apple stands to gain a LOT from this. HP alone probably ships more machines a year than apple, so that's already doubling the distribution of iTunes for them. iTunes really is the key to this one. iTunes introduces them to iPods and iTMS
bogie, you have a really negative attitude towards a system i don't think you really understand much yet.
a lot of users tried to get away from windows because linux works better from a day to day basis for getting work done. just about any linux advocate with agree with you there. what most linux users won't say is how wonderfuly nice and easy to setup linux is, or so what if i takes 5 hours to compile KDE from source.
you're confusing philosophical matters with an argument that's not predominantly philosophical. for people who want to *completely* escape proprietary software, yes linux is the answer. for people, like myself, who want UNIX, want it to WORK easily, and want to spend more time getting word done than compiling/configuring/installing linux then os x might be for you.
switching to mac os x is NOTHING like windows xp. lets take a brief look:
kernel: open source under an apple license. just got OSS approved if i remember correctly.
rendevous: open standard (zeroconf) for allowing instant networking
xcode: based off gcc, and is completely FREE unlike visual studio.net.
preferences system: no harry registry in os x. preferences are done in xml files, and each program has it's own xml file (~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Addressbook.plist ) for example.
open packages: i can right click on Safari, choose show package contents, and naviagte to safari's gui file. i can open up safari's gui and MOVE buttons around. i can rebind keys, i can delete menus, i can do a heck of a lot. isn't safari closed source? yep. but GUIs in os x are extremely easy to hack if you install XCode.
build in tools: os x ships with perl, ruby, python, and many standard unix tools. for what you can't get in the base system, you simply install darwinports and install it similar to ports in BSD. i can type sudo ifconfig en1 down and turn my wireless off. i can type ssh -X user@host and forward linux apps to my powerbook with apple's built in x11 server.
build off standards: os x's rendering system is based off opengl and displaypdf. it also has nfs and smb built in so i can mount shares off my linux machine.
you complain about how much more expensive macs are, but you get a hell of a lot more "built in" and free software compared to windows.
if your issues are that you don't have complete control over your environment, then stick with linux. if you are fed up with the day to day ease of use of linux, then consider ponying up the extra cash to get a machine that does all your unix goodness and everything "just works"
I loved some of the concepts behind linux, but I think Linux's greatest advantage is also it's greatest weakness. The fact that there is no central governing body for most projects means that you get lots of fragmentation (X11: freedesktop.org, fresco, XFree; Distros: Gentoo, Debian, Mandrake, Redhat, etc) which makes it very difficult to stick to one standard. Thankfully, over time some projects fork (gcc) and wind up becoming the project that takes over. It's this fragmentation that helps linux adapt so rapidly. However because of all this, developers can't code for one toolkit api, one kernel api, etc. Mac OS X, to linux users, is like linux controlled by ONE group who says yes or no to all issues so that the complex fragmented software base can concentrate on one goal: a good consistent end user experience. I honestly would say Mac OS X couldn't exist without Linux or BSD because it wouldn't be where it was today without the OSS community. People complain that OS X is too proprietary, but i believe it is the perfect mix. On one hand you have OSSsoftware. On the other hand you have commercialsoftware. It's truely the best of both worlds! Isn't this what many linux users want? Linux grandma can use? Companies to write native software? Games? Gaim and KMail side by side with safari and photoshop? You don't have to wait if that's what you want. Linux is a great server OS, but mac os x has it by leaps and bounds as a good desktop platform. Am i saying Gnome and KDE should die off and we should all just use mac os x? of course not. But i am saying if you want a usable unix desktop now, not later, you don't have to look much further.
I can't believe LISP wasn't suggested. LISP has one of the most simple syntaxes in the world to parse. A lisp program basically consists of a list of functions.
(functionName arg1 arg2 arg3)....
(function)
such that each arg is! you guessed it, a function. parsing is so easy a 4 year old could handle it. implement some of the more basic methods needed for a useful application and you are pretty much done.
i guess it's been awhile since you've used one them. expose has made my producivity skyrocket. combine that with quartz extreme, and you pretty much get things like shadows, transparency, and that "animation" you hate so much for free (free as in almost 0 cpu hit. it's all offloaded to the GPU which is usually idle compared to the cpu).
think your windows xp machine is so fast? try taking a skinned app like winamp and move it around on the screen as fast as you can. you'll see trails everywhere. try it even with normal apps and depending on the speed of your system you might see some moderate redraw errors. now fast forward to today with quartz extreme, and try that in jaguar or panther. that just doesn't happen. that's what you get when you use a modern, accelerated, rendering engine rather than a software engine.
i've heard the "mag guis are slow" arguments before, but the amount of slow down you get is negligable if any, and often times like the example i just gave it beats windows with one hand behind it's back.
as far as word goes, it doesn't hurt that microsoft starts system services that leave core libraries for the office suite in memory. if you want a fair comparison, open word in os x and leave it running in the dock. open a document, and notice how it loads just as fast as windows. besides, if you're doing a lot of serious editing of office docs you'd probably have those apps running all the time anyways.
Yes, i have this problem. It's not the battery update that caused it, but 10.3.2. The complaints for the 12" 867 powerbook's heat were so widespread that apple lowered the temperature at which the fans activate. you can fix this, if you like, by downloading Silent Night at version tracker. I personally don't mind, since my powerbook's never hot anymore and the battery doesn't seem to be affected by it much either (which to me is more important than noise).
This was a huge year for apple, for us linux geeks.
Jaguar got me hooked on the OS, but the hardware was lacking. The 12" powerbook is what has finally hooked a lot of my friends (almost 5 that i can count now) as the first affordable powerbook.
the only X11 browsers currently ported by Fink and darwinports are konqueror and dillo. dillo is a very lightweight browser. i doubt it even implements javascript. i didn't mention the console based browsers because those aren't graphical browsers.
and i already mentioned konqueror, so i pretty much listed all the graphical browsers. oh, and you forgot w3m (my favorite):)
I'm a web designer, and i never test my pages in anything but safari and camino. Guess i'm paying most windows web designers the same lip service they pay other platforms:)
And yes, you can run IE 6 on the mac. It's called virtual pc.
that's getting to be quite an impressive list. 4/9 of those are mac only. i doubt you can consider mac ie a separate browser from windows ie, even though they are two totally different rendering engines.
icab is crap, and no one uses it anymore. mac ie still gets used quite a bit soley because it's the default browser shipped with 10.0, 10.1, and 10.2. it's also included in 10.3, and i know some people who are too stubborn to give safari a try. i still consider it crap however. omniweb is safari in drag. and konqueror, although nice it is finally ported, is more or less for proof of concept. opera for mac isn't even up to 7.0 yet if i remember right, with opera being all pissed at apple releasing safari. so that really leaves you with safari, and the mozilla browsers. the only 2 that are mac only in that lot are camino and safari.
i'm dying for a browser as powerful and simple as safari to hit linux. epiphany's not quite there.
although the parent makes a joke, a laptop is your best bet.
i personally have a powerbook, but if you're looking for the absolute best battery life for features/performance laptop on the market, i recommend a fujitsu P series. It has a transmeta processor which is especially low power, and not only that but a removable dvd-rom bay which be replaced with another battery. so you do the math. ultra low power, two batteries. this sucker can go for probably 12 hours with low hard drive usage and low lcd light. put it to sleep when it's not used and i wouldn't be surprised if it would go for 24 hours pretty easily.
when you've locked in the industry, and you've become a monopoly people don't really seek out alternatives. i've showed people at work my powerbook and none of them had seen a mac in awhile but all the ones i showed it to were blown away. most people don't even consider them. dell's just profiting off the fact that windows is the #1 OS. if it were mac os x, or linux, you better believe they'd ditch windows as long as it was profitable. they're a business, in the most pure sense, who's sole purpose is to reduce costs and increase profits and to hell with the customer as long as it's "good enough" that the customer will buy it.
they're the exact opposite of apple, who's interested in capturing the consumer through innovation and quality, not reducing costs and mass producing.
the nice thing about apple products, is i spend more time using them rather than more time figuring the interfaces of competitors who couldn't afford to hire a usability designer if you put a gun to the CEO's head.
you seem to be your average feature bloat windows user, why don't you go get one of dell's mass produced pieces of shit, since it's right in your ball park of piss poor engineering along with windows.
hell i might even be wrong about you being a windows user, but it wouldn't be a stones throw away from a linux zealot who bitches about not having ogg playback support.
ipods use the same battery as creative, and the same harddrives! (gasp). i guess that makes it just as "standard" as the creative. and if you didn't see my previous post about batteries lasting for 18+ months then reread it. if you're actually in the extreme minority of people who really has two lithium ion batteries, then the ability to change the battery out is useful to you. but that still puts you in the extreme minority.
oh, and incase you didn't check, apple has the #1 online music store and #1 mp3 player, so i guess all your comments are pretty pointless since apparently apple is doing something right.
Re:Other players offer battery replacement program
on
Rumors of Mini iPods
·
· Score: 1
that would work fine and dandy for a flashcard based mp3 player with little moving parts, and a small LCD. otherwise you're going to get a couple hours out of those batteries in an mp3 player with a large lcd with a backlight, the ability to play games, and a hard drive all while listening to music.
apple has 0 incentive to support ogg. now before you get mad at me, realize that ogg caters to a very small niche right now, and the cost of incorporating it and keeping it maintained on an ipod would probably outweight the marginal increase in sales.
In reply to all the "Hello, the newton?" posts, let me say that the newton is not up to par with modern pdas.
now that i have that ouf the way. apple's stance on pda's is pretty simple, and i totally agree with the way steve is moving this direction. pdas are mostly useless in that it's hard to keep contacts synced with your phone and powerbook/imac/etc. apple's all about the "digital" lifestyle right now, and a pda doesn't fit in on the consumer level. if you do see anything come out of apple it's going to be a cellphone. however that won't happen for awhlie, as the competition for cellphone hardware is still quite fierce, and there's not much they can offer service wise yet. (the iPod has the itunes music store, the powerbooks have os x, ilife, final cut pro). you don't see apple with software written for pdas yet, so they would be diving into a platform where they would have to reinvent every wheel. this really, all boils down to entering a flooded market with little incentive, low margines already, and no basis to give the market value.
i'm willing to be though, that the ipod will turn more and more into a pda as it evolves. it's already got contacts, calendars, and a few basic games.
sacrificing design to make a (tops) 1 hour chore that you have to do once ever 18-30 months slightly easier is not in my opinion a worthwhile choice. so what if you have to buy the battery for $50 or pay apple $99 to replace it. do you see the other mp3 players offering replacable batteries or battery replacement programs?
No. Apple tends to have quite a following, so unlike many other companies it has many rumor sites. You don't really see a sonyrumors.com, or dellrumors.com?
and i'm sure there are a lot more. i seriously doubt this is apple using a pr stunt, as these sorts of leaks happen often within apple and apple isn't to happy about it usually.
sigh. this argument gets old.
unix is designed to be more secure than windows. not only that, but it IS more secure than windows.
no amount of screensaver errors, cocoa text field overflows, or netinfo exploits will change this. the day windows is more secure than mac os x is the day i can get by without ever needing the root (Administrator) account with access to everything.
yes. everything. install apps, install libraries, use current apps, develop apps (with the exception of kernel code but this needs root no matter what OS).
Slashdot Mirror
It's not like we don't already have a decent native mysql administrator already.
I call DUPE! Come on cowboy neal.. at least search first.
my replacements for those two ugly citizens has been Rhythmbox and Galeon.
apple stands to gain a LOT from this. HP alone probably ships more machines a year than apple, so that's already doubling the distribution of iTunes for them. iTunes really is the key to this one. iTunes introduces them to iPods and iTMS
bogie, you have a really negative attitude towards a system i don't think you really understand much yet.
.net.t ) for example.
a lot of users tried to get away from windows because linux works better from a day to day basis for getting work done. just about any linux advocate with agree with you there. what most linux users won't say is how wonderfuly nice and easy to setup linux is, or so what if i takes 5 hours to compile KDE from source.
you're confusing philosophical matters with an argument that's not predominantly philosophical. for people who want to *completely* escape proprietary software, yes linux is the answer. for people, like myself, who want UNIX, want it to WORK easily, and want to spend more time getting word done than compiling/configuring/installing linux then os x might be for you.
switching to mac os x is NOTHING like windows xp. lets take a brief look:
kernel: open source under an apple license. just got OSS approved if i remember correctly.
rendevous: open standard (zeroconf) for allowing instant networking
xcode: based off gcc, and is completely FREE unlike visual studio
preferences system: no harry registry in os x. preferences are done in xml files, and each program has it's own xml file (~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Addressbook.plis
open packages: i can right click on Safari, choose show package contents, and naviagte to safari's gui file. i can open up safari's gui and MOVE buttons around. i can rebind keys, i can delete menus, i can do a heck of a lot. isn't safari closed source? yep. but GUIs in os x are extremely easy to hack if you install XCode.
build in tools: os x ships with perl, ruby, python, and many standard unix tools. for what you can't get in the base system, you simply install darwinports and install it similar to ports in BSD. i can type sudo ifconfig en1 down and turn my wireless off. i can type ssh -X user@host and forward linux apps to my powerbook with apple's built in x11 server.
build off standards: os x's rendering system is based off opengl and displaypdf. it also has nfs and smb built in so i can mount shares off my linux machine.
you complain about how much more expensive macs are, but you get a hell of a lot more "built in" and free software compared to windows.
if your issues are that you don't have complete control over your environment, then stick with linux. if you are fed up with the day to day ease of use of linux, then consider ponying up the extra cash to get a machine that does all your unix goodness and everything "just works"
I loved some of the concepts behind linux, but I think Linux's greatest advantage is also it's greatest weakness. The fact that there is no central governing body for most projects means that you get lots of fragmentation (X11: freedesktop.org, fresco, XFree; Distros: Gentoo, Debian, Mandrake, Redhat, etc) which makes it very difficult to stick to one standard. Thankfully, over time some projects fork (gcc) and wind up becoming the project that takes over. It's this fragmentation that helps linux adapt so rapidly. However because of all this, developers can't code for one toolkit api, one kernel api, etc. Mac OS X, to linux users, is like linux controlled by ONE group who says yes or no to all issues so that the complex fragmented software base can concentrate on one goal: a good consistent end user experience. I honestly would say Mac OS X couldn't exist without Linux or BSD because it wouldn't be where it was today without the OSS community. People complain that OS X is too proprietary, but i believe it is the perfect mix. On one hand you have OSS software. On the other hand you have commercial software. It's truely the best of both worlds! Isn't this what many linux users want? Linux grandma can use? Companies to write native software? Games? Gaim and KMail side by side with safari and photoshop? You don't have to wait if that's what you want. Linux is a great server OS, but mac os x has it by leaps and bounds as a good desktop platform. Am i saying Gnome and KDE should die off and we should all just use mac os x? of course not. But i am saying if you want a usable unix desktop now, not later, you don't have to look much further.
I can't believe LISP wasn't suggested. LISP has one of the most simple syntaxes in the world to parse. A lisp program basically consists of a list of functions. (functionName arg1 arg2 arg3) ....
(function)
such that each arg is! you guessed it, a function. parsing is so easy a 4 year old could handle it. implement some of the more basic methods needed for a useful application and you are pretty much done.
i guess it's been awhile since you've used one them. expose has made my producivity skyrocket. combine that with quartz extreme, and you pretty much get things like shadows, transparency, and that "animation" you hate so much for free (free as in almost 0 cpu hit. it's all offloaded to the GPU which is usually idle compared to the cpu).
think your windows xp machine is so fast? try taking a skinned app like winamp and move it around on the screen as fast as you can. you'll see trails everywhere. try it even with normal apps and depending on the speed of your system you might see some moderate redraw errors. now fast forward to today with quartz extreme, and try that in jaguar or panther. that just doesn't happen. that's what you get when you use a modern, accelerated, rendering engine rather than a software engine.
i've heard the "mag guis are slow" arguments before, but the amount of slow down you get is negligable if any, and often times like the example i just gave it beats windows with one hand behind it's back.
as far as word goes, it doesn't hurt that microsoft starts system services that leave core libraries for the office suite in memory. if you want a fair comparison, open word in os x and leave it running in the dock. open a document, and notice how it loads just as fast as windows. besides, if you're doing a lot of serious editing of office docs you'd probably have those apps running all the time anyways.
Yes, i have this problem. It's not the battery update that caused it, but 10.3.2. The complaints for the 12" 867 powerbook's heat were so widespread that apple lowered the temperature at which the fans activate. you can fix this, if you like, by downloading Silent Night at version tracker. I personally don't mind, since my powerbook's never hot anymore and the battery doesn't seem to be affected by it much either (which to me is more important than noise).
This was a huge year for apple, for us linux geeks.
Jaguar got me hooked on the OS, but the hardware was lacking. The 12" powerbook is what has finally hooked a lot of my friends (almost 5 that i can count now) as the first affordable powerbook.
the only X11 browsers currently ported by Fink and darwinports are konqueror and dillo. dillo is a very lightweight browser. i doubt it even implements javascript. i didn't mention the console based browsers because those aren't graphical browsers.
:)
and i already mentioned konqueror, so i pretty much listed all the graphical browsers. oh, and you forgot w3m (my favorite)
I'm a web designer, and i never test my pages in anything but safari and camino. Guess i'm paying most windows web designers the same lip service they pay other platforms :)
And yes, you can run IE 6 on the mac. It's called virtual pc.
it previously used to be it's own rendering engine up until recently when apple released webcore and javascriptcore (or is it just javacore?)
you get:
that's getting to be quite an impressive list. 4/9 of those are mac only. i doubt you can consider mac ie a separate browser from windows ie, even though they are two totally different rendering engines.
icab is crap, and no one uses it anymore. mac ie still gets used quite a bit soley because it's the default browser shipped with 10.0, 10.1, and 10.2. it's also included in 10.3, and i know some people who are too stubborn to give safari a try. i still consider it crap however. omniweb is safari in drag. and konqueror, although nice it is finally ported, is more or less for proof of concept. opera for mac isn't even up to 7.0 yet if i remember right, with opera being all pissed at apple releasing safari. so that really leaves you with safari, and the mozilla browsers. the only 2 that are mac only in that lot are camino and safari.
i'm dying for a browser as powerful and simple as safari to hit linux. epiphany's not quite there.
although the parent makes a joke, a laptop is your best bet.
i personally have a powerbook, but if you're looking for the absolute best battery life for features/performance laptop on the market, i recommend a fujitsu P series. It has a transmeta processor which is especially low power, and not only that but a removable dvd-rom bay which be replaced with another battery. so you do the math. ultra low power, two batteries. this sucker can go for probably 12 hours with low hard drive usage and low lcd light. put it to sleep when it's not used and i wouldn't be surprised if it would go for 24 hours pretty easily.
when you've locked in the industry, and you've become a monopoly people don't really seek out alternatives. i've showed people at work my powerbook and none of them had seen a mac in awhile but all the ones i showed it to were blown away. most people don't even consider them. dell's just profiting off the fact that windows is the #1 OS. if it were mac os x, or linux, you better believe they'd ditch windows as long as it was profitable. they're a business, in the most pure sense, who's sole purpose is to reduce costs and increase profits and to hell with the customer as long as it's "good enough" that the customer will buy it.
they're the exact opposite of apple, who's interested in capturing the consumer through innovation and quality, not reducing costs and mass producing.
the nice thing about apple products, is i spend more time using them rather than more time figuring the interfaces of competitors who couldn't afford to hire a usability designer if you put a gun to the CEO's head.
you seem to be your average feature bloat windows user, why don't you go get one of dell's mass produced pieces of shit, since it's right in your ball park of piss poor engineering along with windows. hell i might even be wrong about you being a windows user, but it wouldn't be a stones throw away from a linux zealot who bitches about not having ogg playback support.
ipods use the same battery as creative, and the same harddrives! (gasp). i guess that makes it just as "standard" as the creative. and if you didn't see my previous post about batteries lasting for 18+ months then reread it. if you're actually in the extreme minority of people who really has two lithium ion batteries, then the ability to change the battery out is useful to you. but that still puts you in the extreme minority.
oh, and incase you didn't check, apple has the #1 online music store and #1 mp3 player, so i guess all your comments are pretty pointless since apparently apple is doing something right.
that would work fine and dandy for a flashcard based mp3 player with little moving parts, and a small LCD. otherwise you're going to get a couple hours out of those batteries in an mp3 player with a large lcd with a backlight, the ability to play games, and a hard drive all while listening to music.
apple has 0 incentive to support ogg. now before you get mad at me, realize that ogg caters to a very small niche right now, and the cost of incorporating it and keeping it maintained on an ipod would probably outweight the marginal increase in sales.
In reply to all the "Hello, the newton?" posts, let me say that the newton is not up to par with modern pdas.
now that i have that ouf the way. apple's stance on pda's is pretty simple, and i totally agree with the way steve is moving this direction. pdas are mostly useless in that it's hard to keep contacts synced with your phone and powerbook/imac/etc. apple's all about the "digital" lifestyle right now, and a pda doesn't fit in on the consumer level. if you do see anything come out of apple it's going to be a cellphone. however that won't happen for awhlie, as the competition for cellphone hardware is still quite fierce, and there's not much they can offer service wise yet. (the iPod has the itunes music store, the powerbooks have os x, ilife, final cut pro). you don't see apple with software written for pdas yet, so they would be diving into a platform where they would have to reinvent every wheel. this really, all boils down to entering a flooded market with little incentive, low margines already, and no basis to give the market value.
i'm willing to be though, that the ipod will turn more and more into a pda as it evolves. it's already got contacts, calendars, and a few basic games.
sacrificing design to make a (tops) 1 hour chore that you have to do once ever 18-30 months slightly easier is not in my opinion a worthwhile choice. so what if you have to buy the battery for $50 or pay apple $99 to replace it. do you see the other mp3 players offering replacable batteries or battery replacement programs?
really? i didn't think so either.
No. Apple tends to have quite a following, so unlike many other companies it has many rumor sites. You don't really see a sonyrumors.com, or dellrumors.com?
Just off the top of my head i can name:
thinksecret.com
spymac.com
macrumors.com
and i'm sure there are a lot more. i seriously doubt this is apple using a pr stunt, as these sorts of leaks happen often within apple and apple isn't to happy about it usually.
Server is starting to get slashdotted.
I put up a temporary mirror.
i know. i hate apple! it's not like you can't find any free alternatives with fullscreen built in that even play more media formats by default.
sigh. this argument gets old. unix is designed to be more secure than windows. not only that, but it IS more secure than windows. no amount of screensaver errors, cocoa text field overflows, or netinfo exploits will change this. the day windows is more secure than mac os x is the day i can get by without ever needing the root (Administrator) account with access to everything. yes. everything. install apps, install libraries, use current apps, develop apps (with the exception of kernel code but this needs root no matter what OS).