The public-at-large loves the idea of techno toys and the things they can do with them, but I believe 1) they do not truly understand the technology and 2) make their buying decisions based on marketing and hype rather than a sounder technological basis. For proof of that look at the Megahertz Wars, which was driven largely by the desire of Intel and AMD to be able to say "we have the fastest chip" without regard to the many technical compromises involved, all of which have been discussed here in detail.
So, while Slashdot thrives on true techno-fetishism, I believe the public-at-large thrives on the appearance of techno-fetishism.
I am going to give it the benefit of the doubt though, and assume there really is a 64-bit implementation of OSX.
There very definitely is, or those dual, dual-core G5s I have seen with 8 and 16 megs of RAM are going to waste.
As one example, every day on my way to the gym, I walk right by a film school where they have ten iMacs running Final Cut, editing DV and some HDV video. Why iMacs?
Having taught before, I can tell you there's a very good reason: it's a school. Dealing with the combination of limited budgets and a user base who will spend most of their time acquiring skill sets, there is no need to have them use the latest and the greatest. When I'm teaching Photoshop it doesn't matter if the class is using iMacs or G5 towers, the training they receive is exactly the same. For a school environment, which tends to be abusive in the best of circumstances, it is better to buy more, cheaper machines on which the students can learn then spend on the top of the line. You can save that for the smaller or master classes when someone needs the horsepower.
interface efficiency (yes, I know you find that hard to believe but it's true). ..
Actually, I don't find that hard to believe. Although it appears that the majority of users prefer the iPod's interface, obviously not everyone will. Diff'rent strokes and all.
If Apple would ever support OGG and FLAC it would ease my pain at least but this will never happen.
This is actually a corollary of what I said before: as a device or product begins to drive a market, the market begins to shape itself for that product. A neutral example may be with automatic versus manual transmissions. A manual transmission gives one much more control over a car's performance and, IMO, is vastly superior to an automatic tranny. However, as the vast majority of American drivers prefer automatics, finding a car with a manual transmission can be hard. Personally I prefer manuals, but the market doesn't care what I prefer.
It is great and all to say "Apple dropped the PowerPC because it had no portable future," but that doesn't explain why they dropped their entire OS back to a 32-bit OS, and put 32-bit processors in their desktop machines. Sure, I bet at some point they will come out with a 64-bit machine again, then have to go back up to a 64-bit OS again, then have to get their software vendors to do another port of the software optimized for whatever Intel chip they choose, but that is a long way to go after just making an entire platform transition.
1) Apple didn't "[drop] their entire OS back to a 32-bit OS". It's the same OS. It senses on install whether your machine is 32- or 64-bit and installs appropriately. I installed the same OS on my 64-bit G5 and my 32-bit PowerBook.
2) Apple has not released their pro-level desktop machines yet, so saying, "put 32-bit processors in their desktop machines" is just silly. The iMac is a consumer level machine, and will probably be 32-bit for the forseeable future. The reason Apple has not yet released the pro-level desktops is very probably the current unavailability of the 64-bit chips they want. The WWDC has been pushed back to August, which will probably see the introduction of the 64-bit pro-level desktop machines.
3) The phrase "then have to get their software vendors to do another port of the software optimized for whatever Intel chip they choose" doesn't make any sense at all. Apple will using the same chip family, in both their 32- and 64-bit versions.
The ipod (like this device) was an incremental improvement over other mp3 players from the time, not revolutionary.
Actually, the iPod was an enormous improvement over the mp3 players which came before, because it combined three features which had not yet come together: form factor, storage capacity and ease of use. There were small players, but they had limited storage capacity. There were players with lots of storage, but they were large and heavy. An no other player had an easy-to-use interface. From my limited experience (i.e., I have played around with other mp3 players but have not undertaken a serious study of them) no other manufacturer has yet produced as elegant an interface as has Apple.
I think the comment above points out one of Slashdot's enduring biases and explains one of the reasons Slashdot as a whole has such a terrible track record in predicting success of failure of things like the iPod. The focus here is on technology and techno-fetishism, something the vast majority of the buying public doesn't care about. To that end, saying that the iPod was only an incremental improvement over previous players is pedantic. One may only say that if one only takes into account the hard tech itself. To do that one must ignore the very important things which often mark the difference between successful and unsuccessful products, namely the ability to take techology and make it availble to Joe and Jane Computer User. This is the genius of iTunes and the iPod: it makes the process of buying, burning and managing digital music and an mp3 player easy for even the most technologically ignorant person.
Such an ability often gets short shrift in the Slashdot and wider geek world, which has its own macho posturing built around how deep one can get into a command line or a kernel. But, while doing that, one must remember that, like any subculture, the values of that subculture are not the values of the wider society. The fact that the iPod doesn't play Ogg Vorbis files, while cause for concern here, is of absolutely no value in the wider consumer world. The fact that the iPod's tech wasn't very different from pervious mp3 players is equally unimportant: the iPod packaged what was there, along with a few improvements, in such a way that it was now easy for anyone to have an mp3 player. That is Apple's huge achievement, and that is what Apple understands better than almost any other computer or consumer electronics manufacturer.
If someone wants to beat Apple at this game, they are going to have to offer a better complete package than Apple, and I do not see that happening any time soon. Microsoft can't do it, because it isn't their focus: they've almost become a technology services company which happens to sell an operating system. The Sony of twenty years ago could do it, but that is very definitely not the Sony of today. Samsung can't do it, because they only offer, at most, one third of the player/store/software combination. if anyone is to knock the iPod off its throne, I think it will be Apple, when they introduce the next generation of iPod/video iPod/whatever they're planning.
Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service.
In order for Apple to have a monopoly, they would have to be the sole source for music on the internets, or the sole source of mp3 players, which they are not. The fact that Apple is the only company using Fairplay doesn't make them a monopolist because it is not restraint of trade; other companies are free to enter the market with their own digital music, DRM standards and music players and market them. Apple is not restraining their trade in any way.
What Apple is doing is offering an integrated system which the vast majority of legal digital music consumers find to be the best. There is nothing wrong with this: it is successful capitalism. The charges against Apple are as if Pepsi said to Coke, "hey, you're killing us with your sales so we are entitled to your recipe to make things fair!" If other music suppliers wish to beat Apple, they should market better products.
I hereby nominate "monopoly" as the most misunderstood and most abused word on Slashdot.
Re:yep, great benchmarks, but lacking in features.
on
MacBook Pro Benchmarks
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· Score: 1
Aw, shit: ignore the part about "the possible effect of piracy worries on Apple's open source efforts". Got my threads all mixed up.
Re:yep, great benchmarks, but lacking in features.
on
MacBook Pro Benchmarks
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· Score: 1
i guess those kexts, the existence of fairplay and the itunes store, the expansion of itunes to video, and the AACS standards are not convincing enough?
Well, since none of those have anything to do with the thread topic, namely the possible effect of piracy worries on Apple's open source efforts, no, they're not convincing. There is no evidence whatsoever that there are any DRM hooks in the Darwin kernel. The are.kexts which hook into EFI, but not into the DRM chips. So, all of our examples are about the iTMS, not the OS itself. In fact, all of the things you mentioned are in the OS installed on your, and my, G5. If you can think of a way Apple can sell copyrighted works without some kind of DRM, I'm all ears.
The first Powerbook with Firewire 800 was introduced in April, 2004, late in the machine's life. Now, I'm not happy about the exclusion of Firewire 800 from the MacBooks, but I am going to wait and see what the rest of the Intel-powered line looks like before drawing any real conclusions.
Re:yep, great benchmarks, but lacking in features.
on
MacBook Pro Benchmarks
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· Score: 1
lets see here, what was it again, no firewire 800 for one thing, that's standard on powerbooks
Actually, it's a relatively recent addition to the Powerbook line. My older Powerbook doesn't have it.
oh well the point is that vital features were "removed" from the macbook, and they added in a DRM'ed chipset.
There's no proof Apple's using any of the DRM, so your point is moot.
I'm lusting after one of these puppies, but there's no way the purchase makes sense for me until there's more software available.
No change: the G4 Powerbooks were/are 32-bit machines. I think the G5 iMacs were 64-bit machines by necessity. Apple had to get the G5 into them to maintain any kind of parity with the x86 offerings.
Was about to post the same thing. Given the problems IBM is currently having meeting the demand for XBox 360 chips, I doubt this AMAZING TECHNOLOGY WHICH WILL COMPLTELY REVOLUTIONIZE COMPUTING AS WE KNOW IT!!11!1 will make an appearance any time soon, and this looks like more like a PR move for IBM than anything else. I hope Sony has a backup plan for the inevitable delays on Cell processors.
Intel's chips may not be as sexy as the POWER line and it's descendents (YMMV, of course) but Intel releases chips when it says it will and meets is production deadlines. I will take real tech now over promised future tech any time.
Heh. Jar Jar represents the desire to sell a shitload of action figures to young kids via fast food outlets. If ever a character was invented purely to suck another age group into the maw of the Merchandise Machine...
I'm let down that so many people have paid $1.99 for horribly DRM crippled low res content that just a short while ago, was free. (Pixar shorts and music vids)
Please explain how both of the copyright-protected works were "free" a short while ago. Was there a download link on Pixar's website from which one could download For The Birds for free? Did the major music labels offer their music videos free of charge?
Seriously - I find your comment baffling and bordering on trolling.
The non-techies (think English majors, graphic design artists, etc.) found the Mac systems easier and more intuitive to use, so of course the software developers took note and developed software for that market.
What in the world are you talking about?
Publishing/Pre press/Graphics took off on the Mac because, until Winders 95, Microsoft didn't produce a GUI or OS which came anywhere near close to offering the WYSIWYG abilities of the Mac OS. Even simple things like native support for Postscript fonts and color matching required hours of kludgy workarounds and hacks. Simply put, the Mac was, technically, far and away a superior platform for those markets. Try easily networking an office full of PCs, postscript printers and servers in 1990 and see how quickly you switch to using Macs.
Your arguments seem based on the idea that Macs took off because their users were too stupid to use "real" computers. Even today getting a Windows machine to play nice with Type 1 fonts and ICC profiles is many times harder than it is under OS X.
I love Super 16. Have a friend who's using it and it's beautiful. And my in my "outdoor" comment I was thinking more about shows like Law & Order and CSI, which have a lot of outdoor shots.
In response to wolfhead:
You have hit my prejudice right on the head. I find the cinematography/directing on most TV shows to be just awful.
1) CSI is NOT shot on 35. It's shot on tape or digital and then extensively color-graded in post.
2) 95% of TV shows don't have cinemaphotographers. They have a good DP, if they're lucky, but the schedule and monetary constraints of TV production don't allow for real cinematography. You don't have two hours to set up a shot in TV land, and then another hour to reset. You have, if you're lucky, half an hour for set up and five minutes to reset. For a really complicated outdoor shot, like on Law & Order or West Wing you might get an hour to set up. You don't have time to view dailies each day. You watch the feed off the monitors and pick the best shot you can get that day.
Drama is when character precedes action. Melodrama is when action precedes character. American Beauty is drama. The aforementioned CSI is melodrama.
Character-driven melodrama is a TV hybrid, used because the time constraints of TV very rarely allow for real character development. This results in shows like BG, in which space is allowed for some character development while the direction of the action is driven by the imminent threat of the Cylons. You will hear the term used in the industry. If you take a class in it, it will be called "Writing Drama for Television" or something similar, and they will basically teach you how to open up space in an action-driven plot to give the characters some room. Most of BG's faults, IMO, result from the stresses introduced by the hybrid nature of the writing. There is some very interesting stuff going on, like the relationship between Tigh(?) and his wife. However, because of the nature of the beast they have to give her short shrift and draw her character in heavy strokes instead of shades of grey. Her motivations, and character, are left very vague, to the detriment of the show.
Basically, most TV writing is straight melodrama. Some of the better stuff is hybrid. And the very best stuff, which is all too rare, is true drama.
Of all the TV I watch, which admittedly isn't a great deal, the shows which would most benefit from high quality display are the murder/mystery shows I watch on BBCAmerica. Many of the are more movie-like than most American TV as they use a lot of visual story-telling, and I have had to rewind my tape more than once to catch nuance.
Hmm. Perhaps the BBC will be what makes me go HD.
One more thing: I think the central argument here is technology for technology's sake versus real-life need. One can make an argument that all TV should be viewed at the highest possibility quality, but I think that's more a desire to have all the latest toys than it is a practical reason for seeing everything in HD. Is there really anything to be gained by seeing 95% of the crap out there in sooper hi def?
I don't entirely agree. While BG has pretty high production standards, it's still TV: (mostly) character-driven melodrama. As much as I like it, there are some times when I am tempted to switch channels because they're laying it on a little thick. So, at least for me, it's not something I would feel bad about seeing at less than stellar quality.
I still use my VCR to tape shows, and I have watched BG on tape more than once. Didn't miss anything.
I bought the one of the Pixar shorts yesterday (For the Birds). Looked okay on my monitor. On my TV it would probably have looked just fine. And, for me, that's the point: it's TV. For the most part it's not great art. I don't have an HDTV, nor do I intend to buy one in the near future: I don't really care about super-sharp quality when watching CSI, because it's CSI. That's why I think downloading TV like this might work.
If it were a movie, I would feel differently. Movies have real cinematographers/DPs, are shot on 35mm, etc. TV is, well, TV.
Slashdot Mirror
So, while Slashdot thrives on true techno-fetishism, I believe the public-at-large thrives on the appearance of techno-fetishism.
There very definitely is, or those dual, dual-core G5s I have seen with 8 and 16 megs of RAM are going to waste.
Having taught before, I can tell you there's a very good reason: it's a school. Dealing with the combination of limited budgets and a user base who will spend most of their time acquiring skill sets, there is no need to have them use the latest and the greatest. When I'm teaching Photoshop it doesn't matter if the class is using iMacs or G5 towers, the training they receive is exactly the same. For a school environment, which tends to be abusive in the best of circumstances, it is better to buy more, cheaper machines on which the students can learn then spend on the top of the line. You can save that for the smaller or master classes when someone needs the horsepower.
Here you have me, because I don't.Actually, I don't find that hard to believe. Although it appears that the majority of users prefer the iPod's interface, obviously not everyone will. Diff'rent strokes and all.
This is actually a corollary of what I said before: as a device or product begins to drive a market, the market begins to shape itself for that product. A neutral example may be with automatic versus manual transmissions. A manual transmission gives one much more control over a car's performance and, IMO, is vastly superior to an automatic tranny. However, as the vast majority of American drivers prefer automatics, finding a car with a manual transmission can be hard. Personally I prefer manuals, but the market doesn't care what I prefer.
1) Apple didn't "[drop] their entire OS back to a 32-bit OS". It's the same OS. It senses on install whether your machine is 32- or 64-bit and installs appropriately. I installed the same OS on my 64-bit G5 and my 32-bit PowerBook.
2) Apple has not released their pro-level desktop machines yet, so saying, "put 32-bit processors in their desktop machines" is just silly. The iMac is a consumer level machine, and will probably be 32-bit for the forseeable future. The reason Apple has not yet released the pro-level desktops is very probably the current unavailability of the 64-bit chips they want. The WWDC has been pushed back to August, which will probably see the introduction of the 64-bit pro-level desktop machines.
3) The phrase "then have to get their software vendors to do another port of the software optimized for whatever Intel chip they choose" doesn't make any sense at all. Apple will using the same chip family, in both their 32- and 64-bit versions.
Actually, the iPod was an enormous improvement over the mp3 players which came before, because it combined three features which had not yet come together: form factor, storage capacity and ease of use. There were small players, but they had limited storage capacity. There were players with lots of storage, but they were large and heavy. An no other player had an easy-to-use interface. From my limited experience (i.e., I have played around with other mp3 players but have not undertaken a serious study of them) no other manufacturer has yet produced as elegant an interface as has Apple.
I think the comment above points out one of Slashdot's enduring biases and explains one of the reasons Slashdot as a whole has such a terrible track record in predicting success of failure of things like the iPod. The focus here is on technology and techno-fetishism, something the vast majority of the buying public doesn't care about. To that end, saying that the iPod was only an incremental improvement over previous players is pedantic. One may only say that if one only takes into account the hard tech itself. To do that one must ignore the very important things which often mark the difference between successful and unsuccessful products, namely the ability to take techology and make it availble to Joe and Jane Computer User. This is the genius of iTunes and the iPod: it makes the process of buying, burning and managing digital music and an mp3 player easy for even the most technologically ignorant person.
Such an ability often gets short shrift in the Slashdot and wider geek world, which has its own macho posturing built around how deep one can get into a command line or a kernel. But, while doing that, one must remember that, like any subculture, the values of that subculture are not the values of the wider society. The fact that the iPod doesn't play Ogg Vorbis files, while cause for concern here, is of absolutely no value in the wider consumer world. The fact that the iPod's tech wasn't very different from pervious mp3 players is equally unimportant: the iPod packaged what was there, along with a few improvements, in such a way that it was now easy for anyone to have an mp3 player. That is Apple's huge achievement, and that is what Apple understands better than almost any other computer or consumer electronics manufacturer.
If someone wants to beat Apple at this game, they are going to have to offer a better complete package than Apple, and I do not see that happening any time soon. Microsoft can't do it, because it isn't their focus: they've almost become a technology services company which happens to sell an operating system. The Sony of twenty years ago could do it, but that is very definitely not the Sony of today. Samsung can't do it, because they only offer, at most, one third of the player/store/software combination. if anyone is to knock the iPod off its throne, I think it will be Apple, when they introduce the next generation of iPod/video iPod/whatever they're planning.
Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service.
In order for Apple to have a monopoly, they would have to be the sole source for music on the internets, or the sole source of mp3 players, which they are not. The fact that Apple is the only company using Fairplay doesn't make them a monopolist because it is not restraint of trade; other companies are free to enter the market with their own digital music, DRM standards and music players and market them. Apple is not restraining their trade in any way.
What Apple is doing is offering an integrated system which the vast majority of legal digital music consumers find to be the best. There is nothing wrong with this: it is successful capitalism. The charges against Apple are as if Pepsi said to Coke, "hey, you're killing us with your sales so we are entitled to your recipe to make things fair!" If other music suppliers wish to beat Apple, they should market better products.
I hereby nominate "monopoly" as the most misunderstood and most abused word on Slashdot.
Aw, shit: ignore the part about "the possible effect of piracy worries on Apple's open source efforts". Got my threads all mixed up.
Well, since none of those have anything to do with the thread topic, namely the possible effect of piracy worries on Apple's open source efforts, no, they're not convincing. There is no evidence whatsoever that there are any DRM hooks in the Darwin kernel. The are .kexts which hook into EFI, but not into the DRM chips. So, all of our examples are about the iTMS, not the OS itself. In fact, all of the things you mentioned are in the OS installed on your, and my, G5. If you can think of a way Apple can sell copyrighted works without some kind of DRM, I'm all ears.
The first Powerbook with Firewire 800 was introduced in April, 2004, late in the machine's life. Now, I'm not happy about the exclusion of Firewire 800 from the MacBooks, but I am going to wait and see what the rest of the Intel-powered line looks like before drawing any real conclusions.
Actually, it's a relatively recent addition to the Powerbook line. My older Powerbook doesn't have it.
There's no proof Apple's using any of the DRM, so your point is moot.
I'm lusting after one of these puppies, but there's no way the purchase makes sense for me until there's more software available.
Maybe having daddy's money means there are no consequences for your actions?
When Leigh Brackett died.
No change: the G4 Powerbooks were/are 32-bit machines. I think the G5 iMacs were 64-bit machines by necessity. Apple had to get the G5 into them to maintain any kind of parity with the x86 offerings.
Intel's chips may not be as sexy as the POWER line and it's descendents (YMMV, of course) but Intel releases chips when it says it will and meets is production deadlines. I will take real tech now over promised future tech any time.
Is proper English that hard?
+10, Freakin' Awesome.
Please explain how both of the copyright-protected works were "free" a short while ago. Was there a download link on Pixar's website from which one could download For The Birds for free? Did the major music labels offer their music videos free of charge?
Seriously - I find your comment baffling and bordering on trolling.
In that case, I agree with you, although there are still technical reasons why you find Macs there. Color management on Windows is still awful.
What in the world are you talking about?
Publishing/Pre press/Graphics took off on the Mac because, until Winders 95, Microsoft didn't produce a GUI or OS which came anywhere near close to offering the WYSIWYG abilities of the Mac OS. Even simple things like native support for Postscript fonts and color matching required hours of kludgy workarounds and hacks. Simply put, the Mac was, technically, far and away a superior platform for those markets. Try easily networking an office full of PCs, postscript printers and servers in 1990 and see how quickly you switch to using Macs.
Your arguments seem based on the idea that Macs took off because their users were too stupid to use "real" computers. Even today getting a Windows machine to play nice with Type 1 fonts and ICC profiles is many times harder than it is under OS X.
In response to wolfhead:
You have hit my prejudice right on the head. I find the cinematography/directing on most TV shows to be just awful.
2) 95% of TV shows don't have cinemaphotographers. They have a good DP, if they're lucky, but the schedule and monetary constraints of TV production don't allow for real cinematography. You don't have two hours to set up a shot in TV land, and then another hour to reset. You have, if you're lucky, half an hour for set up and five minutes to reset. For a really complicated outdoor shot, like on Law & Order or West Wing you might get an hour to set up. You don't have time to view dailies each day. You watch the feed off the monitors and pick the best shot you can get that day.
Drama is when character precedes action. Melodrama is when action precedes character. American Beauty is drama. The aforementioned CSI is melodrama.
Character-driven melodrama is a TV hybrid, used because the time constraints of TV very rarely allow for real character development. This results in shows like BG, in which space is allowed for some character development while the direction of the action is driven by the imminent threat of the Cylons. You will hear the term used in the industry. If you take a class in it, it will be called "Writing Drama for Television" or something similar, and they will basically teach you how to open up space in an action-driven plot to give the characters some room. Most of BG's faults, IMO, result from the stresses introduced by the hybrid nature of the writing. There is some very interesting stuff going on, like the relationship between Tigh(?) and his wife. However, because of the nature of the beast they have to give her short shrift and draw her character in heavy strokes instead of shades of grey. Her motivations, and character, are left very vague, to the detriment of the show.
Basically, most TV writing is straight melodrama. Some of the better stuff is hybrid. And the very best stuff, which is all too rare, is true drama.
Of all the TV I watch, which admittedly isn't a great deal, the shows which would most benefit from high quality display are the murder/mystery shows I watch on BBCAmerica. Many of the are more movie-like than most American TV as they use a lot of visual story-telling, and I have had to rewind my tape more than once to catch nuance.
Hmm. Perhaps the BBC will be what makes me go HD.
One more thing: I think the central argument here is technology for technology's sake versus real-life need. One can make an argument that all TV should be viewed at the highest possibility quality, but I think that's more a desire to have all the latest toys than it is a practical reason for seeing everything in HD. Is there really anything to be gained by seeing 95% of the crap out there in sooper hi def?
I still use my VCR to tape shows, and I have watched BG on tape more than once. Didn't miss anything.
If it were a movie, I would feel differently. Movies have real cinematographers/DPs, are shot on 35mm, etc. TV is, well, TV.
YMMV, etc.
Yikes.