Maybe instead of targeting Grandmas, Apple should aim to please the majority of Mac users by bundling a two-button scroll wheel mouse with Macs. Then the minority of users who can't understand how to operate anything but a one-button mouse can be the one's who have to cough up the extra $50 for a mouse. Why should a small minority of Mac users determine what sort of mouse gets pushed on the majority of sophisticated and intelligent Mac users? Your argument is senseless, and based on its logic we should all drive 40 mph on interstate expressways because driving any faster is too confusing and stressful to senior citizen drivers.
If Apple is aiming for markets like digital video & audio recording/editing/producing, then I highly doubt that such users would have any difficulty with multi-button mice. Based on my own experience and on a British study (sorry, don't remember the link), mac users are more intelligent and more highly educated than their Wintel using counterparts, so I find it more than a little unrealistic to argue that Apple uses a one-button POS mouse because Mac users are too stupid to figure out an extra button and scroll wheel.
EVERY Mac user I know does the same thing upon un-boxing their new Macs: They throw out the POS Apple mouse and plug in a REAL mouse with 2+ buttons and a scroll wheel.
WTF can't Apple understand that a two button mouse is EASIER to use because it doesn't require the user to memorize a bunch of arcane keyboard/mouse button combos to bring up contextual menus? OS X is even written with a two button scrollwheel mouse in mind!
It's things like these that really burn me up over Apple. I'm a total Mac freak, but sometimes Apple's inane stubbornness actually hurts the functionality of macs. In the case of Apple's idiotic, totally un-ergonomic one-button mouse, it forces new Mac buyers to cough up another $50 for a REAL mouse right after taking it over a barrel on the price of their new Mac. It's not right and Apple is INSANE to keep shipping garbage like their POS mouse that everyone just throws in the trash!
I'd really like to meet a Mac user who LIKES Apple's one-button idiot-mouse. Such a person must be a real TEAM PLAYER, the sort who regurgitate all the marketing blabber from www.apple.com as if it's gospel and base friendships and relationships on computer platform orientation.
Re:and how much does this "Service Pack" cost?
on
10.2.2 Is Coming
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Service packs? You obviously don't use a Mac very often, do you? Apple releases "software updates" that follow a logical numbering system.
Re:Raid 5, the missing feature
on
10.2.2 Is Coming
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· Score: 2, Informative
Sounds like you might want to look into the XRaid when it's finally released. It will have 14 ATA drives, each on an independent bus, and it will support hardware RAID of the sort you're interested in, if I remember correctly. Sorry I can't find much info on it right now, but when the XServe was introduced, Jobs specifically stated that the XRAID would be available late 2002.
Altivec optimizations are becoming more and more prevalent among Mac software, but the most compelling reason for Altivec for ANY user is that OS X reportedly has heavy altivec optimizations. This explains why a disproportionate number of iBook users complain about OS X's performance.
Of course for Mac users who use either audio or video software that is Altivec optimized, a G4 is required, and it's always a shame to run something like Photoshop on an iBook when you just KNOW that it would FLY on a Titanium!:)
This is why I'm not going to buy a laptop for another year or so. Titaniums are too expensive for me, and I won't buy a Wintel, so that leaves iBooks--but I'll only buy a "G4 iBook". Although I suppose I may break down and buy a real cheap iBook as a "stop-gap" solution...
I agree totally. Charging for this software is absurd....why not give it to all new Mac buyers for free if they want it? That way the new Mac users feels welcome from the start and has a good impression of Apple.
Charging for it is just dumb. It's cheap software, easy to develop, little maintenance, so it isn't as if Apple would take a significant loss on bundling it with new Macs.
Sometimes Apple is so damn cheap. But in complete contradiction to this typical behavior, Apple gives away all those bitchin' iApplications! That's what's so weird about this "switch software"--Apple charges new Mac users good money for this bimbo software, but then they turn around and give the new user several hundred dollar's worth of free software with their new Mac! Utterly confounding!~
Probably the reason only the less tech savvy users ask about desk pics and screen svrs is that they don't know how to set those things themselves. More tech savvy users can set those things themselves. It's got little to do with importance and more to do with user abilities.
I don't understand why a tech savvy person can't also admire beauty. Why shouldn't a computer look cool? Do you only date ugly women because pretty women are ALL bimbos?
Actually, an x86 Mac probably would not be any cheaper. The Pentium 4 is more expensive than the G4 now...unfortunately I can't remember the prices, all I remember is that the G4 is the cheaper of the two CPUs.
What governs Apple's high prices is their need for high profit margins to support their R&D budget. Apple moves very small volumes relative to their cost of development, and only a dramatic increase in market share will enable Apple to lower their hardware prices.
As for OS X on x86, I wouldn't hold your breath. With the advent of IBM's PPC 970, it's clear that Apple will be using PPC for quite some time. In fact, a dual PPC 970 Powermac promises to be FASTER than any x86 hardware! A single 970 will perform as well or slightly below a Pentium 4 at the time of the 970's release, but unlike the Pentium 4, the 970 is perfect for multiprocessor configurations. It's low power, low heat, and fully SMP ready, and with it's FSB running at half-clockspeed, the 970 promises to excel at SMP. The only question is the 970's cost...it will probably cost more than the G4, but not much more. Put two, or even four 970s together and you've got a Mac with superior performance to any Pentium-based Windows machine.
This is yet another reason why Apple is loath to use x86: it removes any differentiation in performance between Macs and Wintels. Although currently this seems like it would be a good thing, if you look back on the last decade or so, Apple has had superior multimedia performance over x86 most of the time. Altivec is the best SIMD unit on any desktop computer, and if PPC performance is near that of x86, then any altivec optimized code will run faster on a Mac. A year from now, this will once again be true, and Apple will be able to advertise, honestly, that a Mac is faster at Photoshop and other Altivec based programs.
Steve Jobs has been a proponent of open source software since the NeXT days, so I think it's unlikely that Apple saw an open source base for OS X as simply a form of free labor.
More likely, Apple used an open source foundation for OS X because it's more stable and advanced than anything they could have developed on their own. They went for open source because it's better, not because it's free. Apple has plenty of money for software development.
If IBM can offer the PPC 970 at a good price, then Apple will be able to offer dual processor Powermacs, or perhaps even quad processor Macs. With such a design, it is no longer important for the PPC 970 to best the Pentium in terms of performance; the balance between performance and power consumption/heat dissipation becomes more important, and this is where the PPC 970 shines.
A dual PPC 970 Mac will undoubtedly be considerably faster than a single CPU Pentium system, and for the first time in years, Apple will offer the highest performance consumer desktops, by a large margin! If one 970 is about as fast as a 2.5 GHz Pentium 4, then two 970s should offer nearly twice the performance in some situations.
It will be interesting to see if gamers flock to the mac...
What is even worse than all the notifications, is whiners at/. complaining that Apple released a new update, as if it would be better if Apple didn't update their software. There is no way to avoid these nags except by not using/.
The problem with that Athlon is that you've got to run either Linux or Windows. If you buy the Mac, you get to run OS X. That's the whole point of the matter.
It's true that Macs are lagging in performance right now, but in a year or so the pendulum will swing the other way for a couple of years. If you're someone who must always have the fastest system, then I suppose you could switch platforms and buy all new software whenever x86 and PPC traded places as the fastest hardware....but wouldn't that get a bit expensive? And what is more determinant in how fast you accomplish tasks with your computer, the hardware or the OS? Most Mac users would argue that the OS enables them to be more productive.
Apple will never be the computer of choice for geeks who like to build their own computers and endlessly tinker. It is not even Apple's intent to woe this sort of user. Apple aims to be the computer of choice for those who use their computers as tools to CREATE--the artists, writers, and with OS X, the programmers. When you're busy using your computer to create, the LAST thing you want to do is crack it open and tinker with it.
Apple has paid air fare and lodging for those appearing in Switch ads, but no compensation beyond these expenses. That would be highly questionable from an ethical viewpoint (although it doesn't stop other corporations from doing so).
Your problem with OS X not having a "proper" app launcher is your own fault.
All you need to do is create a folder, fill it with aliases to all your apps and organize them any way you like, and then drop that folder in the dock. Right click or click and hold or control-click, and you have what amounts to a "start menu".
Interestingly, the start menu was ripped-off from Apple. Apple originated the concept with the Apple Menu back in the classic mac os. But for those used to using Windows, it's not as easy to realize how powerful aliases are in OS X.
I think Apple needs to make some sort of utility to manage these "Apple Menus" in the dock, so more users new to the Mac are able to take advantage of them.
Wrong. Altivec is far superior to SSE2. It is easier to write code for altivec, gcc3.1 has excellent altivec support (although still not as good as hand-coding), and altivec has more instructions than sse2.
Yes the Motorola CPUs are slower than Pentium 4s for now, but when IBM begins supplying Apple with "G5" CPUs w/altivec, we'll see how the Pentiums compare then.
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Maybe instead of targeting Grandmas, Apple should aim to please the majority of Mac users by bundling a two-button scroll wheel mouse with Macs. Then the minority of users who can't understand how to operate anything but a one-button mouse can be the one's who have to cough up the extra $50 for a mouse. Why should a small minority of Mac users determine what sort of mouse gets pushed on the majority of sophisticated and intelligent Mac users? Your argument is senseless, and based on its logic we should all drive 40 mph on interstate expressways because driving any faster is too confusing and stressful to senior citizen drivers. If Apple is aiming for markets like digital video & audio recording/editing/producing, then I highly doubt that such users would have any difficulty with multi-button mice. Based on my own experience and on a British study (sorry, don't remember the link), mac users are more intelligent and more highly educated than their Wintel using counterparts, so I find it more than a little unrealistic to argue that Apple uses a one-button POS mouse because Mac users are too stupid to figure out an extra button and scroll wheel.
EVERY Mac user I know does the same thing upon un-boxing their new Macs: They throw out the POS Apple mouse and plug in a REAL mouse with 2+ buttons and a scroll wheel. WTF can't Apple understand that a two button mouse is EASIER to use because it doesn't require the user to memorize a bunch of arcane keyboard/mouse button combos to bring up contextual menus? OS X is even written with a two button scrollwheel mouse in mind! It's things like these that really burn me up over Apple. I'm a total Mac freak, but sometimes Apple's inane stubbornness actually hurts the functionality of macs. In the case of Apple's idiotic, totally un-ergonomic one-button mouse, it forces new Mac buyers to cough up another $50 for a REAL mouse right after taking it over a barrel on the price of their new Mac. It's not right and Apple is INSANE to keep shipping garbage like their POS mouse that everyone just throws in the trash! I'd really like to meet a Mac user who LIKES Apple's one-button idiot-mouse. Such a person must be a real TEAM PLAYER, the sort who regurgitate all the marketing blabber from www.apple.com as if it's gospel and base friendships and relationships on computer platform orientation.
Service packs? You obviously don't use a Mac very often, do you? Apple releases "software updates" that follow a logical numbering system.
Sounds like you might want to look into the XRaid when it's finally released. It will have 14 ATA drives, each on an independent bus, and it will support hardware RAID of the sort you're interested in, if I remember correctly. Sorry I can't find much info on it right now, but when the XServe was introduced, Jobs specifically stated that the XRAID would be available late 2002.
I agree, the iBook line needs to go G4 already.
:)
Altivec optimizations are becoming more and more prevalent among Mac software, but the most compelling reason for Altivec for ANY user is that OS X reportedly has heavy altivec optimizations. This explains why a disproportionate number of iBook users complain about OS X's performance.
Of course for Mac users who use either audio or video software that is Altivec optimized, a G4 is required, and it's always a shame to run something like Photoshop on an iBook when you just KNOW that it would FLY on a Titanium!
This is why I'm not going to buy a laptop for another year or so. Titaniums are too expensive for me, and I won't buy a Wintel, so that leaves iBooks--but I'll only buy a "G4 iBook". Although I suppose I may break down and buy a real cheap iBook as a "stop-gap" solution...
I agree totally. Charging for this software is absurd....why not give it to all new Mac buyers for free if they want it? That way the new Mac users feels welcome from the start and has a good impression of Apple. Charging for it is just dumb. It's cheap software, easy to develop, little maintenance, so it isn't as if Apple would take a significant loss on bundling it with new Macs. Sometimes Apple is so damn cheap. But in complete contradiction to this typical behavior, Apple gives away all those bitchin' iApplications! That's what's so weird about this "switch software"--Apple charges new Mac users good money for this bimbo software, but then they turn around and give the new user several hundred dollar's worth of free software with their new Mac! Utterly confounding!~
Probably the reason only the less tech savvy users ask about desk pics and screen svrs is that they don't know how to set those things themselves. More tech savvy users can set those things themselves. It's got little to do with importance and more to do with user abilities. I don't understand why a tech savvy person can't also admire beauty. Why shouldn't a computer look cool? Do you only date ugly women because pretty women are ALL bimbos?
Actually, an x86 Mac probably would not be any cheaper. The Pentium 4 is more expensive than the G4 now...unfortunately I can't remember the prices, all I remember is that the G4 is the cheaper of the two CPUs.
What governs Apple's high prices is their need for high profit margins to support their R&D budget. Apple moves very small volumes relative to their cost of development, and only a dramatic increase in market share will enable Apple to lower their hardware prices.
As for OS X on x86, I wouldn't hold your breath. With the advent of IBM's PPC 970, it's clear that Apple will be using PPC for quite some time. In fact, a dual PPC 970 Powermac promises to be FASTER than any x86 hardware! A single 970 will perform as well or slightly below a Pentium 4 at the time of the 970's release, but unlike the Pentium 4, the 970 is perfect for multiprocessor configurations. It's low power, low heat, and fully SMP ready, and with it's FSB running at half-clockspeed, the 970 promises to excel at SMP. The only question is the 970's cost...it will probably cost more than the G4, but not much more. Put two, or even four 970s together and you've got a Mac with superior performance to any Pentium-based Windows machine.
This is yet another reason why Apple is loath to use x86: it removes any differentiation in performance between Macs and Wintels. Although currently this seems like it would be a good thing, if you look back on the last decade or so, Apple has had superior multimedia performance over x86 most of the time. Altivec is the best SIMD unit on any desktop computer, and if PPC performance is near that of x86, then any altivec optimized code will run faster on a Mac. A year from now, this will once again be true, and Apple will be able to advertise, honestly, that a Mac is faster at Photoshop and other Altivec based programs.
Steve Jobs has been a proponent of open source software since the NeXT days, so I think it's unlikely that Apple saw an open source base for OS X as simply a form of free labor. More likely, Apple used an open source foundation for OS X because it's more stable and advanced than anything they could have developed on their own. They went for open source because it's better, not because it's free. Apple has plenty of money for software development.
If IBM can offer the PPC 970 at a good price, then Apple will be able to offer dual processor Powermacs, or perhaps even quad processor Macs. With such a design, it is no longer important for the PPC 970 to best the Pentium in terms of performance; the balance between performance and power consumption/heat dissipation becomes more important, and this is where the PPC 970 shines. A dual PPC 970 Mac will undoubtedly be considerably faster than a single CPU Pentium system, and for the first time in years, Apple will offer the highest performance consumer desktops, by a large margin! If one 970 is about as fast as a 2.5 GHz Pentium 4, then two 970s should offer nearly twice the performance in some situations. It will be interesting to see if gamers flock to the mac...
What is even worse than all the notifications, is whiners at /. complaining that Apple released a new update, as if it would be better if Apple didn't update their software. There is no way to avoid these nags except by not using /.
The problem with that Athlon is that you've got to run either Linux or Windows. If you buy the Mac, you get to run OS X. That's the whole point of the matter. It's true that Macs are lagging in performance right now, but in a year or so the pendulum will swing the other way for a couple of years. If you're someone who must always have the fastest system, then I suppose you could switch platforms and buy all new software whenever x86 and PPC traded places as the fastest hardware....but wouldn't that get a bit expensive? And what is more determinant in how fast you accomplish tasks with your computer, the hardware or the OS? Most Mac users would argue that the OS enables them to be more productive. Apple will never be the computer of choice for geeks who like to build their own computers and endlessly tinker. It is not even Apple's intent to woe this sort of user. Apple aims to be the computer of choice for those who use their computers as tools to CREATE--the artists, writers, and with OS X, the programmers. When you're busy using your computer to create, the LAST thing you want to do is crack it open and tinker with it.
Apple has paid air fare and lodging for those appearing in Switch ads, but no compensation beyond these expenses. That would be highly questionable from an ethical viewpoint (although it doesn't stop other corporations from doing so).
Your problem with OS X not having a "proper" app launcher is your own fault. All you need to do is create a folder, fill it with aliases to all your apps and organize them any way you like, and then drop that folder in the dock. Right click or click and hold or control-click, and you have what amounts to a "start menu". Interestingly, the start menu was ripped-off from Apple. Apple originated the concept with the Apple Menu back in the classic mac os. But for those used to using Windows, it's not as easy to realize how powerful aliases are in OS X. I think Apple needs to make some sort of utility to manage these "Apple Menus" in the dock, so more users new to the Mac are able to take advantage of them.
Wrong. Altivec is far superior to SSE2. It is easier to write code for altivec, gcc3.1 has excellent altivec support (although still not as good as hand-coding), and altivec has more instructions than sse2. Yes the Motorola CPUs are slower than Pentium 4s for now, but when IBM begins supplying Apple with "G5" CPUs w/altivec, we'll see how the Pentiums compare then.
And would this be a good thing or a bad thing?