For laptop users, though, who keep moving from one meeting room to another all day, being able to just dump the mouse on the desk and start using it without hassling with cables is a big win. I've got a bunch of Bluetooth mice for just this reason. And when the batteries do die, your laptop already has a touchpad you can use as a backup until you get a chance to replace the batteries.
If there was a Bluetooth version of this available I'd have ordered it by now...
In that case I guess I haven't really tried Windows - although I've been using it on an every day basis for 10 years I still amn't comfortable with it;-)
You are correct to point out that there was a point where the Intel chips were faster (they still are, though it is now close enough to make little difference for most users). Intel made it big, though, on the back of generations of processors (8086 through at least 80286) which were slower than their competition (particularly at floating point math, where the Intel chips sucked badly), and seemed to have been deliberately constructed to be difficult for programmers to use efficiently.
Their success, which paid for their subsequent development, was a result of IBM having access to a job lot of them cheap when they kludged together the original PC design.
Intel maintained this success by being good at the silicon aspects of the design, throwing custom on-chip hardware at specific problems, and ramping their clock speeds. It has to be said that being good with Silicon is a fairly helpful competence area for a chip designer;-)
As a software guy I have hated every Intel chip I have had to program at a low level - Motorola always had far more elegantly designed chips from the software point of view. Most users won't care about that, though, as the chip level aspects (since we got back to a flat address space with the 386) are pretty much hidden by the compiler these days.
I don't have anything against modern PC hardware, and I look with some envy at the power/price ratio available on the PC front - I wouldn't let my dislike of low level programming on Intel change my buying preference. The fact that I don't use Intel chips much is entirely down to OS these days...;-)
It's a real shame the English language isn't used outside of North America;-)
I agree that more elegant internationalization is needed for the majority of the world population, but English is a much bigger minority than just North America.
I own all three of the bluetooth mice, one each from Apple, Logitech, and Microsoft.
The Microsoft one is okay, but it drove me up the wall because it will sleep and needs to be clicked to wakie up. Some people seem to adjust fine to this. I sisn't like it so I bought the Logitech.
The Logitech is smoother in use than the Microsoft one, and doesn't have the irritating sleep behaviour. You have a choice between regular batteries and rechargeable ones, so you don't have to use the cradle if you don't want to. For desktop use I would recommend the Logitech.
For use with my laptop, though, I eventually switched to the Apple one. The lack of a scrollwheel and the single button thing do bug me, but it has a physical off switch which can be used to turn it off when I put it in my bag, which none of the others do. That saves on batteries, and ensures that the mouse doesn't wake up the computer while it moves around in the bag.
A tiny fraction of artists and entertainers are the highest paid people.
Doctors save people, but on the whole are better off than most artists and entertainers.
Some scientists make the world better, and some make it worse (did you know that the chemist who thought of putting lead in petrol also invented CFCs?) They tend to earnn less than doctors, but still more than most entertainers.
Even accepting your basic premise that the music itself is valueless (which I am not sure I do), I think you are still missing some things on the cost side. You say that it is reasonable for people to pay for bandwidth used in downloading the song.
This kind of assumes that the bandwidth is the only cost of getting that song to you. There are obviously a bunch of other costs associated with getting this particular manifestation of the song to the listener. These range from the obvious, like hiring a recording studio, to the less obvious, like food during the recording sessions. There is a long chain of things which needs to happen to get this particular copy of the song to you.
Previously, these costs were defrayed out of a combination of the money made from selling copies of the CD (or record or tape, or whatever), together with the money made from other sources, like concert tickets, merchandising, etc. If the revenue from selling copies of the music is removed, then the prices of the other items would need to rise to cover the lost revenue.
That is a valid business model, and some bands choose to make their music available for free in order to attract more business in those other areas (or of course because they want to do so for artistic, egotistic, or altruistic reasons and they don't need the money).
Other bands want to continue to make money from selling copies of their music, and choose not to make copies of their songs freely available. Society as a whole also recognizes this as a valid business model, and defines the rules by which this can be done. As a customer you are paying not directly for the media on which the song is distributed (though you can bet the record company will include this cost in their price), but for limited rights to use the music so purchased. These rights are broadly described under the heading of fair use, and include things like being able to listen using different devices and making backup copies, but not going into business and selling copies or giving them away to all and sundry.
It is perfectly fair to argue that society shouldn't recognize the second business model (which is what I think you are arguing), but that should be on the basis that it is disadvantageous to society in some way, or that it infringes the rights of the individual, and not on the basis of whether a song is worth something, or whether music wants to be free (which I know you didn't say - I am (unfairly) generalizing...;-)
If bands for whom the first model doesn't work well don't have the option of the second model, then they may simply stop recording and find other jobs. I am not arguing for a second that the world owes such people a living, but their liberties (and livelihoods) would be being infringed, which needs some justification. They are currently choosing to produce music on the basis that when they sell you a copy, you agree to abide by certain terms and conditions of the sale. They do not appear to be causing any disadvantage to society by doing so. Their alternative would be not to sell their music, which would only disadvantage folks who were prepared to pay for the priviledge - by removing this right now nobody has their music.
I don't want to ramble (more), so to sum up (and these are general points not addressed to the parent poster):-
A: If you don't believe a recording of a song should cost more than the bandwidth to download it, then download songs that have been made available on that basis (of which there are many).
B: If you don't want to abide by the conditions of sale when purchasing music which has not been offered for free download, live without the music.
C: If you want to use music of which you have purchased a copy in a reasonable way, then hey, that's what your fair use rights are for.
D: If you think your fair use rights should be broader than they are (or where DRM limitations interfere with you fair use rights), campaign to have them changed (including saying so as often a
I don't think the problem here is bridging the Rendezvous piece = I believe the issue is that the iTunes on the server won't allow anyone to connect who isn't on the same subnet. This was closed down because of abuse of the original system, which allowed connections from anywhere.
I am also from Glasgow, and spend a lot of time working with Americans, so I can empathize...
I spent a couple of years working in England, which forced me to learn to slow down when I was talking, and to speak more clearly. Without that, I would struggle.
One of my colleagues was complimented on "speaking English real good for a second language", which he is quite proud of. I don't think he had the heart to explain that it was actually his first language.
I think everyone with strong regional accents is so exposed to other accents (particularly American ones) through TV, movies, and music that they can understand others pretty well. It just doesn't change the way we speak;-)
It probably does come from a Scottish accent originally, but is now more noticed by US folks in their Canadian neighbours. Parts of Canada also have a thriving Celtic music scene, certainly rivalling that in Scotland and Ireland, and I believe there are still some pockets where Gaelic is spoken, which highlights the extent of historical emigration from Scotland to Canada.
On the other hand, most US folks rarely hear a broad Scottish accent of any kind (no, Mel Gibson in Braveheart doesn't count (though Mike Myers in So I Married an Axe Murderer is closer). When they do hear a broad Scottish accent, the majority will fail to realize that the speaker is talking English at all, so they don't notice the different pronunciation so much.
Listening to Canadians, though, enough of the accent is similar to typical US pronunciations, so the few differences stand out more. The Aboot sound isn't uniform across Canada, but it is pretty common...
Its basically a livestock term that has found more common use in other contexts. Horses which are old/worn out are sent to the Knacker's yard to be slaughtered/made into dog-food/glue/etc. The businessman who provides this service is the Knacker.
I think the word spread from there to shipping (where a Knacker would break up a ship for parts), and is now generally used as an alternative term for pretty much anything being worn out/of no further use/etc.
I believe that you have two different characters there. It's been a while since I last read Catch 22, but I think the guy with horse apples in his cheeks was Orr, whereas the guy with the egg deal was Milo Minderbender.
Not that it makes the slightest difference to your point, of course;-)
I think you have misidentified the likely users of the exchange connector. It is highly unlikely that the kind of users you are thinking about would want to fire up an exchange connector, as they would never voluntarily deploy exchange as an email server in the first place.
Exchange is primarily an enterprise tool, and there is a large and growing number of companies who are deploying Linux machines to some groups of their employees. These employees need access to exchange, so the relevant license fees will already be paid for them. If the connector and evolution is more attractive to those employees than running outlook with Windows emulation then they will jump for it, with no incremental cost (other than for new users, which would have to be paid anyhow).
I think you are mistaking Bill Gates for somebody else - Microsoft never designed a computer yet. IBM invented what is now called a PC, and it was made affordable by various clone makers who ripped off the IBM design.
Microsoft's contribution was to sell an OS they didn't own to IBM, and then buy the OS from the owners without telling them about the IBM deal.
I use Word on both Windows and Mac with the same documents. I would say that the pattern is that each release for the last few has been leapfrogging the other platform. When Office X came out on Mac it had new features that weren't in the existing Windows office at the time. Wheen Windows 2003 came out on Windows it moved back into the lead.
As far as quality on long documents is concerned, I would say that it is pretty much a tie - it is absolutely dreadful on both OSs. Quality wise Word has been slowly recovering since version 6, which was probably the buggiest, slowest, least professional commercial software offering I have ever had the displeasure of having to use. The latest versions on both OSs have now reached the point of being reasonably fair for modestly sized documents. It also makes a huge difference how the document template is set up - it is possible to generate documents which will simply crash Word repeatably on one platform or the other, or in many cases at exactly the same place on both platforms.
Who needs them? For both music and video there is some great software on the Mac, including most of the stuff the pros use (much of which (but not all of which) is also available for Windows).
Yes, the Mac is now missing Premiere (though it is worth noting that this is only because it was getting its ass kicked so thoroughly by the Final Cut family that it retreated to Windows, where Final Cut isn't available.
Equally, Windows is missing Logic since Apple bought eMagic, but Cubase and (importantly) ProTools are both Cross Platform.
There is software on both sides of the Windows/Mac divide in these areas that it would be nice to have on the other platform.
Windows does have many more non-professional level programs, which gives people more choice, but then the Mac does have iMovie (and now GarageBand) which are essentially free, and certainly compare favourably with anything on the Windows side.
I also think that GarageBand could be a big deal. I certainly agree with you that folks with "real" music software aren't particularly likely to downgrade, but I've spent an hour or two fiddling with GarageBand (I bought the Ilife update mainly for the new version of iPhoto), and you can have great fun with it. It is also far easier to get into than any other sequencing/audio recording package I have ever used (and I've played with a lot of them). The available loops are kind of addictive to play with, and let you get a really professional sounding track without any real knowledge at all.
While the main effect of that by itself is likely to be the generation of huge ammounts of musical mush with no redeeming qualities, the audio recording will let it be extended to do some real music, and the addition of a MIDI keyboard makes it a pretty capable system.
All these capabilities have been available for quite a while now, of course, but all the entry level software I have seen for this has tended to be cut down versions of real music products, which require a whole learning curve to get any real use out of, which will put off a lot of folks.
GarageBand might (and I should stress might) actually act as quite a big bridge into real music for folks that otherwise wouldn't have got there. Also, for kids in a band this thing could be awesome for putting together demo tapes (well actually CDs;-) I know the market share of Macs is relatively low, which would seem to limit its impact. On the other hand, even with something like 1 in 20 computers being Macs, in a five piece band that means you have something like a 1 in 4 chance that one of the band members will have one, and that it is a pretty good chance that someone in the class will have access to one.
You are right - Word for Mac was released before Windows 1 was released (and Windows 1 was so completely non-functional that I'm not sure that it can be counted as what we know today as Windows existing.
Office is a big cash cow, and it was invented on, and made possible by, the Mac. (You can make the same argument for Windows, in some ways. At the risk of sounding like an old fart, it is hard from today's perspective to realize the significance of the Mac, and the influence it has had. I'm sure that the GUI would have made it out of Xerox's lab eventually even if Apple hadn't licensed the idea, but Apple took it so much further forward that it would likely be very different today without their contribution).
My 12" powerbook also has an audio in, so it's more like $1599;-)
More to the point (and at risk of trying to be helpful), you could always add a USB audio interface. The Griffin iMic is the cheapest I know of ($39.99), and is claimed to be better quality than the built-in converter (I haven't done listening tests myself).
From an initial look at the screenshots it looks like it is heavily based on Logic (one of the main pro-level sequencer packages, for anyone who doesn't follow recording tools). That would certainly augur well for the quality of the software.
The quality of the hardware is another matter, of course. Apple's built in hardware is probably sufficient for the "garage" tag.
I guess we can now see what Apple was thinking when they bought eMagic (the developers of Logic), and what they wanted to do with the folks that they freed up when they canned the Windows version of it.
The update from 95 to 98 wasn't much. There was working USB support (compared to the broken USB support Microsoft tried and failed to get working properly in 95. There was Windows Media Player (blech). And there were enough general bug fixes that it went from being a dreadfully unreliable OS to a mostly dreadfully reliable OS.
98 to ME was really less, as the quality actually dropped, and most of the "improvements" were bad eye-candy.
On the other hand, any of the above to 2000 or to XP is a huge upgrade, as with the NT stream of Windows Microsoft actually has something worthy of the name of operating system. (The same is good for the earlier NT releases). So it is perfectly fair to argue that this transition represents better value for money than the Apple releases (unless you own more than one computer, in which case the family pack licensing is an excellent deal) (or you can get an educational or US government discount).
I'm personally less interested, though, in whether any particular release of an operating system offers more improvements per dollar than another. I'm more interested in whether a new OS release will give me enough benefits to justify the amount of money that is being asked for it. In the case of Panther, I'll be buying it within a few days of it being released, and I'll be extremely happy with the deal. Your mileage may well vary (we probably use our computers for different things), but I take one look at the improved developer tools, and I feel I've already more than justified the cost of the upgrade. Throw in improved performance, together with Expose, and I'm feeling I've got a bargain. Improved Windows interoperability (I work in a mostly Windows environment) and some Exchange functionality built into the system, and I'm thinking I've got a great deal. For someone who doesn't care about any of the above, then the cost may well appear unreasonable.
I also buy into the general complaint that Apple stops bugfixing too soon on the older branches. Not upgrading becomes more of an issue if things like security patches don't appear.
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For laptop users, though, who keep moving from one meeting room to another all day, being able to just dump the mouse on the desk and start using it without hassling with cables is a big win. I've got a bunch of Bluetooth mice for just this reason. And when the batteries do die, your laptop already has a touchpad you can use as a backup until you get a chance to replace the batteries.
If there was a Bluetooth version of this available I'd have ordered it by now...
In that case I guess I haven't really tried Windows - although I've been using it on an every day basis for 10 years I still amn't comfortable with it ;-)
You are correct to point out that there was a point where the Intel chips were faster (they still are, though it is now close enough to make little difference for most users). Intel made it big, though, on the back of generations of processors (8086 through at least 80286) which were slower than their competition (particularly at floating point math, where the Intel chips sucked badly), and seemed to have been deliberately constructed to be difficult for programmers to use efficiently.
;-)
;-)
Their success, which paid for their subsequent development, was a result of IBM having access to a job lot of them cheap when they kludged together the original PC design.
Intel maintained this success by being good at the silicon aspects of the design, throwing custom on-chip hardware at specific problems, and ramping their clock speeds. It has to be said that being good with Silicon is a fairly helpful competence area for a chip designer
As a software guy I have hated every Intel chip I have had to program at a low level - Motorola always had far more elegantly designed chips from the software point of view. Most users won't care about that, though, as the chip level aspects (since we got back to a flat address space with the 386) are pretty much hidden by the compiler these days.
I don't have anything against modern PC hardware, and I look with some envy at the power/price ratio available on the PC front - I wouldn't let my dislike of low level programming on Intel change my buying preference. The fact that I don't use Intel chips much is entirely down to OS these days...
It's a real shame the English language isn't used outside of North America ;-)
I agree that more elegant internationalization is needed for the majority of the world population, but English is a much bigger minority than just North America.
I own all three of the bluetooth mice, one each from Apple, Logitech, and Microsoft.
The Microsoft one is okay, but it drove me up the wall because it will sleep and needs to be clicked to wakie up. Some people seem to adjust fine to this. I sisn't like it so I bought the Logitech.
The Logitech is smoother in use than the Microsoft one, and doesn't have the irritating sleep behaviour. You have a choice between regular batteries and rechargeable ones, so you don't have to use the cradle if you don't want to. For desktop use I would recommend the Logitech.
For use with my laptop, though, I eventually switched to the Apple one. The lack of a scrollwheel and the single button thing do bug me, but it has a physical off switch which can be used to turn it off when I put it in my bag, which none of the others do. That saves on batteries, and ensures that the mouse doesn't wake up the computer while it moves around in the bag.
A tiny fraction of artists and entertainers are the highest paid people.
Doctors save people, but on the whole are better off than most artists and entertainers.
Some scientists make the world better, and some make it worse (did you know that the chemist who thought of putting lead in petrol also invented CFCs?) They tend to earnn less than doctors, but still more than most entertainers.
Even accepting your basic premise that the music itself is valueless (which I am not sure I do), I think you are still missing some things on the cost side. You say that it is reasonable for people to pay for bandwidth used in downloading the song.
;-)
This kind of assumes that the bandwidth is the only cost of getting that song to you. There are obviously a bunch of other costs associated with getting this particular manifestation of the song to the listener. These range from the obvious, like hiring a recording studio, to the less obvious, like food during the recording sessions. There is a long chain of things which needs to happen to get this particular copy of the song to you.
Previously, these costs were defrayed out of a combination of the money made from selling copies of the CD (or record or tape, or whatever), together with the money made from other sources, like concert tickets, merchandising, etc. If the revenue from selling copies of the music is removed, then the prices of the other items would need to rise to cover the lost revenue.
That is a valid business model, and some bands choose to make their music available for free in order to attract more business in those other areas (or of course because they want to do so for artistic, egotistic, or altruistic reasons and they don't need the money).
Other bands want to continue to make money from selling copies of their music, and choose not to make copies of their songs freely available. Society as a whole also recognizes this as a valid business model, and defines the rules by which this can be done. As a customer you are paying not directly for the media on which the song is distributed (though you can bet the record company will include this cost in their price), but for limited rights to use the music so purchased. These rights are broadly described under the heading of fair use, and include things like being able to listen using different devices and making backup copies, but not going into business and selling copies or giving them away to all and sundry.
It is perfectly fair to argue that society shouldn't recognize the second business model (which is what I think you are arguing), but that should be on the basis that it is disadvantageous to society in some way, or that it infringes the rights of the individual, and not on the basis of whether a song is worth something, or whether music wants to be free (which I know you didn't say - I am (unfairly) generalizing...
If bands for whom the first model doesn't work well don't have the option of the second model, then they may simply stop recording and find other jobs. I am not arguing for a second that the world owes such people a living, but their liberties (and livelihoods) would be being infringed, which needs some justification. They are currently choosing to produce music on the basis that when they sell you a copy, you agree to abide by certain terms and conditions of the sale. They do not appear to be causing any disadvantage to society by doing so. Their alternative would be not to sell their music, which would only disadvantage folks who were prepared to pay for the priviledge - by removing this right now nobody has their music.
I don't want to ramble (more), so to sum up (and these are general points not addressed to the parent poster):-
A: If you don't believe a recording of a song should cost more than the bandwidth to download it, then download songs that have been made available on that basis (of which there are many).
B: If you don't want to abide by the conditions of sale when purchasing music which has not been offered for free download, live without the music.
C: If you want to use music of which you have purchased a copy in a reasonable way, then hey, that's what your fair use rights are for.
D: If you think your fair use rights should be broader than they are (or where DRM limitations interfere with you fair use rights), campaign to have them changed (including saying so as often a
I don't think the problem here is bridging the Rendezvous piece = I believe the issue is that the iTunes on the server won't allow anyone to connect who isn't on the same subnet. This was closed down because of abuse of the original system, which allowed connections from anywhere.
I am also from Glasgow, and spend a lot of time working with Americans, so I can empathize...
;-)
I spent a couple of years working in England, which forced me to learn to slow down when I was talking, and to speak more clearly. Without that, I would struggle.
One of my colleagues was complimented on "speaking English real good for a second language", which he is quite proud of. I don't think he had the heart to explain that it was actually his first language.
I think everyone with strong regional accents is so exposed to other accents (particularly American ones) through TV, movies, and music that they can understand others pretty well. It just doesn't change the way we speak
It probably does come from a Scottish accent originally, but is now more noticed by US folks in their Canadian neighbours. Parts of Canada also have a thriving Celtic music scene, certainly rivalling that in Scotland and Ireland, and I believe there are still some pockets where Gaelic is spoken, which highlights the extent of historical emigration from Scotland to Canada.
On the other hand, most US folks rarely hear a broad Scottish accent of any kind (no, Mel Gibson in Braveheart doesn't count (though Mike Myers in So I Married an Axe Murderer is closer). When they do hear a broad Scottish accent, the majority will fail to realize that the speaker is talking English at all, so they don't notice the different pronunciation so much.
Listening to Canadians, though, enough of the accent is similar to typical US pronunciations, so the few differences stand out more. The Aboot sound isn't uniform across Canada, but it is pretty common...
Its basically a livestock term that has found more common use in other contexts. Horses which are old/worn out are sent to the Knacker's yard to be slaughtered/made into dog-food/glue/etc. The businessman who provides this service is the Knacker.
I think the word spread from there to shipping (where a Knacker would break up a ship for parts), and is now generally used as an alternative term for pretty much anything being worn out/of no further use/etc.
I believe that you have two different characters there. It's been a while since I last read Catch 22, but I think the guy with horse apples in his cheeks was Orr, whereas the guy with the egg deal was Milo Minderbender.
;-)
Not that it makes the slightest difference to your point, of course
I think you have misidentified the likely users of the exchange connector. It is highly unlikely that the kind of users you are thinking about would want to fire up an exchange connector, as they would never voluntarily deploy exchange as an email server in the first place.
Exchange is primarily an enterprise tool, and there is a large and growing number of companies who are deploying Linux machines to some groups of their employees. These employees need access to exchange, so the relevant license fees will already be paid for them. If the connector and evolution is more attractive to those employees than running outlook with Windows emulation then they will jump for it, with no incremental cost (other than for new users, which would have to be paid anyhow).
And the corollary: any mention of SCO will generate a long thread...
At the very least, Windows would be two years different, if longhorn were to be released by then... ;-)
I think you are mistaking Bill Gates for somebody else - Microsoft never designed a computer yet. IBM invented what is now called a PC, and it was made affordable by various clone makers who ripped off the IBM design.
Microsoft's contribution was to sell an OS they didn't own to IBM, and then buy the OS from the owners without telling them about the IBM deal.
I use Word on both Windows and Mac with the same documents. I would say that the pattern is that each release for the last few has been leapfrogging the other platform. When Office X came out on Mac it had new features that weren't in the existing Windows office at the time. Wheen Windows 2003 came out on Windows it moved back into the lead.
As far as quality on long documents is concerned, I would say that it is pretty much a tie - it is absolutely dreadful on both OSs. Quality wise Word has been slowly recovering since version 6, which was probably the buggiest, slowest, least professional commercial software offering I have ever had the displeasure of having to use. The latest versions on both OSs have now reached the point of being reasonably fair for modestly sized documents. It also makes a huge difference how the document template is set up - it is possible to generate documents which will simply crash Word repeatably on one platform or the other, or in many cases at exactly the same place on both platforms.
Cross platform NTLM support got added to Mozilla round about the end of last year. I believe it is in the current stable version now...
Who needs them? For both music and video there is some great software on the Mac, including most of the stuff the pros use (much of which (but not all of which) is also available for Windows).
;-) I know the market share of Macs is relatively low, which would seem to limit its impact. On the other hand, even with something like 1 in 20 computers being Macs, in a five piece band that means you have something like a 1 in 4 chance that one of the band members will have one, and that it is a pretty good chance that someone in the class will have access to one.
Yes, the Mac is now missing Premiere (though it is worth noting that this is only because it was getting its ass kicked so thoroughly by the Final Cut family that it retreated to Windows, where Final Cut isn't available.
Equally, Windows is missing Logic since Apple bought eMagic, but Cubase and (importantly) ProTools are both Cross Platform.
There is software on both sides of the Windows/Mac divide in these areas that it would be nice to have on the other platform.
Windows does have many more non-professional level programs, which gives people more choice, but then the Mac does have iMovie (and now GarageBand) which are essentially free, and certainly compare favourably with anything on the Windows side.
I also think that GarageBand could be a big deal. I certainly agree with you that folks with "real" music software aren't particularly likely to downgrade, but I've spent an hour or two fiddling with GarageBand (I bought the Ilife update mainly for the new version of iPhoto), and you can have great fun with it. It is also far easier to get into than any other sequencing/audio recording package I have ever used (and I've played with a lot of them). The available loops are kind of addictive to play with, and let you get a really professional sounding track without any real knowledge at all.
While the main effect of that by itself is likely to be the generation of huge ammounts of musical mush with no redeeming qualities, the audio recording will let it be extended to do some real music, and the addition of a MIDI keyboard makes it a pretty capable system.
All these capabilities have been available for quite a while now, of course, but all the entry level software I have seen for this has tended to be cut down versions of real music products, which require a whole learning curve to get any real use out of, which will put off a lot of folks.
GarageBand might (and I should stress might) actually act as quite a big bridge into real music for folks that otherwise wouldn't have got there. Also, for kids in a band this thing could be awesome for putting together demo tapes (well actually CDs
I'm rambling now, so I'll stop.
You are right - Word for Mac was released before Windows 1 was released (and Windows 1 was so completely non-functional that I'm not sure that it can be counted as what we know today as Windows existing.
;-)
Office is a big cash cow, and it was invented on, and made possible by, the Mac. (You can make the same argument for Windows, in some ways. At the risk of sounding like an old fart, it is hard from today's perspective to realize the significance of the Mac, and the influence it has had. I'm sure that the GUI would have made it out of Xerox's lab eventually even if Apple hadn't licensed the idea, but Apple took it so much further forward that it would likely be very different today without their contribution).
(Damn - I did/do sound like an old fart...
My 12" powerbook also has an audio in, so it's more like $1599 ;-)
More to the point (and at risk of trying to be helpful), you could always add a USB audio interface. The Griffin iMic is the cheapest I know of ($39.99), and is claimed to be better quality than the built-in converter (I haven't done listening tests myself).
Nah, you just need a USB audio interface (the Griffin iMic for instance) and you are laughing.
;-)
Oh, and an electric golf cart to carry it around
I would say it looks like the consumer version of Logic rather than Soundtrack - the screenshots look pretty similar to me.
From an initial look at the screenshots it looks like it is heavily based on Logic (one of the main pro-level sequencer packages, for anyone who doesn't follow recording tools). That would certainly augur well for the quality of the software.
The quality of the hardware is another matter, of course. Apple's built in hardware is probably sufficient for the "garage" tag.
I guess we can now see what Apple was thinking when they bought eMagic (the developers of Logic), and what they wanted to do with the folks that they freed up when they canned the Windows version of it.
The update from 95 to 98 wasn't much. There was working USB support (compared to the broken USB support Microsoft tried and failed to get working properly in 95. There was Windows Media Player (blech). And there were enough general bug fixes that it went from being a dreadfully unreliable OS to a mostly dreadfully reliable OS.
98 to ME was really less, as the quality actually dropped, and most of the "improvements" were bad eye-candy.
On the other hand, any of the above to 2000 or to XP is a huge upgrade, as with the NT stream of Windows Microsoft actually has something worthy of the name of operating system. (The same is good for the earlier NT releases). So it is perfectly fair to argue that this transition represents better value for money than the Apple releases (unless you own more than one computer, in which case the family pack licensing is an excellent deal) (or you can get an educational or US government discount).
I'm personally less interested, though, in whether any particular release of an operating system offers more improvements per dollar than another. I'm more interested in whether a new OS release will give me enough benefits to justify the amount of money that is being asked for it. In the case of Panther, I'll be buying it within a few days of it being released, and I'll be extremely happy with the deal. Your mileage may well vary (we probably use our computers for different things), but I take one look at the improved developer tools, and I feel I've already more than justified the cost of the upgrade. Throw in improved performance, together with Expose, and I'm feeling I've got a bargain. Improved Windows interoperability (I work in a mostly Windows environment) and some Exchange functionality built into the system, and I'm thinking I've got a great deal. For someone who doesn't care about any of the above, then the cost may well appear unreasonable.
I also buy into the general complaint that Apple stops bugfixing too soon on the older branches. Not upgrading becomes more of an issue if things like security patches don't appear.