I generally agree that Apple isn't going to be targeting the Mac mini at home video playback for the masses (at least not anytime soon), but I do have to correct a few things in your post none-the-less:
2. there is no IR/remote support on the mac mini, so no remote control. this is kind of a big and small deal at the same time. it would not have cost much for them to add support for this, yet it is a feature essential to media centers.
But the Mac mini does have a Bluetooth option, and Bluetooth is arguably a much better technology than IR is for a remote control solution (as you don't have to point the remote at the device to use it). There are a number of different Bluetooth remote solutions out there (including Sailing Clicker, which allows you to use a Bluetooth-enabled cell phone as a remote control on a Bluetooth enabled Mac). IR is so last century. Get in the now!:)
the current mac mini models are simply not powerful enough to decode HD video compressed with modern MPEG-4, WMA9-level codecs.
While I agree with this statement, I doubt if this is the biggest barrier to providing HD content. A much bigger barrier is available bandwidth to transfer HD content over the Internet. Apple doesn't even have a SD download service -- I'd think that if they were to offer an "iMVS", they'd start with SD content, and work their way up.
One thing I think some people may not be considering, however, is that while movies may not be the ideal media for a hypothetical "iMVS" service, SD TV shows are a completely different matter. Due to their relativive lengths (20 - 40 minutes in North American once you remove all the commercials) and the low relative definition, an "iTV" service is quite possible for a device like the Mac mini.
I imagine that buying movies online you'd be able to buy more highly compressed versions using that new Pixlet (see sidebar in link) codec, just like you can buy compressed AAC files from the store instead of full uncomressed CDs.
Pixlet is best if you need to ensure that quality is maintained, but it isn't a good general-purpose compressor for video streams you want to download. The 20-25:1 compression ratio sounds good, but take a look at the resulting data rate: 3MB/s. Really high-quality MPEG-4 video streams are still under 512KB/s (often under 256KB/s for your typical downloaded DVD rip), which is a 6 to 12-fold increase over Pixlet.
Or, put another way, a 2-hour movie that can be expressed as a ~1.2GB Xvid/DivX/3ivx file would take up about 21GB (120mins * 60s/min * 3MB/s / 1024MB/GB) of space. Which means you'll be able to store perhaps 3 movies per 80GB Mac mini.
Pixlet is great for editing, or for archiving video you need to be able to edit, but it isn't terribly ideal for consumer movie viewing at this time.
The comment about the hard disk was targeted more at local playback. I'm assuming the end user wants to view the video more than once, which means it needs to be stored. Music playback from an iPod hard disk is not entirely skip-free, and playback of a movie from a 4200 RPM laptop hard disk won't be, either.
Have you tried it? It doesn't look like it.
I'm running a 12" PowerBook here with the stock 4200 RPM hard drive, and this drive benchmarks to roughly 21MB/s uncached (I have 1.25GB of memory in this system, so the cached read rate is going to be significantly higher). This is more than fast enough for standard definition video; I have a few DVD's which Iv'e captured and compressed at 640x480, 29.97fps, which plays without losing a single frame. A good high-quality 2-pass Xvid encoding over here only requires a data rate of about 142.8KB/s -- a sustained rate which a 4200RPM drive can more than easily accomodate.
High definition data is a different story, of course -- but the data sizes would also be prohibitive when it comes to download time, and I don't see anyone here suggesting that Apple would offer HD content for download (at least not with current bandwidth limitations).
H.264 may change the landscape somewhat -- if Apple does have a long-term video strategy for the Mac mini, I think it will wait until after Tiger ships.
iMovie won't output any formats other than its own, DV or Quicktime. That's fine if you are going to use iDVD (see below), but that doesn't work for me.
Strange -- I export from iMovie to Xvid directly all the time without any problems.
To do so, you need to select Export -> QuickTime -> Advanced, and then select the output codec. If you don't already have them, go out and get the free DivX, Xvid, 3ivx, and RealVideo 10 Quicktime codecs, just so you can export to any of these formats if the need arises.
Mind you, I do have QuickTime Pro, so it could be that the option to export to different codecs isn't available in iMovie if you're running QuickTime Standard. Regardless, as a defniitive statement, your claim is incorrect, as it is possible to export to a variety of different formats from iMovie -- I do so on a regular basis (and not just for the codecs listed above, but for the other dozen or so that are included with QuickTime).
(And no, this isn't with iMovie 05, although I do have it on order).
The Apple Airport Express is a dedicated device with many of the components required for a general use computer not present.
Of course it is -- that's hardly the point. The discussion here is merely about the availability of an optical port. Apple already has them on an inexpensive consumer device, and as such I can't see that there would be any significant extra cost to add this to the mini (unless, of course, as I surmised previously that Apple is going to target the Airport Express to mini users for this sort of purpose).
More connectors, more memory, more wireless, more bundled software and on and on. But then it would not be a Mini, would it?
Except that in this case, there wouldn't be an extra port at all. It would be the same physical port as the existing audio out connector, just like on the AirPort Express (in case you haven't seen one, and I haven't been sufficiently clear on this, the AirPort Express doesn't have separate ports for the analogue and optical output, but uses one port which can take either a 3mm stereo male connector, or a mini-Toslink connector).
Apple audio streaming software has been open sourced for a long time. Download QuickTime Streaming Server and you should have all the code you might want to do this.
Two problems with your response:
the QuickTime Streaming Server is not available for download. It's commercial software. The Darwin Streaming Server, however, is. Minor errata, just wanted to make sure tihs was clear to anyone else reading this thread.
So far as I can discern, neither the QuickTime Streaming Server nor the Darwin Streaming Server support the Remote Audio Output Protocol used for the AirPort Express with AirTunes (aka the AirTunes Protocol). Indeed, other than to say that it is supported by iTunes, I can't find any documentation on the Apple Developer Connection website detailing the RAOP. AFAIK, it's still a closed protocol which is supported by nothing other than iTunes.
(I do, in fact, have the Darwin Streaming Server locally, but don't have it installed at this time to test this with).
What I'm sitting here daydreaming about is perhaps support for RAOP in QuickTime 7, or perhaps in Tiger as a part of its audio support. Having an AirPort Express with AirTunes, however, there appears to be a streaming/buffering induced delay, which could make it difficult to use this for anything which requires A/V synchronization (unless they come out with a new AirPort Express which can handle audio and video streaming support).
Personally, I see the Mac mini as virtually perfect. I am suprised that they didn't continue their dual-use port like on the AirPort Express -- but perhaps this isn't just to keep costs down, but because Apple either expects users with this need to use AirTunes for optical connections, use an external USB-based audio device which has an optical port, or has something else up their sleeves for connecting the Mac mini to home media devices.
This seems like the kind of basic mistake that geeks make. Optical connectors cost more and putting two kinds of connectors which is common when optical are made available costs even more than that and takes up additional space. This unit is not intended to be a machine to please extreme hardware enthusiasts, but a cheap machine that ordinary folks can use. Most people have little if any equipment with optical connectors and would much rather save some money to get a computer that mostly suits their needs. Putting optical connectors on this product would without question be a mistake, raise the cost, and foul the marketing
I'm not sure sure that this is the case -- for a good counter-example, take a look at the Apple Airport Express, which has a combined analogue/optical port on it, and which costs $129 US.
I'm somewhat suprised that Apple didn't use the same system on the Mac Mini. Use the dual 3mm analogue/mini-Toslink port, and provide both.
Then again, anyone who does desire optical output could always simply use the Airport Express. Perhaps Apple will open up an API for streaming audio to the Express precisely for this purpose.
No Firewire. Add a firewire card if you want, but I suspect you'll not be spending $2000 on a digicam, then plug it in to a $300 computer to edit the video.
Firewire has more use then just digital cameras. The iPod and iSight are both firewire capable devices from Apple (and while the iPod also supports USB2, it works best on a Mac when plugged into the Firewire port).
For the iSight alone firewire is important to include on the Mac Mini for Apple, as it doesn't support USB at all, and Apple doesn't want to exclude any users from owning one (besides which, I could see a company buying some Mac Minis just for the cheap video conferencing capability they provide).
I have a wireless mouse for my PowerBook. Also, my mac is configured to accept BT from my phone, so I can completely turn off the ringer and the caller ID shows up on my monitor. Very nice for meetings. The lab I work in has a G5 PowerMac with a wireless keyboard and mouse. Not having all those wires helps clean the desk up nicely.
I'm running the same configuration -- a PowerBook with an Apple Bluetooth Mouse and a Sony Ericcson T610 phone. The phone is configured to not only accept SMS messages, but to synchronize my calendar and contact data, and to permit wireless GPRS Internet access on the PowerBook through the phone. A very nice set-up indeed.
My problem is more with the linked article than with the product itself, which I (obviously) have yet to see, and thus have no opinion of.
And Bluetooth-enabled sunglasses do what exactly? Unfortunately, the article doesn't say. I'm guessing they're going to provide an audio output facility, but who knows for sure?
I'm off to install a Bluetooth chip into my toilet. What is it going to do? Damned if I know, but one things for sure --/. front page, here I (and my Bluetooth-enabled toilet) come!
Yaz
(...who actually has and uses two Bluetooth devices).
You're buying proprietary applications to run on a proprietary operating system. That's fine. Your decision to make. But you're the Wordperfect running on PC-DOS user of the future. I hope the immediate gratification of shiny buttons and translucent windows makes up for the inevitable redundancy.
Here's a newsflash for you: all software is eventually redundant. You think Open Office is still going to be around 20, 30, or 40 years from now? Sure the formats may be open, but what good is that if you can no longer run the software, and have no ability or intention to write your own viewer?
My word processing needs are minimal. I'm a software developer, not a clerical worker. I don't generate documents for printing terribly often, and when I do it is usually for immediate consumption (ie: stuff that gets printed to paper immediately).
And personally, I'm not concerned about running a proprietary application in this case, as there is every indication that Pages' native file format will be XML based, with a publically available XSLT, making it very easy to transform into other XML formats. However, for my minimal needs, I'm not particularily concerned, and have no problems changing applications and file formats in the future if necessary.
Which makes one wonder why people would continue to use products and interfaces that are so poor?
Because the more involved a thing is, the more chance you can label yourself as an "expert" and not get laughed at.
MS Office is hardly the first product in the world with an unwieldly interface to it. There are lots of products in the world that require an expert to use -- some of which require a license to use because of their unweildliness. Can you fly a helicopter? I know I can't. People who can get a certain amount of prestege for their ability to use a product. It's the cult of the arcana.
Ever meet the secretary who thinks they know about computers because they can use a word processor? I once worked for a company where the secretary thought she knew everything about PCs because she had a certificate for WordPerfect.
Then again, I know a few people who make their living solely off the MS economy. People who are MCSE's, and recommend and service only Microsoft products. These people also love MS Office, because it's another revenue source for them. They are MS's "true believers", and are fanatics in the truest sense.
Or are people just lazy?
You can never over-estimate the power of laziness:).
Which may be the point but that doesn't mean you have to make the same sort of application as Office. Why does an Office-suite have to look, feel and act like Office?
When I worked for IBM I, as a developer, got to sit on the other side of the one-way mirror during end-user UI/HCI testing from time to time. And believe me when I tell you that people want products to work and act like what they're already used to, regardless of whether or not what they're used to is completely optimal.
This is the same reason why Gnome and KDE are often chasing a Windows-like design philosophy. They want to give people something they'll feel comfortable switching to.
Is this ideal? Certainly not. But HCI R&D is rife with products that tried to create an easier way to accomplish something, succeeded, and bombed in the industry because it wasn't what people were used to (I'd personally hold up OS/2's WorkPlace Shell as such a product -- IMO the WPS is one of the biggest successes of HCI research in the last 20 years, and we all know how much good that did OS/2 in the long run).
I don't like it one bit -- I prefer software that doesn't just try to emulate the market leader, but which actually tries to innovate in UI and HCI design (one of the reasons why I switched from OS/2 to OS X for my primary desktop system). But I'm unfortunately in the minority.
Do you know people that are happy with Office? I don't know any.
Yes, I'm sorry to say that I do. I know people who absolutely swear by it, and think that trying to compete against it is pointless. If you go outside technical circles, there are a LOT of these people out there. Are they right? Of course not -- but that doesn't mean we can deny that they exist:).
No-one likes Office so what is there to lose in trying to duplicate Office formats but with a better app?
I disagree with the hypothesis that "No-one likes Office". I can agree that most people here on/. (myself included) don't like Office, but we're in a minority situation.
I imagine there are lots of people in clerical professions who have gone on two-day courses to get a certificate saying they know how to use Office who rather like it, because they're experts in it. Much like there are people out there who really like Windows because they make a lot of money working in it (regardless of how truly crappy it is).
I can understand why OOo is targeting the Office crowd -- they don't need to target those people who have a need for a word processor every third Sunday -- they're going after those people who are currently using MS Office day-in and day-out, and who expect a competing suite to offer similar features and a similar experience.
I'll be checking out Pages when it comes out but if Keynote is any indication I am sure it will be yet one more reason not to use Office or OO
My copy of iWork is already on order. I've been wanting to get Keynote for some time now, and getting it bundled with what looks to be a high-quality word processing/page layout solution for less money equals me pre-ordering a copy from Apple's website the same day it was announced:).
It's a nit, but I think that 'typically', installing X11 involves putting in CD 3 and double-clicking on the X11 package. You make it sound pretty ugly when it isn't.
Depends on your source media. The Panther DVD that came with my PowerBook has multiple partitions on it, and the OS install partition isn't the default one. Instead, when you insert it you get one with some directions to reboot the system with the disc inserted. There is no "CD 3" in this case (as everything is on a single DVD).
The end result remains the same, however -- it isn't something you can reasonably assume all end-users can easily achieve.
Other than being free, I don't see what OpenOffice has to offer on the OS X platform.
I know of one potentially big one, and that is platform independance.
This may not be big on your list of needs if you're just running OS X at home, but in an enterprise setting where they've standardized on one office suite, but permit different OS's for different purposes, having one suite that can be run on all of them is important.
Or what if you suddenly need to change OS or hardware platforms? It's generally nice to be able to be able to use the same applications, even on a different environment. I know this is why I have Firefox installed on all of my systems, be they Linux, Mac OS X, OS/2, or Windows.
OOo could be a big deal on OS X if it were available in a pure Aqua version (NeoOffice/J notwithstanding). But it isn't, and now it looks like it won't be anytime in the near future.
Yep Apple could even bother to implenet import and export for an Open Document spec.
I'm going to assume you intended to type couldn't up above.
A few issues with this. First off, OASIS isn't finalized yet, so you can hardly blame Apple for not supporting OASIS.
Secondly, while Pages isn't available yet (I have my copy already pre-ordered), as it is partly based off the Keynote codebase, and Keynote uses XML for its data storage format, and as OASIS is likewise an XML format, and as Apple publishes the XSLT for its file formats, it shouldn't be difficult for anyone who really needs to to write an XSLT transformation between Pages native format and OASIS.
As such, document interoperability shouldn't be a big problem. Apple's formats have tended as of late to be fairly open (with the notable exception of FairPlay), so Open Source developers should be able to quickly develop the necesary tools for these suites to interoperate.
And who knows? Perhaps by the time OASIS is out of draft form and is an official specification there will be enough people out there using it that Apple would be happy to support it natively within iWork 06.
Unfortunately you don't know what you're talking about. Mac OSX installation is very nifty but you can't do it with Linux, just try.
I'm both a daily Mac OS X and Linux user. I've been using Linux in various forms since 1994 -- long before 99% of the people posting here even heard of it. So forgive me if your words carry no weight with me.
I'm not claiming that Linux has the same install system as Mac OS X -- I'm saying it should strive towards a similar system as what OS X uses. It would obviously need to have some tweaks and modifications to fit better with some of the assumptions built into the core OS, and would require modifications to the program loader(s), but other than that there is little reason why it couldn't be done. It merely requires someone to develop the necessary code to do it.
Forgive my ignorance, but doesn't OS X include an X11 server?
Ignorance forgiven:).
Mac OS X Panther (10.3) does indeed come with an X11 server. However, there are two caveats to this:
It isn't installed by default, so if the user didn't select it for installation, it won't be on their system,
Apple doesn't include the X11 server on systems with OS X preloaded (which is all of them). (It is included on the CDs/DVDs you get with the system, however),
Installation of X11 after OS X is installed typically requires the user to reboot their system with their OS X install disc, and then install the X11 support atop their existing OS X installation.
Not a major problem for power users who need X11 support (this was virtually the first thing I did when I took posession of my first PowerBook last year), but hardly something you can expect your average user to do.
Is there any major drawback to running OpenOffice as an X11 application rather than a native one?
Yes, there are multitudes of such problems, including:
Unlike every other OS X application, OOo has an in-frame menu bar, and doesn't use the system menu bar (perhaps worse, as X11 does provide a menu bar, you wind up with two menu bars that have some duplication -- for example, both the X11 server and OOo's frame have an "Edit" menu, which can be confusing to a user),
The installation and program launching routine isn't terribly user friendly,
Apple's excellent font subsystem isn't integrated into OOo, thus you don't get good anti-aliases text,
No Aqua look and feel -- everything in it looks quite a bit different from every other application. No nice Aqua scroll bars, for example. Or list boxes. Or other standard controls.
No desktop integration. The icon in the title bar can't be dragged (in most OS X apps, the icon in the title bar actually represents the document or data being worked on, and you can drag and drop it as if it were the applications icon in the finder, allowing you to do stuff such as e-mail a document by dragging it's title bar icon and droppinng it into the Mail applications icon in the Dock), no text drag-and-drop with the rest of the system, can't use any of the Mac OS X services (like summarization, or text-to-speech), etc.
Doesn't even use the standard OS X mouse pointers. Even the plain old black arrow pointer is different as soon as you mouse over OOo,
Doesn't use the standard OS X printing subsystem controls (which is too bad, as the standard OS X print dialog makes it easy to print, fax, or save to PDF all within a single dialog),
In fact, all of the dialogs are non-standard. File load/save dialogs are another area where this is readily apparant.
That's just a sampling of issues off the top of my head.
The one thing they did at least do was to integrate OOo with OS X's clipboard support directly, making cut and paste between applications work as expected. But that appears to be the extent of OS X support.
I'm rather disappointed in the attitude of OOo in this regard, because OS X really should have a native port of OpenOffice. The only way OpenOffice can take on Microsoft is to not only build a better office suite, but to make sure it's available virtually everywhere in versions that integrate well with whatever operating system it's being used on.
Anyone other than me remember when StarOffice's target operating system was IBM's OS/2?
I've done this by ssh'ing into a computer from many miles away, emerging the app, waiting for it to compile, and it will appear in the gnome or kde menu. This is why command line package systems are nice, you can easily use them using ssh without having to worry about X forwarding. And portage will put the little icons in the menu which is very nice.
The Mac OS X application packages can also be "installed" via the command line by mounting the disk image (if any), cd'ing over to it, and then using "cp" to copy the application to its destination directory.
Where Linux systems currently have a benefit is that they often have package retreival systems atop the packaging system itself. Apple's packaging system is akin to RPM -- it's a package format. This wouks fine if you have the package in the first place. Where systems like yum or apt-get or emerge are benefitial is in being able to get packages in the first place, and to ensure that all pre-reqs are met (and if not, to retreive and install them as well). Still, these tools typically don't specify the package format themselves, but are designed to work with another (usually specific) packaging format. As such, they aren't directly comparable.
I do see how these package management/download systems are of benefit to systems administrators and power users -- they are powerful -- but they are also beyond what most end-users would tolerate for software installation. And AFAIK, most of them are directed towards retreiving code from networked repositories, and don't really do you much good if you're buying software on CD-ROM as your typical consumer is apt to do (no pun intended;) ).
Overall, good comment. Some things I'd like to respond to:
Yes the OS X system is beguilingly simple in its ease of use. Drag and drop, multiple architectures in one package, no files strewn across the file system for each package, clean and simple. This does have its drawbacks though. One drawaback is shared libraries.
I'm sure you know this, but just for those who may not (and interpret your message incorrectly), Mac OS X does indeed have a shared library mechanism.
With that out of the way, as you've noted yourself, in those cases where an application does need to make use of shared libraries you can have something closer to a traditional installer to install Mac OS X applications. In many cases, however, this installer can be much simpler than what one usually sees in the Windows world, as you can just copy in the shared libraries you need into the correct locations, and then copy the rest of the application package to its target folder.
Multiple copies of the same library has a few problems, the biggest being that it tends to hog more RAM than needed, and for security purposes there's no central place to upgrade/fix the library. Still the end result still works pretty well, and as you say, it's a ncie system to use.
Let's not all forget, however, how having a central library repository can wreak havoc on ones system. Anyone who has ever used Windows can tell you about "DLL Hell". Remember what it was like back in the days of Windows 3.1? Every application shared common libraries under the same name, and if you installed a new application it might decide to "upgrade" that library to a newer version, causing all sorts of problems with other applications also relying on that library (due to changes in functionality, new bugs, or whatever).
Now granted the Linux way of handling libraries is significantly better than the Windows way of doing things. However, allowing applications to have their own versions of common libraries does have its benefits. If developer A writes "Widget Set 2005" using "doodadlib v4.0 rev B", it isn't going to start to exhibit oddities just because you installed developer B's "Widget-O-Rama 2004" which uses "doodadlib v4.0 rev A". Library versioning issues disappear in this scenario.
And there are ways to mitigate the extra RAM usage. I don't know OS X's innards well enough to know whether they use a system like this, but there have been operating systems which keep an internal lookup table based on the library name/version (and perhaps even some form of signature) to identify libraries. When a call to an unloaded library is made, the OS typically catches an exception, forcing a lookup against the loaded-library table. If the library requested by its name/version/signature is present, a new copy isn't loaded, even if the application has its own copy in a different location on disk. Later versions of IBM'S OS/2 operating system have a system something like this (which can be disabled using the LIBPATHSTRICT option IIRC). Again, I don't know enough about OS X's internals (yet) to know how it handles library loading, but if this is indeed the case RAM wouuldn't be an issue (you merely wind up wasting more disk space keeping multiple copies of the library around). And if OS X isn't doing this -- well, it should:).
Contrary to popular opinion this is less to do with the "Desktop War" between GNOME and KDE, and more to do with the release early, release often philosophy of open source.
Indeed, I've been using Linux in one form or another since 1994, long before there was a Gnome or a KDE. This issue pre-dates both of them. However, it has been particularily within the last 5 years that there has been an explosion of Open Source runtime environments and libraries that accomplish the same goals, causing all sorts of duplication. This in and of itself results in far more wasted memory
I'd wonder about security though. These guys are working on wireless internet on a public network while developing proprietary software. What's to stop one guy with a snooper and a latte-wielding disguise from stealing all their work?
It's called data encryption, in the form of a VPN. Look into it.
Really -- this problem has been solved for a long, long time. Create your own virtual network within the network by implementing an encryption and authentication system so that only those systems and users belonging to the company can connect and intercommunicate, and your work just looks like garbage to anyone wishing to snoop in on you.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the current way to install programs in linux, especially in debian, isn't great, on the contrary, I'll take apt over the way programs are installed on OSX every day and don't even get me started on windows.
If Linix is ever going to be a real force on the desktop in general, and not just the corporate desktop, it needs to do some serious work on how programs are installed.
I personally disagree with your above assessment -- the Mac OS X style of program installation and packaging is exactly what Linux should be striving for. In this configuration, a single application package can contain executable forks for multiple operating systems/distributions in a single package, which can be stored in a disk image and "installed" merely by dragging and dropping it into its target directory. Everything that is part of the program is then part of the package itself -- there is no need for an application to pollute the rest of the system by dropping files all over the place. Deletion is as simple as deleting the program icon/directory, and presto -- it's gone.
Indeed, I can see such a system actually working better on Linux than it does on OS X due to the ability for the package to contain executables for multiple OS's. A single package could contain executable code for Linux on x86, x86-64, PPC, S390, Alpha, MIPS, and all other Linux architectures (along with Mac OS X if one wanted to). Have a buddy running a different architecture you want to share an application with? Just copy it to their system as-is: the loader selects the correct executable and libraries within the package to use, with all the architectures sharing common application resources.
Installing applications on Linux is one of the major hurdles for Linux to 100% pass the "Mom test" here (my mothers system is running Fedora Core 3, because it's vastly easier for me to manage and maintain for her remotely than Windows ever could be, and I don't have to worry about her accidentially deleting system files or otherwise munging up the system somehow, besides being stable and damn good looking!). Mom recently wanted me to find and install a bunch of card games and little arcade games for her, and besides having a hard time finding many such games that suit her tastes on Linux (she doesn't want online multi-player, and doesn't need 800 different solitaire games), the ones I was able to find were a PITA to install (as most of them were source-only, build-it-youself, and then go in and manually create the necessary data files to add them to the Gnome menu, the latter of which I continue to believe there is no excuse for anyone to have to do).
On top of this, IMO the Open Source community needs more package maintainers, especially for smaller projects. It's hard enough for a moderately popular project to keep up with development, user requests, bug reports, end-user support, web site maintanence, and documentation as it is, nevermind trying to ensure your project gets packaged for the myriad of different packaging formats out there (and not just for Linux either if your project is portable to other OS's).
Okay, rant mode off. I neeeded to get tthat off my chest:). Linux program install has a long way to go before it's going to be friendly enough for the average non-sys-admin user.
"Macs don't get viruses," but Symantec will sell you software designed to combat them anyway.
Yup. But just take a look at the list of viruses the latest signatures will "combat". Virtually all of them are Windows viruses, old DOS viruses, and a smattering of classic MacOS viruses (a large percentage of which are Microsoft Word Macro viruses and MS Exchange infections).
Anti-virus software for Mac OS X is primarily useful in situations where you're on a network with Windows and older Mac OS clients. Many corporations have policies that require anti-virus software on end-user machines regardless of what OS is being run (or how prone to infection it is). I'm sure Symantec sells enough copies to keep the software in development, but it's hardly required software as it is on Windows for your typical home user.
Slashdot Mirror
BestBuy started opening stores in Canada early last year (or was it late the year before?).
Yaz.
I generally agree that Apple isn't going to be targeting the Mac mini at home video playback for the masses (at least not anytime soon), but I do have to correct a few things in your post none-the-less:
2. there is no IR/remote support on the mac mini, so no remote control. this is kind of a big and small deal at the same time. it would not have cost much for them to add support for this, yet it is a feature essential to media centers. But the Mac mini does have a Bluetooth option, and Bluetooth is arguably a much better technology than IR is for a remote control solution (as you don't have to point the remote at the device to use it). There are a number of different Bluetooth remote solutions out there (including Sailing Clicker, which allows you to use a Bluetooth-enabled cell phone as a remote control on a Bluetooth enabled Mac). IR is so last century. Get in the now!One thing I think some people may not be considering, however, is that while movies may not be the ideal media for a hypothetical "iMVS" service, SD TV shows are a completely different matter. Due to their relativive lengths (20 - 40 minutes in North American once you remove all the commercials) and the low relative definition, an "iTV" service is quite possible for a device like the Mac mini.
Yaz.
Pixlet is best if you need to ensure that quality is maintained, but it isn't a good general-purpose compressor for video streams you want to download. The 20-25:1 compression ratio sounds good, but take a look at the resulting data rate: 3MB/s. Really high-quality MPEG-4 video streams are still under 512KB/s (often under 256KB/s for your typical downloaded DVD rip), which is a 6 to 12-fold increase over Pixlet.
Or, put another way, a 2-hour movie that can be expressed as a ~1.2GB Xvid/DivX/3ivx file would take up about 21GB (120mins * 60s/min * 3MB/s / 1024MB/GB) of space. Which means you'll be able to store perhaps 3 movies per 80GB Mac mini.
Pixlet is great for editing, or for archiving video you need to be able to edit, but it isn't terribly ideal for consumer movie viewing at this time.
Yaz.
Have you tried it? It doesn't look like it.
I'm running a 12" PowerBook here with the stock 4200 RPM hard drive, and this drive benchmarks to roughly 21MB/s uncached (I have 1.25GB of memory in this system, so the cached read rate is going to be significantly higher). This is more than fast enough for standard definition video; I have a few DVD's which Iv'e captured and compressed at 640x480, 29.97fps, which plays without losing a single frame. A good high-quality 2-pass Xvid encoding over here only requires a data rate of about 142.8KB/s -- a sustained rate which a 4200RPM drive can more than easily accomodate.
High definition data is a different story, of course -- but the data sizes would also be prohibitive when it comes to download time, and I don't see anyone here suggesting that Apple would offer HD content for download (at least not with current bandwidth limitations).
H.264 may change the landscape somewhat -- if Apple does have a long-term video strategy for the Mac mini, I think it will wait until after Tiger ships.
Yaz.
Try the following:
Enjoy!
Yaz.
Strange -- I export from iMovie to Xvid directly all the time without any problems.
To do so, you need to select Export -> QuickTime -> Advanced, and then select the output codec. If you don't already have them, go out and get the free DivX, Xvid, 3ivx, and RealVideo 10 Quicktime codecs, just so you can export to any of these formats if the need arises.
Mind you, I do have QuickTime Pro, so it could be that the option to export to different codecs isn't available in iMovie if you're running QuickTime Standard. Regardless, as a defniitive statement, your claim is incorrect, as it is possible to export to a variety of different formats from iMovie -- I do so on a regular basis (and not just for the codecs listed above, but for the other dozen or so that are included with QuickTime).
(And no, this isn't with iMovie 05, although I do have it on order).
Yaz.
Of course it is -- that's hardly the point. The discussion here is merely about the availability of an optical port. Apple already has them on an inexpensive consumer device, and as such I can't see that there would be any significant extra cost to add this to the mini (unless, of course, as I surmised previously that Apple is going to target the Airport Express to mini users for this sort of purpose).
Except that in this case, there wouldn't be an extra port at all. It would be the same physical port as the existing audio out connector, just like on the AirPort Express (in case you haven't seen one, and I haven't been sufficiently clear on this, the AirPort Express doesn't have separate ports for the analogue and optical output, but uses one port which can take either a 3mm stereo male connector, or a mini-Toslink connector).
Two problems with your response:
(I do, in fact, have the Darwin Streaming Server locally, but don't have it installed at this time to test this with).
What I'm sitting here daydreaming about is perhaps support for RAOP in QuickTime 7, or perhaps in Tiger as a part of its audio support. Having an AirPort Express with AirTunes, however, there appears to be a streaming/buffering induced delay, which could make it difficult to use this for anything which requires A/V synchronization (unless they come out with a new AirPort Express which can handle audio and video streaming support).
Personally, I see the Mac mini as virtually perfect. I am suprised that they didn't continue their dual-use port like on the AirPort Express -- but perhaps this isn't just to keep costs down, but because Apple either expects users with this need to use AirTunes for optical connections, use an external USB-based audio device which has an optical port, or has something else up their sleeves for connecting the Mac mini to home media devices.
Yaz.
I'm not sure sure that this is the case -- for a good counter-example, take a look at the Apple Airport Express, which has a combined analogue/optical port on it, and which costs $129 US.
I'm somewhat suprised that Apple didn't use the same system on the Mac Mini. Use the dual 3mm analogue/mini-Toslink port, and provide both.
Then again, anyone who does desire optical output could always simply use the Airport Express. Perhaps Apple will open up an API for streaming audio to the Express precisely for this purpose.
Yaz.
Firewire has more use then just digital cameras. The iPod and iSight are both firewire capable devices from Apple (and while the iPod also supports USB2, it works best on a Mac when plugged into the Firewire port).
For the iSight alone firewire is important to include on the Mac Mini for Apple, as it doesn't support USB at all, and Apple doesn't want to exclude any users from owning one (besides which, I could see a company buying some Mac Minis just for the cheap video conferencing capability they provide).
Yaz.
I'm running the same configuration -- a PowerBook with an Apple Bluetooth Mouse and a Sony Ericcson T610 phone. The phone is configured to not only accept SMS messages, but to synchronize my calendar and contact data, and to permit wireless GPRS Internet access on the PowerBook through the phone. A very nice set-up indeed.
My problem is more with the linked article than with the product itself, which I (obviously) have yet to see, and thus have no opinion of.
Yaz.
And Bluetooth-enabled sunglasses do what exactly? Unfortunately, the article doesn't say. I'm guessing they're going to provide an audio output facility, but who knows for sure?
I'm off to install a Bluetooth chip into my toilet. What is it going to do? Damned if I know, but one things for sure -- /. front page, here I (and my Bluetooth-enabled toilet) come!
Yaz
(...who actually has and uses two Bluetooth devices).
Here's a newsflash for you: all software is eventually redundant. You think Open Office is still going to be around 20, 30, or 40 years from now? Sure the formats may be open, but what good is that if you can no longer run the software, and have no ability or intention to write your own viewer?
My word processing needs are minimal. I'm a software developer, not a clerical worker. I don't generate documents for printing terribly often, and when I do it is usually for immediate consumption (ie: stuff that gets printed to paper immediately).
And personally, I'm not concerned about running a proprietary application in this case, as there is every indication that Pages' native file format will be XML based, with a publically available XSLT, making it very easy to transform into other XML formats. However, for my minimal needs, I'm not particularily concerned, and have no problems changing applications and file formats in the future if necessary.
Sorry, but your attempt at FUD doesn't fly here.
Yaz.
Because the more involved a thing is, the more chance you can label yourself as an "expert" and not get laughed at.
MS Office is hardly the first product in the world with an unwieldly interface to it. There are lots of products in the world that require an expert to use -- some of which require a license to use because of their unweildliness. Can you fly a helicopter? I know I can't. People who can get a certain amount of prestege for their ability to use a product. It's the cult of the arcana.
Ever meet the secretary who thinks they know about computers because they can use a word processor? I once worked for a company where the secretary thought she knew everything about PCs because she had a certificate for WordPerfect.
Then again, I know a few people who make their living solely off the MS economy. People who are MCSE's, and recommend and service only Microsoft products. These people also love MS Office, because it's another revenue source for them. They are MS's "true believers", and are fanatics in the truest sense.
You can never over-estimate the power of laziness :).
Yaz.
When I worked for IBM I, as a developer, got to sit on the other side of the one-way mirror during end-user UI/HCI testing from time to time. And believe me when I tell you that people want products to work and act like what they're already used to, regardless of whether or not what they're used to is completely optimal.
This is the same reason why Gnome and KDE are often chasing a Windows-like design philosophy. They want to give people something they'll feel comfortable switching to.
Is this ideal? Certainly not. But HCI R&D is rife with products that tried to create an easier way to accomplish something, succeeded, and bombed in the industry because it wasn't what people were used to (I'd personally hold up OS/2's WorkPlace Shell as such a product -- IMO the WPS is one of the biggest successes of HCI research in the last 20 years, and we all know how much good that did OS/2 in the long run).
I don't like it one bit -- I prefer software that doesn't just try to emulate the market leader, but which actually tries to innovate in UI and HCI design (one of the reasons why I switched from OS/2 to OS X for my primary desktop system). But I'm unfortunately in the minority.
Yes, I'm sorry to say that I do. I know people who absolutely swear by it, and think that trying to compete against it is pointless. If you go outside technical circles, there are a LOT of these people out there. Are they right? Of course not -- but that doesn't mean we can deny that they exist :).
Yaz.
I disagree with the hypothesis that "No-one likes Office". I can agree that most people here on /. (myself included) don't like Office, but we're in a minority situation.
I imagine there are lots of people in clerical professions who have gone on two-day courses to get a certificate saying they know how to use Office who rather like it, because they're experts in it. Much like there are people out there who really like Windows because they make a lot of money working in it (regardless of how truly crappy it is).
I can understand why OOo is targeting the Office crowd -- they don't need to target those people who have a need for a word processor every third Sunday -- they're going after those people who are currently using MS Office day-in and day-out, and who expect a competing suite to offer similar features and a similar experience.
My copy of iWork is already on order. I've been wanting to get Keynote for some time now, and getting it bundled with what looks to be a high-quality word processing/page layout solution for less money equals me pre-ordering a copy from Apple's website the same day it was announced :).
Yaz.
Depends on your source media. The Panther DVD that came with my PowerBook has multiple partitions on it, and the OS install partition isn't the default one. Instead, when you insert it you get one with some directions to reboot the system with the disc inserted. There is no "CD 3" in this case (as everything is on a single DVD).
The end result remains the same, however -- it isn't something you can reasonably assume all end-users can easily achieve.
Yaz.
I know of one potentially big one, and that is platform independance.
This may not be big on your list of needs if you're just running OS X at home, but in an enterprise setting where they've standardized on one office suite, but permit different OS's for different purposes, having one suite that can be run on all of them is important.
Or what if you suddenly need to change OS or hardware platforms? It's generally nice to be able to be able to use the same applications, even on a different environment. I know this is why I have Firefox installed on all of my systems, be they Linux, Mac OS X, OS/2, or Windows.
OOo could be a big deal on OS X if it were available in a pure Aqua version (NeoOffice/J notwithstanding). But it isn't, and now it looks like it won't be anytime in the near future.
Yaz.
I'm going to assume you intended to type couldn't up above.
A few issues with this. First off, OASIS isn't finalized yet, so you can hardly blame Apple for not supporting OASIS.
Secondly, while Pages isn't available yet (I have my copy already pre-ordered), as it is partly based off the Keynote codebase, and Keynote uses XML for its data storage format, and as OASIS is likewise an XML format, and as Apple publishes the XSLT for its file formats, it shouldn't be difficult for anyone who really needs to to write an XSLT transformation between Pages native format and OASIS.
As such, document interoperability shouldn't be a big problem. Apple's formats have tended as of late to be fairly open (with the notable exception of FairPlay), so Open Source developers should be able to quickly develop the necesary tools for these suites to interoperate.
And who knows? Perhaps by the time OASIS is out of draft form and is an official specification there will be enough people out there using it that Apple would be happy to support it natively within iWork 06.
Yaz.
I'm both a daily Mac OS X and Linux user. I've been using Linux in various forms since 1994 -- long before 99% of the people posting here even heard of it. So forgive me if your words carry no weight with me.
I'm not claiming that Linux has the same install system as Mac OS X -- I'm saying it should strive towards a similar system as what OS X uses. It would obviously need to have some tweaks and modifications to fit better with some of the assumptions built into the core OS, and would require modifications to the program loader(s), but other than that there is little reason why it couldn't be done. It merely requires someone to develop the necessary code to do it.
Yaz.
Ignorance forgiven :).
Mac OS X Panther (10.3) does indeed come with an X11 server. However, there are two caveats to this:
Not a major problem for power users who need X11 support (this was virtually the first thing I did when I took posession of my first PowerBook last year), but hardly something you can expect your average user to do.
Yes, there are multitudes of such problems, including:
That's just a sampling of issues off the top of my head.
The one thing they did at least do was to integrate OOo with OS X's clipboard support directly, making cut and paste between applications work as expected. But that appears to be the extent of OS X support.
I'm rather disappointed in the attitude of OOo in this regard, because OS X really should have a native port of OpenOffice. The only way OpenOffice can take on Microsoft is to not only build a better office suite, but to make sure it's available virtually everywhere in versions that integrate well with whatever operating system it's being used on.
Anyone other than me remember when StarOffice's target operating system was IBM's OS/2?
Yaz.
The Mac OS X application packages can also be "installed" via the command line by mounting the disk image (if any), cd'ing over to it, and then using "cp" to copy the application to its destination directory.
Where Linux systems currently have a benefit is that they often have package retreival systems atop the packaging system itself. Apple's packaging system is akin to RPM -- it's a package format. This wouks fine if you have the package in the first place. Where systems like yum or apt-get or emerge are benefitial is in being able to get packages in the first place, and to ensure that all pre-reqs are met (and if not, to retreive and install them as well). Still, these tools typically don't specify the package format themselves, but are designed to work with another (usually specific) packaging format. As such, they aren't directly comparable.
I do see how these package management/download systems are of benefit to systems administrators and power users -- they are powerful -- but they are also beyond what most end-users would tolerate for software installation. And AFAIK, most of them are directed towards retreiving code from networked repositories, and don't really do you much good if you're buying software on CD-ROM as your typical consumer is apt to do (no pun intended ;) ).
Yaz.
Overall, good comment. Some things I'd like to respond to:
I'm sure you know this, but just for those who may not (and interpret your message incorrectly), Mac OS X does indeed have a shared library mechanism.
With that out of the way, as you've noted yourself, in those cases where an application does need to make use of shared libraries you can have something closer to a traditional installer to install Mac OS X applications. In many cases, however, this installer can be much simpler than what one usually sees in the Windows world, as you can just copy in the shared libraries you need into the correct locations, and then copy the rest of the application package to its target folder.
Let's not all forget, however, how having a central library repository can wreak havoc on ones system. Anyone who has ever used Windows can tell you about "DLL Hell". Remember what it was like back in the days of Windows 3.1? Every application shared common libraries under the same name, and if you installed a new application it might decide to "upgrade" that library to a newer version, causing all sorts of problems with other applications also relying on that library (due to changes in functionality, new bugs, or whatever).
Now granted the Linux way of handling libraries is significantly better than the Windows way of doing things. However, allowing applications to have their own versions of common libraries does have its benefits. If developer A writes "Widget Set 2005" using "doodadlib v4.0 rev B", it isn't going to start to exhibit oddities just because you installed developer B's "Widget-O-Rama 2004" which uses "doodadlib v4.0 rev A". Library versioning issues disappear in this scenario.
And there are ways to mitigate the extra RAM usage. I don't know OS X's innards well enough to know whether they use a system like this, but there have been operating systems which keep an internal lookup table based on the library name/version (and perhaps even some form of signature) to identify libraries. When a call to an unloaded library is made, the OS typically catches an exception, forcing a lookup against the loaded-library table. If the library requested by its name/version/signature is present, a new copy isn't loaded, even if the application has its own copy in a different location on disk. Later versions of IBM'S OS/2 operating system have a system something like this (which can be disabled using the LIBPATHSTRICT option IIRC). Again, I don't know enough about OS X's internals (yet) to know how it handles library loading, but if this is indeed the case RAM wouuldn't be an issue (you merely wind up wasting more disk space keeping multiple copies of the library around). And if OS X isn't doing this -- well, it should :).
Indeed, I've been using Linux in one form or another since 1994, long before there was a Gnome or a KDE. This issue pre-dates both of them. However, it has been particularily within the last 5 years that there has been an explosion of Open Source runtime environments and libraries that accomplish the same goals, causing all sorts of duplication. This in and of itself results in far more wasted memory
It's called data encryption, in the form of a VPN. Look into it.
Really -- this problem has been solved for a long, long time. Create your own virtual network within the network by implementing an encryption and authentication system so that only those systems and users belonging to the company can connect and intercommunicate, and your work just looks like garbage to anyone wishing to snoop in on you.
Yaz.
If Linix is ever going to be a real force on the desktop in general, and not just the corporate desktop, it needs to do some serious work on how programs are installed.
I personally disagree with your above assessment -- the Mac OS X style of program installation and packaging is exactly what Linux should be striving for. In this configuration, a single application package can contain executable forks for multiple operating systems/distributions in a single package, which can be stored in a disk image and "installed" merely by dragging and dropping it into its target directory. Everything that is part of the program is then part of the package itself -- there is no need for an application to pollute the rest of the system by dropping files all over the place. Deletion is as simple as deleting the program icon/directory, and presto -- it's gone.
Indeed, I can see such a system actually working better on Linux than it does on OS X due to the ability for the package to contain executables for multiple OS's. A single package could contain executable code for Linux on x86, x86-64, PPC, S390, Alpha, MIPS, and all other Linux architectures (along with Mac OS X if one wanted to). Have a buddy running a different architecture you want to share an application with? Just copy it to their system as-is: the loader selects the correct executable and libraries within the package to use, with all the architectures sharing common application resources.
Installing applications on Linux is one of the major hurdles for Linux to 100% pass the "Mom test" here (my mothers system is running Fedora Core 3, because it's vastly easier for me to manage and maintain for her remotely than Windows ever could be, and I don't have to worry about her accidentially deleting system files or otherwise munging up the system somehow, besides being stable and damn good looking!). Mom recently wanted me to find and install a bunch of card games and little arcade games for her, and besides having a hard time finding many such games that suit her tastes on Linux (she doesn't want online multi-player, and doesn't need 800 different solitaire games), the ones I was able to find were a PITA to install (as most of them were source-only, build-it-youself, and then go in and manually create the necessary data files to add them to the Gnome menu, the latter of which I continue to believe there is no excuse for anyone to have to do).
On top of this, IMO the Open Source community needs more package maintainers, especially for smaller projects. It's hard enough for a moderately popular project to keep up with development, user requests, bug reports, end-user support, web site maintanence, and documentation as it is, nevermind trying to ensure your project gets packaged for the myriad of different packaging formats out there (and not just for Linux either if your project is portable to other OS's).
Okay, rant mode off. I neeeded to get tthat off my chest :). Linux program install has a long way to go before it's going to be friendly enough for the average non-sys-admin user.
Yaz.
Yup. But just take a look at the list of viruses the latest signatures will "combat". Virtually all of them are Windows viruses, old DOS viruses, and a smattering of classic MacOS viruses (a large percentage of which are Microsoft Word Macro viruses and MS Exchange infections).
Anti-virus software for Mac OS X is primarily useful in situations where you're on a network with Windows and older Mac OS clients. Many corporations have policies that require anti-virus software on end-user machines regardless of what OS is being run (or how prone to infection it is). I'm sure Symantec sells enough copies to keep the software in development, but it's hardly required software as it is on Windows for your typical home user.
Yaz.