot support things like GCD and OpenCL. I'm sure there are other examples I can't remember offhand.
[...] unlike Apple, which kills it dead and you're stuck.
And so your computer simply stops working if you can't upgrade the OS? Riiiiiight.
All hardware support ends at some point. That's a fact. But Microsoft's sin was in prematurely and unnecessarily ending support for relatively modern hardware; and worse yet, having an error message so badly worded that a non-savvy User is likely to think that they just "Upgraded" their computer into oblivion.
THAT's the difference between Apple and Microsoft.