SCSI was slowly dying from the original Power Macs in 1994 through the first iMac and Blue & White G3, the first machines to ship without it. By that time, Macs were already using internal IDE hard disks and optical drives. It wasn't as if this was some sort of a surprise. Also, SCSI usage was most definitely not increasing; it was decreasing drastically.
With FireWire, it is *the* transport of choice, and usually the only transport, for all DV and HDV cameras, decks, and other video equipment, and is increasingly used on high end DTV and HDTV equipment and other high end audio/video equipment As long as that is true, and as long as half of iLife depends upon DV transport to get data into the computer and the applications (iMovie, iDVD), FireWire isn't going anywhere. Now, could DV cameras transition to USB 2.0 over the next years? Sure. And if they do, fine. (The integrated iSight in the new Macs is USB, for what it's worth.)
I'm sure FireWire will eventually, like anything, be replaced by another standard. But for now, it's here to stay for quite some time.
I believe that these would be more accurately described as "pre-production". If the semantics are important to you, these were definitely NOT "prototypes", with what that term implies. These were essentially finished-goods units. Any speculation on whether or not they should have had battery life specs ready before ship, and guesses as to why they didn't, is just that: speculation and guesses.
The MacBook Pro was announced in the keynote, and Jobs said to the "faithful" that it wasn't available yet and would be shipping in February. I.e., not shipping yet. I.e., no *shipping* units available yet. Did he *specifically* say they were "prototypes" or development units on display? No, but 1.) I think that a rational person can infer that, since they're not *shipping* yet and won't be for another month or month and a half (at the time), and 2.) Why does it matter?
I should also note that while FireWire 800 appears to be dead or at least resting (or perhaps available via an ExpressCard/34 card) with regard to the Intel-based Macs that have been announced to date, FireWire as a standard won't be going anywhere for a while.
Even as a Wintel type, I liked having Apple push for an even-higher-speed Firewire spec, in the hopes that it would filter down to the rest of the world eventually. That they're giving up now and going with strictly hardware Intel can provide... well, it's a disappointment.
I agree with you, but this, as you say, is likely a result of Apple going pretty much straight vanilla with Intel CPUs and chipsets in its new machines. This can, of course, be a good thing and a bad thing, depending on your perspective.
Makes sense - I think apple wanted to make a splash at MacWorld and the laptop wasn't quite ready yet.
And they've done this with other products so many times at other Macworld and WWDC keynotes that I've lost track.
I guess I'm just at a loss for how this is possibly interesting, considering it's kind of obvious that they weren't shipping units, considering they're not, well, shipping yet, and because Apple has preannounced products myriad times before.
Anyone at Macworld 13 days ago could see that the MacBook Pro units on display didn't have proper serial numbers, and it was no secret that they were development units. "Prototypes" is probably a little overboard, but yeah, they were not final, shipping production units.
Considering that it has always been known that the MacBook Pro wouldn't be shipping for another month or so, and was in fact represented as such, is it any surprise that units displayed a month and a half before the unit started shipping wouldn't yet, well, you know, be shipping units?
Now if Apple rolls out iTimeMachine at some point in the future, I'll consider eating my words.
2. Testing conducted by Apple in December 2005 using preproduction 20-inch iMac units with 2GHz Intel Core Duo; all other systems were shipping units. All scores are estimated.SPEC is a registered trademark of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC); see www.spec.org for more information. Benchmarks were compiled using the IBM compiler and a beta version of the Intel compiler for Mac OS.
3. Testing conducted by Apple in December 2005 using preproduction 20-inch iMac units with 2GHz Intel Core Duo; all other systems were shipping units. All of the iMac and iMac G5 systems ran beta Universal version of Modo. All other applications were beta versions.
And since actual application performance has been subjective since the dawn of time, how is this surprising?
I mean, we're talking about a company that said no one wanted flash players until they made one, that no one wanted to watch video on an iPod until they made an iPod that played video, and that said all x86 architecture and CISC processors sucked until they switched to them.
And you know what? All of the above statements had significant elements of truth to them. Apple is doing nothing more than showing its products, accurately insofar as it goes, in the best possible light. Is this the least bit stunning?
Strictly speaking, people aren't complaining about extension elements. They're complaining about broken namespace support and unnamespaced extension elements amongst other things. You don't know what you're talking about.
You actually are insinuating that Apple intentionally and maliciously wants to kill RSS and XML, two critical open standards it holds quite dear across all of its products, from iTunes and iPod to Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server, by inserting new elements to support "photocasting" in iPhoto?
...and throwing up our arms and collectively running around like chickens with our heads cut off as if we're helpless to do anything, which is what seems like everyone is doing in the context of this 'OMG! Apple breaks RSS!' brouhaha, since Apple prides itself on embracing open standards when possible, why not simply report these as bugs and presume they will be fixed, since Apple, you know, is fairly responsive to community concerns and actually likes fixing these sorts of problems that tend to break things for everyone?[1]
The issue, though, was not about what evil things Apple might be doing. The issue was that you had no idea what Apple was doing. There was speculation--perhaps even informed speculation--but no actual word from Apple about this. Not even buried deep in the bowels of the license agreement.
Actually, this is wrong. They did make it clear. The knowledge base article, available the day iTunes 6.0.2 was release, specifically said:
iTunes sends data about the song selected in your library to the iTunes Music Store to provide relevant recommendations. When the MiniStore is hidden, this data is not sent to the iTunes Music Store.
Looking for some new tunes? Tap into the 2-million-song treasure chest of the iTunes Music Store through the new MiniStore. While you're browsing your own library or importing a new CD, MiniStore appears at the bottom of the iTunes window and shows you other albums from your favorite artists and artists like them. You can even see reviews of these albums plus what other listeners who like this artist purchased -- so you'll never be at a loss for new music to discover. When you're ready to go back to full-screen mode, click an icon and MiniStore tucks away, ready to pop up again later when you want to explore some more.
and
MiniStore
Discover new music as you enjoy your collection or import new CDs with MiniStore -- right from your iTunes library.
Further, the MiniStore actively changing as you click different tracks in iTunes might give a small hint that something is happening.
Now, if you're saying that Apple should have had some kind of a dialog box come up when you first upgraded to and launched iTunes 6.0.2 explaining this and giving a clear option to simply opt to not use the new MiniStore in the first place, sure, I'll agree that would have likely been better. And now they're doing just that.
From my earlier (rejected) submission on this topic this morning:
Apple changes iTunes MiniStore to "opt-in"
In response to the iTunes "spying" allegations, coveredpreviously, Apple has now changed the iTunes MiniStore behavior to "opt-in". Upon launch of iTunes 6.0.2, the following message is presented: "The iTunes MiniStore allows you to discover new music and videos right from your iTunes Library. As you select items in your Library, information about that item is sent to Apple and the MiniStore will show you related songs or videos. Apple does not keep any information related to the contents of your music Library. Would you like to turn on the MiniStore now?" This message is presented in the MiniStore pane, before it is activated, along with a further message noting "You can always turn the MiniStore off (or on) by clicking here," with an arrow pointing at the MiniStore show/hide button. Though Apple explained the behavior of the MiniStore in a knowledge base article and advertised the feature on the iTunes home page the day iTunes 6.0.2 was released, this new "opt-in" default functionality, as well as the explanation of what is happening, should be a welcome change for those who were initially concerned.
The people who are now paying for Bellsouth phone service will switch to Bellsouth Internet Service.
No, they won't. Not all of them anyway.
Some will switch to cable.
Some will switch to other CLECs for which Bellsouth is required to provide "last mile" connectivity with its own (albeit subsidized) infrastructure.
Some will simply drop Bellsouth telephone and go all VoIP.
And in all of the above three groups of ostensibly current Bellsouth customers, there will be a good chunk who will no longer be customers of any Bellsouth service.
Yes, some of this means providing a superior product, but that's a superior product at a particular price point, too, which becomes harder and harder to do as you shed customers.
Remember, I said I was playing Devil's Advocate. I didn't say I agreed with them.
I tried to boot from a Windows XP installer CD. No dice. I then tried booting from a Vista installer DVD (Build 5270). Again, no dice. When holding down the Option key, the only icon that appeared was for the iMac's internal hard drive. Holding down the D key to try to force booting off of the optical drive failed as well. With the Vista DVD, the optical drive churned a bit and the iMac hesitated as though it were contemplating whether it wanted to boot the foreign OS. Soon afterwards, the familiar gray Apple logo appeared on screen and Mac OS X finished booting.
The new Intel Macs don't have an EFI shell, so there's no way to directly get at the EFI. Someone is ultimately going to have to write and/or use an existing EFI shell to tell the EFI to boot from alternate media to get things going. Naturally, running Windows under virtualization, with technologies like Intel's VT/Vanderpool, which the Core Duo in the new Macs does support, are going to be the way to go for most users anyway.
Now, if Bellsouth loses {some large number} of customers to VoIP
...but the filter didn't accept the carats I originally enclosed it with.
Also, I'm well aware that many of these providers' networks were originally built witt government subsidies (i.e., our taxes), and/or continue to be built and maintained at very tax-advantaged rates, and that many operators have what is essentially a government-mandated monopoly for the "last mile". However, even with all of the advantages, it still costs massive amounts of real money to build out, operate, and maintain. And minus the "tax advantages" or even subsides, that cost is still spread across the customer base. When you lose customers, something has to replace it.
Now, is it "our" responsibility to figure out how to replace Bellsouth's lost revenue? Of course not. That's Bellsouth's responsibility. And, not surprisingly, that's exactly what it's trying to do. And, even less surprisingly, without doubling broadband customer rates, which would come with its own problems.
As much as we can bitch about lack of competition, legitimately, and all of that sort of thing, having a healthy physical wired infrastructure, whether it be twisted pair and/or coax (or fiber), across the majority of the country is critically important. The model by which all of this physical infrastructure is maintained is probably here to stay for a while.
Oh, I guess you want to have your cake, AND eat it too?
Of course they want that! They'll take whatever they can get, and they'll naturally target things like VoIP and media (IPTV, music, etc.) services first.
But to play devil's advocate for a moment: they're threatened by people who want to provide, for example, broadband VoIP services, partly because VoIP providers haven't been saddled with the same baggage as traditional telephone operators (though that's changing bit by bit as well), just as IPTV-over-broadband providers are/will be a threat to traditional cable operations that also provide broadband services.
Both the cable operators and the telephone operators have built massive physical infrastructure, part of which is subsidized by the broadband customers, but a very large part of which is still subsidized by their traditional, non-broadband customer base. Now, if Bellsouth loses of customers to VoIP, then, in theory, that's going to shift costs of operating their network to broadband customers. I mean, if you lose hundreds of thousands - or millions - of customers, all of whom were paying you before (arguments about what should be reasonable profits aside), what now replaces that revenue, some of which goes to support, expand, operate, and maintain your massive physical plant and network? Clearly, if the money doesn't come from elsewhere, it's going to come from your broadband customers. So if you're ok with broadband monthly rates increasing by two- or three-fold, then it's fine to make this "but your ISP customers already paid you" argument.
Rather than go down that road, Bellsouth is trying to leverage its customer base to get high-profile media providers to "pay" for the delivery of their content, to ensure a continuing revenue stream. Greedy and opportunistic? Sure. But it's also not just imaginary that their traditional customer base is threatened by some of these new technologies. I'm not saying I like what Bellsouth is doing, but see if you can imagine what would happen if Bellsouth lost a third of their telephone customers over the next ten years, and didn't gain anywhere near that in broadband customers. What replaces that revenue?
Supposedly that was already done ten years ago for some Macs, when there was a PPC port of Windows NT.
Yes, I've got one of those boxes in my office (the one on the far left, next to my 128K Mac and NeXT Cube). And indeed, it could run Windows NT for PowerPC. It was a Motorola Viper, a prototype of one of the Mac "clones", and was to be the first shipping Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP) machine. In theory, it could run Mac OS, Linux, AIX, Solaris, NetWare, and Windows NT. For various reasons, Solaris and NetWare on PowerPC were killed, as was Windows, eventually. Apple killed cloning (for Motorola's part, Apple bought back their Mac OS license for $100M), and the CHRP machines - or the first clone with the G3, the Motorola StarMax 6000 - never shipped.
However, Intel Australia, while being careful not to comment on Apple's hardware specifically, says motherboards based on the Intel 945 chipset already support EFI and can boot Windows with no problems.
This cryptic statement can't be taken as full reassurance though: it may be that 945 boards support EFI but do not come with it installed by default.
[...]
"For IA 32 systems, the Framework loads itself above the 1MB real-mode memory boundary to accommodate an optional Compatibility Support Module (CSM). CSM implementations can be tailored to platform requirements. A typical CSM is approximately 60KB (~38KB compressed) of firmware that is specific to each Participating Vendor and is based on that Vendor's latest BIOS code base. A contemporary implementation of the Framework on a PC includes a CSM for supplying services to operating systems that do not boot using EFI and for supporting legacy option ROMs on add-in cards. For legacy boot the Framework initialises the platform's silicon and executes EFI drivers. Then control is transferred to the CSM, which supports the legacy OS boot."
So, as long as Apple has included a Compatibility Support Module, Intel-based Macs should be able to boot XP.
It seems unlikely that Apple would have left this out. It has already said it isn't doing anything to prevent Windows from booting on a Mac.
Yes, it's true that EFI has BIOS backward compatibility layer, but it is optional for the vendor to use and provide this. And Apple has no need for legacy BIOS support.
The more interesting possibility for many users will not be directly booting or dual-booting Windows XP, but rather running Windows XP at essentially the full speed of the underlying hardware in a virtual machine, right alongside Mac OS X. Sure, for some game and direct hardware access applications, you would want to - or you may have to - boot Windows directly. But for the vast majority of access to Windows productivity and/or other software not available on Mac OS X, running Windows alongside Mac OS X is likely more desirable than dual-booting anyway.
As has been noted, however, it is indeed extremely likely that Windows Vista will directly boot on Intel-based Macs with EFI.
- Full 802.11a support is present, though unadvertised, as well as 802.11b/g - Intel High Definition Audio is used - the iMac's optical drive does have dual layer support, unlike the ultra slimline 9mm drive used in the MacBook Pro - the iSight is USB - a TPM entry is present in ioreg - com.apple.Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X is an active kernel extension
First, the few G5 iMacs that sounded like a "jet taking off" were iMacs with specific, acknowledged motherboard problems that resulted in their fans ramping up to full speed. This was fixed on-demand in any iMac with that issue, and it was indeed addressed completely in later revisions. This issue never affected more than a small percentage of machines.
Further, Apple's design is to use *more* fans such that they don't need to be running at full speed (you did know that those are all variable speed blowers, right?). For example, the G5 towers that use 9 fans. None of them are running at too high a speed, keeping the entire machine quiet. Aside from a few models of machines with more audible airflow, Apple's goal is to have machines that run very quietly and are audibly unobtrusive.
At the risk of repeating myself, on this subject, I recently answered a query raised during a Chronicle of Higher Education colloquy. I believe it touches on the major issues here.
Question from Lisa L. Spangenberg, UCLA:
Given that there are no viruses or Trojan horses for the current Macintosh system, OS X 10.3, and given that it is essentially UNIX, and given that the most common applications (Microsoft Office Suite, Adobe applications) work very well on OS X, why don't more institutions adopt Macs and encourage faculty to use them?
Gregory A. Jackson:
Well, first of all, there are viruses and Trojans that afflict MacOS, witness Apple's periodic release of security fixes to counteract them.
First, that isn't true, regarding viruses. To date, there are no known viruses that specifically target Mac OS X. Last week's "trojan" was nothing more than an application with a different icon and misleading name that displayed a dialog box (which was an example posted to a USENET Mac programming group to illustrate this fact that has been known and possible on Mac OS for over twenty years; an antivirus vendor apparently thought this an appropriate time to dress it up, incorrectly, as some new, terrible exploit easily adapted for malicious means, when in reality it's nothing more than an application).
If you're referring more broadly to security issues in general, almost all of the security and security-related updates for Mac OS X to date have been updates for primarily server-type services that ship with the OS, all of which are disabled by default, and the lion's share of which are never even enabled, much less touched, on the vast majority of systems. I'm not saying that they should be ignored, but Apple's comprehensive and swift response to the most minor security issues does not rise to the level of the staggeringly numerous, sometimes completely automated, remote exploits, worms, and so on for Windows. It is no longer possible to even get through a full installation Windows XP on a machine connected to a public network without it being exploited before you even have a chance to patch it.
It's definitely possible for Mac OS X to have viruses, worms, trojans, and other malware - Mac OS X is not invulnerable, and no sensible person would claim it to be. But the underlying philosophical design principles are fundamentally more secure than Windows, period. Since the major ingredient for the success of a worm or virus is some ability to spread, witness the fact that there is no way with anything built into Mac OS X to perform automated propagation of a virus, and no current known ways to exploit a machine remotely, not to mention that potentially exploitable network services are disabled to begin with anyway (and remain that way unless explicitly enabled), a stark contrast to Windows. Any hope for automatic propagation would require a comparatively high level of sophistication, and perhaps even its own mail server - not to mention some intrinsic vulnerability to exploit. On the other hand, there are still, to this moment, unfixed vulnerabilities in certain versions of Outlook that will spread certain virus variants simply by previewing a message, and nothing more. There is simply no equivalent to this on any other platform. Microsoft's track record and attitude on security (though admittedly much improved) versus other vendors speaks volumes on this topic.
It takes work and thought to do security, and do it right. Ease of use and security aren't mutually exclusive. The key is to make security easy to use, and Apple has so far been on the right road with Mac OS X.
But the small installed base of Macs makes them an unexciting, low-visibility target for the bad guys, and so the weaknesses don't get exploited much.
The marketshare argument only goes so far. This seems to be a version of the "Macs have no software" argument. It is indeed true
Slashdot Mirror
Your argument doesn't transfer.
SCSI was slowly dying from the original Power Macs in 1994 through the first iMac and Blue & White G3, the first machines to ship without it. By that time, Macs were already using internal IDE hard disks and optical drives. It wasn't as if this was some sort of a surprise. Also, SCSI usage was most definitely not increasing; it was decreasing drastically.
With FireWire, it is *the* transport of choice, and usually the only transport, for all DV and HDV cameras, decks, and other video equipment, and is increasingly used on high end DTV and HDTV equipment and other high end audio/video equipment As long as that is true, and as long as half of iLife depends upon DV transport to get data into the computer and the applications (iMovie, iDVD), FireWire isn't going anywhere. Now, could DV cameras transition to USB 2.0 over the next years? Sure. And if they do, fine. (The integrated iSight in the new Macs is USB, for what it's worth.)
I'm sure FireWire will eventually, like anything, be replaced by another standard. But for now, it's here to stay for quite some time.
I believe that these would be more accurately described as "pre-production". If the semantics are important to you, these were definitely NOT "prototypes", with what that term implies. These were essentially finished-goods units. Any speculation on whether or not they should have had battery life specs ready before ship, and guesses as to why they didn't, is just that: speculation and guesses.
How was it presented to the "faithful"?
There was nothing "implied".
The MacBook Pro was announced in the keynote, and Jobs said to the "faithful" that it wasn't available yet and would be shipping in February. I.e., not shipping yet. I.e., no *shipping* units available yet. Did he *specifically* say they were "prototypes" or development units on display? No, but 1.) I think that a rational person can infer that, since they're not *shipping* yet and won't be for another month or month and a half (at the time), and 2.) Why does it matter?
I should also note that while FireWire 800 appears to be dead or at least resting (or perhaps available via an ExpressCard/34 card) with regard to the Intel-based Macs that have been announced to date, FireWire as a standard won't be going anywhere for a while.
Even as a Wintel type, I liked having Apple push for an even-higher-speed Firewire spec, in the hopes that it would filter down to the rest of the world eventually. That they're giving up now and going with strictly hardware Intel can provide... well, it's a disappointment.
I agree with you, but this, as you say, is likely a result of Apple going pretty much straight vanilla with Intel CPUs and chipsets in its new machines. This can, of course, be a good thing and a bad thing, depending on your perspective.
...that hasn't already been explained.
Makes sense - I think apple wanted to make a splash at MacWorld and the laptop wasn't quite ready yet.
And they've done this with other products so many times at other Macworld and WWDC keynotes that I've lost track.
I guess I'm just at a loss for how this is possibly interesting, considering it's kind of obvious that they weren't shipping units, considering they're not, well, shipping yet, and because Apple has preannounced products myriad times before.
Um, how on earth is this news?
Anyone at Macworld 13 days ago could see that the MacBook Pro units on display didn't have proper serial numbers, and it was no secret that they were development units. "Prototypes" is probably a little overboard, but yeah, they were not final, shipping production units.
Considering that it has always been known that the MacBook Pro wouldn't be shipping for another month or so, and was in fact represented as such, is it any surprise that units displayed a month and a half before the unit started shipping wouldn't yet, well, you know, be shipping units?
Now if Apple rolls out iTimeMachine at some point in the future, I'll consider eating my words.
Company performs benchmarks to show product in best light!
From http://www.apple.com/imac/intelcoreduo.html:
2. Testing conducted by Apple in December 2005 using preproduction 20-inch iMac units with 2GHz Intel Core Duo; all other systems were shipping units. All scores are estimated.SPEC is a registered trademark of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC); see www.spec.org for more information. Benchmarks were compiled using the IBM compiler and a beta version of the Intel compiler for Mac OS.
3. Testing conducted by Apple in December 2005 using preproduction 20-inch iMac units with 2GHz Intel Core Duo; all other systems were shipping units. All of the iMac and iMac G5 systems ran beta Universal version of Modo. All other applications were beta versions.
And since actual application performance has been subjective since the dawn of time, how is this surprising?
I mean, we're talking about a company that said no one wanted flash players until they made one, that no one wanted to watch video on an iPod until they made an iPod that played video, and that said all x86 architecture and CISC processors sucked until they switched to them.
And you know what? All of the above statements had significant elements of truth to them. Apple is doing nothing more than showing its products, accurately insofar as it goes, in the best possible light. Is this the least bit stunning?
Strictly speaking, people aren't complaining about extension elements. They're complaining about broken namespace support and unnamespaced extension elements amongst other things. You don't know what you're talking about.
Sorry, that's a quote directly from the article in the submission.
Speaking of quotes, "You don't know what you're talking about."
You actually are insinuating that Apple intentionally and maliciously wants to kill RSS and XML, two critical open standards it holds quite dear across all of its products, from iTunes and iPod to Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server, by inserting new elements to support "photocasting" in iPhoto?
At least be a little more believable next time.
...and throwing up our arms and collectively running around like chickens with our heads cut off as if we're helpless to do anything, which is what seems like everyone is doing in the context of this 'OMG! Apple breaks RSS!' brouhaha, since Apple prides itself on embracing open standards when possible, why not simply report these as bugs and presume they will be fixed, since Apple, you know, is fairly responsive to community concerns and actually likes fixing these sorts of problems that tend to break things for everyone?[1]
- http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphoto.html
- http://bugreport.apple.com/ (trackable, but requires free Apple Developer Connection account)
[1] Strictly speaking Apple is not doing anything wrong. [...] anybody can make changes and introduce new elements and extensions.
...then there would be nothing to obtain.
The issue, though, was not about what evil things Apple might be doing. The issue was that you had no idea what Apple was doing. There was speculation--perhaps even informed speculation--but no actual word from Apple about this. Not even buried deep in the bowels of the license agreement.
Actually, this is wrong. They did make it clear. The knowledge base article, available the day iTunes 6.0.2 was release, specifically said:
iTunes sends data about the song selected in your library to the iTunes Music Store to provide relevant recommendations. When the MiniStore is hidden, this data is not sent to the iTunes Music Store.
In addition, the day iTunes 6.0.2 was released, http://www.apple.com/itunes/ said:
Discover Music
Discover new music as you enjoy your collection or import new CDs -- with MiniStore.
and http://www.apple.com/itunes/playlists/ said:
Discover New Music
Looking for some new tunes? Tap into the 2-million-song treasure chest of the iTunes Music Store through the new MiniStore. While you're browsing your own library or importing a new CD, MiniStore appears at the bottom of the iTunes window and shows you other albums from your favorite artists and artists like them. You can even see reviews of these albums plus what other listeners who like this artist purchased -- so you'll never be at a loss for new music to discover. When you're ready to go back to full-screen mode, click an icon and MiniStore tucks away, ready to pop up again later when you want to explore some more.
and
MiniStore
Discover new music as you enjoy your collection or import new CDs with MiniStore -- right from your iTunes library.
Further, the MiniStore actively changing as you click different tracks in iTunes might give a small hint that something is happening.
Now, if you're saying that Apple should have had some kind of a dialog box come up when you first upgraded to and launched iTunes 6.0.2 explaining this and giving a clear option to simply opt to not use the new MiniStore in the first place, sure, I'll agree that would have likely been better. And now they're doing just that.
From my earlier (rejected) submission on this topic this morning:
Apple changes iTunes MiniStore to "opt-in"
In response to the iTunes "spying" allegations, covered previously, Apple has now changed the iTunes MiniStore behavior to "opt-in". Upon launch of iTunes 6.0.2, the following message is presented: "The iTunes MiniStore allows you to discover new music and videos right from your iTunes Library. As you select items in your Library, information about that item is sent to Apple and the MiniStore will show you related songs or videos. Apple does not keep any information related to the contents of your music Library. Would you like to turn on the MiniStore now?" This message is presented in the MiniStore pane, before it is activated, along with a further message noting "You can always turn the MiniStore off (or on) by clicking here," with an arrow pointing at the MiniStore show/hide button. Though Apple explained the behavior of the MiniStore in a knowledge base article and advertised the feature on the iTunes home page the day iTunes 6.0.2 was released, this new "opt-in" default functionality, as well as the explanation of what is happening, should be a welcome change for those who were initially concerned.
Right you are! I just verified myself with Apple Enterprise Support:
D - diagnostic partitions only (Apple Hardware Test)
C - optical media
I stand corrected. Thank you.
The "D" key is the new key for booting optical media on Intel-based Macs:
3 081
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=30
The people who are now paying for Bellsouth phone service will switch to Bellsouth Internet Service.
No, they won't. Not all of them anyway.
Some will switch to cable.
Some will switch to other CLECs for which Bellsouth is required to provide "last mile" connectivity with its own (albeit subsidized) infrastructure.
Some will simply drop Bellsouth telephone and go all VoIP.
And in all of the above three groups of ostensibly current Bellsouth customers, there will be a good chunk who will no longer be customers of any Bellsouth service.
Yes, some of this means providing a superior product, but that's a superior product at a particular price point, too, which becomes harder and harder to do as you shed customers.
Remember, I said I was playing Devil's Advocate. I didn't say I agreed with them.
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/imac-cored uo.ars/7
I tried to boot from a Windows XP installer CD. No dice. I then tried booting from a Vista installer DVD (Build 5270). Again, no dice. When holding down the Option key, the only icon that appeared was for the iMac's internal hard drive. Holding down the D key to try to force booting off of the optical drive failed as well. With the Vista DVD, the optical drive churned a bit and the iMac hesitated as though it were contemplating whether it wanted to boot the foreign OS. Soon afterwards, the familiar gray Apple logo appeared on screen and Mac OS X finished booting.
The new Intel Macs don't have an EFI shell, so there's no way to directly get at the EFI. Someone is ultimately going to have to write and/or use an existing EFI shell to tell the EFI to boot from alternate media to get things going. Naturally, running Windows under virtualization, with technologies like Intel's VT/Vanderpool, which the Core Duo in the new Macs does support, are going to be the way to go for most users anyway.
should have read
Now, if Bellsouth loses {some large number} of customers to VoIP
...but the filter didn't accept the carats I originally enclosed it with.
Also, I'm well aware that many of these providers' networks were originally built witt government subsidies (i.e., our taxes), and/or continue to be built and maintained at very tax-advantaged rates, and that many operators have what is essentially a government-mandated monopoly for the "last mile". However, even with all of the advantages, it still costs massive amounts of real money to build out, operate, and maintain. And minus the "tax advantages" or even subsides, that cost is still spread across the customer base. When you lose customers, something has to replace it.
Now, is it "our" responsibility to figure out how to replace Bellsouth's lost revenue? Of course not. That's Bellsouth's responsibility. And, not surprisingly, that's exactly what it's trying to do. And, even less surprisingly, without doubling broadband customer rates, which would come with its own problems.
As much as we can bitch about lack of competition, legitimately, and all of that sort of thing, having a healthy physical wired infrastructure, whether it be twisted pair and/or coax (or fiber), across the majority of the country is critically important. The model by which all of this physical infrastructure is maintained is probably here to stay for a while.
Oh, I guess you want to have your cake, AND eat it too?
Of course they want that! They'll take whatever they can get, and they'll naturally target things like VoIP and media (IPTV, music, etc.) services first.
But to play devil's advocate for a moment: they're threatened by people who want to provide, for example, broadband VoIP services, partly because VoIP providers haven't been saddled with the same baggage as traditional telephone operators (though that's changing bit by bit as well), just as IPTV-over-broadband providers are/will be a threat to traditional cable operations that also provide broadband services.
Both the cable operators and the telephone operators have built massive physical infrastructure, part of which is subsidized by the broadband customers, but a very large part of which is still subsidized by their traditional, non-broadband customer base. Now, if Bellsouth loses of customers to VoIP, then, in theory, that's going to shift costs of operating their network to broadband customers. I mean, if you lose hundreds of thousands - or millions - of customers, all of whom were paying you before (arguments about what should be reasonable profits aside), what now replaces that revenue, some of which goes to support, expand, operate, and maintain your massive physical plant and network? Clearly, if the money doesn't come from elsewhere, it's going to come from your broadband customers. So if you're ok with broadband monthly rates increasing by two- or three-fold, then it's fine to make this "but your ISP customers already paid you" argument.
Rather than go down that road, Bellsouth is trying to leverage its customer base to get high-profile media providers to "pay" for the delivery of their content, to ensure a continuing revenue stream. Greedy and opportunistic? Sure. But it's also not just imaginary that their traditional customer base is threatened by some of these new technologies. I'm not saying I like what Bellsouth is doing, but see if you can imagine what would happen if Bellsouth lost a third of their telephone customers over the next ten years, and didn't gain anywhere near that in broadband customers. What replaces that revenue?
No Apple knowledge base articles, but in the meantime:
GPT Wikipedia article
Microsoft GPT reference
Microsoft GPT TechNet article
Supposedly that was already done ten years ago for some Macs, when there was a PPC port of Windows NT.
Yes, I've got one of those boxes in my office (the one on the far left, next to my 128K Mac and NeXT Cube). And indeed, it could run Windows NT for PowerPC. It was a Motorola Viper, a prototype of one of the Mac "clones", and was to be the first shipping Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP) machine. In theory, it could run Mac OS, Linux, AIX, Solaris, NetWare, and Windows NT. For various reasons, Solaris and NetWare on PowerPC were killed, as was Windows, eventually. Apple killed cloning (for Motorola's part, Apple bought back their Mac OS license for $100M), and the CHRP machines - or the first clone with the G3, the Motorola StarMax 6000 - never shipped.
From the artricle:
However, Intel Australia, while being careful not to comment on Apple's hardware specifically, says motherboards based on the Intel 945 chipset already support EFI and can boot Windows with no problems.
This cryptic statement can't be taken as full reassurance though: it may be that 945 boards support EFI but do not come with it installed by default.
[...]
"For IA 32 systems, the Framework loads itself above the 1MB real-mode memory boundary to accommodate an optional Compatibility Support Module (CSM). CSM implementations can be tailored to platform requirements. A typical CSM is approximately 60KB (~38KB compressed) of firmware that is specific to each Participating Vendor and is based on that Vendor's latest BIOS code base. A contemporary implementation of the Framework on a PC includes a CSM for supplying services to operating systems that do not boot using EFI and for supporting legacy option ROMs on add-in cards. For legacy boot the Framework initialises the platform's silicon and executes EFI drivers. Then control is transferred to the CSM, which supports the legacy OS boot."
So, as long as Apple has included a Compatibility Support Module, Intel-based Macs should be able to boot XP.
It seems unlikely that Apple would have left this out. It has already said it isn't doing anything to prevent Windows from booting on a Mac.
Yes, it's true that EFI has BIOS backward compatibility layer, but it is optional for the vendor to use and provide this. And Apple has no need for legacy BIOS support.
Some further discussion of the general topic of windows booting can be found here: Will an Intel-based Mac run Windows?
The more interesting possibility for many users will not be directly booting or dual-booting Windows XP, but rather running Windows XP at essentially the full speed of the underlying hardware in a virtual machine, right alongside Mac OS X. Sure, for some game and direct hardware access applications, you would want to - or you may have to - boot Windows directly. But for the vast majority of access to Windows productivity and/or other software not available on Mac OS X, running Windows alongside Mac OS X is likely more desirable than dual-booting anyway.
As has been noted, however, it is indeed extremely likely that Windows Vista will directly boot on Intel-based Macs with EFI.
It's interesting to note that the new iMacs are using a standard Intel 945 Series chipset, and an Intel 82801GBM southbridge, as well as other standard Intel chipsets and features:
Other interesting hardware features can be discovered by browsing the output of system_profiler, kextstat, and ioreg .
Of note:
- Full 802.11a support is present, though unadvertised, as well as 802.11b/g
- Intel High Definition Audio is used
- the iMac's optical drive does have dual layer support, unlike the ultra slimline 9mm drive used in the MacBook Pro
- the iSight is USB
- a TPM entry is present in ioreg
- com.apple.Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X is an active kernel extension
First, the few G5 iMacs that sounded like a "jet taking off" were iMacs with specific, acknowledged motherboard problems that resulted in their fans ramping up to full speed. This was fixed on-demand in any iMac with that issue, and it was indeed addressed completely in later revisions. This issue never affected more than a small percentage of machines.
Further, Apple's design is to use *more* fans such that they don't need to be running at full speed (you did know that those are all variable speed blowers, right?). For example, the G5 towers that use 9 fans. None of them are running at too high a speed, keeping the entire machine quiet. Aside from a few models of machines with more audible airflow, Apple's goal is to have machines that run very quietly and are audibly unobtrusive.
I don't think you'll be disappointed.
At the risk of repeating myself, on this subject, I recently answered a query raised during a Chronicle of Higher Education colloquy. I believe it touches on the major issues here.
Question from Lisa L. Spangenberg, UCLA:
Given that there are no viruses or Trojan horses for the current Macintosh system, OS X 10.3, and given that it is essentially UNIX, and given that the most common applications (Microsoft Office Suite, Adobe applications) work very well on OS X, why don't more institutions adopt Macs and encourage faculty to use them?
Gregory A. Jackson:
Well, first of all, there are viruses and Trojans that afflict MacOS, witness Apple's periodic release of security fixes to counteract them.
First, that isn't true, regarding viruses. To date, there are no known viruses that specifically target Mac OS X. Last week's "trojan" was nothing more than an application with a different icon and misleading name that displayed a dialog box (which was an example posted to a USENET Mac programming group to illustrate this fact that has been known and possible on Mac OS for over twenty years; an antivirus vendor apparently thought this an appropriate time to dress it up, incorrectly, as some new, terrible exploit easily adapted for malicious means, when in reality it's nothing more than an application).
If you're referring more broadly to security issues in general, almost all of the security and security-related updates for Mac OS X to date have been updates for primarily server-type services that ship with the OS, all of which are disabled by default, and the lion's share of which are never even enabled, much less touched, on the vast majority of systems. I'm not saying that they should be ignored, but Apple's comprehensive and swift response to the most minor security issues does not rise to the level of the staggeringly numerous, sometimes completely automated, remote exploits, worms, and so on for Windows. It is no longer possible to even get through a full installation Windows XP on a machine connected to a public network without it being exploited before you even have a chance to patch it.
It's definitely possible for Mac OS X to have viruses, worms, trojans, and other malware - Mac OS X is not invulnerable, and no sensible person would claim it to be. But the underlying philosophical design principles are fundamentally more secure than Windows, period. Since the major ingredient for the success of a worm or virus is some ability to spread, witness the fact that there is no way with anything built into Mac OS X to perform automated propagation of a virus, and no current known ways to exploit a machine remotely, not to mention that potentially exploitable network services are disabled to begin with anyway (and remain that way unless explicitly enabled), a stark contrast to Windows. Any hope for automatic propagation would require a comparatively high level of sophistication, and perhaps even its own mail server - not to mention some intrinsic vulnerability to exploit. On the other hand, there are still, to this moment, unfixed vulnerabilities in certain versions of Outlook that will spread certain virus variants simply by previewing a message, and nothing more. There is simply no equivalent to this on any other platform. Microsoft's track record and attitude on security (though admittedly much improved) versus other vendors speaks volumes on this topic.
It takes work and thought to do security, and do it right. Ease of use and security aren't mutually exclusive. The key is to make security easy to use, and Apple has so far been on the right road with Mac OS X.
But the small installed base of Macs makes them an unexciting, low-visibility target for the bad guys, and so the weaknesses don't get exploited much.
The marketshare argument only goes so far. This seems to be a version of the "Macs have no software" argument. It is indeed true